Viva La Apple!

I always laugh when I read market analysis articles about Apple…

“The Cupertino, Calif., technology company said it sold 51 million iPhones in its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 28, up 7% from the year-ago period, after the company introduced two new models in September. Sales of iPhones, however, fell short of analysts’ expectations for 55 million units.”

What this looks like in layman’s terms…

Apple: “Hey, guess what everybody?! We sold 51 million iPhones last quarter! Yes, that million with an ‘M’.” 😀

Consumers: “Homie cow, Apple! That’s a buttload of phones bro! Congrats!”

Analysts: “Actually Apple, we’re rather disappointed.”

Apple: “Disappointed?? What do you mean? We’re up 7% over last year!” 😀

Consumers: “Woohoo! Yes, Apple! You guys rock! We love our iPhone 5LMNOP!”

Analysts: “Yeah, sure… that’s cool and all. But you really should’ve sold more like… 55 million.”

Apple: “I’m sorry… what?”

Analysts: “C’mon Apple… 51 is cool, but 55 is way better. Like WAYYYY better. It’s a bigger number and stuff. You should really be concerned about your future sustainability with shoddy numbers like that.”

Apple: “You’re kidding, right? We netted more than $13 billion during the quarter. That’s billion with a ‘B’.” 😐

Consumers: “You jelly, analyst bro?”

Analysts: *raises hands* “We’re just sayin’… 55 was the breakpoint and you missed it.”

Apple: “Well, we have 13 billion reasons to think we pretty much hit the target dead on.”

Analysts: “Okay, you don’t have to listen to us, but whe…” *gets cut off*

Apple: “Don’t worry. We won’t.”

Consumer: “Viva la Apple!” *pumps fists and then goes back to playing Candy Crush Saga*

The Sport of Torment

So yeah, this is probably reason #722 why I hate the current state of society…

So during my commute to work this morning, I happened to be flipping through various radio stations (because someone stole my iPod and my iPhone 3G recently died. Yeah, #firstworldproblems). Anyway, I came across the Steve Harvey Morning Show and they were in the middle of what was considered a prank call. Steve’s co-host, Nephew Tommy, had called a guy and told him that his child support order had been modified. So instead of paying child support until his son turned 18 years old (which was in 3 months), this man was now required to pay support until his son turned 21 years old.

To say the man was upset would be an understatement. He was using so many 4-letter words that there were probably twice as many *beeps* as words. Nephew Tommy proceeded to provoke the man further by accusing him of being negligent with the care of his son, being 13 months delinquent with support payments, and then threatening to send him to jail.

Wait… what?!?

Nephew Tommy and Steve Harvey

I’m sitting there in commuter traffic listening to this horrible scenario play out and my mouth is open in disbelief! Was this really happening?? Were they really taking an issue as sensitive and inflammatory as the unfairness of child support and making it out to be a joke? Surely someone like Steve Harvey, who himself is a twice-divorced father of four children, would be more understanding of the challenges of custody and support many fathers face, especially minority fathers.

But no…

After a good 5-10 minutes of this “prank call”, Nephew Tommy finally came clean and pretty much said, “Haha! You’ve been pranked on the Steve Harvey Morning Show! You being mad and upset was hilarious! Thanks for the ratings boost!” and everyone in the studio had a good laugh at this man’s expense. As a matter of fact, after repeatedly mocking the man’s angry retorts,  they couldn’t contain they’re laughter and had to cut to commercial to compose themselves.

I’m sorry, but since when did something like this become funny?!? Have we really become a society that takes pleasure in seeing others harassed and tormented?!?

The sad but true answer, is YES.

/rant

Being Anti-Social

I have a confession…

I have been anti-social since November 3, 2011.

How can I pinpoint an exact date for my anti-socialness? It’s simple. November 3, 2011 was the day I downgraded from my iPhone and switched instead to a Samsung Craptalaxy, Version WTF 2.0.

In layman’s terms, because of an personal economic downturn, I needed to scale back on my expenses. One of the places we scaled back was our cell phones. Having an iPhone, while altogether delightful, is altogether too expensive. Through AT&T (and I think a few other carriers as well), owning an iPhone also means being obligated to subscribe to their data plan which comes to $30/month per phone. That’s an additional $60/month on top of whatever you pay for the amount of minutes you require. At the beginning of November we were paying nearly $200/month for two iPhones with mandatory data plans. It was outrageous.

So, we downgraded to the Craptalaxy (actually a Samsung Strive) because it’s one of the few phones that 1) didn’t require a data plan, and 2) was free (although their definition of free includes an “upgrade fee” even though we were downgrading). This effectively cancelled all of our common social interactions that were carried out through our phones… no texting, no uploading photos, no tweets, etc.

When you’ve grown accustomed to having all of these conveniences, to stop cold turkey can be a bit jarring. People we’d texted often were wondering why all of their texts were bouncing back as undeliverable. There was a sharp decline in our status updates and photo uploads to the point people were asking if something happened in our marriage! Ha! How’s that for crazy social correlation! I stop tweeting and that means my marriage is on the rocks!

Anyway, this past Wednesday, I was lamenting to a friend about the fact that my phone is only good for making and receiving calls. She proceeded to tell me about her phone and carrier that only charges $40/month for unlimited 4GLTE data, talk and text. Yep, you heard right… UNLIMITED. Of course, being able to wade back into texting and familiar social circles was appealing. So I checked on it. And you know what? She was right!

Not only was she right, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The carrier currently has a sale on the phone which provides a $50 instant rebate combined with another $50 mail-in rebate which bring the cost of the phone down to $49. Plus, by signing up two phones on the same plan, they offer a $5/month “Family Plan” discount per phone. So instead of paying $80/month for the two phones, we’re only paying $70/month… for UNLIMITED DATA, TALK and TEXT.

The phone is an LG Motion which looks like this:

It’s a great little phone that is eerily reminiscent of the early iPhone that I downgraded from. But it’s got a powerful processor and runs all the apps I had before and then some! So, I’ve returned to Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare. And now I can even log into Xanga and WordPress!

So anyway, I’m no longer anti-social. As a matter of fact, my son got me to sign up for a Snapchat account. So if anyone wants to connect with me there, my name, as you probably could guess, is MyxlDove.

DOVE NOTE #49 – Joint Contributions

(from the forthcoming book “Dove Notes”)

My darling wife solely depends on me to keep her computer software and other technological gadgets up to date. It’s just one of many things about her that I find to be very endearing. She’ll often tell me when she wants to refresh the songs, photos or videos on her iPhone, and I happily oblige. When I recently upgraded her iOS, I suggested she sync it with iTunes on her Macbook. To which she replied with the most adorable of faces, “You’ll have to show me how to do that. You know that I have no idea how this stuff works.” I just smiled. Why? Because I never mind doing these kinds of things for her. It makes me feel…  what’s the word… USEFUL. 🙂 I’m sure most men like to feel useful. Just as I’m sure a lot of women could attest to this fact when they see their men approach situations from that typically male place of being a “fixer”. I mean, it’s always nice to feel needed, and adding songs to her iPod certainly isn’t the only way my wife does this for me.

However, it got me to thinking… perhaps we’ve gotten to a place in our marriage where my wife feels like she doesn’t need to be an expert on certain things because she knows that I’ll take care of them for her. And it’s not just her. I’m sure this goes both ways since we’re a team. And being part of an effective team is knowing your partner has certain areas covered that you no longer need to worry about.  It’s truly liberating. Sure, there are things you could probably do yourself. But you have to decide what is important in your relationship. You don’t have to choose independence over connection. You can have both. So even if my wife eventually becomes a technology wizard, I’ll still appreciate her allowing me to contribute to our relationship in this way. It’s a beautiful thing. Especially when you realize there’s love demonstrated in both the giving and receiving.