Many iPhone Owners Relish Being First

The new Apple iPhone, left, is shown in front of the new Apple iPod Touch, right, in San Francisco, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007. Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveiled new versions of the company's market-leading iPod media player Wednesday, including an iPod Nano with a 2.5-inch screen for watching movies and playing games. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

Gadgets _ and food _ are the 33-year-old online marketing consultant's splurges.

"It's the equivalent of having that season's handbag," said Shamama, who goes through cell phones as quickly as some people do shoes, comfortably shelling out hundreds of dollars per handset every six to eight months.

He's got a collector's item in one of the first Palm Pilots. And, even though he didn't even want one at first, he felt compelled to buy a Nintendo Wii game system last November _ paying a friend of a friend $400 to get the $250 machine _ after he heard how scarce they were.

Shamama bought the BlackBerry Pearl _ another trendy smart phone _ only months before the iPhone was unveiled.

"My biggest fear with any product is that it's going to become obsolete, and that isn't what happened this time," Shamama said.

Yet even the risk of being saddled with soon-to-be useless or discontinued products doesn't spook early adopters.

"Even if it works one day, it's worth it," said Paul Clark of Seattle, owner of Walkthrough Media, a virtual tour provider for real estate agents.

Nick Sheth, 32, said many of his purchases quickly become obsolete. His electronics collection includes the original Philips Pocket PC ("obsolete like the day after I bought it"), the first-generation Hewlett-Packard CD recorder for the PC ("at least half of the CDs I burned were no good, and the next generation completely corrected that issue and was at least twice as fast") and countless '90s-era digital cameras.

The San Francisco technophile, who bought the $599 iPhone three days after it went on sale, doesn't regret the purchase. Sheth, director of sales and business development at Like.com, a search engine for retail shoppers, summarizes his consumerism as "a mix of vanity and function."

"Sometimes you buy things like the iPhone that don't live up to their promise but are worth at least a couple of really good cocktail party conversations. Mind you, really good cocktail party conversations are very important in life," Sheth said. "And sometimes you get something like the Palm V that's worth every penny, even if nobody notices."

Marketing experts say the class of early adopters _ roughly 1 percent or 2 percent of the consumer market _ play critical roles. Their word of mouth _ either praising or blasting a product _ can make or break a product.

"If they said the product is not cool or not worth the money, then other people _ who are even more risk averse _ will wait or not want to buy it," Sultan said.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Rachel Konrad contributed to this report.