So, a couple months ago, I reluctantly updated my iphone.
I hadn’t done it for a while, so it went from version 1-point-have-you-heard-of-this-new-thing-called-the-wheel to the latest: iOS-can-I-have-the-old-one-back-immediately-please. I was momentarily relieved (as I indicated in a blog entry) because the rewards were many. And money. Literally – ‘cause I’d only done it so I could use a new and improved app that’d replace the abomination called Paypal. This was a good anesthetic for the fact that I’d somehow managed to lose all my media and contacts in the process (I wasn’t using The Cloud – I didn’t trust it; still not sure if I do – and iTunes froze and shut down). However, like all painkillers, the effects wore off after reality came crashing back down around me.
And, suddenly, all I had was a giant sack of everything I’ve never wanted.
Overflowing from a box gift wrapped in the dog shit idiom “new and improved”.
It started small.
Those little things that are big enough to put a thorn in your sneaker, but not big enough to cut off the whole foot in an act of masochistic retaliation. Then, I noticed I couldn’t do the fun video-splice function on Instagram. Sounds small, but those little editing tweaks made that visually delicious corner of social media a pure delight. To be fair, I’m not sure if IG’s updates are a whole separate thing from when iphone updates its iOS. But what I do know is that this change only came after I updated my phone. I also know that you’ll find the answer they gave about this in the FAQs rather amusing:
Wait… tell me again how taking away a feature which formerly resided among the few motivations to make me put down a vein designated razor on dark and lonely nights… is an improvement? What you mean by “easier” is that it’ll be easier for the collective by not slowing down the program. You forget something important: I don’t sit at home, playing on a phone and removed from humanity because I care about humanity or their vexations at my video’s slow loading. Give it back now. So they can validate me with likes. GIVE IT TO ME.
And even the stuff that is supposed to be actually new and improved (not just updated – you can’t really have something be new if it’s been around long enough to be improved, can you?), isn’t. Today, for instance, I tried to employ one such feature when I was made aware that my natural proclivity for distraction is perpetually exacerbated by the notifications going off on my phone. (And I can’t turn it off – takes too long to get a connection when I turn it back on.) Even on silent, it bzzzzzes away to the dismay of my too-acute auricles, ever receiving and conducting the slightest peripheral ping of a pinfall to my tympanic membrane without hestitation, thereby ringing the work alarm for the sweatshop of synapses slaving away ceaselessly in my dome.
So I tried that DND thing.
It’s a new feature that was one of the many hidden gem rewards for this update I made. But really, it’s more like the ruby Abu tries to steal from the cave. I pick it up, all glittering with the promise of productivity for the next several hours. Then, boom. The optical equivalent of what my ears did, described in detail several lines above, transpires. A notification pops-up on my phone. Which it shouldn’t – according to the feature’s promises – do. And though it’s across the room, it’s no match for my sniper eyes. This visual information immediate shoots down my optic nerve and pierces my brain, culminating in the mental equivalent to an upper-stimulant given to a Down-syndrome child. Who could it be? Who’s texting me this early? Why? Why didn’t the feature work? Now I’m angry. Didn’t it say “mute notifications”? Isn’t that what it said? Why did they lie? (Mind you, these inner monologues always unfold in something akin to a Marky Mark voice – fire-eyed and ready to fight an invisible opponent – presumably my own brain against my own brain)
(No stereotypical characters better describe the tone of my inner world than those this man plays)
I pick up my phone to see who the culprit was.
Oh, you want to know too? That’s nice. But I dunno. Because now – an hour later, after following up my read and reply with a marathon perusal of version-unworthy-Instagram for hilarious brain deadening memes – I couldn’t even tell you who it was. But my morning’s definitely fccked. That’s it, I think. No going back now. Might as well pack it in, go for a jog, or just lay here and start thinking of things I can masturbatorily wallow and feel angry about until I climax into the anti-orgasm AKA anxiety attack. Starting with my whole reason for making today a halfsie. Effing iphone. Effing UPDATES, I hate them.
Downgrade is the new upgrade.
Instead, I pack up my grudge luggage and take a road trip on the dusty roads o’ Google.
Along the way, I find more than a few people who seem to agree with me. “Why doesn’t the function do what it says it will?”… “Why didn’t they include this in their update?” Yeah, I think. And I’m totally confused. Because despite all the friendly people agreeing with me on this trip, I’m a bit lost. I’m happy to not update my iphone next go round, but if I don’t, it pesters me and withholds functions. If I do, I lose things I like and gain half-assed replacements. “Aw, shucks. Sorry about that! We’ll fix it in next round – which is soon! Make sure to update!” Seems a bit too convenient a mistake for what’s meant to be one of the smartest companies around, doesn’t it? It’s like the built in obsoletion dates that ensure you give more money for a replacement when your music player disintegrates into dust before it should (or could, at least, if they hadn’t defected the original model to make the beta break sooner for the consumer). Except here, could it be our information that’s the transaction? I mean, if you’re not a cloud user (what the hell happens on that cloud anyway?), then every time you update, you either are forced to evaporate your personal info into aforementioned mystery fog, or lose everything. And these updates are demanded a lot. Why? Because of glaringly obvious functional shortcomings that could’ve been avoided in the one we just had.
I’m trying to love you, phone. But you’re just making it so hard with your bullshit and sneakiness.
Still, I suppose if we put on our telescopic goggles to seek the silver lining on The Cloud and updates and general phone fckkery causing my caustic rant, we might find it in the following: sure, it might now be a slow morning and I might be a little hot under the collar I’m not wearing (though if I did, it’d look like my shih-tzu’s, have James Franco’s address on it, and I’d be writing this from the phone I hate while wandering the streets acting lost). But at least this highly informative conspiracy theory came of it for you to enjoy. And, lord knows, I sure hope you did.
Because I’ve managed to wind myself into a fervor worthy of indulging my favorite sin: wrath.
And this Double-O-rwellian plastic brick of voluntary self-espionage?
It may just be today’s weapon of choice….