@mattjackass what?!?! that shit looks like a beautiful piece of tech (including the back)

@mattjackass lol thats why i got a case!!

I dont like this guy.

lol the back of the phone is freaking ugly

i dont like this guy.

The most valuable asset of Apple is probably its marketing division!

Remember, Apple was from beginning a computers company and that’s an area they are still good at and I guess the iPhone is an example of that. So it was not an Internet company nor a telephone company. So to me the iPhone feels more like a PDA with Internet capabilities than a cell phone. But hey, as long as people are buying it Apple is happy. Regardless of how good or bad it is.

But the Apple iPhone is not the superphone as people often seem to see it as. It is not as superior to the competition as the first successful Apple computers were. It is inferior in several ways to the Andorid platform, or even to the Symbian and MeeGo platforms. But still! Apple manages to hoist it up and proclaim it as the phone of the phones, as “reinventing the phone” even thou it has terrible noise cancellation, bad signal and it’s really not much of a phone. It’s more of an tablet.

So today, the odds have never been more even. In some sense the PC platform is even superior to the Mac. Given the fact that it is not a locked hardware like the Mac. Being able to, legally run, an optimized version of OS X on a PC would be amazing! A Thrilla in Manila, a Rumble in the Jungle!

Things like Boot Camp, and running Windows on Mac, or even running OS X on a PC (illegally of course, since Apple still refuses to sell their OS as a separate product even when they have a working platform for it).

But back in the 80′s, Apple had products that were superior to the competition! Today however, the Mac and the PC platform have never been closer to each other and in some sense they even overlap each other if you think about it. The amount of software applications available, the amount of software available for both, and most importantly the switch from IBM to Intel processors on Macs.

When people stop using their common sense when deciding whether or not to buy a new product, that’s when they become Apple fanatics. And I have to admit that Apple is very good at this. What made Apple special and different from other manufacturers back in the 80′s? Marketing! It was by far their advertisements that really spoke to people and back then few even knew what a computer was and what they could do with it.

So these are the things that mostly irritates me about Apple and their fancy iPhone. I know from talking to other people in Europe that many are unsatisfied by this. Not all are unsatisfied, obviously, otherwise no one would buy an iPhone in Europe. But many people who were up to buying an iPhone have refused to do so because of this. Some fanatics have put a blind fold over the eyes and done so anyway, ignoring what their common sense is telling them.

You can also bail your self out of a contract so to speak, by paying the remaining amount at once and you are not tied by the contract anymore. But I’m sure that’s common in the US as well… I think… I hope. I believe I’ve heard some talk about it when they were discussing the pricing and contracting for the then new iPhone 3GS and Apple had just opened up a new store in NY. So I believe that’s possible, it should be anyway. But with the way the US market is dictated… hey, you never know.

In Sweden, it’s up to the customer if he wants a new cell phone with a contract or without the contract. Like I said. Usually, customers chose to get a new cell phone with a contract only when they don’t want to pay anything for the phone right away. In that case, they can get the phone for a symbolic price like 1 SEK, which is 0,13 USD (less then a quarter) or even for 0 USD and then pay an extra monthly fee for the phone till the end of the contract.

In Sweden, it’s normal to be able to chose between a 12, 18 or 24 month contracts. While at the same time, it is normally only possible to get the iPhone (any version) with the 24 month (2 year) contract, not with a 18 month nor with a 12 month contract. Regardless of how much you payed for the phone the first time, or if you payed the full price for the phone.

That’s sad… there was a time you know, when we in Europe also had cell phones that were locked to a specific carrier. But time is long gone. It was like in the 1990′s with GSM phones. Hello America! Wake up! Thou we did never have this practice we find with the iPhone where you are forced to sign on a new contract or extend the existing one just to get the phone. If you payed the full price for the phone, it was yours! You could add a contract to it only if you wanted to.

In America it is normal that a phone is only sold with a 2 year contract, and it is normal that it is locked to only that carrier. If you would offer an American a cell phone without a contract he would probably freak out and refuse to take it, believing that a cell phone without a contract, and with no ties to the carrier is some sort of scam, that you are trying to rip him off.

These are the most radical, the most bizarre things from your point of view, because you my friends have never had this kind of liberty to chose what ever you like. You my friends are enslaved by the carriers and phone manufacturers policies and rules and what not. I’m sorry… I just don’t understand you Americans. I kind of feel sad for you.

Here in Europe, you can easily take out your SIM card and put in a SIM card from any other carrier in the country or even from a different European country, and it can be either one of the two types – a pre-paid card, or a card that has a contract tied to it – and it will work!

Why would it be locked to the carrier?

Just to make sure that the phone is used on the same carrier network that the contract is signed with?

Why is that important?

Just to make sure that the “right” carrier gets paid from calling rates and calling fees?

The carrier that you sign a contract with still gets its money. You usually pay a monthly fee to your carrier, one fee for the contract and one for the phone itself (unless you payed the full price for the phone upon signing the contract).

Another thing that’s probably even more science fiction to you Yankees is that even if the customer decides he wants a new mobile phone with a contract, the phone is not locked to the carrier that he signed the contract with!

You Yankees don’t get it, do you?

It’s probably science fiction to you that a consumer aka customer is able to walk into a phone carriers store or even a regular retail store and is given the liberty to decide if he wants to buy the cell phone with either a contract, or with a pre-paid SIM card, or none of it for that matter and just cash out the phone with no questions asked. You see, this is nothing unusual in Europe, in Sweden in particular.

Let’s face it, Apple is not what it used to be! Apple as of today is the very thing they were fighting against in the beginning. It was not until the last few years that we have seen the real face and intension of Apple and Steve Jabberwacky. It’s a bad copy of the villainous Max Zorin corporation from A View To Kill.

Sorry Apple, you have lost me indefinitely. Well, technically, you never had me to begin with. Thankfully! And you never will! Not with these absurd what you call rules or policy of yours. I hate dictators! Honestly, don’t you?

Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free – Steve Wozniak – Technology – The Atlantic: via