It seems like the techno-dreams of cyberpunk fantasies like “Blade Runner”, “A Ghost in the Shell” and “Surrogates” are slowly becoming a reality. And now with the release of the iPhone 4, this future seems to be just over the horizon.

The iPhone 4, Apple Inc.’s newest product, was released on June 24 to Apple retailers. Sales show it to be the most popular piece of technology on the market today.

“Yesterday, Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple Inc. has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated,” Apple Inc. said in a statement on June 16.

In another statement made on June 22, Apple Inc. announced that it had just sold its 300,000th iPad — half as much as the number of pre-orders for the iPhone 4.

Greyson Jones, who works at the computer section at the University Bookstore, said there were quite a few people from other countries who had friends come to the U.S. so they could pre-order an iPhone 4.

“It’s a revolutionary phone, it’s one of those phones that just takes phones to the next level,” Jones said. “I can totally see this taking connectivity and communication to the next level.”

Video chat is one of the iPhone 4’s big features, which junior Japanese major Benedict Terrell said has been in Japan for years.

Terrell said he has never seen any of his friends use video chat on their phones. Nonetheless, he said the iPhone 4 still sold very well in Japan.

“As it was with the iPad when it first came out, there were lines just as long as they would be in the United States waiting for the iPhone here,” Terrell noted.

So why should Kent State students care about the iPhone 4?

There are other cheaper smart phones on the market and they probably aren’t as hard to get as the iPhone.

Sophomore education major Ryan Malone said he bought his sociology textbooks as e-books on his iPod Touch, which were useful.

“I got a $20 Japanese dictionary application. I use that constantly,” Terrell said, “Buying an electronic dictionary in Japan can be anywhere between $200 and $500 for a really good Japanese/English Dictionary. I also have some flash card applications to help me learn kanji and help me learn Japanese words.”

Contact technology reporter Kyle Berg at [email protected].