By: Kaitlynn Jong
Dear Apple,
I’ve been your loyal customer for almost five years now. It’s been a long and winding journey for our love-hate relationship, but through it all I remain dazzled by your sleek coolness. So when I heard that you released your new operating system iOS 8, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.
Twas bright and early when I updated my phone, because I needed to see what the hype was about. As per usual I was subject to hours of torture – it’s like our annual big fight that you always win. I blame this stress in large part on the fact that I have the lowest iPhone on the totem pole now, the 4S. Maybe this is the price I must pay for you to keep loving me.
The best thing about iOS 8 was obviously the experience of downloading it. Two hours into my hundred-foot journey to update my phone, I was prompted to restore my phone because the update had completely erased everything on it. After four hours of blood, sweat and tears I had final achieved the sadly disappointing update, which continues to make my phone slower than SOLAR on registration day. Though this is definitely not the first or last issue I’ve had with you, I still continuously invest in you like the devoted customer I am.
Before I get too riled up though, I should commend you for everything you give me. iOS 8 has many new features that (are supposed to) make using an iPhone even easier than before. It includes features like being able to respond to a text notification quickly without exiting the application you are currently in—I hate it when mom interrupts a game of Candy Crush. With this new update, I can also send audio files to friends through iMessage, because society has decided that texting is too much work.
As per tradition, iOS 8 also tries to take out another company that you wouldn’t consider to be Apple’s competition. That’s right; Siri has set her sights on Shazam. And perhaps most importantly, you can now take selfies on a timer. Of course there are many more features, but all pale in comparison to the 10 seconds you can now take to compose your duck face.
All this doesn’t matter anymore though as I’m now struggling with the choice of a 16gb or a 64gb iPhone 6 because you decided to cut the only reasonable storage amount, the 32gb. Apple, why do you continuously hurt the people that love you so much?
With love (laced in hate),
Your loyal groupie
As the tech industry becomes increasingly marred by planned obsolescence, it can be incredibly exhausting to keep up with all the new devices seemingly thrust into the world out of nowhere. But while many flocked to Apple’s site this month to take in the specs of the latest iPhone — and hear Jony Ive’s terrific pronunciation of “aluminum” — I found myself scorning the new device in order to mourn the death of an esteemed old one.
In an unforeseen move, Apple has ceased production of the iPod Classic. What was once its marquee music player has now been unceremoniously pulled from the Apple website without much fanfare.
There is almost no reason for anyone to care with many other options available, but I still felt personally aggrieved and fair bit sentimental upon hearing the news, considering I still use mine to this day.
Born and bred with a touch screen close at hand, today’s youth have no reason to be nostalgic for a time when navigating one’s music library meant using a cumbersome click-wheel.
Despite its sometimes-tedious interface, the Classic was a music nerd’s dream with its one hundred and sixty gigabytes of storage and its understatedly sleek design. In many ways, the Classic was the gateway to a life spent obsessing over music.
I still remember with a touch of pride the day my library expanded to the point where my paltry sixteen gigabyte Nano couldn’t contain it; I could finally justify the purchase of a Classic to my mom whose credit card I would borrow to make the purchase at the store, as my debit had a hundred dollar limit (before you mock me, this was in grade ten).
I rushed home to unbox my prize and cradled it with tenderness normally reserved for newborns. The black iPod had a certain heft to it that made it a pleasure to hold in the palm of my hand and I vowed to keep it in pristine form for as long as possible.
As with all machines, it had a number of eccentricities that made it all the more loveable, including the gentle whir of its inner mechanisms. Although I was careful with it through the years, my iPod now has a few knocks that could have been avoided — did I really have to stick it in my hoodie pocket only for it to fall out during my run? —but it is still steadily plugging along.
Over time, I’ve gradually filled its innards with more newly discovered music – and I only have twenty-five gigs left. It saddens me that the sixty-four gigabyte touch is the largest iPod people have to choose from now, but I realize that with the popularization of cloud-based streaming services like Spotify and the gradual cheapening of data plans, large storage capacity won’t be necessary in the future.
Although I’ll still stick with mine for the time being, it pains me to say farewell to a mammoth. Take care, iPod classic. Don’t forget to eject before disconnecting.
