Exactly a week ago, in a cozy theater, it happened: The Apple "cult" got a taste of its own medicine.
An ex-iPhone owner - a tech addict who owns more remote controls than kitchen glasses - pulled an Android smart phone out of his pocket and shoved it into the face of a man seated in front of him.
The unsuspecting victim, minding his own business, smiled awkwardly as he held up an iPhone that looked oddly peevish against the provocateur's Google-backed competitor.
It was a mine-is-bigger moment, for sure - a game well known in the iPhone club, where Apple's stylish smart phone has been as much a brandishment of status as a symbol of taste and tech savvy since its debut in 2007.
And there is more trash talk to come: Google's smart phones are catching fire with consumers.
On Tuesday, two days after I witnessed the Android-iPhone smackdown, a text message from a friend landed in my BlackBerry.
Beth didn't like cell phones until recently, seldom returns e-mails, and is anything but a status diva. For her, shopping is a necessary evil.
"I have a Droid!" Beth wrote me. I nearly had a stroke.
Thus was born what I call the Beth Bellwether. If she's blowing in Google's direction, others must be, too.
Sure enough, on Wednesday, NPD Group released market-research findings that showed Android smart phones had taken the lead among consumers, ahead of BlackBerry and third-place iPhone.
On Thursday, with evidence of a shift mounting, I walked into the Beauty Shop Cafe. The corner coffee shop is in a Center City neighborhood brimming with wired people in their 20s and 30s. I asked aloud:
"Droid versus iPhone?"
Within seconds, a customer piped up.
Designer/builder Reese Browne, 40, put down his iced coffee, reached into his pocket, and pulled out an HTC Evo 4G - an Android smart phone he had bought about a month earlier, even as Apple's new fourth-generation iPhone was grabbing headlines.
"I decided on the Droid," he explained to me later, "because it has the largest screen, and it's extremely easy to type on, and it's very easy and intuitive to use."
Browne is practical - sort of like Beth. He considers a phone a tool. And in the contracting business these days, he said, people expect replies to e-mail immediately. So he made his first smart phone an Android last month, partly because he wouldn't have to change carriers from Sprint.
And that is at the heart of Google's strategy: Offer consumers choice with the cool that comes with smart phones.
