Why iPhones and iPads are just a load of app

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our fifth guest post comes from Kevin Duffy, an experienced journalist who now runs Duffy Media.

iPod… iPad…iPhone…I don’t and I won’t have one of these over-hyped and over-priced slabs of glass and metal.

Apple sold over 20m iPhones during the three months ending in June, and 9.25m iPads – and I simply cannot understand why the damn things are so popular.

For the record, I do have a mobile phone – a nice HTC Desire. But Apple acolytes are on a mission to convert non-believers, and one who never misses a chance to evangelise is my friend Peter, an international flight attendant.

We were catching up in a bar between his return from Bangkok and his departure for Los Angeles, when he whipped out his newly-acquired iPhone 4 – white, naturally - and said: 'Kevin - YOU should get one of these!'

Taking a leaf out of the politicians’ book, I met a question with a question: 'Why would I want one?' I asked Peter innocently.

'You can get apps for it,' he gushed, waving his iPhone in my face.

So you buy a phone for hundreds of pounds but then you have to buy more bits to make it work, I enquired?

'Well, no. Some apps are free!' enthused Peter.

Such as?

'Well, I’ve got one that tells me where cheap petrol stations are,' he replied.

I pointed out that if he could afford well over £400 for an iPhone and a shedload more for the contract, he probably didn’t need to save 13p on a tank of petrol.

'It’s got GPS,' he shouted. 'It tells you where you are!'

I can look out the window for that, I said, and reminded him that GPS is the phone equivalent of those electronic tags they attach to early-release criminals. I’m not sure I want Big Brother – or even just a mobile phone company – knowing exactly where I am, every moment of the day.

Almost hyperventilating by now, he said: 'Look at this! I’ve got an app that gives you cocktail recipes.' I pointed to the bar without a word.

Peter just shook his head and looked at me in despair…

But without realising it, he strengthened my belief. When you look closely at this app business, the sheer pointlessness of the iPhone, iPad and all the rest is laid bare. That word “app” is missing a 'C' and an 'R'.
Most of what these apps can do is either not worth doing in the first place, or they can be done better, quicker and easier by other means. For example, why do I need an app to tell me where the nearest cinema, take-away or train station is, when I can just log on to my computer? And even if I was mad enough to waste money on this piece of technological junk food, most ordinary mobile phones now come with internet connections anyway, meaning you can just Google it up.

The simple truth is that apps are just very clever marketing tools. Companies can’t believe their luck because punters are downloading advertising to their phones voluntarily and usually paying for the privilege too.
Inspired by phone-geek Peter, I did some research into apps, and the result was not pretty.

The GroceryIQ App, for example, is condemned by its own blurb: 'With GroceryIQ, you can create lists of items you need to get and even organise your lists by aisle or store so you can shop as efficiently as possible.'

Well, that might be useful if there’s a world shortage of pens and paper, or if you develop total amnesia.

Staying with food, the Epicurious App will give you recipes. But, unless you’re living off the land and looking for new ways with baked hedgehog, recipe books on the kitchen shelf should be more than adequate.

What really tickled the bit of my funny bone marked 'Black Humour' is the CPR And Choking App which shows what to do if someone collapses or has food trapped in their windpipe. It’s quite possible, however, that the unfortunate victim’s last earthly vision will be people hunched over an iPhone, iPad or iPod watching a video demonstration of the Heimlich Manoeuvre.

Since iPhone fanatic Peter was clearly brainwashed beyond rescue, I emailed Jacquie, an old friend and iPhone user who owns a creative design consultancy in London with a string of blue chip clients on her books.

'Not a good phone…' she wrote back, '…because reception is often poor.'

Gulp. This is not what I expected to hear. Worse, said Jacquie, email on the iPhone is slow, expensive to download abroad and, once a week, the device becomes scrambled and has to be rebooted. Crikey Moses, I thought!

Then she added: 'But…and this is the point, I think, when working properly it is a delight to use. Actually even writing this email is a pleasurable experience. I love the click it makes, I admire the layout and the ergonomics are a joy. I haven’t mentioned the apps which are both fun and useful. My current fave is ‘Chirp’, a birdsong identification app.'

Perhaps Jacquie’s nailed it; in other words, the iPhone is not necessarily the best device, but once you have one you don’t want to let it go, for reasons that defy explanation in mere words.

Friend James, a director of a century-old estate agent in Greater Manchester, described his iPhone as 'communications crack', which just about says it all – Apple’s products are addictive. In fact, with hunched shoulders and desperately fumbling fingers, prisoners of the iPhone cult look a lot like smokers peeling a pack of cigarettes for the first nicotine hit of the morning.

And, just like smokers and their toxic love affair, iPhone users – along with the iPadders and the iPodders, come to think about it – are very defensive.

When I told airline worker Peter that I was going to subject this iPhone/iPod/iPad business to critical journalistic scrutiny, he turned very sour-faced and his exact words were: 'How dare you question the iPhone. It has enriched my life. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing.'

Of course, let’s not get too hysterical here! It’s our appetite for newer, brighter, shinier things which keeps the economic wheel turning – if somewhat slowly, at the moment. Most people chuck out TVs, vacuum cleaners, sound systems, etc that work perfectly well and replace them with new, upgraded, and inevitably more expensive models. In fact, I daresay I’ll keep on consuming vigorously into 2012 and beyond, just like everybody else.

But will I buy an iPhone, iPod, or iPad? iWon’t.

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