By Travis Walters
I hate the word “revolution” because pretentious companies like Apple slap it on every product that rolls out of their factories. That’s right, I just called Apple pretentious. No, I know you have an Apple sticker on your car. So do I. It will be OK – the Steve Jobs boogeyman won’t come for us. Sometimes use of the word “revolution” is merited, as in the case of the Mac. It truly brought something new to the market. However, one really good idea does not give an irrevocable license to the word for all subsequent products.
I know the designers among us are annoyed with Apple over their MacBook Pro line of machines lack of a matte screen, they find glare and over saturation of colors annoying. I can understand that, but I think the sun’s gilded rays stabbing them in the eyes and messing up their colors is nothing compared to apoplexy experienced by the emotional centers of the brain when it hears, “Apple revolutionizes the mobile phone.”
No, Apple, you didn’t. You provided a platform for fart and flashlight applications. Some revolution. Jobs likes to quote Alan Kay, a pioneering force in the computer industry, “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” This tells me they wanted to develop the iPhone OS but needed the hardware first. In the announcement of the product Jobs showed images of other “smart phones” and made fun of their buttons and their “baby Internet.” iPhone was supposed to be the smartest smartphone out there.
Jobs poked fun at Microsoft’s delayed Vista release a number of times in keynote speeches, yet iPhone has seen its own share of delays. A major feature of iPhone 2.0 that was touted as being far superior to Microsoft’s method was supposed to be delivered in September. It has yet to be released and Apple, known for its intense secrecy, has made no mention of it. It also has none of the features that would make the smart phone truly smart. It can’t copy and paste text or use the Adobe Flash plug-in for Safari, meaning iPhone really only displays the “adolescent web.”
I wasn’t aware of how intrinsically linked Steve Jobs is to the development of Apple products until just this past week. Jobs announced that over the past few months a hormone imbalance “robbed” him of nutrition that caused him to lose weight, the same few months the iPhone development seemed to halt.
I bought SimCity for my iPhone, which is fantastic because I love SimCity. Yet, I fear that in 6 months time I’ll have the most technologically advanced Nintendo DS out there. People will come up to me and say, “Hey! Let’s play a super fun game!” I’ll say, “sure,” but then have to stop, “Oh. Hold on. My mom is calling again to make fun of me for buying a Nintendo phone.”
Because it has the Apple logo on it, other companies are unfortunately clamoring to develop their own versions of iPhone. They seem to believe the touchscreen is what does it, when it’s the software underneath. Whatever faults the iPhone OS may have, and there are many, they’re nothing compared to the software (a generous description) Verizon puts on their phones.
iPhone software is impossibly easy to use, even if it’s not very smart, and it’s hardware is designed quite nicely. You’d think the first wouldn’t be an issue given the massive superiority complex that defines Apple’s revolutionary products.