My Issue with Apple

I went to the Apple Store in Cher­ry Hill yes­ter­day morn­ing to get my Mac­book top­case repaired for the third time. I went to the Genius Bar and told the guy that my key­board cracked while they replaced my fried hard dri­ve. I fig­ured they’d hear me out, under­stand that there was some­thing fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong with my com­put­er and replace the unit alto­geth­er. What was there to lose, right? It’s pret­ty much a blank slate since I haven’t uploaded but a hand­ful of pho­tos to it.

Fat chance.

I was told the stock top­case was faulty, but that the sub­se­quent replace­ments were rein­forced. Then why have I been back twice since, I asked. Must’ve been some­thing I did wrong, although the Apple rep was care­ful not to blame me out­right. Sil­ly me. What could I know about a prod­uct that’s been noth­ing but an annoy­ance since I bought it. The cus­tomer is nev­er right, huh?

The fun did­n’t end there. When I asked if he could show me how to sync my iPhone to my repaired Mac­book, he almost laughed. Not only did he tell me that my iPhone looked pret­ty beat­en and bat­tered — I guess that’s what all Apple employ­ees are trained to say about prod­ucts that are a whop­ping two years old — he told me that I would­n’t be able to sync my phone to the new com­put­er with­out restor­ing it to fac­to­ry set­tings. Sweet! You mean I can lose all of my apps? Great!

Need­less to say, it’s a mess, and I’m not sure what recourse I have. I guess this is what I get for jump­ing aboard the Apple band­wag­on just as the com­pa­ny was rock­et­ing into the stratos­phere. Fun­nier still, this nev­er hap­pened to me with all the PCs I’ve owned since 1996.

My iPhone Home Screen

Lat­est iPhone Home­screen, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ram­say.

What a mess!

I start­ed fol­low­ing First & 20 dur­ing our trip to Out­er Banks this year. Their iPhone home screen series has been very inter­est­ing. As I’ve men­tioned before, my iPhone became some­thing of a life­line while I was in the hos­pi­tal with Helen when Char­lie was born. I scoured the app store in a sleep-deprived haze for any­thing to keep me alert and occu­pied dur­ing those 3 a.m. feed­ings. Let me put it to you straight: there are a ton of apps and most of them are garbage. First & 20’s series then seemed like the answer to my prayers. I will final­ly com­plete­ly opti­mize my iPhone home screen! How pos­i­tive­ly geeky!Con­tin­ue read­ing “My iPhone Home Screen”

Why I Love My iPhone

Want to know a secret? The iPhone is the future of com­put­ing. I know there’s a lot of talk about tablets, but I think it’s sil­ly. Why? Because the iPhone can meet most peo­ple’s com­put­ing needs already.

How did I reach this con­clu­sion? I found myself in a hos­pi­tal for four days after Char­lie was born. My iPhone became indis­pens­able imme­di­ate­ly. I tweet­ed Char­lie’s birth, took pho­tos, texted friends and fam­i­ly the good news and kept folks in the loop on Face­book. I can almost guar­an­tee that most peo­ple don’t do much more with their com­put­er.Con­tin­ue read­ing “Why I Love My iPhone”

A CALL FOR iPHONE APPS

My iPhone, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by Black­mail Is My Life.

I need your sug­ges­tions, specif­i­cal­ly for an all-in-one chat client that can com­bine my Gmail and AIM con­tacts. One pro­vi­so: I’m not real­ly look­ing to turn my iPhone into a gam­ing plat­form yet. What iPhone appli­ca­tions do you like? Which do you use most?