It's awesome to be back in Austin, again. And while this certainly isn't my first appearance on a popular #SxSW panel, things do feel different this time.

When I was first invited to Austin to speak at South+Southwest, I didn't even have an iPhone. And that's not to question my role as an Early Adopter, it is just to point out that the iPhone had yet to go on the market. It was quite a long time ago! (But not so long ago that I've noticeably aged in either my interests or appearance.) Why, we didn't even have Yelp! back then. As a common joke among SxSW insiders goes, "I've [...]

"Heidi Steffen and her husband used to treat themselves most weeks to steak at Sodak Shores, a restaurant overlooking a lake near their hometown of Milbank, S.D. Then they each got an iPhone, and the rib-eyes started making fewer appearances."

In 2010, it was made official that you could purchase physical products and then put them to whatever use you wish.

A survey of 200 students at Stanford University revealed the newest crippling dependency that is sapping the vitality of our nation's youth: iPhone addicition. Nearly half the survey's participants admitted to being very or completely addicted to the devices, while 41 percent admitted that they would characterize the loss of their iPhones as a "tragedy."

I don't remember ever having had one of my daily experiences described perfectly in print! It is a very weird sensation. It comes from a very unhappy accounting by Nicholson Baker of the uses of the Kindle in today's New Yorker, and concerns reading on the iPhone.

Everybody loves apps, experts say—you can tell because there is an app for everything, including the monitoring of your personal health. The problem is that once you're thinking about monitoring your personal health, you're well on the way to the grave. This depressing fact may be the reason why few Americans use such phone and tablet programs to keep track of what's all too evident from the creaking, coughing, groaning and "weird discharge" most people notice just fine without the danged smart phone beeping and whirring, from wherever it's hiding.

Nearly seven in 10 U.S. adults say they are tracking weight, diet, exercise routines or some medical [...]

The data suggests the people who have average or low incomes are way less likely to own iPhones! That is so inexplicable. (via)

Aol. blogger Jeff Bercovici was totally unable to digest his dinner last night because he was SCANDALIZED and OUTRAGED about Gizmodo's "checkbook journalism" regarding the new iPhone. Sure, Gawker Media had already long-ago returned Steve Jobs' missing iPhone, but that would not settle his OUTRAGE. He writes: "Gawker Media brazenly, publicly flouted the law. It subsidized a crime: the selling of stolen merchandise. Then it published a misleading, whitewashed account of the seller's actions meant to make it look as though he was not acting with criminal intent. It published this account in order to disguise its own culpability in the matter." Oh mercy!

What can't the iPhone do? It can even help you figure out what you would look like after plastic surgery! Awl pal Marisa Meltzer tries them all out. (Spoiler: it turns out that America's beauty standard means that "big" noses are "very ugly.") "I uploaded a close-up of my profile and got to work. I noticed immediately that the sound effects seemed wildly inappropriate; the constant beeping of a heart monitor punctuated with screams, chain-saw noises, and the occasional orgasmic moan seemed more suitable to a slasher film than a woman-friendly game."

The iPhone and the Samsung phone (sPhone?) are very good technological devices primarily because they have shiny metal on the backside, underneath the plastic case you bought to protect the shiny metal from smudges or scratches. But is the mining of this metal destroying a beautiful Eden-like Indonesian island? Probably! Friends of the Earth did a six-month-long investigation (PDF) of the Appalachian-style tin mining operations on Bangka Island, where a massive industrial operation is "destroying forests, farmland and coral reefs, injuring miners and driving away fish and marine life." All so you can put an "Otterbox" over the shiny metal!

Apple and Samsung "neither confirmed nor denied [...]

Most people spend their app pennies and time on effects apps for photos. Everyone has Instagram, so they can put scratchy, slightly out of focus, over-saturated pictures on their Tumblrs, and it looks so meaningful. This is a thing that people really like doing, and even those of us who disapprove must learn to accept it. Instagram is the top free photography app in the Apple store! So the people have spoken. Go on, download it, I know you want to.

Likewise, Hipstamatic is the #3 paid app right now. Hipstamatic also "processes" your digital pictures to make them look old-timey film-ey. So this is a look [...]

Neutral Milk Hotel recluse Jeff Mangum will be making a rare appearance at a benefit show here in town this May, and it's already causing controversy!

Since the show will certainly sell out quickly no matter what, we'll be honest and say that while there is no artist we'd rather see perform than Mangum (in the world), the fact that every single person there will be holding up a Flip Cam or iPhone to record it, ruining the moment and breaking our hearts, means we will be skipping the show and waiting for the YouTube footage to be uploaded that night. (And no, the irony of that [...]

Hello, New York Times most-emailed list on the iPhone this morning! Why Gail Collins, you naughty feminist! It's just like I always said-sooner or later, technology will demean us all.