Why I hate Apple (part IV)

Part Four: I Should Probably Stop Writing About Apple Now


I should probably stop writing about Apple now. One of the things that irritates me most about Apple is the excessive volume of comment they attract; and here am I, adding my tiny falsetto of a diatribe to the vast, deafening chorus that echoes around the internet every single day. Some days it seems like every second technology news item is about the A word. 


Everything there is to say about Apple has already been said. It is not a company that inspires silent indifference. People who love Apple love saying so. And here am I, illustrating that the opposite is also true. 


After four days of staying up till the small hours writing about Apple, I'm still not entirely sure what I really think about them. For many people, they seem to exist at the absolute centre of a sprawling venn diagram where the primary obsessions of our contemporary lives overlap - technology, design, commerce, information, newness, fashion, communication. They're not just selling gadgets, they're offering a golden ticket to modernity itself....


They're the ultimate symbol of an urban, restless, permanently distracted generation. Their success has enthralled everyone who owns a computer, music player or mobile phone into a state of unthinking, burbling approbation; the trademark Apple sheen, that enticing, polished, perfectly-packaged, one-touch, swipey, pinchy immediacy has seduced us all; and spread around the globe like a virulent plague, like necrotising fasciitis, relentlessly eating away at all that used to be good and holy in the world.


Ignore the above sixth form essay crap and just read this list


OK, I may have got a little carried away there. Here's a handy bullet-pointed list of why I don't like Apple:

• that business in the Apple store (see previous posts)
• the Apple store (it's just a fucking shop; it is not hallowed ground, or a portal into a future dimension)
• the "genius bar" (see above. I don't care if it's deliberately a little tongue-in-cheek, any shop that calls its customer care people 'geniuses' should be forcibly converted into a Costa Coffee or Primark)
• iTunes
• iPods sounding crap, but being so ubiquitous that no-one cares about sound quality any more
• non-universal, proprietary cables to charge and connect Apple stuff (because it's all so special it couldn't possibly be tainted with USB)
• that ridiculous hype about The Beatles being available via iTunes (wow, forty year old music that everyone already owns coming to your online store and you think that's something to jump up and down about?)
• "Just avoid holding it that way" - remember the stuff about the iPhone losing signal when you held it incorrectly (using your stupid peasant thumbs or something), and the Stalinist way Apple didn't acknowledge there was a problem for rather a while, or then seem to give much of a shit when they grudgingly owned up.
• The Bumper - a glorified plastic/rubber band that was hastily invented by Apple's top boffins to solve the above problem - available for ONLY £26 here in a range of colours. 
• Flash. Sure, it may be a bit wanky, but the 'we know what's best for you, and also for the internet, so stop whining proles' attitude wasn't exactly very endearing
• all those people who queue up overnight outside new Apple stores so they can be the first person inside, race in whooping, grab their FREE t-shirt (yee-haw, free Apple merch) and then feel a bit twattish when they realise they're just in a fucking shop
• all the Apple store employees who jump around whooping when the above happens
• the iPad costing the same as a small family car, but hey - you can POKE the internet on it and make it jiggle about. And also - who the hell needs a USB port? You can just transfer data onto it using the power of your OWN THOUGHTS.
• it also has apps that tell you when the next tube train is due. Whoop-de-fucking-do
• people live-blogging from every Apple press conference as if it's the sermon on the mount or something actually news-worthy, like Diana's zombie corpse landing on the moon
• Stephen Fry
• gleaming white cubes masquerading as computers; it's not the future, so leave that shit alone
• the iPad telly ads - "sequences have been shortened". Errm, isn't that cheating? I thought your stuff was super intuitive and quick, so why the need to sex it up and lie about it just for TV?
• ONE BUTTON. That was just showing off. What was that, a bet at Apple five years ago - reckon we can make a device with just the one button? It felt like you were trying to prove a point more than anything.
• Multi-tasking on smart phones. Welcome to the party, guys. The rest of us have been here a while
• Wanky iPod telly and poster ads for years. U2? I rest my case.
• Socks. Honestly. Why not just use an actual sock? Fold it over twice and bingo, instant protection for no cost.
• The shuffle. It's way too fucking small.
• That git in the Apple store. Oh, I've done this one already. He deserves to be mentioned twice, because he started this.

I'm sure there are dozens of other reasons to hate Apple I've forgotten about. But it feels good to have got all that off my chest.

And the best part is, now I've purged myself of all that, I never have to write about Apple ever again.

Until part V, tomorrow, obviously.