An Irishman's Diary

There has always been a quasi-religious element to the Apple computer movement, but it seems to have been particularly pronounced at the unveiling of the new iPhone. "Zealots" is a description sometimes applied to Mac enthusiasts. And sure enough, according to one report, the invention was announced to "near-hysterical cheering" from the 4,000 who gathered for the event in San Francisco.

The faithful had been expecting good news - maybe even Good News - from Apple's CEO, and Steve Jobs did not disappoint them. He built the excitement skilfully, like a preacher at a revivalist meeting. First he discussed the new Apple TV, which created a mild stir. Then, after a dramatic pause, he announced three "revolutionary" products: a wide-screen iPod, an internet communicator, and the much-rumoured mobile phone.

His congregation had been expecting one or other of these, and that might have been enough to send them into raptures. But having introduced members of the holy trinity separately, Jobs then delivered the punch-line. They would all be part of the same product, he announced triumphantly. Three applications in one pod! That's when the near-hysterical cheering came in. The news was greeted with cries of "Hallelujah", or at any rate "Wow". Not if he had promised the way, the truth, and the light in a single hand-held package retailing at $499 could his followers have been any more impressed.

Of course, apart from adopting the fruit from the tree of knowledge as its logo, Apple Inc does not make any overtly religious claims. Jobs went no further than to say that his new invention would be "like having your life in your pocket". (When you use it, therefore, it will be like taking your life into your hands - especially if you're in the cinema at the time, and sitting anywhere near me.) Steve's idea of the meaning of life may differ from ours. But if the claims made for the iPhone are half-true, it will certainly be like having a life in your pocket. Already there are mobile phones on the market that are more intelligent than the people using them, and the Apple version sounds like it will widen this gap considerably.

Its "multi-touch" technology can apparently tell when your finger hits the screen by accident, and so ignores this. It also knows whether it is being held in the "portrait" or "landscape" position and adjusts the display shape accordingly. Worryingly, it even switches the display off automatically when held to your ear. If you haven't washed your ears recently, you might be nervous about letting such an all-seeing instrument anywhere near them.

Part of the reason that Apple enthusiasts love the company is that it's not Microsoft, and part of the reason they love Steve Jobs is that he's not Bill Gates. One is just a business, the other is a philosophy, they think. Yet, in common with that strange phenomenon that also affects simultaneously-but-separately produced films, the rival bosses have uncannily similar names: both monosyllabic, plural, and sounding like mission statements.

Gates is probably the more apt name for a computer buff. The Apple CEO should be Steve Hubs, or Steve Portals, or something like that. But Jobs, functional as it sounds, is good too, given the centrality of information technology in economic development. At any rate, with the iPhone, his cult among Mac zealots now seems more secure than ever.

After his years in the wilderness and his second coming, you can almost see why they think he's the Messiah.

IT USED TO be standard advice to the more committed computer geek that he should "get a life" (and not one that would fit in his pocket). Sadly, this was always likely to be misunderstood by people who spend too long in front of their PCs. There is a certain inevitability that the latest Internet craze is something called "Second Life": the most advanced version of a phenomenon offering users the chance to acquire alternative identities in cyberspace.

Second Life (www.secondlife.com) describes itself as a "virtual world" and already claims 2.5 million residents in its versions of RL (real-life) cities. The residents are all "avatars" - from the Hindu word for incarnated gods - of their RL creators. But according to a feature in the International Herald Tribune, the lines can be blurred. As SL threatens to become a popular leisure pursuit, RL businesses are getting in there too, selling RL products to RL people, via their SL personae.

You can be born again in Second Life, although not necessarily in the religious sense. Sinners are as well represented in the virtual world as the real one. A college professor quoted in the IHT complained that he had attempted to visit the SL version of Amsterdam recently but "couldn't get in". It was jammed with avatars enjoying - or supplying - some of the attractions that Amsterdam is famous for, other than Tulips.

Your avatar can be better looking than you and drive a bigger car. He or she can have the penthouse apartment the RL you could never afford. Even gender is entirely optional. Apparently - surprise, surprise - about two thirds of the women in SL are actually men. Maybe it's a liberating experience. But the downside of the craze is that many of the people who would be advised to get a life now have two of them.

And they're still not getting out of the house.