Contrary to what the hype would have had you believe, Christ himself did not return to Earth this past Friday to render judgment. Apple simply released a cell phone. Now that the day of days has come and gone and the planet is recovering from its collective hangover, we think it's time to step back and ask ourselves just what the heck happened. What did we all get caught up in?
It's no secret that just about every media outlet on Earth has a crush on Apple and its demigod leader, Steve Jobs. Even we here at Switched can be accused of, perhaps, paying too much attention to the goings on at One Infinite Loop (that's the Cupertino, California street address of Apple HQ. The fact that we can usually list this address with no further explanation only helps illustrate the seriousness of the epidemic we're dealing with here).
Apple, in the eyes of most, is worthy of sainthood. Its products and ethos aren't just good, we seem to think they're somehow good for humanity. The company can do no wrong. And even when it does make mistakes, the media fails to acknowledge them. We're blinded. In denial. that this is an abusive relationship, and which Apple has the upper hand.
Let's see.
David Pogue's review of the iPhone was the cover story of The New York Time's Business section, an honor that, as far as we know, has never been given to a cell phone. This isn't to belittle Pogue's coverage. He's usually honest and spot on. He even points out the absurdity of the hype in his opening sentences, noting that the iPhone has "been the subject of 11,000 print articles, and it turns up about 69 million hits on Google... bloggers call it the 'Jesus Phone.'"
Meanwhile, tech blogs (like yours truly) seem to think it's necessary to report on every Apple rumor, no matter how mundane or far-fetched. Any time the Apple store goes down,
Engadget will let you know just in case Apple finally releases its long awaited iJobs personal cancer-curing robot. If Apple has a patent filed for something, you can bet the crappy patent filing sketches will turn up on at least a hundred tech blogs along with ridiculous predictions about future Apple products. Even we thought that the iPhone dock, literally a piece of plastic that holds your iPhone, deserved an
article of it's own.
Slate has an article up bemoaning the hype that surrounds just about everything Apple does. It takes particular umbrage with the media's coverage of the iPod with Video release, where many media outlets seemed to ignore the fact that Apple was a bit late to the party on that front. The Globe and Mail even had an article titled, "Apple Seeds New Markets With Video Version of iPod," as if no one had ever thought to put videos in the palm of a person's hand before.
Our own
iPhone review round up captures the verdicts of several reviewers, but leaves out the flowery language that disguises any of the faults they may discuss. "Sophisticated," "outlook changing," (Pogue) "vivid," (
Levy) ... We can't tell if they're talking about a phone or the Sistine Chapel.
Perhaps the biggest sign that the media is a little too head over heels for Apple comes from Pogue's otherwise fair assessment of the most hyped gadget ever. One of his biggest complaints (among many others) is the excruciatingly slow speed of AT&T's EDGE data network. But Pogue lays the blame at AT&T's feet as if Apple had no choice in the matter. Apple could have crammed a 3G radio into the handset at the cost of battery life, but it chose not to. AT&T has a blazing fast HSDPA network that is faster than most DSL lines, and yet Apple passed it up. In fact, the in the days following the release of the Jesus Phone, the only complaints we're hearing are about AT&T. It's not Apple's fault the network is slow. It's not Apple's fault customers had problems activating their phones. And forget about buying the iPhone at an AT&T store, the Apple store is much better. Etc, etc, etc.
Of course, Apple isn't without its haters (we've published a few
reasons not to buy the iPhone ourselves). Tech blogger and author
David Platt is convinced the iPhone will ultimately flop because its design is "fundamentally flawed." He sees too many features, a complicated interface and a lack of tactile feedback as being deal breakers for most consumers. But tell that to the
700,000 people who bought the iPhone since Friday.
And let's not forget John Dvorak of PC Magazine. He recently published an editorial entitled "Shut Up About the iPhone Already!" He's made it abundantly clear that he is not impressed with the iPhone and complains about the incessant press saying, "Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland." Ouch.
But cranky pants Dvorak aside, it's obvious that there is something wrong here. Though the tech site CNET gives Apple's OSX operating system only slightly higher marks than Windows Vista, articles on the site routinely talk about Vista as if it were an STD. Engadget posted a
30 year retrospective of Apple, when doing the same for Dell or HP would be considered absurd. Remember the original iMac? Or iBook? Those candy-colored fashion PCs that were underpowered, overpriced and ran the ridiculously outdated OS 9? When released, they were heralded as a new era for computing.
Think for a minute about what everyone's attitudes toward Apple would be if history had forked in the other direction and made Apple the big dog instead of Microsoft. Everyone complains about how restrictive and oppressive Microsoft is, but take a good hard look at Apple's lock on the iPod and iTunes. Look at its refusal to open up iPhone to third-party applications. Why are these crimes excusable when lesser offenses committed by Microsoft are met with the contempt of just about the entire Internet? We don't want to sound like Microsoft evangelists here, because we're certainly not (see our
coverage of the Zune). We just like to wonder what the world would be like if Apple and Microsoft switched places. Imagine how impressed the media would be with Microsoft's underdog operating system that runs on any computer, unlike Apple's locked operating system, which requires the purchase of an Apple computer.
The iPhone is a big moment for Apple, and not just because of all the money and market share it'll earn. This isn't like the Apple TV or Mac Mini where no one cares if it lives or dies. If the iPhone is a long-term success, it'll catapult Apple into a new stratosphere; it'll prove that all of this positive press and public good will is deserved. If it fails, however, we're sensing a backlash the likes of which Apple has never experienced, and from which it may never recover.
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