Rant about corporate goliath Apple, dear worst-reader. Yeah, I’m sitting by the fire and my better-half is sewing, my pug is snooring and the MBP on my lap is roaring. While trying to get some work done I get this strange notice from Apple while trying to access their/my iCloud data. Yeah. Talk about a tried and true monopoly nemesis. I know. I know. It’s my own fault that I have all this reason to bitch about Apple. That’s because, at last count, I have thrown enough mulla at Apple that they should come by my house and shine my friggin’ shoes. How much mulla, you ask. Well, let’s run it down, shall we? For tonight is a night of wannabe bragging rights and for praising how I know why Apple is so rich. Tommi’s computer fruit hardware includes:
- 2010 Mac Pro
- 2010 MacBook Pro
- 2011 Mac Mini
- iPad Air and iPad 4
- iPhone 5s and iPhone 4s
- AppleTV2 and Apple TV3.
- Airport Extreme (5th Gen), Airport Express (1st Gen)
Needless to say, we are an Apple household. And to be quite honest, I’m not proud of it. Ok. Maybe for a short time there, let’s say back in 2012, I might have been proud of it. But after the death of Steve Jobs things changed. Buying or owning Apple just ain’t the same anymore. And to make matters worse, Apple’s really going overboard with making their products obsolete by pushing all these updates down user’s throats that cut us off from a very functioning past. My 2010 MBP, with an SSD I installed last year, runs fantastic–because I am still running Snow Leopard on it. Seriously. I even got a new battery installed in it in 2013. The thing runs for eight hours without a charge, more if I turn off wifi. When I upgraded it to Mountain Lion it ran for like two hours. But I digress. The things is, I use all this stuff to the hilt. Seriously. Here’s why:
- We don’t use regular phones anymore.
- When communicating with family and friends, we use FaceTime or Skype or, of course, email.
- We don’t watch TV. We watch everything using iTunes, AppleTV and iPads.
- I haven’t bought a physical book in years. Read everything on iPad and iPhone using Kindle.
- Of course, I stopped using DVD players about four years ago and instead run quite a large media library in iTunes which serves all our devices.
- Just recently threw out the modem/router that our ISP gave us. That thing was the bottle-neck to our whole network. There were times when I could feel that device fishing around for IP address and DHCP issues and subnet mask confusion, etc. Now with just a DSL modem, my network is managed by a single Airport Extreme and extended by Airport Express.
All in all, this Apple household works great. But, like I said, there is something lingering because of the rotting mother teat that is the Apple monopoly. Just the other day, after I pulled off the feat of disconnecting our ISPs krappy modem/router, I went into an Apple store to ask a blueshirt if he knew how I could get SIP running on my iPhone. (The ISP modem/router was also the hub for landline telephony. But since our ISP offers SIP calling, I thought I could just start using an iPhone for that.) Lo and behold. The blueshirt at the Apple store is clueless. And I’m thinking, what the hell does this company do with selling all this fancy, pretty equipment to the masses and when we need a little help with it all all they can say is:
- Sorry, we’re clueless
- Pay me thirty-five Euros and I’ll call a technician for ya.
F*#k you, Apple. And F*#k your efforts to MAKE me upgrade to krapp that I or anyone else doesn’t need.
Link: Planned Obsolescence | Wiki
Rant on. -Tommi
worstwriter 