iPhone - biggest ripoff of all time?

I'm not a big Apple fan. I thought I'd better say that from the outset just to be honest, and the reasons are not behind any overarching loyalty to the Uber corp Microsoft - I just plain don't like any of their merch. I think Apple spend far too much time on design and pricing strategies, than on creating a device that works well with everything else. And nothing has changed with the jesus phone.

My main bugbear is (as with a majority of Apple gear) the pricing. Every time we see an Apple product, its pricing boggles the mind for what you actually get. The iPod is just an MP3 player, and there a plenty of better and cheaper devices on the market. The iPhone is just a cell phone with a flashy interface, but its prices are $6000 over two years for one plan and $2000 over 18 months for another (plus calls and txts for both). The Mac is an average laptop / desktop and you can get better bang for your buck just about anywhere with other manufacturers.

Why do they do this? Who could possibly be to blame for the ludicrous pricing and unbelievable costs of even owning one of these devices? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Satan? No - the consumer. Yes, every shmuck who has ever fawned over the latest apple product (I love Steve Jobs - he's looking out for us!), every toadying lacky whos slobbered all over the new Mac Book air (It fits in an envelope!), and every drip who's had the indecency to own an iPod......crap that's right. I've got one. But it was given to me! I didn't have a choice! Honest!

Yes folks, its our fault for the high prices, the massive charges and the never ending line of designer electronic equipment spewing forth from Apple central. The marketing men at Apple realised early on that they had a captive audience in the Mac Fans, who saw themselves a rebels against the Evil Microsoft. And they also realised they could alter that image a bit, to be less alternative and more left of centre, and capture a serious chunk of the market. Its the difference between living in the burbs, wanting to commune with nature, and living in a caravan in a commune, out in the bush. Less hippy, more hip. They were smart enough to see new avenues of advertising in media that appealed to younger generations - viral videos, the hip but not too hip stars, product placement in the right shows, and overall a pretty looking device. I must take my hats off to the evil marketing geniuses at Apple. They've done a brilliant job.

But screw them as well - thanks to their zealous marketing and Mac-hype we have to put up with this crap - a cell phone that costs SIX GRAND (!!!!!) plus calls and txts. What. The. Fuck. Its insane that anyone would want to pay that much, and I know of a few people who were keen on getting one until the pricing from Vodaphone was released. I believe the exact words were "Holy shit, I'm not paying that much for a fucking phone!". Sanity prevailed in a few heads at least. But this will not stop those driven few - those retarded enough to not realise when they are being shucked like an oyster for their money. They will queue for days to get their grubby mitts on a new iPhone, drool all over the touch interface, short it out, and spend weeks trying to get Apple to fix it. Unless they say their name is John Mayer - in which case things will happen pretty quickly.

So what's my point? Well, we've only got ourselves to blame for this rash of overpriced consumer electronics - if we stopped buying all this crap, or at least were a little bit more savvy with our purchases, then Apple might spend more time on creating a device that performs well rather than looks good. Dreams are free I suppose. But I can't talk right now - I've got to play on my Xbox, after I've rebooted my Vista PC, and synced to my Windows Home Server.