One Phone to Rule Them All…

Cloning, space travel, and microwave ovens existed in fiction before their dawn as fact. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born in 1892, may not have been cognizant of his own precognition, but foresaw the advent of our most powerful handheld device, the smartphone. More specifically he saw the one phone that would rule them all. Tolkien predicted the iPhone and veiled his prediction in The Lord of the Rings.

In the series, there were many rings distributed to various groups throughout the land. The rings given to the “Elven-kings under the sky” and the “Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone” are indicative of the Android OS devices, probably HTC and Motorola. And those for “Mortal Men doomed to die”? BlackBerry, of course.

But there was one more powerful than these, a single device that came from a mountainous and geothermally active region (California, clearly), and we believe this was Tolkien’s preview of the iPhone.

Evidence:

“One [Phone] to rule them all…” The iOS platform is not the most common. The various iterations of the Android OS outnumber iOS, but the iPhone is the most popular single hardware/software combination. And the hypnotic effect it has on its users is undeniable.

“One [Phone] to find them…” Alright, this should be obvious with the recent hullabaloo about Apple tracking its customers through the iPhone.

“One [Phone] to bring them all…” The loyalty of Mac fans is unrivaled by other producers of hardware or software. Huge lines form outside Apple stores at iPhone releases.

“And in the darkness bind them.” Ever spend an evening on the couch playing on your phone as the light gradually diminishes, but you don’t get up to turn on the light and eventually you’re just sitting there in the dark? Yeah, me too.

The symbolism is encompassed in the visual elements as well. The eye of Sauron is obviously the “i” in Apple’s nomenclature. A tower with a round dot of an eye floating over it even looks like the lowercase “i.”

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying about the iPhone. I’m not saying that it is the source of all evil in the world. I’m certainly not going to throw my iPhone into a volcano. I really like my iPhone. I like its intuitive interface. I like its power. In fact, I think it’s just… precious.