My iPhone has officially become unusable. This much-acclaimed device, that habitually served as an example of brilliant design, and symbolized the triumph of user-experience, has suddenly become nothing more than another piece of frustrating technology, the most frustrating such piece in my life at the moment.
So, what happened? What could have brought this curse onto me? Well, by this time, some of the readers might have guessed already…that’s right, I updated! Updated the software, that is.
“You updated? Well, what do you mean, how can this make your phone unusable? An update is a good thing, isn’t it?” might some of the naive ones still be wondering…Well, if, like me, you’ve been living under a rock for the last months, you might be interested in knowing that updating the software for an iPhone 3G (“old” model, in our consumerism-driven world) from version 3.x to version 4.x will turn your device in one of the slowest you’ve ever used, leaving you with a laughable ghost of what you enjoyed and relied upon until just a few days ago. But that’s not all…because here comes the fun part: if you’ve updated to the latest version, you’re stuck with it! Apple is not supporting downgrades of the software, so your little “upgrade” adventure has effectively and irreparably destroyed the one attribute you probably loved most about your device – its responsiveness. In fact, the device is now so slow and frustrating, that in a few days you’ll be very much inclined to smash it to the ground and run off to the store to buy yourself a shiny new iPhone 4G model.
Indeed, buying the new model seems to be the normal course of action, and the assumed solution to the problem. Rendering devices obsolete is a common strategy for keeping sales volume, and Apple was just doing what every one else is doing, only…better.
So, here’s to Apple, for taking planned obsolescence to a whole new level! Here’s to Apple, for rendering millions of devices totally useless, with us right here watching! Here’s to Apple, for making us feel stupid and humiliated that we upgraded our phone’s software!(Gotcha, suckers!).
Here’s to Apple, the tyrant ruler of our coolness-addicted lives!

PS. Here are some related posts I found:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/iphone-3g-ios4-slowdown/a>

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/04/sensational_lawsuit_accuses_apple_of_turning_iphone_3g_into_ibrick.html

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/jobs-software-fix-for-iphone-3g-slowdown-coming-soon/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.