Wednesday, November 30, 2011

An Apple a Day

It's only appropriate that the last post I made here worried that RIM was on the rim.  This post--and probably quite a few to follow--will be singing the praises of my new iPhone 4s.

"An Apple a Day" is really a title that looks to the future.  A more apt title for this post might be "Never Say 'Never.'"  I did.  Say "never" that is.  When Apple did their deal with the devil (AT&T) when the iPhone first came out, I swore I would never own one.  It might be the coolest phone on the face of the earth, but my disdain for AT&T was so great that I couldn't conceive ever really minding cutting off my nose to spite my face on that one.  I wasn't about to switch from Verizon. (Say what you will, they've been good to me over the years.  If that ever changes, so will my cell carrier.  Just ask RIM.  I'm all about loyalty, but loyalty is a two-way street.  Go to sleep at the wheel, start moving backwards, cease to innovate, and you're no longer deserving of loyalty; rather, you're just hoping that your consumer base will confuse that laudable quality with mere inertia.  Dream on.  Take a lesson from Palm.  Heck, it's too late for that.  Take a lesson from yourself.)

All of which is to say: I made the switch last week, and in the time since, buyer's remorse hasn't even been in my vocabulary.

Any of you longtime Apple devotees out there should just stop reading now, unless your smug-low-level light is on, in which case, what follows should extinguish it for good.

Often I've asked friends who gave up their PC for a Mac long ago what it is that they like most about Apple products, and frequently the answer has come back as, "It just works."  At which point, I would always think, well so does my PC, my Blackberry, etc.  Duh.  Only in the last few days have I come to understand what that phrase has meant.  My Blackberry for instance, would usually do what I asked of it, s  l  o  w  l  y, and often only after I had submitted my request in triplicate, for a second time, or third, earlier efforts having been returned stamped "Disapproved! Resubmit in 30 days."

The iPhone, on the other hand, well, it just works.  Freakin' instantly.  And I don't even have to learn how to hold my mouth right when I press the "buttons."  Sure, there are some things I can't do on the iPhone that I could on the Blackberry.  I'm going to miss those things.  But I'm not going to miss those things enough to miss the platform they came with.  Categories for my tasks, notes, and contacts.  I'll miss that.  I'll get over it.  I'll fill that ten seconds of longing by accomplishing five tasks in the time it used to take to do one.  And I'll do all five at the same time, switching seamlessly between them, and never see a message that says my application memory is low and don't I want to remove something?

I don't mean to become Apple's greatest fan, but I do mean, if I can find the time, to post now and then about some of the cooler apps I've found.  I'm not much about games.  I'm about getting things done and getting them done faster and with less frustration.  In that respect, the iPhone 4s is making more strides than any gadget I've ever owned.

Yeah, I know.  You told me so.