iPhone 4 Bumpers - The Shocking Flaw posted by Ryan McManus
on July 12, 2010 at 11:18 AM filed under: Technology Industry and Internet Culture
Like many of you, I viewed the release of the iPhone 4 as just slightly more anticipated than the second coming of Christ. I was fortunate enough to be granted a pre-order, and, wanting to protect the greatest technological achievement mankind has yet reached, I gladly shelled out $30 dollars for the official iPhone Bumper.
The day it arrived, I couldn’t be more excited. I hungrily slid my shining, hard device into its sleek black prophylactic, and the world at that moment was at peace.
Sadly, HEARTBREAKINGLY, it was not a lasting peace. Through thorough research and investigative journalism, I have discovered a fatal flaw in the very design of the iPhone 4 Bumper, one that serves to undermine not only the use of the device, but communication itself.
THE RUB The problem is, in a word, friction. While the rubberized front and back of the iPhone 4 Bumpers may protect the device in fall situations, and keep it it from sliding on a desk, this very friction keeps the device from easily SLIDING IN AND OUT OF JEANS POCKETS. While standing, the device is difficult to retrieve – while sitting on a crowded G train, nearly impossible.
You see, the typical Apple user can be easily defined by this venn diagram:
This means that while we love our technology, we also somehow believe we are rock stars, and should wear jeans of a corresponding tightness. Through casual research I’ve discovered that on average an Apple users jeans are 33% tighter than a PC user, and a shocking 90% tighter than a Linux user. Apple fans are also hamstrung by a lack of cargo pockets on their pants that these other users enjoy. The problem is bad with a pair of Earnest Sewns, and becomes increasingly critical when I switch to, say, my Levis 501 XX Shrink to Fit 1947 Selvedge Cone Denim.
This inexcusable design flaw on Apple’s part has caused me and my friends to miss several important calls, cost us countless minutes of possible Plants vs. Zombies playing time, and forced us to listen to a Vampire Weekend song when we really wanted to skip to the new Panda Bear track.
How can this be? How can Apple, the largest and most powerful corporation in the free world, release such an untested, fatally flawed product to market? Wouldn’t they have thoroughly tested these bumpers in various jeans pockets?
And then I remembered: The Keynote. Jobs. Jobs’ Jeans! They’re BAGGY!
Well, not baggy, but you know..loose-fitting and sorta dad-like. The kind of jeans with AMPLE pockets. The horror struck me immediately: Steve was unaware that millions of us tight-jeansed Apple faithful would be nearly unable to use the iPhone 4 Bumper because HE HIMSELF WOULD NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM (I can’t speak to the types of jeans Jony Ive wears, since they only show him from the waist up in those videos).
I emailed Steve to alert him to this coming apocalypse, which I accurately described as “probably worse than the Holocaust”. His response?
Not a big deal. Buy some looser pants.
I replied:
Steve. IT DOES NOT WORK! Geezzz I hope this this is not really you. Are we on a different MHz? I have yet to see an iPhone 4 Bumper work in Williamsburg when you put it in a pair of APCs. It is not “isolated”. I was a big fan. But I am done.
His response?
Don’t worry. Be Happy!!! :D
Typical billionaire smugness. So I contacted AppleCare to see what the official solution would be. I was told that a fix is “on the way” in the form of a software update.....
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