The Giddy Social Whirl: Facing Up To Being iPowned

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today rifles through the week's social stories.


Facing Up To Being iPowned


Last week - following the shrug Apple gave to reports that the iPhone 4’s reception crashed when held in the left hand - we gently suggested, with the heartbreaking emotional honesty for which we are rapidly becoming renowned, that Apple is just not that into you.

Then, on Monday, Apple declared that the drop-off was simply a software issue: most regrettably, we’d all been accidentally led to believe that our reception levels were (considerably) higher than they actually were, and therefore in poor signal areas, it may have appeared that there was a sudden drop-off. Their Bad!

We all nodded our heads earnestly – kudos for the hands-up, Apple – before thinking it through.

Whirr-click.

“Now hold on just a dog-gone minute! This over-calibration thing? Sure, it’s says a deal about Apple’s vaunted infallibility – but it speaks only to the iPhone’s general performance, and not to the near-vertical reduction in reception which is, in fact, the issue at hand. In sum, isn’t this the consumer-tech equivalent of an airline company responding to the discovery of fatal flaws in their wing design with an assertion that poor in-flight catering led to the perception of a mid-air near-miss?”

To which Apple replied, “Erm, yup.” Yesterday it confirmed to Gizmodo that, while a software update will correct the signal display issue, it won’t resolve the underlying, you know, signal issue.

In the light of which, we present two amusing items for your consideration- both of which we feel might represent something of a sea-change.

First up: this very-much-NSFW but hugely viral skit, created by a subsequently-suspended employee of Best Buy, about the impossibility of persuading consumers to buy any other smartphone than an iPhone – despite its comparative specificatory inferiority.

The second is an entirely SFW clip from the latest series of Futurama, which riffs on a similar theme.

Enjoy! You may be witnessing the moment that popular culture brings iPhone credulity into the spotlight, and thence - perhaps - to an end.


Prince declares the internet dead


The singer formerly known as “Who?” this week told the Mirror newspaper, with some hubris: "The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated”. Now, I’m no pop historian, but this strikes me as pretty close to a definition of the pot calling the kettle, you know, purple.

The diminutive falsetto has refused to distribute his music via the web since 2007, when he firstly threatened eBay, YouTube and the Pirate Bay with lawsuits, and subsequently rejected even kosher paid-for options like iTunes.

And - waddya know? Stack heels notwithstanding, he now looms considerably smaller in the public imagination than he once did - and I doubt I am the only one to wonder if the two facts are somehow related.

We are agreed on one thing, however: “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Quite right, your Eminence.


Summer Wedding Protocol

Finally, it’s the weekend! And as the summer Wedding Season gets emphatically underway, let’s just take a moment to remind ourselves just how important it is to exercise restraint in the presence of a free bar.

Till next time, mes cheris!


For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams.