First, here’s my Apple story.  I think Macs are way overpriced, and I think the Mac OS is terrible.  Now that I’ve offended those Apple fans that are still in the denial stage, here’s the other side of the story.

I love much of the other stuff Apple makes.  The sadly under-marketed and overlooked Apple TV is a wonderful device for serving audio and video to home theatres.  I have two (well, actually only one- see below).  I think the iPhone is a world-changer as far as phones- and handheld devices in general- are concerned.  My kids love their iPods.

Heck, I happily ordered my iPad the first minute I could do so.  Even though this dude thinks I’m an idiot for doing so.

The point is that, other than Macs (which, by the way, will ultimately be saved when Apple ports the grandchild of the current iPhone OS to its computers), I am a loyal Apple user.  1 iPod mini, 2 iPod Touches, 3 iPhones, a prematurely dead Mac Mini, 2 Apple TVs, and an iPad on the way.

One of the things I used to cite as a reason to love Apple products was the existence of, and great support at, the local Apple Store.  But somewhere between the launch of the company saving iPhone and today, something changed.

Thomas Hawk thinks so too.

A few years ago, my first iPhone stopped charging.  I took it to the Apple Store, without an appointment.  After a short wait, I spoke to someone at the Genius Bar, and got a new one on the spot.  I was happy enough to buy all of the additional gear listed above.

Lately, however, my Apple Store experience has been decidedly less positive.

First, one of our Apple TVs stopped booting, for no apparent reason.  It has all of the symptoms of a bad hard drive.  We took it to the Apple Store, hoping- but not expecting- that Apple would replace the hard drive at little or no charge.  Realistically, all I expected was a good, helpful attitude and a reasonable labor charge to replace the hard drive.  After all, don’t hard drives generally have good warranties?  Surprisingly, the genius at the Genius Bar didn’t seem to want to diagnose the problem.  When we insisted, we left the device to be diagnosed, hoping the attitude was just a blip on the radar.  A few days later we got a call saying the hard drive was bad, and we should just buy a new Apple TV.  For $229.

So based on my Mac Mini and Apple TV experience, are these things disposable?  Seriously, I love Apple products, but based on my experience and the sense I have from talking to others, the failure rate must be enormous.  Which, of course, makes support critical.

And, presumably, expensive for Apple.  Who has to support that stock price.  Hmmm.

Then came the customer happiness-killing blow.  My wife, who destroys electronics  like Sherman destroyed Atlanta, pays, via ATT, for some sort of insurance that promises to replace broken iPhones.  Her ringer silence switch fell off.  She went to the same Apple Store to get it fixed.  This time the genius told her he could tell that the switch fell off due to water-damage, which is not covered by the insurance plan.  While the ATT salesman told her water damage was covered, that’s not the point.  The point is that the phone is not water damaged.  The darn switch fell off, and Apple is refusing to fix it.  Again, the proposed solution: buy another iPhone.

This just sucks.  Period.

By itself, I could explain away parts of this.  But taken as a whole, and compared to my past experiences, something smells at the Apple Store.

I finally got around to trying Qik, and I’m really impressed with it.  It’s too bad I have an iPhone which, unlike so many phones, won’t allow users to stream live video.  At least I can now upload video to Qik over the 3G network.  I guess that’s something.  You see, us iPhone users have to take comfort in small victories.

One day they’ll build a bad business decision hall of fame.  The featured display will be the Apple/ATT exclusive iPhone partnership.  People will flock to see how something that could’ve been so good turned out so bad.  Courses will be taught, degrees may even be awarded, on iPhone Launch Disaster Avoidance.  “Yes sir, I got my ILDA from Stanford back in 2017, magna cum laude.  I started out in the MBA program, but I wanted to go where the jobs are.”

This Apple/ATT business fell off the tracks when we found out that our dream phones can’t send MMS messages.  Nor can you use them as a wireless broadband modem, the way I used my Blackberry years ago.

Since then, we’ve seen a parade of new apps and improved features.  For other phones.  Google Latitude, Google Voice, the SlingPlayer app, Qik, etc.  If you can think of it, there’s probably an application.  For other phones.

Meanwhile we wait.  We wait for someone at Apple and/or ATT to come to their senses and call bullshit on what has become the biggest technology failure in memory.  We wait for other carriers to save the day.  We hope the government will step in and restore order.

Mostly, we hope that one day our iPhones will do what other, less heralded, mobile phone can already do.  We bought and re-bought our iPhones to be at one end of the technology curve, and we ended up at the other.  Oh, the iRony.

At this point, we don’t know who to blame.  Is this Apple being paternalistic and arrogant?  Is it ATT being hapless?  Or is it some combination of the two?  I don’t know how to allocate all the blame, but that’s OK because there’s plenty to go around.  Here’s what I do know.  When the iPhone and the ATT partnership was launched, there is no way the executives involved intended things to turn out like they did.  This phone was supposed to change the world.  The fact that it had the impact it did in spite of the multitude of problems says more about the cult of Apple and the design of competing handsets than it does about the execution of the iPhone launch.

Consider where the iPhone- and the horde of developers writing for it- would be if just half of the subsequent failures had not occurred.  The race would be over.  Only the Apple/ATT failfest is keeping the other handsets in the game.  I bet people at competing companies give thanks for ATT’s network infrastructure (or the lack thereof) every day.

So while I can’t allocate the blame, it doesn’t look to me like anyone is getting what they wanted out of this deal.  Apple is shackled to a bad network that can’t handle nineties-era features and/or its misguided desire to over-control the user experience.  ATT is the punching bag for those who want their iPhones to realize their potential, and has turned people who bought out of their contracts to become ATT customers into a shipful of rats looking to jump at the first opportunity.

And then there are all the iPhone owners.  People who try to be excited and loyal in the face of daily reminders of all the things their phones can’t do.

Everyone is losing in this game.  Someone needs to change the rules.

There’s been a lot of talk today over the responses Google and ATT sent to the FCC in response to the FCC’s inquiry into various App Store rejections, most notably the rejection of the much desired- by me and others- Google Voice app.

The short answer is that ATT did not request or require the rejection, which was my scenario number one, back when this rotten business started.  As I noted then:

[It may be] that Apple decided on its own to ban the Google Voice apps for some inexplicable Apple reason, which seems to be what ATT would like us to conclude.  This could be accurate, given that other phones on the ATT network have Google Voice apps.  If so, the torchy mob should immediately descend on Apple’s castle and demand a straight forward explanation.  Don’t buy the duplicative feature canard.  All kinds of duplicative apps are allowed.  It’s only the one that would most improve the iPhone experience that is not.

By all means, the torchy mob should now descend on Apple’s castle and demand that Apple destroy whatever Frankenstein is barring the door to the App Store.  But, wait, we are talking about Apple here.  The company that makes the (zealously) beloved (by a few) Mac.

I have always been amazed and annoyed by the free pass that Apple tends to get when it does something customer-unfriendly:

Why does Apple get a pass when it tries to control our audio, and now video, experience? Everything about the iPod is designed to force you to use iTunes as a gateway to your music. And to sell some downloads, of course. If Microsoft did something like this, all the Apple heads would scream bloody murder.

Well, today it was confirmed that Apple did something very customer-unfriendly.  And it didn’t take long for people to start handing out that free pass.  In a post discussing these latest developments and generally describing Apple’s App Store review process, Harry McCracken, who is usually spot on in his tech analysis, let the Apple flu get the best of him:

Apple is so obsessive about user interfaces and its control thereof that I take it at its word that this is why it hasn’t approved Google Voice. (If Microsoft said it objected to a third-party app on the grounds of interface consistency, it would be a different matter.)

A pass and a swat at Microsoft, in the same sentence.

In fairness, he goes on to say he doesn’t like Apple’s decision, but come on Harry.  No matter what the reason (and we’ll probably never know the real reason, since Apple guards its motives like a State Secret), this is a bullshit denial of another app everybody wants.  As I said the other day, why is it that the greatest phone on earth gets more and more crippled every day?  Usain Bolt is the best sprinter on Earth, but break his legs and make him carry Steve Jobs on his back, and my 3 year old could beat him.

Phones are like sports.  What happens in practice really doesn’t matter.  It’s all about what happens during the game.  And Apple is royally screwing up this game. 

It’s time to take back that free pass, and make Apple understand that there is a limit to customer loyalty.  If we have to vote with our feet and pocketbooks, so be it.

Otherwise, Apple will eventually win the inexplicable war it is waging against the iPhone.  And if that happens, no one wins.

Well, except maybe Google.

Then why can’t it do so many things that so many other phones routinely do?

Like MMS?

Like tethering?

Like Google Voice via an app?

Like Google Latitude via an app?

Like watch videos via a SlingPlayer?

Like stream live video?

Like take a flash photo?

Like run flash apps?

Like swap batteries?

Like multitask?

I’m just sayin’.