Get the “-gate” suffix ready, because the New York Times’s David Segal is on the case of another despicable Apple act.
“I Switched Phones. Where Did Those Text Messages Go?” (tip o’ the antlers to Kontra).
Oh, sorry, that’s Pulitzer Prize winner David Segal. He, of course, being part of the team that discovered Apple does business in China, where many workers are mistreated. (Small footnote: Some other companies maybe do business there, too? Not really sure.)
A couple of months ago, the Haggler retired his iPhone 4S for a phone that runs on the Android operating system.
Ugh, what kind of pompous ass writes about himself in the third person? Sheesh, the Macalope just finds that so lame.
Soon, he noticed something odd: texts sent from iPhones of friends and relatives vanished into the ether.
“Ether,” of course, being a techknowlowgical term for where the stuff happens with the things and tubes and busses and such, and if you were a Pulitzer Prize winner you’d know that.
It was as if, after abandoning the world of Apple, he was now suffering retaliation from it.
You know who’s not abandoning the world of Apple? Your friends. Here’s another way to look at this: Would you expect to still get Facebook messages from your friends on Facebook after quitting Facebook?
No, that’s not the same thing and iMessage is a hot mess often served cold, but hang on for the stunning conclusion!
It has inspired conspiracy theories, like one from a Fast Company blog: “Apple is punishing you for ditching your iPhone by cutting you off from your friends.”
Or the company’s just not putting a lot of effort into making it easy for people to leave the platform, unlike … uhh, no other tech company in the world.
Before we test that theory, let’s explain the problem. When you send an iMessage from an iPhone, you are using an Apple technology that allows you to send texts free to other iPhone users.
Yes! Which is pretty cool, right? It was one of those things that everybody used to love about BlackBerry back when people actually loved BlackBerry, which was some time around the New Deal.
Still others say it may take 30 days to flush the iPhone out of Apple’s corporate brain cloud, a phrase the Haggler invented and hopes will catch on.
And the Macalope does not.
If you’re in this position, here is some advice: Don’t ask Apple’s corporate P.R. team for help.
Particularly if you wrote a series of jerktastic reports about how China’s labor practices are all Apple’s fault. Oh, dear, did Apple’s public relations team not provide technical support to a reporter from the New York Times? What the actual heck? Next thing you know, the company’s legal team won’t give you iMovie tips and tricks.
Now, any guess on who was able to help Segal eventually resolve this problem?
Anyone?
Yes, you, in the back!
That’s right, it was an Apple Genius, which just goes to show how deep this conspiracy goes or something—the Macalope’s not even sure at this point; he just wants an antler massage to make the hurting go away.
Maybe it’s asking too much of a company to highlight the right way to switch to a rival’s products.
Hmm, maybe. But it’s a good thing the New York Times devoted almost a thousand words to what’s usually confined to a forum rant.