I’ve been meaning to comment on the current situation with the iPhone, but hadn’t had time to get around to it. Finally, today, I came across a piece that was so mind-bendingly STUPID that I have been inspired to action. In the past, you’ve seen me rail on technology writers. Now, I realize that suggesting there is a lot of bad writing online is a little like suggesting that water is wet, and I further realize that a lot of said bad writing comes from amateurs just looking to plug their website or make a couple of freelance bucks on the side writing a piece for Gamespot or something. That’s one thing. When a full-blown professional adult working for CNET screws the pooch, that’s something else again.
Enter Don Reisinger.
I first came across Mr. Reisinger as a guest on Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech podcast from this past weekend, where he was brought on to discuss an article he wrote last week about how Microsoft just needs to throw in the towel on Windows Vista. Which would have been great if my experience and that of my collegues even came CLOSE to his talking points; I’ve been running it since February, and the LONE problem I have had with it traced back to a shareware application that doesn’t play nice with the Desktop. (And that the author can’t be bothered to update, but that’s another rant.) I personally know of NOBODY who has had the kind of experience with it that Reisinger claimed: that it crashes a lot, that it’s a resource hog, and that User Account Control is a nuisance. (Hint: if you’re using the OS the way you’re SUPPOSED to use the OS, the way 99% of users use the OS, instead of mucking around in Program Files and the Windows folder and whatnot, you barely know it’s there.)
So he jumped behind the wheel of the Microsoft Sucks bandwagon, and Leo, being the Mac apologist that he is, hopped right into the shotgun seat. Truly O’Reillyesque, it was. If it were a hockey podcast, he would have been Al Strachan. John Dvorak was out this week, so I’m guessing Reisinger was called in to fill the position of Blowhard Who Talks Out Of His Ass To Drive Website Traffic.
I thought hoped I was done with this guy. Then, today, I come across this little ditty, where he puts the blame on AT&T for the recent firmware update that has bricked hax0red iPhones. Apparently Apple is 0% responsible, since big bad AT&T has “forced” them to release this firmware, which renders phones that have been hacked to use on carriers outside of AT&T (temporarily) inoperable, and disables third-party apps that weren’t supposed to work anyhow.
What a crock of SHITE.
Never mind the obvious: when you hack ANY device, you’re taking your life into your hands; PSP owners can tell you a thing or two about that. But, Don: You do know, I hope, being the business expert that you are, that AT&T wrote Apple a BIG FAT CHECK for the right to be the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. carrier, right? And that Apple did not say “No, we don’t want to be beholden to you to keep hackers locked out of this device,” no, sir, they ran right down to their bank and CASHED IT. And while the world was finding out that freeing themselves from the shackles of AT&T was as easy as running a couple of apps on it, they were over in Europe accepting similar checks from O2, T-Mobile, and Orange!
Do I think the iPhone should be carrier-agnostic and that people should be able to run whatever apps they want to on it? God, yes. But the Apple fanboiz need to get it through their heads that Apple isn’t nearly the paragon of goodness and virtue that they think.
As for Don Reisinger: sir, please feel free to come up on stage and accept your Golden Slurpee, compliments of our good friends at 7-Eleven. Because….audience?
“YOU…JUST…SUCK!”
That’s right! Check us out next year as our broadcast comes to you from the armpit of America: Oxnard, California! Until then, good night!