It Only Takes One Bad Apple

What would the 21st century be without Apple?

Undoubtedly, with its continuous innovation and strive for perfection, Apple has made tremendous leaps and bounds in our contemporary lives that are becoming increasingly integrated with technology. Apple’s continuum of products from the iPod, to the iPod mini; the iPod nano; the iPod Touch; the iPad, and let’s not forget the iPhone – especially their most recent release, the iPhone 4 – have built a legion of consumers that would rather die than forfeit their consumer sovereignty over to rivals such as Windows, Nokia, or Sony and the like.

But Apple may have finally stumbled upon the hiccup that its corporate enemies have waited for after nearly three years of Apple’s authoritarian rule of the mobile phone industry in North America. With the recent release of the iPhone 4, there have already been streams of consumer complaints on antenna issues many devices are currently experiencing. The blogosphere has been on overdrive with reports stating that the new golden child of Apple’s iPhone line misrepresents signal strength, and most flawed of all: drops calls when held in a certain way in the palm of one’s hand.

To add to the mounting controversy is that the issue arises from an inherent flaw in the design of the iPhone 4. Critics with growing evidence say that the product design of having the phone’s two antennae wrapped around the device rather than keeping them within is directly causing the new iPhone’s susceptibility to weakened connections.

As an avid Nokia mobile phone user for the past several years, all I can say is – finally. Please pardon my possible sardonic tone from this point and onwards. Apple is definitely a great company, don’t get me wrong, I am just at times disgusted at how their marketing campaigns – intentional or not – demonize their customers into loyal but mindless drones that ignore all other products on the market. I mean really, even two years ago, I had used the Nokia N95 8GB, and it completely stomped the iPhone 3G in virtually every aspect: the iPhone couldn’t even multitask third-party applications back then – but iPhone fanboys/girls continued to worship the phone on a pedestal as if it were the best smart phone to ever come out. I mean, have you seen Apple stores on the day a new product is released? People literally line up several days before an awaited release at some stores, and when the day comes, Apple employees run into the store with their fabricated enthusiasm as their beloved and loyal consumers engage in their infectious Apple dogma.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 4 is a great phone in many aspects – it’s hard to ignore its sleek design, Retina Display, and HD video capturing capabilities – but people shouldn’t forget that there are other alternative smartphones out there, ones that are possibly better suited for different people.  We’ve got to be careful: we can’t make it THAT easy for Apple to achieve their monopoly, and believe me,

they are trying.