Your iPhone is like Your Bifocals

You know I bitch about Apple users… They keep telling me, 'But the Mac is so much easier to use,' and 'I can do all sorts of things with my iPhone!' I'm not there yet, but I'm forming a solid argument for why it bugs me so much.

Your iPhone is like a pair of bifocals -- they help you see, but if I try to use them, I'm blind as a bat. I'm not calling you old. I'm actually calling me old, in a really roundabout way.

The problem is that I've been around this tech stuff a long time. I know how to do things with wires and chips. I know how to turn ones and zeros into my own font. I know what the cloud actually is.

These little appliances like the iPhone and even Android are made for people who don't get the joke about UDP vs. TCP ('Uh huh….' <-- Hilarious). They're made to do things for people who can't see the intricacies of the technology. Your iPhone lets you see things you've never seen before. It opens a world of information and entertainment. It expands your vistas.

And at the risk of sounding like an arrogant bastard (again)… I saw those vistas a long time ago. It's great that you can see those hills now, but my sighs and my constant reply of, 'No, I'm not getting a Mac' is because while the Mac gives you the power to do things you never dreamt of before, isn't just because I've been walking those hills for so long, I'm a couple mountain ranges away and your dream technology just gets in my way.

I see things in technology that you can't because I've been looking at it for so long. I can't do things on the iPhone or a Mac because they were designed to be locked down right down to their solid state, 'don't mess with me' exteriors. I need to open the hood, cross a couple wires, and {bam}… no, wait, maybe those wires go the other way around… and {poof}… no…

Well, anyhow, after a bit of fumbling, googling, and swearing, I get the thing to do exactly what I want it to do. Control my TV through my phone (iPhone has an app for that, but you need special hardware). Listen to music from my computer on another computer. Work on my computer in the office from the airport.

No, it's not perfect, and no, I'm not saying that the stuff I use is better for you -- it IS more complicated, but because I understand it, it's more powerful. My collection of Windows, Linux, and Android is the right prescription strength for me.

I'm just saying your tech may be the right prescription for you, but it isn't for me.