iPad

Leave a comment October 23, 2019 Steve A. Wiggins

Who’s ready to sue? Now, I’m not a litigious person, but when someone (and corporations are people, according to the law) to whom I’ve been paying buckoodles of money for many years tries to force me to do things as quid pro quo, it’s time to sue. I started using Apple products during the Reagan Administration. I can’t recall how many laptops, computers, iPods, iPads, iPhones, and iTunes cards that entails, but it’s been a year’s salary’s worth at least. Okay, my phone—which is a classic—has been fine until… and this is the kicker… we bought a new phone for my wife. Since then my iPhone has started having problems it never had before. Our service provider knows we bought a new phone. There’s got to be more money available there, “What’s he got in his pockets, my precious?”, right? As soon as it was activated, mine began acting up. Coincidence?

Look, tech gods. I don’t need a whole universe in my pocket. My phone is a camera, a GPS, and a text-sender. That’s all I need it to be. I can still read cursive. I have LPs—not the modern retro ones either—in my living room. I own pens and pencils. You have no right to make me buy an upgrade I don’t even need! I hate the capitalist game. Come here into my closet with me. (It’s okay, nothing weird, I promise.) See this shirt? I still wear it. I bought it in 1981. I know that’s 38 years ago. That’s precisely my point. The shirt’s still good, so why throw it out? You guys in Silicon Valley need to get out more. There’s more to life than upgrading people’s software while they’re asleep. I don’t know how you sue gods, but I’m going to figure it out.

Some of us are minimally middle class. Maybe in California you don’t have a lot of rain, but around here we do. And that means roof replacements. Maybe the tech gods pay you guys better, but I spent my youth earning a Ph.D. so I could earn less than a tree-trimmer in Iowa. That is true, by the way. So the last thing I need is some tech god extorting me to buy a new device. Leave my phone alone! And don’t tell me the tech doesn’t support it because I know people with cellphones over a decade old that still work. Republicans and tech gods know how to ignore subpoenas, I guess. But it’s time for the rest of us to file a lawsuit. Who’s with me?

1 Comment June 19, 2010 Steve A. Wiggins

I don’t own an iPad or an iPhone. I even have to confess to being bored with the internet on occasion. Perhaps my interests are too antiquated for the electronic age. So when I saw that an Italian priest had developed an application to allow priests to celebrate Mass I knew that the brave, new world had attained a heretofore unfathomable high. Instead of laying a missal on the altar, priests can now “double click” to the appropriate rubric with an iPad next to the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Of course, the temptation to surf the net during Mass must be overwhelming at times. When I look out over my university classes and see a sea of laptops, knowing that university wi-fi is everywhere, I am sure they are somewhere far, far away from Numbers or 2 Chronicles. Perhaps they are checking out what is going on in Mass? A couple years back iBreviary came out for those who need the daily offices on the fly. Convenience and worship, however, were never intended to go together.

I spent this morning in a used bookstore. Some of my favorite places are among old books. The knowledge they hold doesn’t freeze up on you or crash. And often it is easier to find since you don’t have to search for exact terms in an ocean of information so vast that even intellectual whales couldn’t navigate it. Upgrades on iMass are expected to be available soon. The content, however, will remain the same as that rolling off the press in hardcopy after Vatican II. How long will it be before virtual communion is available so that commuters can partake without ever taking their hands off the wheel?