OK, here’s the thing. Apple piss me off. I hate them. And yes, some of this hatred is definitely as completely irrational as the legions of Mac fanboys and girls that repeatedly slam their javelins into Steve Job’s USB port. In fact, some of my hatred is positively inspired by it.I like PCs. But when nVidia announce a GPU, or Logitech announce a wireless keyboard, or LG break the news that they’re releasing a thinner monitor, I don’t thrust my hand straight into my pants. Nor do I spend hundreds upon hundreds of pounds to upgrade something that’s at best, a little bit better (or corrects horrifyingly obvious mistakes). And after said purchase, I don’t become a 21st Century Jehovah’s Witness. There’s little more annoying that when you say to a Mac disciple something like “No, actually, I have a PC.” and they smile, as if they’ve pitying a mentally disabled person. Because that’s the kind of thing Mac owners do. They pity the disabled.
Between upgrading my phone, Sony released at least five impressive updates on their range, but mine worked OK, so I sat out. Then when my contract came up for renewal, I went for a better model, and it was stolen from me a few weeks later. I think the moral of the story is clear. Don’t panda to advertising and consumerism, or people from Peckham will threaten you and steal your things. Ironically for this article, the only thing they didn’t take was my iPod. They must have already had the newer version.
If you’re wondering what inspired this tirade against Apple, it’s the announcement of their new line of products. They’ve updated a load of stuff, making everything faster, smaller, rounder and most importantly, shinier. In the promo material from their new Magic Mouse, I found some rather mystifying sentences. For example:
“You can’t help but marvel at its smooth, buttonless appearance.”
This seems to imply that when I see this product, I’m going to do something that, up until this point, I’ve never done to a mouse before. I’m going to marvel at it. Yes, marvel. At a mouse. I think I’ve only really marvelled maybe five times in my entire life. I think I may once have marvelled at an incredible clear night sky, when I was in the company of someone special, feeling very important in one person’s life, whist the seemingly infinite universe appeared to confirm the opposite, that no human endeavour is of any consequence, in such a vast, timeless cosmos that we happen to inhabit, all the time this exquisite juxtaposition exposing what really we mean by ‘spirituality’, and maybe even the notion of God. Mice rarely evoke these feelings. It goes on:
“Then you touch it and instantly appreciate how good it feels in your hand.”
To me, and I’m sorry about this, this just sounds plain smutty. I giggled quite a lot. Childish or not, it’s laughable advertising. Come on, when you read it, you thought of something dirty, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Yeah you did.
The next line I’m going to pick out I’m not really going to explain, because it conjured up some rather enjoyable images when I first read it, and I wouldn’t want to influence what occurs to anyone else on reading it:
“Inside Magic Mouse is a chip that tells it exactly what you want to do.”
I want to isolate that sentence from the rest of the text and just say it to people when I’m introduced to them. See what happens. They go on to claim that the mouse will work on:
“…nearly every surface — whether it’s a table at your favourite cafe or the desk in your home office.”
So, those are the two surfaces at either end of this vast spectrum that includes ‘nearly every surface’? Two different types of table? If I bought a mouse that cost £5 and I put it on a table and it didn’t work, I’d be shocked. Optical mice have been the norm for, what, about 8 years now? When was the last time anyone actually bought and used a mouse mat? The last two that I had were either part of a members pack from the ECB that I thought was cool, or one adorned with a ghastly picture of Kylie Minogue, that my brother gave me for a joke. We thought it was hilarious! A mouse mat of all things! That’s so 1996! If, for some reason, I spent £55 on a mouse, I’d want it to work on jeans at the very least. I’d probably want it to work if I floated it on the surface of my bath. Not just tables with slightly different veneers.
And finally, so as I can set up a short, smart-arse last line to my first blog post of a decent length in quite some time:
“When you combine Magic Mouse with the Apple Wireless Keyboard, you create a workspace free of annoying cables.”
Unless you’ve got an iPod.
Turned out not to be as good as I’d hoped.
A bit like the new range of Apple products.
PSYCHE!
db
