My Brief Fling With iPhone 4
This weekend I had a very short romance with an iPhone that I picked up from a Radio Shack.
My mom, sister, Nick and I all needed to change providers from Verizon to AT&T to be under one family plan. I had always wanted an iPhone, everyone does, right? It's slick, pretty, popular... everything that you should want. My whole family was going to get them.
Well I had been using an Android phone for a year, and though I loved it, I had never given it a name (and I feel all lasting devices should have names) so I thought that maybe an Android wasn't for me and an iPhone would be the way to go. I was full of contradictions on Friday, I used the crap out of my Android but I thought I could live with a different phone. I think Steve Jobs is an asshole and all apple/Mac users are pretentious douchebags, but I want to be part of that lifestyle too. I want to be free to use a phone to fit my needs but I also want to fit in the neat little box that apple gives me. I should have just listened to myself while I was thinking all this on Friday because it could have saved me lots of trouble.
My mom and I went to Radio Shack because we could not find the AT&T store. It just did not exist, it existed in some parallel universe because we passed by an empty lot that was supposed to have an AT&T.
At Radio Shack though there were three wonderful guys that helped us for five and a half hours because we were getting four phones and all of us were idiots. My mom, sister and I got white ones, Nick got the only black - 16G and very sleek. The overwhelming excitement of new phone and presents (because when ever you get a new doo-dad its like Christmas) caused me to not question the three behind the counter the concerns I had about an iPhone. All I knew was that I wanted that shininess and I did not give a damn about anything else. It was the most beautiful phone I had ever seen at that moment, gleaming white sides and smooth curves. She was gorgeous. She was a she. I've never had a female tech device ever. Every computer, MP3 player, flash drive and phone has been male. Maybe this was another reason it didn't work out: I'm not a lesbian and I couldn't ever love her the way she wanted me to.
Yet after five and a half hours of phone calls between AT&T and Radio Shack and my mom and creditors (and a couple of harassment calls to "let me talk to your manager, I want your name, sir!") we all left with our respective iPhones. Everyone was happy, myself included, that was until I started to realize that I didn't fit the mold... the iPhone teeny-popper mold that the media and society strives to make me feel I should.
The first thing that I noticed on Saturday (when I really got to start playing with it) was how.... limited I was. I had been used to my Android letting me change absolutely everything I ever wanted. From a customized alarm clock that played Non, Je ne regrette rien to the app placement on the screens (where I could put them where ever the fuck I wanted thank you.) I had full say in how my phone worked for ME. But this iPhone man... I couldn't change a damn thing . I would never hald Non, Je ne regrette rien wake me up (like Inception) ever again. I couldn't place the app icons wherever I wanted, no, you put it in a row and it will automatically slide to the left of the screen and you can't change that. I could change the background and the ring tone and thats pretty much as customizable as it is. Boyfriend found a cute unicorn picture and made that my wallpaper and I named her Jem after Jem and the Holograms. But I didn't feel comfortable with Jem yet. She was new and she had upset me with her inability to change to my needs.
It only got worse from there.
I use my phone to not only make calls and receive text, I blog a lot. I READ a lot. Like a freakish amount of lot. When I'm waiting for a sandwich at the cafe, in the bathroom, waiting for a movie to start etc... I read obscene amounts of text and most of it is stories here on LiveJournal. I basically need a mini portable computer.
Well what I did not know and was shocked to find out was that iPhones are not easy to read on. I don't have perfect vision or anything but for fucks sake that is tiny tiny text they have in Safari browser. So I go to ZOOM in and holy fuck - - the text is sliding off to the sides of the screen! What the hell is that? Why didn't it Wrap Text like it always did with my Android phone? Isn't Text Wrap a basic setting on phones? I checked it out - it's not. iPhone does not and will never wrap text when you zoom in. What I mean is this (in case you don't know): When you zoom into Safari or any browser on an iPhone, the text on the page will slide to the sides. It goes beyond the physical screen, so if you want to read a sentence you will have to scroll right and left to read the whole thing of text. This isn't so bad for individual cases but when you are reading 20,000+ word posts that gets damned annoying. Text Wrapping allows you to zoom into a body of text and instead of the words disappearing right off the screen it wraps itself around so all the text fits on the screen. It's wonderful and apparently very easy program wise. This is incredibly helpful when you are reading lots of text and you can just scroll down really quickly and just read, read, read! I tried to find a way to get over this critical (to me) setting to have. I downloaded different browsers that, while they cannot wrap text either, at least they allow you to change the actual size of the font. But that causes its own problems and wasn't really a solution.
Another thing that I didn't know, actually I knew, I had just forgotten, was that iPhones will NEVER in a million years have Flash on their phones. Apparently theres this thing called HTML 5 that they are waiting for (its going to wipe out Flash apparently). I go to meetings and events and on my Android phone I had my Flash enabled website bookmarked. I could show potential clients my artwork and my site. I can no longer do this on an iPhone. It's a small thing but it's one other thing that Jem cannot do.
The weekend was not looking good at all. I had a phone that couldn't meet my needs and I kept thinking about the no-name phone I threw away. I started realizing I had made a horrible mistake; I didn't want this brand name phone who can't do anything I need her to except look beautiful. I needed something that would work for me and not I for it. My boyfriend said in response to a comment I made about apple not listening to their customers: "apple doesn't care what you want, they know what you NEED." I can't think of anything more true, apple is all about marketing a way of life, a pretty glass box where apps are at your fingertips but that's as far as you'll ever get. Apple wants you to fit your way of life around their product instead of the other way around and I am dumbfounded that more people haven't realized what bullshit that is.
I do not fit into the clean hand-sanitized box they desperately tried to fit me in. I went to the same Radio Shack on Tuesday and told them my concerns. One of the guys from Friday was there and he told me that he'd take an Android over an iPhone any day. I asked him why he didn't say anything earlier and he replied "Well, you were buying iPhones!" Too true, Anthony, too true. Luckily it was no trouble at all returning Jem back to Radio Shack and getting the HTC Inspired, the grown up version of my previous phone the HTC Incredible. As soon as he turned HIM on (thank god it was a male) all my misgivings and fears washed away. This large, black smooth phone is drop dead sexy and hard as fucking rocks. The UI was easy to use (I was already accustomed to it) but had more options, more apps, more everything. I said goodbye to the lovely Jem who I realized was a hollow airhead and turned to this powerful Android.
I got home, showed him to Boyfriend and named him Snape. He has a name, he is long term, he is powerful, smart, sexy and fucking listens to me. I now feel a little like the Black Sheep in the family, everyone else has their pretty yet dim witted iPhones but I have a PROFESSOR. I have the "old man" phone and I could not be happier. I am actually proud that I am not one of the masses who got an iPhone because it was the most popular or the most recognizable. I'm glad I didn't get it for its status symbol. I'm such a non-conformist I'm ALMOST a Goth (South Park lol).
My mom, sister, Nick and I all needed to change providers from Verizon to AT&T to be under one family plan. I had always wanted an iPhone, everyone does, right? It's slick, pretty, popular... everything that you should want. My whole family was going to get them.
Well I had been using an Android phone for a year, and though I loved it, I had never given it a name (and I feel all lasting devices should have names) so I thought that maybe an Android wasn't for me and an iPhone would be the way to go. I was full of contradictions on Friday, I used the crap out of my Android but I thought I could live with a different phone. I think Steve Jobs is an asshole and all apple/Mac users are pretentious douchebags, but I want to be part of that lifestyle too. I want to be free to use a phone to fit my needs but I also want to fit in the neat little box that apple gives me. I should have just listened to myself while I was thinking all this on Friday because it could have saved me lots of trouble.
My mom and I went to Radio Shack because we could not find the AT&T store. It just did not exist, it existed in some parallel universe because we passed by an empty lot that was supposed to have an AT&T.
At Radio Shack though there were three wonderful guys that helped us for five and a half hours because we were getting four phones and all of us were idiots. My mom, sister and I got white ones, Nick got the only black - 16G and very sleek. The overwhelming excitement of new phone and presents (because when ever you get a new doo-dad its like Christmas) caused me to not question the three behind the counter the concerns I had about an iPhone. All I knew was that I wanted that shininess and I did not give a damn about anything else. It was the most beautiful phone I had ever seen at that moment, gleaming white sides and smooth curves. She was gorgeous. She was a she. I've never had a female tech device ever. Every computer, MP3 player, flash drive and phone has been male. Maybe this was another reason it didn't work out: I'm not a lesbian and I couldn't ever love her the way she wanted me to.
Yet after five and a half hours of phone calls between AT&T and Radio Shack and my mom and creditors (and a couple of harassment calls to "let me talk to your manager, I want your name, sir!") we all left with our respective iPhones. Everyone was happy, myself included, that was until I started to realize that I didn't fit the mold... the iPhone teeny-popper mold that the media and society strives to make me feel I should.
The first thing that I noticed on Saturday (when I really got to start playing with it) was how.... limited I was. I had been used to my Android letting me change absolutely everything I ever wanted. From a customized alarm clock that played Non, Je ne regrette rien to the app placement on the screens (where I could put them where ever the fuck I wanted thank you.) I had full say in how my phone worked for ME. But this iPhone man... I couldn't change a damn thing . I would never hald Non, Je ne regrette rien wake me up (like Inception) ever again. I couldn't place the app icons wherever I wanted, no, you put it in a row and it will automatically slide to the left of the screen and you can't change that. I could change the background and the ring tone and thats pretty much as customizable as it is. Boyfriend found a cute unicorn picture and made that my wallpaper and I named her Jem after Jem and the Holograms. But I didn't feel comfortable with Jem yet. She was new and she had upset me with her inability to change to my needs.
It only got worse from there.
I use my phone to not only make calls and receive text, I blog a lot. I READ a lot. Like a freakish amount of lot. When I'm waiting for a sandwich at the cafe, in the bathroom, waiting for a movie to start etc... I read obscene amounts of text and most of it is stories here on LiveJournal. I basically need a mini portable computer.
Well what I did not know and was shocked to find out was that iPhones are not easy to read on. I don't have perfect vision or anything but for fucks sake that is tiny tiny text they have in Safari browser. So I go to ZOOM in and holy fuck - - the text is sliding off to the sides of the screen! What the hell is that? Why didn't it Wrap Text like it always did with my Android phone? Isn't Text Wrap a basic setting on phones? I checked it out - it's not. iPhone does not and will never wrap text when you zoom in. What I mean is this (in case you don't know): When you zoom into Safari or any browser on an iPhone, the text on the page will slide to the sides. It goes beyond the physical screen, so if you want to read a sentence you will have to scroll right and left to read the whole thing of text. This isn't so bad for individual cases but when you are reading 20,000+ word posts that gets damned annoying. Text Wrapping allows you to zoom into a body of text and instead of the words disappearing right off the screen it wraps itself around so all the text fits on the screen. It's wonderful and apparently very easy program wise. This is incredibly helpful when you are reading lots of text and you can just scroll down really quickly and just read, read, read! I tried to find a way to get over this critical (to me) setting to have. I downloaded different browsers that, while they cannot wrap text either, at least they allow you to change the actual size of the font. But that causes its own problems and wasn't really a solution.
Another thing that I didn't know, actually I knew, I had just forgotten, was that iPhones will NEVER in a million years have Flash on their phones. Apparently theres this thing called HTML 5 that they are waiting for (its going to wipe out Flash apparently). I go to meetings and events and on my Android phone I had my Flash enabled website bookmarked. I could show potential clients my artwork and my site. I can no longer do this on an iPhone. It's a small thing but it's one other thing that Jem cannot do.
The weekend was not looking good at all. I had a phone that couldn't meet my needs and I kept thinking about the no-name phone I threw away. I started realizing I had made a horrible mistake; I didn't want this brand name phone who can't do anything I need her to except look beautiful. I needed something that would work for me and not I for it. My boyfriend said in response to a comment I made about apple not listening to their customers: "apple doesn't care what you want, they know what you NEED." I can't think of anything more true, apple is all about marketing a way of life, a pretty glass box where apps are at your fingertips but that's as far as you'll ever get. Apple wants you to fit your way of life around their product instead of the other way around and I am dumbfounded that more people haven't realized what bullshit that is.
I do not fit into the clean hand-sanitized box they desperately tried to fit me in. I went to the same Radio Shack on Tuesday and told them my concerns. One of the guys from Friday was there and he told me that he'd take an Android over an iPhone any day. I asked him why he didn't say anything earlier and he replied "Well, you were buying iPhones!" Too true, Anthony, too true. Luckily it was no trouble at all returning Jem back to Radio Shack and getting the HTC Inspired, the grown up version of my previous phone the HTC Incredible. As soon as he turned HIM on (thank god it was a male) all my misgivings and fears washed away. This large, black smooth phone is drop dead sexy and hard as fucking rocks. The UI was easy to use (I was already accustomed to it) but had more options, more apps, more everything. I said goodbye to the lovely Jem who I realized was a hollow airhead and turned to this powerful Android.
I got home, showed him to Boyfriend and named him Snape. He has a name, he is long term, he is powerful, smart, sexy and fucking listens to me. I now feel a little like the Black Sheep in the family, everyone else has their pretty yet dim witted iPhones but I have a PROFESSOR. I have the "old man" phone and I could not be happier. I am actually proud that I am not one of the masses who got an iPhone because it was the most popular or the most recognizable. I'm glad I didn't get it for its status symbol. I'm such a non-conformist I'm ALMOST a Goth (South Park lol).