Suck it up, iSnobs

2010 may have been the year of the iPad but it was also the year Apple really tarnished its brand.  By far, the greatest number of complaints I saw about technology, were not about what a beast of a thing Windows is.  Instead, they were mostly about people being screwed around by their iPhones.  Does this mean iPhones are crap?  On no!  They’re still the greatest thing since the last Apple product, despite the fact that you have to hold them just so or they don’t bloody work at all.

Oh really?

Steve Jobs’ petulant talk – oops, sorry, “keynote address” in response to the ‘death grip’ problem further damaged Apple’s reputation for things that simply work.  (Funny how none of the reviews of the leaked prototypes mentioned that). He said that all smartphones have similar problems.  That may well be, but that kind of makes a mockery of the “This changes everything. Again,” slogan, doesn’t it?  Now you’re saying it’s the same as all the others.  Besides, I had video calls on my Nokia two years earlier - that was hardly a new innovation.  Sure, the problem may have been blown out of proportion, but so is the hype surrounding every Apple release.  The backlash was entirely proportional to the expectations Apple had set up.

It all serves to remind us of something Douglas Adams said, which is that “technology” is stuff that doesn’t work yet.  We don’t regard a chair as technology because the principle has been established and perfected.  Things like computers and mobile devices are still evolving and as such, they have problems.  All of them.  Even Apple products.  It would probably be churlish of me to suggest that there is something karmic in the iPhone being humiliated by something as basic as not knowing that Australia has daylight saving.  And again today, social media is abuzz with another iPhone bug, again related to the alarm clock.  I mean really, the alarm clock?  How basic is that?

I’m not here to defend Microsoft or to diss Apple but I think it’s time someone called bullshit on the notion that with Apple, the shit just works and everything else is crap.  Any time there’s a problem with PCs, you can take bets on how long it will be before someone offers the constructive suggestion, “Should’ve bought a Mac.”

In that spirit then, my suggestion to all those who were woken early or slept late because their iPhones is,

You should’ve bought a Nokia or Android.

That shit just works.