Tech corner

I don’t get the vast flat-screen TV thing. I get my fixes of moving images from YouTube or the video player on my PC and Samsung Galaxy. The picture is a few inches across and blurred, but I don’t notice if I’m watching something of unsurpassed excellence, like (say) this. But people who are into having a 78-inch black shiny slab CurvedScreenTVon the wall take the devices very seriously. If there’s an HDTV version, which makes everything look weirdly unreal – or hyper-real, perhaps – they must have it. If there’s a 3D version – enabling viewers to watch garbage while wearing funny spectacles simply for the novelty of seeing something float in front of themselves – they must have that as well.

The latest thing is a curved flat-screen TV. What’s the point? There isn’t one. Like razors with three blades (or four, etc), it’s a stupid gimmick. The crap-production industry keeps creating new variants of crap because they know a certain type of consumer will unthinkingly go out and buy them.

Which brings us to the latest iPhone. The people who are lining up all night to buy these things may seem like cretins, but actually they are smart. Assuming they’re not caught, they can sell the gizmos over the border for perhaps double what they paid. It’s the end-users, who absolutely must have the latest model now, who are the schmucks.

The latest iPhone is also curved. Or at least some are. But unlike the vast TVs, they’re not supposed to be. They get that way because people are too fat, or maybe not. So the zombie-like hordes go to great expense and effort to acquire the precious iPhone 6 because it exists, then start whining because some of its most desirable features – it’s a bit bigger, a bit thinner – also make it crumple up more easily, as you would iPhoneexpect when you think about it.

The unveiling of the iPhone Akimbo (as we shall rename it) coincided with the downloading of an operating system update for my own much-detested iPhone (5, presumably). This was one of those updates where the software engineers change the look of every feature for no reason at all. So a button that was once at the top of the screen is now at the bottom. The icon that used to be one colour is now another. Things that used to be clear and distinct, like the bit you swipe to start the thing up, are now merged into the background design, so you can’t see them.

It also gets spooky. I mainly use the employer-issued contraption as a camera. Without being asked, it now divides my photos up in new (needless to say pointless) ways. It has also labeled them with their supposed location – including those taken months ago. It hasn’t done it very well: it says a photo taken in my bathroom emanates from Cotton Tree Drive, which is miles out, and it places the (not bad) Dan Dan – Soul Food from Sichuan in Wing Lok St and Bonham Strand, when it’s basically overlooking Queens Rd. It gets Discovery Bay right, though it’s a big place. But the fact that it does this at all is sort of impressive, even though I can’t think of a purpose for this function.

I shall now attempt to answer in pictures the question: what is an iPhone good for?

To record…

Toothpaste

Food-selfies…DanDan

etc…SeparatedAtBirth

This entry was posted in Blog. Bookmark the permalink.

8 Responses to Tech corner

  1. Dave says:

    Showing your age a bit with this one, eh?

  2. C.Law says:

    Bending phones are just another indication of the stupidity of the consumer.

  3. Mjrelje says:

    Well I wish I’d not hit ‘agree’ when my ‘phone requested that I update to some unrecognisable code number. The long and short of of it that as I wasn’t currently at my usual wifi location / home, I lost all of my photos from the past year. Utter cnuts that constantly delete your own cd tracks each time you back-up unless they have been brought from Apple iTunes Store. The updates, now that I do have them, seem more designed for the <5 y.o. market.

  4. cnut says:

    So, by implication, the Samsung Galaxy is oh-so-perfect, and free from all tech glitches?!

    Anyone who bashes Apple for being a huge success or a sitting duck, or whatever excuse, does it out of envy, if not bias.

  5. Headache says:

    cnut

    And what shall we say about Apple fanatics who leap upon the least critique as sacrilege? Where was any implication relating to Samsung? Take your cultish, brainwashed mouth-frothing elsewhere. Apple may or may not have the best product but, regardless, to voice criticism or complaint is not heresy. God I’m sick of people like you.

  6. Joe Blow says:

    I always suspected that you were a Quality Street sort of person. It takes a certain kind.

    Who, in this day and age, would eat vile confections like Quality Street toffees or be so socially inept to gift them to someone else ?

  7. C.Law says:

    Mjrelje,

    you have my sympathy, but only to a limited extent . How come you had not backed up your pictures for a year? After all, you could have left your phone in a taxi, it doesn’t just take a botched update to make you lose your photos.

    As for the rest, why are you still using a system you find so user unfriendly?

    cnut,

    was that an attempt at sarcasm? If not, Headache has my vote.

  8. Not everyone has perfect eyesight – I use a 27-inch monitor on my PC because I need it. And you obviously don’t watch foreign films in the original language, because who can read subtitles on a screen a few inches across?

Comments are closed.