Apple Grrl

Apple is usually the guru of marketing. They pioneered the art of “culting” a brand, creating a lifestyle associated with their products, an “in crowd” feel, if you will. Sure, some Mac users take that too far, turning off potential converts from Windoze land, but for the most part it just engineers brand loyal customers. Apple genuinely makes what I feel is a superior product, so most of the time I can overlook their cult followers customers’ antics and even their constant marketing to a type.

This time Apple has gone too far. How, you ask? By the way they are handling the iPhone. I was already upset that they tied the phone to Cingular/AT&T. I had Cingular, but have since switched to Verizon for reasons unrelated to Apple. Even when I had Cingular, I was pissed when Cingular was gobbled up by AT&T, the Big Brother of telcos, willing to sell out its customers to Uncle Sam and Shrub at the drop of a hat. The fact that Apple willingly signed on with them really chapped my hide, and did some major damage to Apple’s image for me and many other politically aware Apple users.

Now, they have restricted sales of the iPhone in such a way as to prevent unlocking the phone for other carriers. Apple, if you’re listening, that stinks worse than year old gym socks stored in fish guts. How have they restricted unlocking? By limiting sales to two iPhones per person, and prohibiting cash sales altogether. That’s right – they won’t let you buy an iPhone for cash, for fear you will use that precious anonymity to resell the phone as an unlocked iPhone.

Apple has really gotten my goat with this one. Will it make me stop buying their products? No. But it will make me NOT buy an iPhone. Not even when they get the second generation out. That’s right – they lost two potential sales in this house, and I hope they lose a lot more iPhone sales until they wise up and lift the unlocking restriction and remove the exclusive AT&T contract requirement. A company as good as Apple doesn’t need to be associated with Big Brother Bush and his lackey’s at AT&T.

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