WP—The Daily Post prompt—TORN
I am so torn, people! I’m like that kid in the commercial who after years of buying the new iphone, finally goes with the Samsung Galaxy. [See video below after reading my article] The last scene of the promo shows him walking past a line of iphone buyers camped outside an Apple store, holding his new Samsung phone.
What Happened?
My daughter committed to buying the new iphone X almost as soon as she heard about it. My husband and I had iphone 6’s and hadn’t planned to upgrade our phones at all. My daughter’s new iphone 10 arrived and she teased us and referred to our phones as antiques. Never one to mind what people say about me, I stuck by my resolution to die with the iphone 6 in my hand.
However, my iphone had other ideas. The phone had been working fine before the new models 8, 8plus, and 10. Without any notice, it began to run short on charges. I found myself out of touch one Sunday when I wanted to stay for an afternoon service at church. My phone, which had been on 100% when I left home that morning, was now on 0% and I hadn’t made any calls. My husband and daughter became concerned for me, and when I got home, they met me with phone chargers and cords.
The phone charged, but in a few hours, with almost no use, it was drained. I remember saying to my husband, “Apple is doing this so we‘ll be forced to buy new phones.” He was skeptical. Later, his phone began to act up, but he still didn’t see the conspiracy.
“The phones are just old, Linda,” he said, pooh-poohing my conspiracy theory. I was torn, but I let him lead me to the phone store, where I overheard another customer tell a salesperson that her phone’s demise had coincided almost exactly with the introduction of the new phones. I nudged my husband repeatedly until he moved away from me.
When our salesman came to help us, I shared my experience and asked if he’d been told this before. “No,” he said and directed most of his attention to my husband who was more receptive (because he loves new tech gadgets more than he does his wife and kids). The guy handled us deftly and before long, we were walking out with two new phones (not 10’s).
Earth Shattering Discovery
Yesterday, Apple confessed that they’d deliberately slowed down the memory of the iphone 6’s because they were older and they didn’t want them to quit on us. Yeah, right!
I’d been hearing complaints and suspicions about the mysterious failure of the older phones. I don’t know what made Apple confess, but I think they should’ve told us in advance that this was going to happen. They could have told us how to manage the smaller amounts of memory they’d be downsizing us to.
For many years, people have suspected Apple slows down their iphones when a new model is released. As of this week, Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas brought a class action lawsuit in California, claiming they didn’t give Apple consent to affect their iPhone performance.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/22/apple-sued-after-it-admits-to-slowing-down-older-iphones.html
John Poole, founder of software company Primate Labs, was the first to publicly blow the whistle on this new slowdown. He told CNBC on Thursday, “We saw a dramatic uptick in those sorts of reports around the release of iOS 11.”
Conclusion
I’m a loyal consumer. When I find out about a new product, I don’t jump right on the bandwagon unless my product is proven inferior. My mom used Cheer, so I used Cheer for years. Quite accidentally, my husband brought home Tide detergent and 30 years later, Tide is still my brand. After over thirty years with Bounty, I recently changed to Kirkland paper towels. Costco had run out of Bounty and the new brand was great. These are small examples of my loyalty to everything. But now that I’ve been bitten by the explorer’s bug, I don’t know what’s out there for me.
I’m torn, and Apple had better look out! So far, change has been good and like that kid in the Samsung commercial, I could be “Movin’ On”!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/torn/