Alexander Graham Bell, are you listening?

Yeoh Siew Hoon muses on the new “thing” that’s got everyone talking but not actually talking.

Before my bum had even made contact with my seat, my girlfriend cooed, “Want to see something?”

I looked down at her feet. She is usually clad in the latest pair of shoes. “No, not there,” she said. “Here.”

And she pushes a red leather-covered “thing” into my face. The “thing” is of course the new iPhone 3G which reached Singapore’s shores a couple of weeks ago and is available only through Singtel at the moment and which is whipping up more frenzy than the Formula 1 race that is due to zip into town later this month.

Throughout our meeting, she must have picked up the “thing” at least 100 times, cooed over it like it was her baby, poodle or something and kept polishing it.

“You know where to get the best screen protectors? Central in Bangkok, fourth floor. 250 baht only,” she said as she kept polishing the screen. “And you think I am obsessive about it – this woman over there, she is even more OTT (over the top) about it. She will press down the protector till it is completely flat and right.”

Yes, instead of talking about where to get the best “som tum” (papaya salad) or the best shoes in Bangkok, women in Singapore are now trading iPhone screen protector secrets.

I made a reservation for my iPhone more than a month ago, and got an appointment to go into the store last Thursday. I showed up at the store with my slip of paper and the sign said, “Two hours waiting time.”

Sorry, as diehard an Apple fan that I am – I am a true Machead and have not used anything but a Mac since I started using computers – I am not prepared to stand in line and wait two hours for a phone when I already have two gadgets that are controlling my life more than my dog.

But I am amazed at my friends who are. On the first day it was made available, I got an SMS from a friend who screamed, “I got it!” Another waited three hours to get her hands on it. My friend’s nephew, 16 years old, got one too.

This “thing” knows no age or sex barriers.

Men show it off like it’s their latest car or something. Have you noticed how these days the minute you sit down at a table, whether at a bar, restaurant or meeting room, the first thing they take out of their pockets and put on the table is their iPhone?

It’s become the latest table accessory.

I attended a hotel sales and marketing conference this week and at my table, there were at least five iPhones lined up on it. The only way I could compete was to put my very old, screen protector-less Nokia and Blackberry on the table – two beats one, I reckon. No one however stole a glance in my direction.

A male friend who bought the hacked version of the iPhone a year ago has since moved onto the new Nokia Blackberry – his nose is forever buried in it. When we are in a taxi, he whips it out and shows me maps of where we are at any point in our journey.

I don’t know whether it’s because he’s afraid I will get lost in Singapore or something – I do have a bad sense of direction – but it’s given me great comfort these days to know I am exactly where the taxi is.

He sent me an audio SMS the other day when we were sitting 10 feet across from each other. “Just want to try it out,” he said.

I played it and I heard his voice through my old, screen protector-less Nokia. “How is this different from a text SMS or a phone call,” I asked.

“It’s easier and faster,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t want to text and sometimes you don’t want to actually talk to someone.”

Yes, we now have phones that we talk about but we don’t use them to talk to people.