I cradled my first iPhone like an egg after I bought it. The year was 2011; the season was winter. The ground was slushy, but I was too nervous to take the thing on the subway. It was an absolute luxury, by far the fanciest and, I felt, most fragile thing I owned—more Fabergé than farmstand.
The precise model was the iPhone 4, which looked like an ice-cream sandwich from the side and felt about as sturdy. I wasn’t just concerned about slipping and dropping the thing: It was dark, I was in a crusty part of New York, and I looked like I got scared at Death Cab for Cutie shows—would someone punch me in the face and yank it? The iPhone was relatively uncommon back then; BlackBerry—the traditionalist’s choice—was still more popular, but both were outnumbered by Android. Nokia was trouncing them all. Most Americans didn’t have a smartphone, and many had no mobile phone at all.
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