Apple, hoping once again to exploit America's susceptibility to glitzy triviality, introduced the iPhone, with Steve Jobs' doing his usual stint at self-effacing hoopla. Then came the enormous surprise. Not a single American lined up to buy it.

How is such a thing possible?

Pollsters hit their conventional phones.

Their conclusion: most Americans now lead everyday lives that are so breathlessly exciting they no longer have time for such Apple pie in the sky.

As you've no doubt detected, we're not reporting what actually happened. Millions of Apple addicts did take the call to action from Jobs.

But most techies did hang up on Apple, pointing out that, while the iPhone is neatly styled, it consists entirely of existing technology, cobbled together by Apple and assembled in so many Asian countries it takes a built-in a calculator to count them.

It's also tied to AT&T's Edge wireless technology, which is relatively unedgy in terms of speed and bound to make Web browsing seem as slow as watching real apples ripen.

By now we suspect that a great many Americans who took the call wish they had told Apple to leave a text message about when to expect iPhone.