My Forbidden Fruit

[ninjaneer]

Well Steve Jobs died today. Kinda sad for a pooter jockey like myself. If I could only have an ounce or two of his drive and vision and ingenuity. He was a true innovator who guided the computing technology one more step forwards making it available to the Average Joe and no longer just machines that only a clique of Nintendo-tanned, pre-pubescent braniacs can play with. Just like Coke and Colgate are southernly pseudonymous for the products that they christen; the iPhone, too, will forever be etched into the brains of the masses. Sure just like every other techno wienie who hated Gates as he scaled the wall of the market during the nineties, I, too, sided with Jobs as he battled against the Gates Foundation and evaded the Apple logo as soon as it enveloped the world. Which is much the reason why I proudly wear an Android, and more likely will drop it in favor of the next Cinderella device, once Android gets too big for its pants.

Yes, I fight tooth and nail with the wife, causing scenes in Best Buy trying to convince her to dismiss the IPad2 and fancy an Android tablet instead. Yes, just like some kind of forbidden fruit that taunts and tempts me, the apple emblazoned upon his products lures me and just like some guilt-ridden chocolatey pleasure that my daughter steals from the fridge in a late-night raid, I oggle the iPhone and squeal with delight like a little school girl and melt a little inside at the genius of the simplicity.

As much as I refuse to be assimilated into Jobs' Borg Collective, the wife is more than likely going to be assimilated this December. And I guess, that means that I should start accepting the inevitable. Cuz once an Apple product crosses the threshold and into the hearth, I know what will happen. I can hear it now, "Help, I don't know how to use this thing. Where did the button go? How do I Skype? How do I print? Can you setup it up so that I can do that?" And I'm gonna have to learn the look and feel and slowly be dumbed into the device. I'll get frustrated that I can't overclock it and tweak the bus. And soon I'll walk like a brainwashed zombie down the street instead of even being able to tear apart the covers to plop in some more RAM or storage drives.

 

[MtnMax/Magniac]

o

 

[RaWarrior]

I can own something without being "loyal" to it. I own an ipod touch, and recently killed it trying to take it apart and fix the headphone jack which stopped working. I broke the touchscreen digitizer in the process. Apple gave me a reman for $99, with a new case, battery, and screen. I do admit it's a very handy device....music, videos, email, functional internet, all rolled into a little pocked sized device. Can you imagine if in 1985 Apple knew this would be their future? If anybody knew a device as "magical" as this would one day exist? What will the "ipod" of 25 years in the future do?

I actually use mine in the garage a fair bit....I'll load service manuals/parts diagrams onto it and look at them in the shop so I don't get my good lappy messed up.

That said, if Microsoft, or Sony, or whoever came out with a device that did one better, I'd buy one. I don't feel any loyalty to Apple because I bought one of their products. Do I like their product? Yes. Do I define my existence off it? No.

One thing I don't like about Apple is how their products are designed to be obsolete, disposable. As I found out, ipods are NOT intended to ever be disassembled. They don't fix them, just replace them. I don't like that. I broke the headphone jack in my old cheapo Philips mp3 player, 4 screws and it came apart and I re-soldered the connection that broke.