crApple

I have an iPod. Two of them in fact. And I have long been an Apple partisan, having been the owner of a series of Macintosh desktop systems. But I'm getting fed up.

My iPod Touch is--or rather, was--a delightful piece of technology. But then it took a swan dive into the toilet, and this unscheduled dip had, shall we say, a negative effect on it. The screen turned dopey, and no longer displays everything in clear, sharp, vibrant tones. But it's still readable, for the most part. And the speaker/headphone interface wound up screwed up; the music being played would come out of the speaker even when the headphones were plugged in, thus decreasing the volume going into the ears and rendering the volume control non-operable. Not great, but the machine retained some measure of its functionality. Apps still worked, info kept being stored, the music would play, albeit in a crippled state.

Then Apple released an update to the system software. And ever since that update installed on the Touch, there have been issues. The music volume, already problematic, now has developed a habit of going schizo right in the middle of playing, with the usual result being the iPod stops playback by itself. This renders listening to the sounds frustrating, at best.

So I tried to perform a restore on my Touch. The panel in iTunes clearly says, if you're having problems with your iPod, try to restore it. So I did. Except, when I did, the computer informed me that "there was a problem." The upshot being, it couldn't restore my iPod to its last known settings. Hence, some of my personal info--app content and settings, mostly--got lost in the process. (Oddly, not all; just most of it.) Boom. Gone. Several months worth of checklists, high scores, bookmarks, etc. down the drain.

You may ask, well, what do you expect? You're Touch is broken. Yes, it is, but it was not functionally broken. It still worked, and showed no sign of not working before the software update. Being dinged up should not be a death sentence for a piece of tech. My old iPod mini--the one I now use for music listening--has gone through many a hell of knocks and drops, and it survives quite nicely and does what it always has done. And I've heard stories of other pieces of equipment that have been through a lot--some even through the washing machine--and still came out working. What's up with the Touch that it's so fragile?

Plus, remember, it wasn't the brief toilet swim that knocked it out of semi-working condition. It was limping along, but usable, before the update. It's a software issue, not a hardware issue. And it's further complicated by another software issue: those backups iTunes runs every time you link up your iPod apparently aren't worth shit. Because when the time comes to restore...oops, can't do it.

This episode--along with other recent news--only increases my sense that Apple more and more doesn't give a shit about the quality of its products. It only cares about getting them publicity and selling them.

And that has me thinking about the future. At some point, I may need to seriously reconsider my choice for a computer. And a personal music player. And whatever else the future has to offer. Because Apple is not making the grade. And now, for the first time ever, I'd have to say that if I were asked by someone on the fence, someone looking to buy a first computer or phone or whatever, I would not automatically recommend anything Steve Jobs has had his hands on.

Think different indeed.