iFriend

My husband has wanted a GPS navigation device for some time now. This has been a source of contention between us because well, they’re very expensive (relative to our income) and, for me, mostly useless. You see, as was pointed out in a recent ‘discussion’ of the topic, I have a relatively sound built in navigation system. It’s called a good sense of direction. I think I developed this during my formative years in Utah (900 East 400 South—thank you Brigham Young). My husband, having grown up in Washington with their wannabe grid system and near complete lack of large, imposing land features such as mountains (except of course Mount Rainier, which can only be seen on the rare clear day), did not develop such a system.

So, the other day, Matt scraped together enough discretionary funds to justify the purchase of a device as an early birthday gift. The Garmin being out of the price-range, he opted for the Magellan. Now, as I recall (with a little help from wikipedia) Magellan's voyage around the earth encountered some pretty serious setbacks. Only one of the original five ships actually completed the trip. Also, 252 of the original 270 crew members (including Ferdinand Magellan himself) were killed enroute. Considering all this, I'm not sure the Magellan is suitably named. Then again, having ridden in a vehicle guided by such a system, I've wondered if we weren't indeed taking the longest possible route and if we'd actually arrive at our destination alive--so perhaps it's the perfect name.

He has since named his little Magellan “Maggie”. He and Maggie have spent the last week together in Tampa--I'm not sure how I feel about that. While home alone with my children and computer (I think I'll name him Balthazar) I have had a vision of the future of the GPS navigation system: the iFriend. This will be Apple’s answer to the portable electronic imaginary friend. You program it to just what you expect of a friend and it responds accordingly.

“Wow, you look great today!”

“Those jeans make your butt look big.”

“You really should hit the Taco Bell drive through. You’ve had a rough week.”

“You are a good mother and your children are so well-behaved.”

“No, you don’t have bad breath.”

“You are a slob, clean out your car.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch the kids, you go shop.”

What would your iFriend say to you? What would it say to others about you?