My iPhone 5 Fear

Earlier last week I was terrified to hear the iPhone 5 announcement. While Apple mentioned the retina display, the longer screen, Siri, it's light weight, and better resolution, no one really cared. People were all in line waiting for the release date to be announced. (By the way if you pre-order, the ship date has been pushed back.) Did you know Apple doesn't like to use the correct smart phone jargon? Their LTE software is being called "Ultrafast Wireless". Wow.

Now, it's not the fact that the iPhone isn't a huge improvement that bugs me. Personally, if you're excited about the new phone, be excited. It's hard to be excited these days, right? But the thing is, why the hell is anyone excited about the release date of a $300 phone? What other product doesn't need to introduce itself or convince consumers that it's worth buying?

Apple reps could have taken the stage and said, "We went back to our roots by making the iPhone the same size and weight as the original iPod, only it has the screen of the second gen. Oh, and the plastic mixed with the glass case smells like shit," and people still would throw their hard-earned money at Apple.

It beats the pinwheel.

To be clear, this isn't Apple-bashing (or is it mashing?). This is just a guy seeing such a wicked end to consumerism. Look, money exists. Even as an idealist, I get it. Money buys things. People with money can buy very nice things. I get it.

But should we beg a company to announce its next "slight" upgrade? Also, are we trusting smart phones too much?

To show you where I stand, I still have an old 3GS because it was $50 around the time my last phone broke. Admittedly, the iPhone is pretty cool, and I use it All.The.Time. For my next phone, I've been thinking of an Android, but the one fear settling at the back of my mind is how many viruses could infiltrate one of those phones. Then again, I don't look at porn on my smart phone, so I should be safe. 

And there's my trust as a consumer. As long as I don't do anything wrong, I should be safe with a freakishly expensive phone. As for Apple users, most people will agree they like Apple products for all kinds of bullshitty reasons, especially the fact that Apple cannot be brought down by a virus. 

Well, that's actually wrong. According to this Telegraph article, Apple dropped their "virus immunity" claims back in June of 2012. While I attended Ball State University there was a major OS virus break out. Just last April, I major Trojan invasion occurred under the guise of an Adobe Flash Update. 

Computer viruses aren't the fear for me here. Apple isn't the only phone I'm talking about; it's the easiest example. When personal computers started to end up in nearly every home in America, there were major hacks. There still are major hacks. Apple or PC, every so often, there's a major cyber attack. My fear is that smart phones are at their peak, and soon they will all be hacked too. 

"Here are the scary numbers: Cyberattacks on mobile phones rose by a factor of six this year, according to Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) subsidiary McAfee. Four in 10 mobile users will click an unsafe link on a smartphone this year, according to Lookout Security." - CNN.

With computers, people feel a lot safer knowing they can control the performance of their machine. For instance, to avoid viruses, check out the details of every site, link, or email before you click, download, or open. For me, even if a site is said to be legitimate, I won't click on anything if it looks like a 5th grader made the site with Paint. 

However, on mobile sites, what looks legitimate? Every site with a mobile option is usually plain and clean. This makes it easy to click the wrong link. Soon enough, you're phone could be invaded. And let me ask you, how do you update your anti -virus, -spyware, and -malware software manually on your phone?

Perhaps all of this is a little Y2K in nature, but I'd be curious to see if anyone else agrees. I don't suspect people will like this article if they just forked over some big bucks for the 5. 


Do You Think We Trust Smart Phones Too Much?

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