The Rotten Apple In The Pile
The birth of the iPhone4 and all of the attention that has surrounded it really should have served to show much of the general public that Apple is not the all-powerful, ever-trustworthy, loved-up company they would like you to believe they are. However, this is not the case. Every Apple apologist out there is still just as adamant that the company is all about the customer, producing the best products on the market and continues to spout that those that think otherwise are idiots.
The thing is, this is simply not true.
Apple are the best in the business at one thing … and one thing alone. Making their weaknesses seem insignificant. Frankly, they’re brilliant at bullshitting. It is astonishing when you consider just how far the Apple fans will go to stick up for this company that has produced inferior product after inferior product for years.
You can tell people that there are countless mp3 players on the market that are significantly superior to the iPod … and can be bought for just half the price … but they will still respond the same way.
“But it’s not an iPod.”
The same is true for just about every Apple product, but none moreso than the iPhone.
You can inform these people of faster CPU performance, larger storage capacity, the ability to expand storage space, higher specifications in camera quality, huge capacity for customization, more supported video formats, larger screen size, better screen resolution, better battery life, better reception … But it’s no use.
“It’s not an iPhone.”
It’s nothing less than brainwashing.
I have found that one way to get through to these people is to show them that their loyalty is misplaced. Apple are not concerned about the user experience of their customers. Apple are not concerned about making their products value for money. Apple are just like any other company – they want to make money. Period.
Why do you think the iPad does not have a camera?
This is one of the largest gripes for iPad users. How could Apple not realize that they would want, no, NEED a camera on their shiney new device? It makes no sense!
Well, actually it makes perfect sense. It’s exactly they same reason that the original iPhone had a pitifully low spec camera. It is so that when the new version of the iPad comes out … and it DOES have a camera, people will have to dip into their pockets once again to upgrade.
They are counting on the fact that, having bought the inferior 1st generation iPad, you will eventually realize that what you really NEED is the NEW iPad with the new features and the increased street-cred.
Because after all, that’s what Apple is all about. Nobody buys an Apple product because it’s superior to everything else on the market, or because it’s groundbreaking, or even because it’s useful … People buy Apple products to impress the people around them. Of course, it works – because those around them are just as brainwashed as them. Following the Apple brand like sheep anywhere it cares to take them.
I have bought Apple products in the past. I know what it’s like to be drinking the cool-aid. And of course, once you have these devices, you’d seem like the perfect fool to admit they are lacking in any way! Especially given their over-exaggerated prices for what they are.
But the biggest blot on Apple’s reputation has to be the dishonest way in which the recent iPhone issues have been handled.
An extremely ineteresting, yet practically unmentioned, piece of analysis recently revealed that after much public proclaiming that the iPhone4’s reception issues were due to a shocking mistake in the formula by which the signal is calculated in the phone’s code, the “fix” deployed by Apple makes NO CHANGES to the way the signal is interpreted whatsoever.
The “fix” merely tells the handset to display the signal strength across a greater number of “bars” than before.
This in no way improves the iPhone4’s reception. It makes no changes at all to the phone’s protocol stack – the element of the code which controls how well the handset performs in all conditions … from full signal to changing between cells to changing between 2G and 3G … to areas of low coverage.
Basically, if this were a car and 1st gear happened to be broken, the equivalent “fix” would be to send everyone a new gearstick knob which simply relabels the gears and pretends the old “1st” position is no longer even there!
The issue is still there – as the recent press conference confirmed.
It is incredible to me that after seeing their phones lose all signal when picking them up, people can listen to Apple, via Steve Jobs himself, tell them that they are holding their phone the wrong way and be completely happy with that explanation!
Newsflash, Steve! Giving out dodgy bits of rubber to everyone that bought your phone in order for them to be able to make phone calls is not a magnanimous gesture. It’s an admission of guilt. Yes, we all heard your apology and it seemed about as genuine as any apology from a millionaire that just watched countless people buy his latest product despite it’s many flaws could be!
Equally unbelievable is the way that Apple has gone out of their way in an attempt to find handsets from other manufacturers that exhibit the same “bug”. What no one seems to realize here is that demonstrating that other handsets lose signal if you wrap your hands around them has absolutely no relevance in this issue!
The iPhone4 loses signal if the user touches it in the wrong place. This is widely believed to be due to a grounding effect caused by the tiny electrical charge in the user’s body, affecting the performace of the antenna.
Wrapping your hand around a Nokia or a BlackBerry and watching the bars drop is a completely different scenario. In this instance, the hands completely enveloping the handset are blocking the signal received by the antenna. Not to mention that this is a completely unnatural way to hold your phone – unlike the “grip of death” required to render the iPhone4 useless!
Going back to the car analogy, this would be like having an issue where a car’s airbag is set off by turning the radio on … and the manufacturer showing that it’s a problem in all cars by smacking the shit out of a competitor’s car with a baseball bat until it’s airbag deployed!
Again, it seems that Apple are using their powers of bullshitting in an attempt to get out of another tight corner. No doubt, this will work for them as it has in the past. I can only hope that, each time they have to cover up such an error, a few more people will throw the cool-aid away and see some sense.
MisterShouty 