iPhone makes everyone a genius.

Patrick Smith, airline pilot and writer, has a great regular column over at Salon.com. Here is an excerpt from his most recent, that I found amusing....

On one of the frequent-flier blogs, an airline pilot writes that only
moments after informing his passengers of a weather-related ground hold
affecting their flight to Memphis, Tenn., he and his captain received a call
from one of the flight attendants. Seems an iPhone-wielding customer in the back
had a challenge. "Some guy with an iPhone says the weather is good," the flight
attendant says, "and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is
something wrong with the plane?"
I like that, "real reason." The
implication, as always, is that the carrier is lying or otherwise withholding
some critical information. There must be some dangerous malfunction they're not
telling us about. After all, "the weather is good," so obviously there's no
reason we can't depart immediately.
Reportedly, the captain responded with a
public address announcement that was sharp enough to elicit audible laughter
from the cabin.
"If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough," he
began, "to use it to check the weather at our alternate airport, then calculate
our revised fuel burn due to being rerouted, then call our dispatcher to arrange
our amended release, then make a call to the nearest traffic control center to
arrange a new slot time (among all the other aircraft carrying passengers with
iPhones), we'll then be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button
to advise the flight attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready
and responsible for this multimillion-dollar aircraft and its 84 passengers to
safely leave."

Equally funny, but for very differnet reasons: When I googled "Iphone pilot", I found this entry in a technology blog, written by a programmer....

At 22:40 EDT I saw the commercial for iPhone that involves a pilot of a plane whose flight was delayed due to weather, using iPhone to check the weather and communicate to control that weather had cleared. (on NBC 4 New York, at 22:40 EDT on 3 Nov 2007)It upsets me that pilots get to use their iPhone to connect to the Internet when a flight is delayed, while the rest of the passengers sit in the cabin not being able to use any electronic devices! I did not purchase iPhone to become a netizen with a first class communicator device with third class communication.I directed this feedback to Apple and the airlines that I have flown recently. This commercial feels like rubbing salt on a wound.

Doh!