iphone, apple, evil, etc.

I'm getting flak for buying an iPhone. Some of it is because it's an Apple product, and Apple is considered a purveyor of evil in some circles - of which more anon. Some of it is because the two networks you can use with iPhone are both supporters of neo-conservative political groups. AT&T infamously gives money to the Tea Party, for instance. The rest of it is just because of the in-crowd, poseur, pod-people kind of behavior ascribed to Apple users, especially iPhone users.

As for money going to the Tea Party, from a progressive standpoint, the power of the Tea Party among the GOP isn't entirely bad news, if you think about it. If Michele Bachmann runs for President in 2012, it's going to be very obvious to many more people just how insane she and her political ideas are.

The reason I went for the Apple smart phone is because I'm an Apple user and wanted the greatest possible integration of the various gizmos in my life. There is also a particular kind of user experience that Apple products provide, that I'm comfortable with and used to.

Here's the thing: the iPhone is what we got instead of flying jet cars. Of the futurist notions of technological changes in how we travel, communicate, and so on, the one that's actually come true is right there in that little bitty shiny black device.

And Apple is, indeed, evil. They have a market strategy that can only be the result of dealing with Satan. Their target is, approximately, me. Yesterday I was on customer support several times, trying to work out an upgrade to Leopard for my old iBook G4. Every time I was on hold, I mean every time, the music was exactly pitched to flatter how hip I still manage to be, despite being of a certain age when hips become more a concern than hipness.

The machines are cool. The store is cool. They go out of their damned way, with regard to every aspect of everything they do, to make it just that bit more cool: layout of the sales floor, down to the spacing of the units apart from each other, how staff approach you, that whole Genius Bar silliness. It's strangely exhausting. (We went through a phenomenological and ideological analysis of the store Friday night and unpacked this whole shebang, but I neglected to take notes. Maybe I'll recap it some time.)

So, yep, evil.