Hey, here I am again JT, welcome and thanks for reading - you know I was blogging about the tech I love/hate. Come to find out, a lot more people than just me feel the same way, from the research I've been doing on the web. One guy from New Zealand (I'm in the US) is in a love/hate relationship now, so he says, with his iPhone, same as me. I'd link him so you could read, but he and the people who comment use some pretty um, spicy language that maybe you might not care to see.

Apparently we are all expecting too much of our tech toys, or the people who created them. Or maybe promises have fallen short of performance? Or maybe it's just "the little things that kill" like that song by the band, Bush? As I was writing before, my sister has had a wilder iPhone ride than me. Let me show you a photo that she sent me of my nephew (her son) and his dog at a dog training school.

Now the reason that this photo is particularly irritating, is not because it was a once in a lifetime shot, but she sent it to me as a small illustration of what she has been going through. She got her iPhone before I did, let's say, two years ago. (Right after it launched.)

When her first, first gen iPhone developed a line straight down the center of its face - not a crack mind you, an annoying line, down the face of the entire machine, that wouldn't reboot, backup or 'crash' away, Apple caved and switched hers out. The Geniuses at the Genius Bar in the Apple store were perplexed and she said she thought that the new phone had solved the problem.

Wrong.

The green photo above came from the camera inside her second first gen iPhone. She told me the battery life compared to the first phone she had to give up because of the line, is a joke. She says she can't use Safari when she wants, when she touches the Safari icon, the thing is so temperamental she finds herself holding her breath waiting for it's "yay" or "nay". She says she doesn't get a busy signal when she calls, say a friend who's on their phone. She says her iPhone will simply drop the call. And you know the sweet little "Home" button at the bottom of the device? When she pushes hers to go "home" she says she gets what I call "stutters". Or maybe I should call it belligerence. "I'll go home if I want!" I imagine it telling her as she's standing in the supermarket trying to balance her husband, her kids and her clients and everybody else (like me) who's always ringing her up.

Oh, one more thing that I remembered. The other day I was sitting with her in her family's van while she was on the phone to her bank. "Look," she said quietly. I glanced over at her. In her hand was her iPhone. On it's beautiful glass face flashed quickly something like the photo below (I'm only using a picture of a Green River I was drinking once as a back drop):

OK, you can't see me laughing, I'm not exactly playing a video of what I saw, but I'll explain.

Use your mouse to click the forward button. Now the back button. Now the forward button. Or just click on play and imagine the photos going at hyperspeed. Then you will have some kind of idea of what I saw on her phone and what my sister has been going through. And this was a replacement phone. Interesting. Someone asked me the other day what my 'fantasy' computer would be like, at least at this stage in my life. So I went for the pink pony, the red sports car. The entire package was over 4 grand, over $4,000.00 USD. The Apple MacBook Pro notebook with the 15 inch screen and some delicious trimmings. Yes, I said, "15 inch screen" not the 17 inch. Thing has to fit in my back pack without the printer, ya know.

Now remember, this is MY fantasy, not yours. You might be richer than me and smarter than me, most people are, but we aren't the same and (ahem) darn it, that's what I WANT. But stay with me, ok? Let's forget our wallets and our educations for a second, if that's possible.

Because when my sister complained about the replacement and took that thing to the Apple store AGAIN - they couldn't find a fault.

And they told her so.

Apparently that day, the "HOME" button decided it would go there. So the Geniuses didn't do a thing. Not one thing.

And I'm thinking, "Just what, JT, is your fascination with this stuff?" Then I thought, "Well yours has been behaving quite well - and people seem to believe you when you say it isn't..." Then I thought about all the stuff I wrote you guys in my prior blog. This stuff REALLY HAPPENED....

And I don't think I can be satisfied if my sister really isn't. She's starting to make Nokia noises....

Next: ME AND (AHEM) MY IPHONE'S 'SERVICE PROVIDER'

Then: IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE