back to article Enraged reader savages iPhone fanboys

Well, it's been quite a week. The release of Apple's long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated and much-hyped iPhone saw a level of fanboy hysteria matched only by the 1632 demonic possession of the Ursuline convent in Loudun - a sorry affair later attributed to a nasty case of mass hysteria. A provocative parallel, we're sure you'll …

COMMENTS

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  1. Joel

    Hmm?

    Haha, is this an reg reader??

    I hope he posts the same kind of angry comment on all of the articles. Would be slightly hypocritical no doubt, but also amusing for us geeks who spend all day reading about how someone hacked an iphone,

  2. Rich Kavanagh

    Light the torches!

    Trick them into attending an iPhone convention and then lock the door behind them. I'll bet that eventually they'll all commit suicide in an attempt to join up with the Apple mothership or something equally as daft.

  3. ian

    breville? delonghi?

    Dualit!. Honestly. Breville! Some people.

  4. Pete

    What are we talking about here..?

    "Our suggestion? Throw the lot of 'em in the village pond and see if they float. If they do, prepare the faggots and flaming pitch barrels of righteous indignation"

    Are we talking about the iphone or the geeks? ;)

  5. Colin Jackson

    Ruuurgh!

    They get you when you sleep.

  6. Matt W

    Marvellous

    Easily the best comment in the story. I can't believe I missed that one.

  7. Paul Murphy

    Toasters

    Every sane person knows that DeLonghi are better than Breville, but for real quality you should be looking at one of the top of the line Braun models....

    ...mmmm toast....

  8. Karim Bourouba

    guys got a point

    The guy has a point though, it is just a phone that plays mp3 and has a wifi connection.

    Didnt nokia* do one of those a few years back, but with 3G?

    The only outstanding item would be its touch screen. And the fact its made by Apple. How come there wasnt the same level of moistness when motorola release the Rockr a few years back? People were calling that the iPhone...

    *replace nokia with any phone manufacturer that has been making phones in europe for the last few years.

  9. Patrick Evans

    "But will it run Linux"

    This man is my new hero. I give it a week before someone starts whinging about how it's too hard to run Linux on an iPhone.

  10. Brad Hutchings

    Which is funniest?

    (a) our reader's comment,

    (b) all the Americans that are going to have to think about your last sentence,

    (c) all the people who bought 2 iPhones: one for themselves and one to sell at a 10% discount on ebay,

    (d) all the people who bought 2 iPhones: one for themselves and one to disassemble and post the resulting video on YouTube with a parts inventory on their blog,

    (e) any of the people who waited in line,

    (f) all the professional iPhone developers that recently completed their official training course:

    http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html

    Send your answers to steve.jobs@apple.com

  11. Simon

    iPhone bashing

    Why has there been so much iPhone bashing going on? Even some comments in the Reg appear hostile?

    Its just a phone, with a better interface, that can do some other tricks as well. If you dont like it then don't buy one, then allow the people who do buy it and wish to also hack it have their fun.

    Yeah i have a mac, reading comments about people who also call macs a pile of rubbish maybe have never used one. Jeeze it reminds me of my playground days where Sinclair Spectrum owners used to call C64s crap and visa versa.

  12. David Shaw

    there's more...

    according to http://www.waitingforiphone.com/2007/07/05/att-activates-over-1-million-iphones/ , ATT have activated over a million iPhones

    that means that only 0.33% of the US population have bought the shiny toy, in the first week. That sort of 'fanboy' adulation is worthy of attention and why-not flames too! however I'm reserving my flames in case Apple/O2 try to give us GPRS as the data feed in the EU.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Toasters

    I take offense - DeLonghi is much better than Breville... what a moron

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Okay, he has a point

    His analysis makes sense, we could all do with getting some serious action.

  15. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Toasters

    The analyst quoted in the article seems to have forgotten one thing: toasters don't lock you to only be able to toast Hovis(R) sliced bread. If they did, they would have been subject to machinopsies (is that the right word) just like iPhone is...

  16. Lexx Greatrex

    A-f*cking-men brother!

    It's exactly this kind of nerdy fanboy hysteria that puts me off all things Apple. That and the fact that Steve Jobs is a total uber demonic twat-head asshole who will sell your eager little fanboy souls as quick as you can say iTunes. But hey, you are the types of nutcases that give all your money away to cults anyway. Good luck with your iFlagellation.

  17. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Use as intended ?

    Since when do geeks use things as they are intended to be used ? It is the very nature of geekdom to seek out ways to use an object that were absolutely not intended by the maker of said object - to the point of sometimes making the object do things it was supposed to not be able to do.

    This so-called flamer smells a lot like a troll to me.

  18. supermeerkat

    If you don't calm down...

    ...Mr and Mrs Spank will be paying a short, sharp trip to botty land.

  19. Pete Silver badge

    touch screen?

    This seems to be one of the big attractions (along with a flashy interface that goes with it) to the iPhone. Now pardon me for being practical - and like everyone else in the UK, I'm commenting but have never actually seen an iPhone - but is this such a good idea?

    ISTM that with a touch screen, you need to use 2 hands. One to hold the phone and the other to smear chocolate or grease across it's screen. Compare that with a normal phone. A little practice allows you to hold the phone in your palm and press the buttons with your thumb. Thereby leaving your other hand free to keep dangling from the rope while you dial for help.

    Try doing that with an iPhone.

    There's also the issue with LCDs in daylight. Can you actually see what's on the screen? If not, it doesn't matter how "intuitive" the interface is, if you can't see it, how can you know what you're doing? At least with buttons they don't become invisible when you have the sun shining on them (not that that's much of a problem in the UK at present!).

    Personally I feel that once the hype has died down, the iPhone will be seen as just another high-tech toy. Maybe someone will come up with a holder so you can clip it to your segway

  20. Christopher Rogers

    humm?

    a reg reader, not an reg reader

  21. daniel

    Finger up twiddling prostate?

    I no longer need to as the iPhone has a vibrator function, and it's smooth sensual design allows to slip into.... Argh ! Evil: Thoughts! I've! Been! Possessed! Help! Me!

  22. Electro Boy

    Title

    Surely Apple is the Alessi of the computer world? It's certainly no Breville.

  23. Ben Boyle

    Touchscreen?

    Innovative??

    *cough*HP Jornada*cough*

    *cough*Sony Ericsson Pxxx*cough*

  24. Geoff Spick

    Title

    Sorry.. I was drifting off down the Brain's faggots route of nostalgia. Whatever happened to them and can they be employed in this general tirade. Perhaps a Breville Faggot Toaster - now that'll really confuse the yanks

  25. CharleyBoy

    Re: If you don't calm down...

    > "...Mr and Mrs Spank will be paying a short, sharp trip to botty land."

    Better be quick before that extreme porn law gets in then

  26. Badg3r

    Actually...

    I'll take my Kenwood shiny toaster over your Breville & delonghi.

  27. Alan Davies

    Title

    Personally I've always preferred the George Forman.

  28. A J Stiles

    Toast

    Sorry, but I cannot abide the taste of electric toast. You can keep your Breville, your deLonghi, your Dualit and your Morphy Richards -- give me gas toast anyday! With *real* butter, not some artificial-tasting spread with buttermilk* and vegetable oil.

    Anything else would be a crime against bread.

    Talking of which, how long do you suppose it will be before the Bakery Products Ass. of America start prosecuting breadmaker users for bread piracy? Will there be extra inner wrappers proclaiming "Home baking is killing bread" on every loaf? I guess the Canadians will just stick a levy on flour .....

    * Buttermilk, if you didn't know, is the stuff you throw away when you've finished turning milk into butter. It can no more impart a "butter-like" taste than can the wood of the apple tree impart a "cider-like" taste.

  29. Nordrick Framelhammer

    The George Foreman?

    Is that the one that sits on the bread and compresses it thinner than a slice of bacon in a McDonalds burger?

  30. Brian

    Ah, the playground!

    What a stupid arguement. The C64 was way better than the Spectrum!!!!!

  31. Andrew Thomas

    Bad move, the Reg

    Stories like this make The Register lose credibility as a serious technological site. The iPod and iTunes revolutionised digital music. The iPod had the greatest cultural impact of any piece of technology over the last ten years. If the iPhone revolutionises the mobile market in the same way that the iPod revolutionised digital music then this is a MASSIVELY IMPORTANT development, but The Register seems to only offer playground-quality sneering about it.

    Your coverage of the iPhone is frankly unprofessional. If it proves to be another cultural icon like the iPod I hope you eat your words. And even if it doesn't, you should be treating this massively significant hardware release with the import it deserves. Your sneering is juvenile.

  32. Mike

    C64 vs Spectrum

    Both were a bit pants compared to the power of the Amstrad CPC6128 (built in discdrive, colour monitor)

  33. SmokeyMcPotHead

    What's...

    ...an iPhone?

  34. Michael Sheils

    Andrew, Andrew, Andrew

    "Stories like this make The Register lose credibility as a serious technological site."

    Since when has El Reg been serious? And the iPhone is MASSIVELY IMPORTANT is it? It's just a phone with a touch screen that you can't see in daylight, very useful that is.

  35. SmokeyMcPotHead

    "If it proves to be another cultural icon like the iPod I hope you eat your words."

    The iPod is only a cultural icon because Apples Marketing department says it is, otherwise, it's just another MP3 player...just the the iPhone is just another mobile phone...

  36. Tom Hawkins

    Dualit? Don't give me Dualit...

    We had a Dualit kettle. It leaked. Dualit refused to fix or replace it (user error, apparently... you're not supposed to leave water in it when you're not boiling it!)

  37. Roast Duck

    fingers & toasters...

    replacing fingers with iphone sounds like a good innovative thought... any ideas on how toasters should be used ??

  38. Jason

    Andrew Thomas...

    ..How long have you been suckling on Jobs deamonic teat then?

  39. jai

    it IS magical and revolutionary cos Steve Jobs told us so!!

    the best toaster i ever had was the one that flew across the screen of my old MacPlus as a screensaver, chasing monochrome bits of toast

  40. This post has been deleted by its author

  41. Cap'n wotsit

    C64 vs Spectrum

    BBC B FTW!

    sorry, i will get my coat.

    oh and Mr Thomas, please insert head into nearest toilet and flush repeatedly,

    "The iPod had the greatest cultural impact of any piece of technology over the last ten years"

    has it buggery, what about the PS2 - I would have said the original PS, but it is 12 years old not 10 or less years, what about the advent of DSL provision in the home market causing a huge increase in blogging, social networking sites and online gaming et al?

    believe it or not apple is not the best thing ever, so stop being a fanboy.

    /rant

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RE: Bad move, the Reg

    "If the iPhone revolutionises the mobile market in the same way that the iPod revolutionised digital music then this is a MASSIVELY IMPORTANT development"

    I agree. IF the iPhone revolutionises the mobile market then that is true. However it has virtually no technology that is not already available in other phones, in fact it is way behind on a lot of features (e.g. MMS, 3G). It has a couple of good apps (e.g. visual voicemail) and a good touch screen that is probably better than most, but that is all. It certainly is not revolutionary, just another multi-function phone. I personally would rate my N73 as better functionally, just doesn't have as good an interface for my music player. However at least it gives me the opportunity to download a different one.

    And as for Safari, the less said the better...

  43. Nexox Enigma

    I think...

    I think that El Reg is just printing all of these Iphone (I capitalize like I mean it) articles just to get the comments. There seem to be plenty of readers out there with plenty of well deserved fanboy scorn, and apparently there are some fanboys out there without enough sense to abstain from posting their bizzare religous beliefs here.

    All in all these things must be a gold mine for those Friday Best Comments articles or whatever they're called. My only problem is that they tend to prevent me from getting work done while I read ~60 comments. Oh well.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The *phonograph* was a huge cultural revolution

    In the first year of its inception, nearly every person in the industrialized nations had one. Within five years, they had spawned an entire new field of electrical and mechanical engineering. In twenty years, nearly everyone in the world had a record player. Literally billions of them have been built.

    There have *still* not been as many CDs recorded as there were records. The technologically literate have only *just* started to finally convert everything on LPs into mp3s. (And, no, I won't tell you where to download them.)

    The ipod, by comparison, hasn't had near the market uptake, the innovation, or the growth of standardized supporting industries. The only "culture" for whom it was a revolution were kids in their teens and twenties, who find the walkman passe, and buy their music as singles, not albums.

    If the iPhone causes even a tenth the cultural changes and scientific advances the phonograph did, I will personally eat one.

  45. Daniel Ballado-Torres

    iHype

    Apple marketing hype in the last 6? 10? years has bugged me to the point that I simply deserted the Mac platform, which had been my main OS/computer since 1986. (My secondary platform was a C-64 ;) It seems that Apple marketing has been able to create not geeks, but zealot freaks that rival even "Linux sux0rs!" BSDites and "Its GNU/Linux not Linux!" Debianites in levels of fanatism.

    Plus, developing for Mac was a mystery for me, doing simple apps in C or even in *assembly* was a breeze on a PC. (Or BASIC with my now-defunct C64). Maybe the games have more merit (pre-iMac days though): the Wolf3D for Mac was superior, Descent1 had already 640x480 resolution and such. Oh, back then we did criticise Apple for doing boo-boos (Some b0rked versions of System 7).

    Now this comment brought memories to me:

    "the best toaster i ever had was the one that flew across the screen of my old MacPlus as a screensaver, chasing monochrome bits of toast"

    Ahh... After Dark. The daddy of all corny screensavers, never to be matched again. Somewhere out there I still got the last versions for both Mac Sys7 and Win95... I miss those flying toasters!!!

  46. b166er

    heineken schmeineken

    does the mobile market need revolutionising? even if it does, the iPhone's not gonna do it. Andrew, you'll have to wait for the rollout OLED.

    Remember, the person (henceforth known as THE MAN) who's descision it is as to when we get our next NEW THING, will milk the market for all he can before giving it to us. In the 80's, the original THE MAN, died suddenly, and in the transition to the new THE MAN, we were all treated to unscheduled releases of NEW THINGS. We know it as the Information Age. Now things have returned to normal and THE MAN will be drip feeding us NEW THINGS once again. Next up, 5G and WiMaxxed will be almost interoperable, mobile phones will have toasters built in, ready for MiniToast (tm)(although MiniToast will be available in 10 different sizes) and you'll think it's the next best thing since sliced bread. More like revolving the revolutionary

  47. bit.phreak

    One Toaster To Rule Them All...

    Siemens 911 is the techno-toaster supreme, you 20th century throwbacks!

  48. pondscum

    Yet...

    when you read all the reviews, they all seem to dismiss the (phone)call quality of the iPhoney as merely adequate, or below average. Isn't this the single most important factor for a phone? It will do 437 different functions, but as a phone it is crap.

    You want something to do all this stuff and more? Get yourself a secretary.

  49. Joe Cincotta

    On the topic of Buzz Inversion

    If I needed any more weight to my argument, read this juicy headline from Sydney Morning Herald:

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/phones--pdas/my-phones-an-iphone-whats-yours/2007/07/05/1183351365490.html

    It is just rectum clenchingly obnoxious to own an Apple phone.

    Sorry, cannot bring myself to use its trademarked name anymore either.

  50. Joe Cincotta

    Apple have successfully created "Buzz-Inversion"

    It looks as if Apple has actually managed to do something nobody else has ever done. No, I'm not talking about the hardware guys - I'm talking about the marketing department.

    Apple have found the limit of buzz marketing and discovered the phenomena of "Buzz Inversion". It is where the buzz around the item is so great that it eventually serves to demerit the thing for which the buzz is about.

    The ultimate effect is that of the buzz being inverted and those sucked in to buying the device with the hope of expectations fulfilled are chastised as halfwits crippled by their own vanity.

    Apple have made a device whose buzz is so dense with hyperbole and filled with expectations fuelled by media saturation which is fundamentally beyond the actual device's capacity to deliver its experience that they have created a social stigma.

  51. Adam

    irony much?

    to be honest, who's sadder, people who want to know how tech works, or him for bitching about it on a website.....

    on a side note i did love the use of "shitting" in the second sentence :)

  52. chriss jones

    Smart bombs? No, we need stupid bombs and we needed them yesterday.

    You chuck these idiots in a pond, whether they sink or float - they will pollute the water; the poor little fish and ducks don't deserve that.

    If you burn them - think of the carbon foot-print.

    What we need is a 'Nerd/Scum/Idiot- Bomb', problem is I'm not certain it exists yet.

    To paraphrase Travis Bickle; "One day a rain will come to wash the scum from the streets."

    That's the sort of bomb we need.

    Perhaps Thomas C Greene or one of his idiot mates could help; they seem to know more about bombs than anyone else. (check-out the link below)

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/29/more_fear_biscuits_please/

    Round them all up; Guantanamo is gonna be empty soon, it's the perfect holding solution until we get that bomb.

  53. Scott Mckenzie

    Re: There's more

    "according to http://www.waitingforiphone.com/2007/07/05/att-activates-over-1-million-iphones/ , ATT have activated over a million iPhones

    that means that only 0.33% of the US population have bought the shiny toy, in the first week. That sort of 'fanboy' adulation is worthy of attention and why-not flames too! however I'm reserving my flames in case Apple/O2 try to give us GPRS as the data feed in the EU."

    Err, useful statistic that.... try a realistic one as to the actual number relative to those that already have a phone, it's somewhat unlikely that anyone under the age of say, 5, will have a mobile phone... it's also unlikely that many people over the age of say, 75, will have one.. i'm guessing that gets rid of a fair few people from the possible list, then look at the people on benefit who can't afford one (but probably have one anyway), then maybe all the people registered deaf, who for the most part, will find a phone somewhat pointless.... Need i go on?

    So whilst you've successfully estimated the population of the US, your stats are somewhat wide of the mark

  54. chriss jones

    Re:Re:

    On the topic of Buzz Inversion

    By Joe Cincotta

    Posted Friday 6th July 2007 06:23 GMT

    If I needed any more weight to my argument, read this juicy headline from Sydney Morning Herald:

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/phones--pdas/my-phones-an-iphone-whats-yours/2007/07/05/1183351365490.html

    It is just rectum clenchingly obnoxious to own an Apple phone.

    Sorry, cannot bring myself to use its trademarked name anymore either.

    Just looked at the feature; What is wrong with 'the septics'(as in tanks as in yanks?). Does anyone know the round trip distance to where he is from London and if so can someone lend me the air-fair? I'll go give him the slap he so deserves.

  55. Josh

    Agree

    I like messing with things like this, but the hysteria is wrong. He isn't saying hacking is wrong as much as he is saying it's wrong that people have NOTHING better to do.

    In addition, this struck me as extreme as well:

    "The iPod had the greatest cultural impact of any piece of technology over the last ten years." This guy sounds personally offended by the comment. Did you forget about the CPE for broadband? Beginning about 10 years ago, this has been gradually introduced into many consumers' homes, making things like the ipod possible. How many songs would you download on a 56k?

    Even just Windows XP has by far affected more people than the ipod has (not that it was necessarily a good thing). Or how about DVD players and discs? Remember how wifi changed the way people worked? Or how about digital cameras?

    Get off your finger for a minute and think about what's coming out of your mouth rather than whats going in your ass.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How many?

    "How many songs would you download on a 56k?"

    Er.. I personally downloaded most of my collection (a modest 4 or 5,000), and had other collections downloaded over the same link. Of course, it did mean a lot of times when the computer was on 24/7, and was in the days when if you selected a song for download, then it was a good bet that a) you would have someone there with that song until you had it all and b) it was a decent quality version of that song.

    Most of my collection was done before Audiogalaxy(?) died, although I only used them in the last days. Much of it was done over legal downloads from legal sites.

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