Magic in My Hand

Should I swear that Apple did not pay me to write this article? I swear. Apple does not need a writer from the remote tropical mountains to declare his love for a little telephone.

We quickly grow accustomed to magic. Barely five years ago, one of the most incredible technological inventions in history was born — the iPhone — and we already take it for granted, failing to compare Steve Jobs favorably with Johannes Gutenberg. But the mental and cultural revolution that the German inventor created five centuries ago is comparable in scope and depth to the one that the gringo has produced today.

This pocket-sized treasure is perhaps the most important extension of the human brain that has been produced in the last half century — a half-century which, incidentally, has been one of the most prodigiously inventive in all of human history. If we did not glimpse its importance, we would not have bought 250 million of these hand-held computers, and they would not be marketed with a passion that verges on madness. The iPhone is a toy, a secretary, a pet, a companion that is so intelligent that you don’t even have to read a manual to understand it — a child picks it up and immediately, by interacting with it, learns how it works and how to use it. In fact, it is so versatile that it tells you by itself how to use it.

When writers speak of the decline of the West, it makes me smile. Here is a person who spends half his life on the internet — invented jointly by CERN in Geneva, MIT in Boston and various technological advances developed in California. If he is of advanced years he probably takes Viagra — invented in Great Britain and patented in the United States — checks facts on Google and Wikipedia and uses a laptop made by Dell or Apple, all of which are gringo corporations. Not to mention the companies that design the microprocessors (whose names we may not recognize), which allow us to pay a bill online, book an airline flight, download a song or movie, take our blood pressure or view an obstructed artery on a video screen.

As I am a bit old for the digital world, I prefer to read printed books, but if I’m in the dentist’s waiting room I read a book on the screen of my telephone, or I learn about the latest battle between the president and the former president on Twitter, or I watch scenes from an old Buster Keaton movie.

In my hand, I have a compass, and altimeter, a GPS that tells me my exact position on the planet and the number of kilometers I have walked, the nearest place to buy a bottle of wine. If I’m tense, I put on headphones and listen to Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto” or Bach’s viola da gamba sonatas until calm returns, or I read three Leopardi poems, or two by Garcilaso, or a canto by Dante. They are all there, in my hand, the quiet music of poetry and the celestial music of the two great B’s. How can I help but be amazed and grateful? It’s not only a simple telephone to call my mother or a chat with my children (seeing their faces on the screen) from the other side of the earth, it is also an aid to my bad memory, which saves me from my disdain for names and dates.

The silly old erudite arguments (In what year was Brahms born? When was Arango’s “Manifiesto Nadaísta” published? What type of plant does hemlock come from?) can be resolved with a click and a question. Or, to use a more literary form of expression: What the iPhone most resembles is Aladdin’s lamp, because the genie awakens when you rub it. Isn’t it magic to touch a crystal and receive answers to nearly all your questions?

The great genius behind intelligent machines is named Alan Turing. He dreamed up a test to decide when we can say that artificial intelligence was beginning to behave like a human being. Not until the arrival of the iPhone have we come so close to this astonishing point. Recently, I heard a heard friend asking her iPhone in English: “Is there any better phone than you?” And the iPhone answered: “Are you kidding me?” All discussion aside: I am still amazed by this wonderful device.