I recently read there are approximately 2.3 billion Apple devices active worldwide — a figure that includes the five currently charging in various rooms of my home.
But Apple, consider yourself warned: If you want that figure to fall to 2,299,999,995, then please stop ignoring the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” adage. For I am about ready to abandon all of my Apple products and switch to…um, well I’m not sure exactly, as I’ve relied on Apple for so long that I haven’t had time to investigate the competition. But I did once see a guy on a plane using a Google Chromebook. Maybe I should have asked him a few questions.
I currently own an iMac, MacBook, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods. All have performed admirably, with life spans ranging somewhere between five years and “Greg has to finish an important project today, so let’s permanently crap out 10 seconds after he pushes the ‘power’ switch.”
When a device dies, I journey to my local Apple store, or fire up the company website on one of my still working devices, to purchase a replacement. Three times I’ve had to make a purchase due to my own absent-mindedness or carelessness. I left an iPad in the seat pocket of a United Airlines flight returning from Warsaw, Poland. I also left AirPods in a health club locker. Two months ago the replacement pair apparently fell from my pocket while I nursed a beer at a Chicago tavern. Apple’s ‘Find my Device’ feature confirmed both sets hadn’t moved from their lost locations, giving me hope when I returned to retrieve them. Management at both the health club and the bar produced a lost and found box containing an assortment of charging cords, sunglasses and water bottles but no AirPods.
For all I know the guy on the treadmill next to me is enjoying free music and podcasts, courtesy of my forgetfulness. Hopefully he at least sterilized his “gift.”
Time to Unnecessarily Upgrade the Airpods
If you’re keeping score, I am now on my third set of AirPods. Also my most frustrating set. You see, the engineers at Apple have decided that, in order to justify their existence and their paychecks, they needed to create some “new features,” which is Apple-speak for “features not wanted and not needed.”
For example, when I wanted to skip a song on my playlist while working out, I merely tapped the right pod twice. With the recently purchased Apple 4 AirPods, I must squeeze the right pod’s stem. Twice.
That’s correct; Apple decided squeezing was easier than tapping. I can only imagine how this new concept was presented to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
ENGINEER: Mr Cook, we believe our loyal customers prefer squeezing over tapping.
COOK: Wow! Amazing! Let me stick a pair in my ears and see for myself.
ENGINEER: Absolutely.
COOK. Let me just adjust the pod. OK. Wait, I can’t hear anything.
ENGINEER: You probably muted the Airpods.
COOK: How did I do that?
ENGINEER: You must have squeezed the stem when you were making the adjustment. You squeeze once for mute, twice for skip. We added that feature too!
COOK: I’m very confused
ENGINEER: Precisely the idea.
COOK: If we added a useless feature, then I guess the AirPods are ready to ship. Now please send in the engineer who removed the iPad home button for no apparent reason. I wish to congratulate him as well. But before you go, have you heard from the iPhone team? It’s about time we come out with some new, useless, confusing features for that as well.
ENGINEER: Well, I can’t speak for them but I’ve heard they are just about finished with the new “blink to talk” feature.
COOK: Excuse me?
ENGINEER: Yes, the new phones will allow you to answer calls by blinking once. Then, when you wish to end the call, you blink twice.
COOK: And if you blink three times?
ENGINEER: Your music playlist launches. So, essentially, ‘blink to play, squeeze to skip, blink to stop.”
COOK: Amazing! Hopefully we can ship those by Christmas.
