I used to be a big fan of Apple products. Like many, I would wait anxiously and desperately for the annual presentations of new iPads, MacBooks or iOS releases. I would read hundreds of blogs and watch dozens of video reviews. I would save for months to buy the latest iDevice and do everything to sell my old one. This cycle repeated for years since I bought my very first iPad, upgrading device after device and OS after OS always to the newest, shiniest variation. Sometimes with notable improvements, many with just a change in the color of a status bar or the form of a button, the new versions shared however a common behavioral pattern.
In the beginning, the brand-new apparatus works fast and smooth; multi-area does its job terrifically and everything looks shiny and glossy. Until the first update notification appears. Two hours later it looks just the same and works fairly equally. However, two months later, having updated it once again, the system begins to have little lags and glitches. With the following minor updates, OS becomes significantly slower, it no longer loads apps like in the first day and some of them suddenly stop working and crash. This is when rumors of the new upgrade to the device begin sneaking in the digital media. After my 3rd-gen iPad crashed and restarted three times in a single day, I decided that it was enough. I would never ever update my OS anymore.
Planned obsolescence, capitalism's biggest ally, is the way big business mars perfectly capable devices, obliging users to buy new ones. It is when Apple develops versions of iOS -with no remarkable changes- that make your iPhone run slowly. It is aimed as an eternal cycle of consumption and cull in which electronic products are no longer valued for their functionality but rather for their updatedness. It's the system forcing us users to be part of it, leaving us with few -if not inexistent- alternatives: either I surrendered to this continuum of consumption or I took action -within my possibilities- to stop it from ruining me; I chose the latter.
And I'll admit it hasn't been easy. Two times a week I must go to the settings of my iPad to delete the software update that Apple has "gently" downloaded for me. If I don't do it, I'm continuously pestered by a notification to update my software. Planned obsolescence is such a pivotal resort for the success of big technology firms that they don't give users any options outside of it. I'm not able to halt recent iOS updates from downloading. Nor am I able to hide the annoying pop-ups that try so desperately to seduce me to hit "update." This is immensely irritating, but I prefer it over having my new iPad be transformed into an expensive paperweight in less than a year. (The same thing that happened to my iPod touch, iPhone and previous iPad).
I still like Apple products; however I'm now more chary of what I buy and which apps, and software updates I decide to download.
