The BBC shows us the way...

There's a point where magic and technology collide – and it's pretty much at the point where your experience ends. No matter how much you 'know' it's all a matter of circuits and diodes, there's something more to it that makes you stop and think.

The last couple of months have been a good example. I can't help feel somewhat nostalgic for my first days with computers, all those many years ago. There was something magical about them, not simply something neat. I'm pretty lucky in that I grew up more or less along with the home PC – my first was an 8086 with 512kb of RAM and a hard-drive that barely had room for a couple of pirated adventure games (I've since bought all of them for real, honest) and the GEM operating system. That machine cost the Earth. My current one lets me fly around it, in real-time, unlocking a world of information and connectiveness beyond the dreams of the most advanced civilisations.

Yet it's still just a tool. It's a toy. My next one will be faster. It'll be better. For the first week or so, the bigger monitor or shinier operating system will seem like a whole new world, but just as quickly, it'll just be another computer to add to the pile. What I want out of the industry right now is something that brings back that initial excitement – something not just bigger and better. And I don't think that's possible, not when it's an industry you watch so closely.

The last device that got close is – and don't laugh – the iPhone. Yes, I bought one. I wasn't going to be one of those sad bastards who rushed out on the Friday it launched. I waited until Sunday. And while I wouldn't say it's perfect, the combination of always-accessible internet connection really has made the difference. Scratch that. My old phone could do it, technically. It was just so unpleasant, I never really wanted to. Even months on, I still get a kick out of firing up The Damn Internet on a whim, just to check the actor in a movie, or check my e-mail, or pass the time in a queue with whatever audiobook I'm currently engrossed in.

Now, I know what you're thinking. That's nothing all that special. It's not, you're right. But I'm coming to it from a different angle than most of the people who've commented on it. I don't follow phones. I don't give a damn about phones. I don't like them, wherever possible I don't use them, and every time I've reluctantly bought one, it's taken at most a week before it wound up on my desk, alone, unloved, forgotten, and usually out of pre-pay credit.

So temporarily, it's magic. It's magic like a DVD treated with pseudoscientific nonsense, or the cultural fear of a new computer user looking at a PC like it's the first steps towards Skynet. But in a good way.