Eight Signs You’re an Apple Addict

We’ve all left the house without the iPhone. It happens. So how far away were you when you returned to retrieve it? The idea of a missing iPhone or a dead battery can cause sheer panic among Apple addicts.

A true iPhone addict takes necessary precautions. There’s an iPhone car charger in every car, a Mophie Juice Pack at the ready, an adapter at the office and at home, maybe even the gym.

God forbid you get a phone call or text message or hear a song that only the Shazam app can identify, only to not have your iPhone charged and with you. How did people live pre-iPhone days? Without the iPhone, you just might have to have a real conversation with the person in front of you.

Call it the Church of Apple.

A lightning bolt will strike you down if you walk past an Apple Store without entering its hallowed room and bowing at the Genius Bar. Never mind that there’s virtually nothing to see at the Apple Store, nothing new to learn for Apple addicts like yourself. Merely entering an Apple Store is a religious experience.

Of course, you probably also waited in lines for hours just to get your hands on a new iPhone or iPad. So walking through an Apple Store’s doors has new meaning to you: A sense of liberation. Or maybe it’s just a fix.

The cadre of Apple trolls, um, savvy Apple consumers love to defend poor Apple on any Website or blog that criticizes the greatest company in the world. It’s as if Apple can’t do anything wrong. Apple fanboys make Tea Party fanatics look like a swell group.

But there are signs Apple is an evil empire in the making.

Case in point: Apple’s methodical annihilation of Adobe Flash. Apple claims to be more open than Adobe by adopting open standards like HTML 5. From a technology point of view, this may be true; but Apple lock-in comes in many forms, such as draconian contracts and approval processes, as well as platform ownership.

How much are you spending on songs and apps every month? Does your iPhone have 10 screens of apps? We bet you can’t wait for the folders feature in iPhone OS 4.0. There are no hard figures on this, but we’re guessing $100 a month on average at the iTunes store is probably too much.

Apple is also bringing its iAd mobile advertising platform in iPhone OS 4.0. The goal of iAd, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs, is to help developers make some money without raising the price of their apps. This should come as welcome news to iPhone addicts and their wallets.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs can be an industry unto himself. There are Steve Jobs plush dolls, Steve Jobs posters, “Steve Jobs for President” t-shirts, even instructions on making a Steve Jobs cheese head.

Bonus points: You also have a warm spot for the “other” Steve, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. And, of course, you secretly rooted for him on Dancing with the Stars.

Let’s be honest: Accessorizing your iPhone, as if it’s a Barbie doll, is unhealthy behavior. There’s an iPhone case for every occasion. And we’re not just talking about women iPhone owners, either.

If you spent $50 for an Otterbox Defender case, one of the toughest iPhone cases on the market, you probably fall into this category. The holster holds the iPhone in the vertical position, like a gun. The Otterbox Defender has often been called the “soldier’s case.” The black case and holster look pretty intimidating.

We’re guessing the exec with an Otterbox Defender for his iPhone also drives a Hummer to his downtown office, too.

If you need to change your battery in less than year, you’re clearly an iPhone addict. Every time you go through a charge cycle on your iPhone, you’ll permanently lose anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute of battery capacity. Typically, you’ll get 250 to 500 charge cycles before a lithium ion battery has outlived its usefulness.

Aaron Vronko, CEO of Raid Repair, which services broken iPods and iPhones and replaces worn-out batteries, says the battery-replacement demand curve starts with a 10-month-old iPhone. These customers are often heavy iPhone users who may have lost up to 30 percent of the original battery life, he says, and 70 percent of the remaining battery is not good enough for them.

You can also go to educational website iFixit.com, buy a tool kit and replace the battery yourself.

A Stanford survey caught a few students naming their iPhone and even patting it like a puppy. One out of four described the iPhone as an extension of their brain or body. iPhone addicts also tend to be loners, constantly staring into the device, even mesmerized by it. Stanford roommates living with an iPhone addict call themselves “iPhone widows.”

If you find yourself always alone, perhaps letting your hygiene go, and murmuring the words “My Precious” to your iPhone, then, well, you’re more than just an iPhone addict. You’ve got serious problems, buddy.