My wife and I finally got our iPhones. After the last two telcos got their right to sell Apple's newest gadget crack, it opened the floodgates for the rest of us who had not purchased it earlier.

I proudly showed my wife my purchases and declared I got one for me and one for her. Mine was a manly black (they ran out of 32GB white) and hers was a 16GB white iPhone 3GS.

She looked at her iPhone and frowned a little, "Where do I hang my cute cute dangly mobile phone thingy?"

Then my heart sank. For all his genius, Steve Jobs failed to provide the crucial hole for the dangly mobile phone thingy.

I tried my best to win her over to her new 3GS, over the next few days. But you have to understand, my wife belongs to that category of technology users who are very attached to their old ways of doing things. Shifting even a switch from the left side of the phone to the right side was a major paradigm shift in usability. It was like asking her to learn to use a new leg.

And here I was, asking her to go from candy bar mobile phone with tactile buttons, to a touch-screen smartphone twice the size.

She had a tough time getting used to the touch-screen, Her fingers would hit the wrong virtual keys and she would hiss in annoyance, then press harder on the screen as if that would improve accuracy. Perhaps she felt that by showing the iPhone who was boss, it would submissively respond to her finger presses more accurately.

It was not to be.

I also noticed a little pattern. While I was happily downloading every application I could find on the iTunes Store to try out, my wife was content with the free Facebook app. Facebook was pretty much where she spent most of her leisure internet time these days. It was the Internet as far as she was concerned. It had chat, email, photo uploading, video uploading, comments, blogs, links, and her circle of friends. And now, it was in her hands, in her iPhone. She took to uploading mobile photos and responding to comments on-the-fly like a duck to water.

Facebook for iPhone was the one thing keeping her interested in what she was calling Your Phone.

Your Phone is what my wife says when her iPhone gives her problems. Not unlike moments when our kids annoy her, and she would tell me, "Do you see what YOUR kids are doing?"

I would smile patiently and try to help her with her frustration of the day. To sweeten the deal, I would show her how to take photos of our kids (or MY kids when they were bad) and upload it to her Facebook circle to see. I would send cute videos of the kids over WhatsApp, an iPhone messaging app.

I would get phone calls in the middle of the day, asking for help. After a few calls, I realised I had to change my ringtone that was meant for her. I quickly changed it to 月亮代表我的心 (The Moon Represents My Heart) by David Tao. You see, the ringtone I had been using all this while was Kanye's Gold Digger.

I am not sure if my wife would be pleased to know that when she calls me, my iPhone would sing, "She steal me money — Now I ain't sayin' she a gold digger — When I'm in need..."

I do want her to think that I think the moon of her, like I think of my iPhone. And if she grows to love her 16GB one, then she won't accuse me of having a 32GB mistress.

The key to that, I feel, is to convince good old Steve Jobs to put that danged hole in the iPhone for the dangly thingy. And maybe a mind-reading AI to predict what my wife wants to do on her phone. I am sure he is up to the task.

About mrbrown
mrbrown aka Mr Kin Mun LEE is the accidental author of the popular Singapore website, mrbrown.com, and has been documenting the dysfunctional side of Singapore life since 1997.

Affectionately known as the Blogfather of Singapore, his readers follow his writings closely, which these days range from current affairs, his family, and even his trips abroad.

Currently, mrbrown also hosts the mrbrown show (mrbrownshow.com), probably Singapore's best known comedy and satire podcast.

mrbrown is married to Ginny, his long-suffering wife for 12 years, and is father to three lovely kids, Faith,  Isaac and Joy.