I am finding more and more stupid things in Apple products, these days.
I recently had to update the OS on my iPhone, and the new system has useless battery sucking features that do not add to the utility of the phone. It has dynamic graphics that are visually interesting the first time you see them, but get to be annoying the hundreth time you see them. The default font for things like the clock and calendar is very elegant and thin, but it is nearly impossible to see.
I find the same annoying things on my iPad and on the Mac I use from time to time at work. A few years ago, I had confidence that I could use any Apple product and I would not find anything in the design or function that was glaringly stupid. Not is not the case anymore. Not by a long shot.
It appears that one of the functions of Steve Jobs was to look at things and ask “Is this stupid?”. That gatekeeper function is no longer being met. So the GPS guys can slip in a function that appends your location to each text message, but nobody pays attention to the fact that they just decreased battery life by 10%. Get three or four things that do that, and your phone dies at 5:30 PM every day.
Once my phone starts dying every day, it is worse than useless to me. I have announced to the World that I can be reached by any means at any time, and half the time I am carrying around a dead brick, and pissing off everybody who tries to contact me. I have disabled as much as I can, but the battery suck continues. It is almost as if the competing feature architects have insulated their little contributions to the battery suck and leave it to some other department to invent the Magic Battery Fairy to make it all work.
I could get a Mophie. I could upgrade my phone to an iPhone 5. I could install a charger on my work desk, my car, my home desk and my nightstand. Or I could just buy an Android phone.
Since I don’t see things getting better any time soon at Apple, Samsung is looking better and better. And I loved my iPhone. You know how Nixon never said “If I have lost Walter Cronkite, I have lost America”. Well if Apple has lost me, they really have lost America. Time to get out.
Once my phone starts dying every day, it is worse than useless to me. I have announced to the World that I can be reached by any means at any time, and half the time I am carrying around a dead brick, and pissing off everybody who tries to contact me. I have disabled as much as I can, but the battery suck continues. It is almost as if the competing feature architects have insulated their little contributions to the battery suck and leave it to some other department to invent the Magic Battery Fairy to make it all work.
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As the man told me: The pocket computers that are phones are useless.
So I hold stubbornly to my LG ENV3 It is first and foremost a phone.
I already switched to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 last year, and my next tablet will be the 12.2” Galaxy Note Pro. I still like my iPad, but the lack of a readable/writable file system and SD Card support has become a deal-breaker for me.
When my note 2 gives me the 15% notification, I pull off the back and put in a charged battery. I never use any of the annoying "S" apps but have a 32 gig additional SD card that makes up for the room they take. I'd be realistic about Samsung and Android, but at least you get some flexibility.
Hard to beat that Iphone camera.