The iPhone - Only Human.

I'm the type of guy who pays attention to the world around me as best I can.  I analyze and predict trends in culture, economy, politics, sociology and more and when I read the news or listen to other people's conversations, I do so in light of those patterns.  Unfortunately for us all, I'm also one to buck those trends when it seems that they're gaining popularity somewhat for the sake of that popularity alone.  Being popular doesn't necessarily make something good - see also disco, the Macarena and flan.  So feeling put-off by the post-2002 boom of Apple grew proportionately in me according to every person who suddenly scoffed and wrinkled their nose at me that I didn't have an iPod, an iMac, a Macbook, an iPhone, an iPod touch, an iPad and so on.

"How can you live with a Blackberry?"

"How can you survive in this country on a PC?"

"You really take that Droid out with you in public?"

"Just put that song on your iPod...what do you mean you don't have an iPod?  Really?  Other companies make iPods?  Doesn't Apple sue them?  ...What's an mp3?"

As the iCult grew, I started to really worry.  I knew that at some point, I'd be forced to make the switch.  Like the New York Times holding out before caving and printing color pictures, I was fighting a losing battle.  I held out as long as I could; I really did.

"Steve Jobs was my God; I can't believe he's dead.  How will the world go on?"

"Just face it - your computer is based on a piece of 1970's Russian shit technology; don't you want something that works?"

"I don't know why you tolerate that.  Apple products don't get viruses.  Apple products never freeze.  Apple products never break.  Y'know that phrase we have, 'It just works'?  Well...it just does."

The more phones I went through, the better Orthodox Jobs-ism started to look.  Every time my Samsung Fascinate's lock button locked and took a screen capture instead of locking, every time a battery stopped holding a charge a month after its warranty expired, I'd pay just a little more attention to the peer pressure.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore.  We waited all day in the Apple Store, behind the high-school and college girls there to replace their broken iPhone screens, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mumford and Sons fans pushing the "anorexic lumberjack" image to its fullest, withstood the gaze from the employees unable to comprehend why people were still just now switching to iPhones, renewed our Verizon contracts, sat through the tutorial to learn iOS and finally I got an iPhone 4S and an iPad third generation.  Did I do it nearly as much to get iBrats off my back as I did to adapt to the times of what I'd need to start my own company?  Yeah.  See, like the Jehovah's Witnesses who ring the door, like the volunteers for politicians who cold call in campaign season, like the stoner justifying himself as much to himself as he is to his audience, the Apple Disciple - Dis-Apple? - is someone I wish would just turn down his own volume and leave me to my business.  The difference was the certainty, and the permeation into the everyday world.  Jehovah's Witnesses, potheads and the Friends of Mitt have nothing of the faith, conviction, pride and sheer numbers of the Apple People.  If so many claimed that Their Thing is So Much Better than Any Other, and nobody really stopped them in their tracks, maybe there was something to it?

And I was worried.  I was.  I was worried that they were all right.  I started to sorta believe that as soon as I imported my contacts and got my iPhone working, Sunnis and Shiites would throw away their guns and embrace.  Israelis and Palestinians would sign peace treaties and join arm-in-arm to sing songs of harmony.  Sauron himself would clear a path through Mordor for Frodo to cast the ring into the fire.  I'd owe so many apologies to so many people for pooh-poohing iPhones as just less than perfect.  I'd have to serve some kind of penance, and being a stubborn asshole, penance and I don't do very well together.

The day after I got set up with my dual iOS devices, two amazing things happened.

1)  I received a call from a lifelong Apple fanatic.  I expected excitement that my wife and I had just spent a small fortune we didn't have - and an afternoon corralling our two-year-old while we learned how to tap, swipe, pinch and multi-swipe our way to Utopia - to be one of Them.  We had the latest, the greatest devices and were card-carrying members of the Mac Republic - wouldn't my friend be maybe even a little jealous?

"But the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini will be out in a couple months; you're both already fucked.  What you have is obsolete and nobody will have it in six months; why'd you do that to yourself?  You wasted your money."

Now, the iPad kicks serious fucking ass.  I'm snobby as all Hell about it because (except for Trailers, which I'll mention in a bit) it actually lives up to the hype.  Which brings me to the other amazing thing that happened.

2)  My iPhone shut off its own Wi-Fi.  We were at the house and everything was fine, including that I'd set up and run my wi-fi connection, until one time I tried downloading an app that told me I needed a wi-fi connection, so I found my Settings app and turned it back on.  Actually, that's a lie.  I tried to turn it back on and it refused to go.  I gave it to my wife and she rebooted the phone for me.  The next day - and half the days since - it's done the same thing.

My apps (usually my IGN app) started to force-close themselves.  Navigating through Apple Trailers leads as often to pages failing to load, or trailers starting in HD then buffering and running in lower resolution, as it does to successful streaming.  I miss calls in areas where I have good service because the phone never rings or goes straight to voicemail.  Swiping from one page to another on my main screen hangs or freezes plenty often.  One person shows up as a separate entry each for their Facebook account, phone number and e-mail.  All just like my old smartphones.  All just like the other side of the fence.

Don't get me started on Apple Maps.

And, no sarcasm, no hate, thank God for it.  I'm so relieved that I hadn't wasted 11 years of my life on an insufferably miserable lifestyle when a perfect, problem-free alternative was just waiting in the wings.  What a blow to my anxiety that, just like the myriad other electronics I'd managed to anger/disgruntle beyond repair, iOS devices are, too, capable of developing their own free will and doing what they like rather than what I tell them to do.  I sleep better at night knowing that, if my mp3 player/PC/Droid friends ask, I can tell them from "behind enemy lines" that things are only a bit better, that iPhones are - like all other electronics - not always what they're hyped up to be...that they're only human after all.