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It is my first iPhone. I have officially lost my iPhone virginity. This is when you go, "Ooh~ ahh~ dayummm girlllll~~~~" in your head or out loud to your laptop screen--whatever works, really. Yet the extreme satisfaction of owning this gadget that is so, so, so, so, so, so, so, very fucking much coveted by like so many people around the world... isn't really present with me. What's the shorter way of putting it? Umm.
#Disappointment.
a) I just blew almost a grand on a goddamn calling device.
b) And that grand is totally hard frickin' sweat, man. I worked my glands off mopping floors, making really bad coffee, and selling it for a ridiculous amount of price to brainwashed consumers at Starbucks.
c) I don't even know whether it really was the iPhone's existence that made me purchase it or whether it was the constant iPhone-related articles that were popping up on the internet left, right, and center.
d) I think I was brainwashed to buy it.
e) Then the iCloud hack happened and it was just like MY INTERNET = APPLE NEWS.
f) Unfortunately, this MY INTERNET = APPLE NEWS still continues. Can people just STOP POSTING ANYTHING RELATED TO "BENDING."
g) People should also stop "wittily" mentioning the "bend" thing to me, too. It's so old. There must be another #EpicMegaUltimateDesignFail worth writing a Mashable "velocity report" article on. (Maybe not, actually).
h) The quality of content on Mashable is laughable (I rhymed)! Is Mashable now a personal Apple-PR-runner? Apple-channel? Apple-website? Apple-speaker? Apple-funnel? Apple-core???? I really need to unsubscribe from them. They are driving me nuts.
i) I stalked Apple Canada's RESERVE AND PICK UP site day and night to no avail.
j) I just buried myself in self-created sadness because I was so ritually refreshing iPhone Reservation website with tiny hopes of seeing an "Unavailable" turn into "Available." Funny how the Albertan locations would always have like one model available. #TheOnlyTimeIWishIWereLivingInAlberta #VancouverSnobiety
k) Then the AVAILABLE happened! And being a jittery fool, I made the wrong finger movement of reserving the SPACE GREY instead of Gold... I tried to reserve again, but I'm only allowed one reservation per day and of course everything is AUTOMATED and nobody wants to help me/has access to actually switching my precious once-per-day reservation...
l) I LITERALLY CRIED on my bed. I was so burnt out of clicking refresh per every 20 minutes for more than a week for this super expensive phone that just had me wanting it without any logical reasoning... Except that it's an iPhone 6? All sorts of angst and frustration that were previously unknown to me surged inside out.
m) I gave up on everything and cleared my mind. Through mindfulness over attending university classes, I went over to Pacific Center to pick up my iPhone 6 in 16 gb (non-optimal storage size) in space grey (nobody wants this colour, right?) and paid everything in full in cash.
n) I just kept thinking that I really need to learn the Craigslist know-how's to purchasing electronics.
And this is how my journey to pocketing the iPhone 6 started and ended.
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For sure, the iPhone 6 is the best phone I've owned, but it has too many aspects that could be improved. This room for improvement outshines and outweighs all of its "value-adding and innovative" features. Like, yeah, the camera's better. Well, iPhone had such shit camera specs anyways, it's the easiest thing you could improve to meet the industry standard -- set by Samsung. How about focusing on actually shaving down on the camera's jutting out part instead of just photoshopping it in all images used on websites and campaigns? I can only just laugh out loud with pangs of sadness.
It really is true; the world needs Steve Jobs but he is no longer here. Post-Jobs-Apple is no longer the Apple I fawned over and grew up with. It has almost become a laughing figure of a stalemate. No wonder they split their shares, Jony Ives is doing interviews, Tim Cook is made fun of in the most blatant ways, and iOS8 had bugs that limited your phone to an iPod.
This post turned out to become an emotional rant on Apple, but actually I was aiming to outline Apple's power as a trusted brand with a scary fanatic cult following. For Apple, the product quality does not even matter, the apps that are exclusively offered on the iOS (e.g. VSCO Cam) drive their cult following. The above-you / above-Microsoft / above-all stigma that Jobs had created before he left is still prevalent amongst the consumer groups and drives sales numbers. Any kind of negative feedback or negative social marketing remarks against Apple actually works FOR them, transforming into more earned media for them. As you can see from my previous steps within buying my iPhone 6, the number of Apple-related news from the internet (whether the sentiments were positive or negative) affected my decision to purchase the phone. The more talked about this product or brand is, the more it stays within your mind.
Tjaco Walvis says that purchasing decisions are made subconsciously even before the consumer goes through the analysis of their consideration set brands/products. I can definitely concur with this. Even before I weighed out my pros and cons of buying the iPhone and while I was shuffling through all sorts of iPhone 6 related articles, updates, news, comments, and status updates, I was already more than 100% sure that no matter the end utility gained, I will purchase this HOT HOT HOT GADGET.
Funny how much easier it is for me to admit that I have fallen into a victim of clever, 360-degree consumer touchpoint marketing trap, now that I am in this industry. I love what I do because I know it works on me--rather beautifully.
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P.S. Because I don't want to sound like a miserable and spoiled capitalistic consumer, my actual desperation for owning this new phone ASAP stemmed from the fact that I was currently using a Samsung Galaxy S2 (circa 2011). I think this is the single valid reason I can state.
