Provocative opinions aired on the clothes line of life.

Monday 1 February 2010

iCan't take it any more.

I have never made any secret of my pure unadulterated hatred for the American multinational corporation and all around consumer electronics rapist, Apple Inc. In its broadest term it is an archaic assailant which has forever marred the name of a perfectly innocent pomaceous fruit, sending a shiver down the spines of Windows users and adding fuel to the smug grins of condescension from its consumers in the process.

OK, that might be ever so slightly dramatic, but I just don’t see the fascination with the stupid ergonomic oblong pieces of crap they continue to violate the market with. Granted, I own a first generation Nano which has just turned six interestingly enough, and never have I once had even the vaguest urge to upgrade to any of their apparently more superior devices, music related or otherwise. But perhaps that’s because I don’t feel the need to whip it out in public for no apparent reason and pretend I’m Tom Cruise from ‘Minority Report’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no technophobe. I own a plethora of 21st century consumer durables, which essentially weld my social pipeline to the world and maintain my general survival. But as much as I would like to think it is, my life really isn’t as busy and important as Apple advertising campaigns for the now infamous iPhone are making it out to be. I don’t need a personal organising mp3 player which is also a camera fused with a games console, I just want to receive funny/rude text messages and the occasional Topshop style note via email, not forgetting the primary function of a telephone device: speaking to people on it. Not through a high resolution video, not through the GPS coordinates of Google street view, not through an application where I can wave at them with the skeletal bones of my hand revealed through some kind of clever faux x-ray. I want good old fashioned voice on voice contact with another human being. I’m just a simple girl at heart, really I am.

But my biggest gripe with this fiendish violating conglomerate isn’t its products at all, but the fact that it has spawned the excruciatingly irritating Apple product owner or worshiper if you will. These people are a species entirely their own. A class of individuals grouped together by their pretentious derision for any electronic product which doesn’t bear the ominously lit pomaceous branding and their complete disillusionment with reality. Basically they’re at the very essence of twat. Gentle probing or an all out satirical backlash regarding their cultist fascination falls on deaf ears and is met with an infuriatingly half amused half sympathetic expression, making you want to eat your own fist. It’s like being back at school and someone has scrawled a crude insult on to a piece of paper and stuck it to your back, it’s right there but you’re completely oblivious to what everyone else is finding so enthralling.

Now don’t get me wrong, the products are certainly durable, they’re pretty looking, alarmingly smooth and they’re lighter than Mary-Kate Olsen after a four day cocaine binge, but unless you need to use them for specific software they are a complete waste of coin. I own a perfectly fine laptop which I don’t even know the brand of, costing half the price of a standard twatbook. I surf the web, download compressed music files, illegally stream American television programmes, use the Microsoft Office package and upload digital photographs of drunken shenanigans. And guess what? The iTwats at Starbucks are doing exactly the same! And if Windows have more viruses so be it. I’d rather have my laptop be the electronic equivalent of Tara Reid’s liver or Russell Brand’s genital region and be £400 better off than have the immaculate conception of digital interfacing. Because let’s face it, everyone loves a bit of drama in their lives.