The iPhone: Slouching Towards Costa Mesa
Chuch from Chuch’s Scoop has really scooped up a steaming pile with this attack of my entry about the iPhone, titled “Bloggers who live in glass houses should not throw stones or iPhones for that matter” . I wasn’t going to respond to it, and I figured I’d let the iPhone subject lie, but Chuch swung rather low.
And hell follows.
While Chuch has written quite a bit here, not much of it goes to support the iPhone or its’ fans, or to debunk my argument, but just to throw around flowery language and yet more references to sexy brands and obscure bands.
Chuch’s post includes many impotent attempts to show off his impeccable taste.
Key Example: Wilco’s Documentary “You Are Trying To Break My Heart“ (certainly, Chuch will edit this, so I took a screenshot to keep him honest), which is actually “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”, which takes its title from a song by the same name– an honest mistake for a die-hard fan.
After doing this, Chuch works double time, painting my tastes as both slack-jawed (Ibiza, etc) and yet also knowingly hip to the cause. Mixing metaphors while mixing confused attacks. I would’ve scrubbed that entry up a little before clicking post, buddy. Note that the author promises us, this is Part I of II. Oh joy.
Chuch then butches it up while still keeping it hiply aware
“…spend my time drinking Stella, listening to the new Interpol album in my friend “Dave’s.. apartment”.
Yet somehow, after reading much flowery language and dour obsequiousness to the shrine of all things fruity and genteel, you don’t picture Stella at all. You picture this gentle fellow writing while drinking a champagne cocktail, or a Sprite float with a scoop of strawberry ice cream.
But to be certain, his writing is cute. Take a look at this literary skipping through a field of sunflowers:
“Dave” drives a rabbit while utilizing a sidekick and listening to Wilco and Belle &Sebastian - If anybody can find me a male of this description, then he must drinking daiquiris on a remote island with Biggie, Tupac, Sasquatch and the Lochness Monster.
My problem with the iPhone is less about its all-too-probable customers, and more that its so indicative of a section of consumers who identify so closely with products that they seem to intentionally fuse these products and brands with their personalities. And their conversations. And their interactions.
Sure I pick on the Macbook because its a rather powerful machine with very specific uses, yet most people who own one use it for its weaknesses only: Internet Browsing, Email, and the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac. I think this is a clear and concise argument.
I own an iPod, two actually. I held out for a long time before buying one (two actually). The demand was so high at first, and I didn’t want to be apart of it. I was also aware that Apple knew they were on to something, and that something slicker would be coming along soon and if I waited it out a little, I could save a little money and quietly shop around for one that suited me. So that’s what I did. I went in with low expectations and I was mostly very pleased with it.
But I didn’t have to wear it everywhere or whatever else to show that i’m happy with my purchase, I just used it as is, devoid of any cultural statement. Maybe i’m overly aware of that sort of thing, I don’t know. You can’t argue that when the iPod first came out, making a big show of it was very common. Our dear blogger Chuch probably did.
The need to have the latest snazz is our modern day Waiting For Godot: the longing and needing and ultimately realizing it is the unscratchable itch. Take a look at some studies on Happiness Forecasting (read this linked item, its great).
I challenge Chuch to keep a diary of his time with the iPhone to keep an honest account of how its working for him. Also, I urge his friends to report him to this blog or his own, if he blabs about it all the time.
Good day.
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Rebecca
Well, unless We dated then it could very well be about you. But I’m guessing we didn’t–so clear your conscious.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:54 amrandi
Blog feuding. That must mean your super popular.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:45 amWillem Dafoe is a Shithead
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/978.html
Someone drew a picture of you.
June 29th, 2007 at 6:15 amandyfox1979
minor update: chuch is mostly neutral about his iPhone. It didn’t summon the second coming of jesus i’m afraid
July 24th, 2007 at 7:25 pmJeremy
My only comment on the iphone is this: We have a responsibility as consumers to determine what is and is not an acceptable selling price for any particular item. If we are willing to pay 600 crispies for a fucking phone, pretty soon all of the cool phones will be 600 crispies. It works like a gas station. Even if Chevron could sell gas for 1 dollar less than the competition, why would they? people will not have a choice but to pay whatever the going rate is. So the bottom line is, if you are willing to pay that much money for a goddamn cellphone, when there are people starving to death on the street, than you are an asshole. You faggoty, overpaid hipsters that actually bought that shit should be ashamed by your gullibility and irresponsible economic actions. You nerds all deserve wedgies of the atomic variety.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:23 pmandyfox1979
Jeremy, Amen. Sir, GOD himself will forgive you for all sins only because you wrote this glorious post.
July 28th, 2007 at 2:07 amSkwerl
i’ve used macs for most of my life and am usually pretty down with the shit that apple puts out.
the iphone is a big fucking exception.
i got one the first or second week they were out. i never had a cellphone before (no shit), and i needed a new ipod. but i hated the idea of having two fucking stupid gizmos on me at all times, so i went with the thing that was both. i had heard a lot of hype about how fucking amazing the thing was supposed to be but basically i was just looking for an ipod that could make calls and that’s what i got so i don’t really regret the purchase.
but at the same time, i expected a certain level of usability from apple. they have always been like the experts at making sure the shit they put out does every stupid thing you hope it would do, plus some other things that are extra rad.
not so with the iphone…
first of all, the mac address book is capable of communicating with a phone via bluetooth to make outgoing calls and field incoming calls. guess what, it works with a whole bunch of phones except for the fucking one that apple made. what’s up with that? i saw a demo like a billion years ago where steve jobs was showing this functionality that never appeared.
aim: none. what the fuck?
sms: you can’t delete individual text messages. you can’t forward text messages. you can’t send messages to multiple people at once. you can’t view sms messages with pictures. what the fuckity fuck? every other phone can do this.
apps: fail!! you know what apple’s solution is to putting handy apps on your iphone? developers: make it a web page. users: go to that web page with safari. how fucking low rent is that?! this wouldn’t suck tooo bad if you could add shortcuts to these apps to the desktop. which you can’t. and you can’t even rearrange the ones that are already there. since when does apple not give you like infinite customization options? fucking lame.
for awhile i did the hack that let you install cool apps like aim, pseudo-gps and a nintendo emulator, but apple insists on bricking them and they made the damn phone crash even more than usual so fuck it.
ipod: cool. fine. but what the fuck. only 8gb. that’s barely enough to cut it. but don’t tell everyone that it’s the best ipod ever.
plus it crashes. i like my mac because it never crashes. the phone, not so much.
also, edge network blows chunks.
i’m probably going to end up getting a blackberry and a new ipod. and it will suck that i will have two things to carry around rather than one, but whatever. the blackberry can do pretty much everything the iphone can do and more. and there are like a million other phones that you could say the same thing about.
iphones don’t suck for the reasons most people are saying they do, and they’re not cool for most of the reasons the other people are saying they are.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:07 ambut they do kinda suck. or at least they’re not $600 worth of cool.