It was great, but now we both know it’s not going to work out between us.
Remember the times when I used to laugh at iPhone users. These were the days of the iPhone 3, when people caressed and fondled their phones in suggestive ways only seen in particular cinema screens. These were the times of the Blackberry (RIP) and Nokia (almost RIP).
But then, the Samsung Galaxy (v1.0) came along and I switched to the large OLED screen, with Android. Great experience. Many apps would not work or crash unexpectedly but, what the hell. It was open, it was large, it was new.
And one day, the iPad showed up. And I entered the Apple vortex. The iPhone4 was my first. And then the 5, and the 5S, and the 6, and the 6S and… then I stopped. For 4 straight years I saw no reason to change. Sure, the screen was a bit better, the phone a tad faster, but it was not like I depended on time the way Lewis Hamilton earns his living.
iPhone 6S was the last reasonable Apple Phone
And then the iPhone 10 made its entrance. A game changer. And the beginning of my rejection to Apple products.
It was 2011 when I switch to a Macbook Pro. And although expensive, I confirmed my wise choice over Windows when the laptop turned 3 years old without any significant loss of performance. Whereas my Samsung Ultrabook had taken a mere 12 months to crawl from 35 seconds start-up to well over 3 minutes, my Mac was still under a minute.
But the iPhone 10 changed everything. This was a phone with a price tag of 999$. My 2015 Macbook Air was the same price!
And in 2018 the iPhone XS showed up with a 1,199$ last name. And that just did not make any sense. How can it be that the phone is more expensive than the laptop? Does it come with jewels? No. Is the production so limited that manufacturing costs are very high? Nope, not at all. Is there anything absolutely unique that the phone can do and the laptop can’t? Er… yes, you can, like… call people.
In no way am I EVER going to spend more money on a phone than I would on a laptop, from the SAME company. It’s a matter of principle. Eleven inch laptop vs. 5.7in phone. 128Gb Hard Drive vs. 64Gb memory. Work tool vs. Leisure garment. It just does not make sense.
Further, you do need a computer to enhance the phone operation. Have we lost our marbles?
No sir, no more, not ever, good bye!
Thus, I switched. To Huawei, which makes fantastic phones in the 300$ range. And to Linux, which runs on everything and which interfaces with the phone without the need of the slavery imposed by the iTunes universe.
And, by the way, a Linux OS today is nigh as easy to use as a Mac or a Win, power consumption is optimized, so the battery runs longer, it starts in seconds, it switches off just as fast and it does not share information with any massive corporation.
What’s the drawback? Yes, you may not be able to play some games. Big deal, and you may have to check on some internet forum on how to configure this or that.
Now, a thought for all those confused evangelists out there
Many of you are convinced that Apple is just the best, they can do no wrong and that’s why they are the biggest company with the most money in the world. And by purchasing their product you are, like, a part of this select group.
End of the day, not everyone has Apple. It’s exclusive, for creatives, for out-of-the-box thinkers, for successful individualistic outliers… right?
Well, the phone market is dominated by Samsung, Huawei and Apple. And the latter holds 23% of the market share. Now, let me tell you how exclusive that is:
- McDonalds holds 16% of the fast food market. Forget the entire restaurant market, just the fast food. Eating McDonalds is 7% more exclusive than owning an iPhone
- Toyota, the largest car manufacturer in the world, accounts for only 12% of all the cars sold. That is 11% more exclusive than the iPhone
- Being Chinese is 9% more exclusive
- Contracting the flu is 14% more exclusive
- Riding an elevator every day is 22% more exclusive
- Having a Twitter account is 22.5% more exclusive
So… yeah, good luck with your line of thinking…
Microsoft, I bid you farewell in 2011. Apple, I say bye to you in 2019. There is a reason why 99% of the internet is run on Linux. And your silly proprietary practices have quite a bit to do with it.
Ta.