Friday

Ask Ty...July 23 [The iPhone 4 Question]

It must be Tuesday Friday, Middlespace Cadets, because I'm answering your questions
Q: Dear Ty,

Haha! So your Apple iPhone 4 is a total bust. It won't even hold a call if you hold the phone a certain way. How stupid! A phone that you can't use as a phone. What do you have to say now, Apple lover?

- Apple H8r
Ty: Good question and an even better observation, AH8r. So, yeah, I guess there has been some information in the press and thereabouts about a phone that Apple makes that if you squeeze it in a certain way you lose the call.

And I'm an "Apple lover."

Really? Am I so psychologically invested in a corporation that I'd call myself a "lover" of such a company? No. I guess people notice that I use certain products and mention what I like about them. Sue me because I like what I like. But I don't necessarily automatically love VW or Apple or Epson or Fleshlight or Bristol-Meyer Squibb/Sanofi-aventis or Wyeth Consumer Healthcare (the fine makers of Preparation H®) or Sig Sauer (who makes my piece).

I'm just at a place in my life where I have found the stuff I use (and the companies that make them consistently) and am comfortable with that. I'm a creature of habit like all the rest of you. Want me to change my products? Prove me some better. Science me on that tip. I don't have time to try 27 different socks when I can order me up some J Crew socks and have them delivered to my doorstep and keep moving forward in this life. I already know what I'm getting. Who has fucking time for 27 different socks or going to Target, Apple H8r? Answer me that?

Conversely, I don't find it in me to necessarily "hate" a company or the products they make. I may not use them but I don't have the emotional spectrum to hate a Pontiac. You in all seriousness have the time and energy to call yourself "Apple H8r?" What did Apple do to you, son?

Anyway Mr. Jobs's and his Magic iPhone 4 Voice Calling Machine, AH8r. Just for you.

Here's what my main tech homey, Farhad, has to say about mobile phones and dropped calls: [clicky]

Here's what I have to say about mobile phones and dropped calls: Good! Who the fuck uses a goddamn cell phone to talk to anyone with any seriousness anymore? The phone, Apple H8r? Jesus just typing that makes me cringe. How annoying is anybody on a telephone anymore. People, quit being like Apple H8r and talking on the damn phone everywhere like you're on your toilet at home in the basement.

I do not see the Apple iPhone 4's tendency to drop phone calls to be a defect. I see the Apple iPhone 4's tendency to drop phone calls to be ITS BEST FEATURE! No lie. I don't have an Apple iPhone 4 yet but this so-called "news" is the best advertising possible. Apple, run ads on this, freebie from me. I'm running out* to get a damn Apple iPhone 4 right now and if any of you call me I'm squeezing it like a lemon (until the juice runs down my leg) to disconnect your damn voice call. Who do you think I am, Elisha Gray (look it up). This ain't 1876, Apple H8r. And all I have to say is, "Oh, you know...iPhone..." and shrug and turn my eyes like this.

Apple's iPhone 4's best feature, AH8r, is the QuikDisconex™ feature. Web, photos, music, email, txt, and EZ CALL TERMINATION! You got all pissy when Mr. Jobs stopped putting floppy drives in his Magic Computional Machines back in the '90's, now you wanna hate on the elimination of the telephone? What's your problem? This is the future, dummy. A future sans telephones to annoy everybody.

In the interim, we have this:

A prospective transcript:
[Telephone rings]

Ty Hardaway:
[Immediately annoyed and agitated and paranoid]

Hello?


Apple H8r:

Dude? It's me, ----- ----! What's going on, buddy? I'm your number one fan and I just love you, man. We're down here at the bar and we want to buy you some drinks. We got Pabst Blue Ribbon and we're wearing skinny jeans and we have ironic t-shirts! Trucker hats, man...trucker hats! Pleeeeaaaase come and join us. We'll buy all you want, man! And we can take pictures with you with our Blackberries, dude! You're the maaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!


Ty Hardaway:

How'd you get this number?


Apple H8r:

Oh, man...I got it from Corey. He said you'd be cool if I gave you a ca
--

[Ty Hardaway does the Apple iPhone 4 QuckDisconex™ squeeze]
Just a guess,

-ty

-------------------
* "Running out..." = ordering online.