technobang

It’s a fashion symbol. It’s a status symbol. But it’s utterly, utterly useless.

While working with one of my customers, I was lucky enough to get a chance to play with an iPod Touch–something I was half-heartedly looking forward.

Actually, let me step back a bit before I even get to the damned iPod.

The iPhone is stupid. There, I said it. The $500 status symbol that Apple halfassed out is, at the very least, a piss poor phone. Sure, it plays your MP3s. Sure, you can browse the internet at the speed of snailpower. Sure, you can look at Google maps or watch fucking Youtube videos, but THAT’S ALL YOU CAN DO. I don’t get it, why would Apple design a phone only to halfass out of the phone aspect of it? That makes absolutely no goddamn sense. Even as a “mobile device” or whatever the fuck they brand it, it fails. Instant messaging? No. Exchange support? Hardly. Any third party applications whatsoever? Fuck that, Apple hasn’t released their API to anyone but their closest cuntbuddies.

Uhh, did I miss something here?

Apple has overwhelming power over the population because their products are seen as status symbol. To own an Apple product is to be one of the few “elite” – those with the power of money and the ability to sense what’s hip and trendy. If you consider the features Apple has promised for the iPhone, you’ll find that it falls quite short of what they intended it to be – your all purpose all in one phone that will replace every mobile device you’ve ever had, ever. I find that prospect laughable at best. Business users would have a very difficult time migrating over, as many larger corporations rely on the power of Exchange server to keep their calendars, contacts, and e-mail synchronized over all of their devices – mobile and stationary. Frankly, smartphones powered by Windows Mobile, or even the stately Blackberry makes short work of the iPhone’s paltry business features. For the home user, if you ignore all the “neat” web features, you’re left with a phone that lacks many of the basic features that make standard phones usable. Basics such as the inability to set custom ringtones (EDIT: I recently discovered that you can use ringtones if the artist approves it – even then you have to pay more for it. I’ll bitch about this later) among other things (such as the fact that it’s really fucking heavy) really hurts its case.

So fine, we’ve established that the iPhone is crap. Let’s move on, shall we?

The iPod Touch had a really big shot at improving upon the “mobile device” features that the iPhone missed – perhaps even acting as a throwback to the Newton days of old. Imagine, a PDA with the name “iPod” that all you fascist Apple fans love with basic productivity tools such as a word processor, a calendar that actually can synchronize to Exchange, and maybe the ability to add third party applications to it. Instead, Apple pushed this piece of shit out of it’s bulging cunt that makes the iPhone look like a fucking champion; a stripped down iPhone with almost no features except for the base iPod features, the iTunes store, Safari, and YouTube. Wow, great. Useful, really fucking useful.

I made an attempt at browsing the web with the iPod; it turned out to be a completely laborious task. Instead of the nicely polished web browser that you would expect from Apple, you’re instead presented with a smudgy piece of shit. Zooming into text was very difficult to do without smashing links down with my fat thumb. Entering in text or URLs was also difficult, as my fat thumbs consistently hit the incorrect keys. Also, having to hit 3 extra keys just to enter a symbol is pretty fucking stupid. Take a lesson from RIM, Apple: stick with a keyboard.

I don’t know how to conclude this, other than saying that Apple and its followers can bite me.