Interesting to see the attachment to the physical object: I love my iPhone. I’d lay down my life for it. If it fell onto the subway tracks, I’d jump in and gra

Interesting to see the attachment to the physical object: I love my iPhone. I’d lay down my life for it. If it fell onto the subway tracks, I’d jump in and grab it — ignoring the posted signs and tempting fate to strike me down for my worship of a material good. A bright, shiny, covetable material good. The iPhone isn't a singular object however, it's an instance of a dataset. The iPhone gets backed up every time you sync. Drop it on the subway tracks and it's no trouble. Plug in a new iPhone and restore from backup and you wouldn't know the difference. Same data. Same icons. Same phone number. Watching the upgrades to the iPhone 3GS is going to be interesting. It looks the exact same. The software is essentially the same 3.0 on your old iPhone. Will people feel ripped off? Will they place less value on the upgrade?