Is It Me, Or Has Karma Finally Decided To Settle Up With Apple?

So, I’ve been reading a lot of criticisms of Apple lately (many of which I agree with) and I was struck my the sheer volume of the complaints. Can anyone remember the last time Apple made this many people scream, this loud for this long? Call me crazy, but it seems like people are more pissed about this than when their laptops were exploding. Yeah, remember that whole laptop-burst-into-flames thing? Apple longs for times when things were that simple. And that right there should tell you something about today’s little misadventure in public relations. When you can look back at a time when your product was bursting into flames and causing massive property damage and think “ah, those were the days” then maybe you have a problem.

Yes, even when Apple was in the midst of people finding out their iPods weren’t made of adimantium (if you don’t know what adimantium is then a) you should read more X-Men comics and b) Wolverine should stab you in the eye) things never looked so bleak. Granted, Apple had more liability in that first case than in the current predicament, but I almost think that is worse. Because as bad as the whole laptop thing was, that wasn’t really their fault. Now, the teflon iPods, that was kinda on them. But even then there were plenty of people rising up to defend Apple with arguments like “I never used my iPod as a flak-jacket” and the like. So all in all, it wasn’t too bad.

However, this latest little incident (I say incident because “dumb-ass decision to freaking waste of 10 years worth of goodwill over a damn phone” doesn’t roll of the tongue quite the same way) is entirely of Apple’s creation. And it is all the more ridiculous because this is the kind of crap you would expect Microsoft to try and pull. I refuse to believe that the same people who were smart enough to create something as brilliant as the iPhone at no point asked themselves what they should do if anyone ever hacked it. How did that not come up at a staff meeting?

I do recognize that Apple had every legal right to do what they did. And I understand that to not update their phone would be a disservice to their users. Furthermore, I get that they are under no obligation to work around the illegal hacks that were made in support of 3rd party hackery, I get all that. I really do. Legally speaking they are in the clear. Hell, you even had to agree to the update even though they publicly said it would probably mess up your phone. So you can’t say they didn’t warn you.

But do you know what? It was still a stupid move.

Especially coming from a company that, otherwise, has always made great publicity moves. How could they not see that this was eventually going to blow up in their faces?

Now, some have suggested that a development kit would suddenly make this all better. I have my doubts personally, but lets all assume for a moment that it will indeed fix their problems. It may bring 3rd party apps back to the iPhone, but it won’t magically erase all the bad mojo generated this past month. But as I said in the title, maybe this is karma’s way of finally getting back at Apple for being so damn smug and perfect. Maybe the universe won’t let you make things as cool as the iPod and iMac indefinitely, maybe one day the piper has to be paid. Yeah, you can buy some time for a while I guess with products like the Mighty Mouse (bonus points for being both a crappy product and having a really silly name) but eventually you will cross an awesome-ness threshold with a product like the iPhone and karma will finally put down its beer, put on its boots and come stomp you in the face.

Or I could just be full of it, you never know. Damn it Jim, I’m a programmer not a philosopher!