An Unsent Open Letter to Lord Jobs

I went to the Apple Store this morning to see if they could fix my damaged iPhone, and was rebuffed — but not for the reasons I expected.

So I got home, brooded a bit, then wrote a letter to Steve Jobs, bitching about the whole experience. Which is mildly ridiculous, of course. In the larger context of Bad Things That Can Happen, this is microscopically small potatoes. And the phone still works fine. And really I’m incredibly lucky to have one at all. So I have no reason to bitch.

But I’m bitching anyway. This really rankles, and it rankles at a level that transcends the experience itself. So I wrote the letter.

Now I just need to get up the nerve to send it. One does not anger Lord Jobs lightly.

Anyway. Here it is:

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Dear Mr Jobs:

I have been a wild-eyed Apple enthusiast since around 2001, when I got my first Mac — a Titanium Powerbook — and fell instantly, ardently in love. And that love hasn’t waned in the past seven years. Really, it hasn’t had a chance to. Every time I think you guys can’t possibly do anything cooler, you do — tiny Nanos, perfect Macbooks, beautiful Airs, paradigm-changing iPhones — all rolling out of Cupertino in a steady stream of unadulterated awesomeness.

So I feel kind of bad that my first letter to you ever is a complaint, and such a minor complaint at that. But it is, I’m afraid.

A couple of months ago I came into possession of a beautiful iPhone. I’ve been slobbering over this lovely piece of machinery since you first announced it, early last year, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. Beautiful, elegant, effortless. Everything a revelation, everything a delight. It still takes my breath away, every time I pull it out of my pocket.

And then, last week, I dropped it. My heart stopped. I took a moment to curse the gods for their cruelty, and then myself, and then the concrete floor for not getting the hell out of the way when it saw the phone coming. And then I picked it up — and, found it, miraculously, undamaged. Not a scratch. Everything working perfectly.

And so I breathed a sigh of relief, quickly apologized to all the gods I’d cursed — no hard feelings, ok deities? — and went about my business.

Three days later, a crack developed on the screen.

I wept, re-cursed the gods, then went into my local Apple Store, hangdog, and asked how much it would cost to repair the damage.

The Genius I spoke with — friendly, pleasant, competent — said that they would replace it, for free, since there wasn’t any apparent damage to the rest of the phone. I exulted, uncursed the gods, and went off to my corner to wait for him to process the transaction.

But then he called me back, and apologetically told me that he couldn’t replace it after all. I’m not using AT&T — I’m a T-Mobile customer — and so he couldn’t, as a matter of policy, do anything with the phone. I offered to pay for the repair, but he shook his head. Unless there’s an AT&T account attached, Apple can’t help me.

I walked out of the store as I’d walked in — hangdog, crack intact, with absolutely no recourse.

Apple’s insistence that everyone use AT&T with the iPhone has always bewildered me. There’s nothing about the device that should pin it to one carrier, and the notion of inextricably tying hardware to online services is a terrible, terrible policy that the carriers have used to their advantage — and the consumer’s detriment — for far too long. Think about the world that would have been if the same ruinous policy had been foisted on us early in the history of the computer industry — we’d all be buying computers that forced us to use Compuserve, or Prodigy, or MSN, or — god help us — AOL.

The iPhone is a paradigm-changer — the very first usable smartphone. And more than usable. It’s an absolute revolution. It’s what we’ve been waiting for for years. So why not extend the revolution to actual policy, as well? Why not break the shackles that have held us these corrupt carriers for so long?

But leaving all that aside for a moment — of all the carriers to tie the iPhone to, AT&T is the worst that Apple could have picked. It’s not just their substandard service — that I could live with. What I can’t live with is AT&T’s cavalier surrender of their customer’s privacy to to government and industry. From NSA bugs implanted directly into switching stations, to proposals to monitor every packet that passes through their lines at the behest of the entertainment industry, they have demonstrated an unparalleled eagerness to betray their customers’ trust, at every turn.

I understand that many people don’t care about this, or don’t care about it enough to deter them from going with AT&T. Fair enough. But many people do — I do. And I can’t stomach the thought of giving that company any of my money, much less committing my data to their compromised pipes. Not even for an iPhone.

So, after I got my phone, I unlocked it, and started using it with T-Mobile. This is my great sin — wanting to use this beautiful piece of hardware with a service that I can believe in, and trust. And for this sin, I’m relegated to second-class status. My phone is an untouchable now, stranded in this nether-world between what’s allowed and what’s reasonable.

The obvious answer here, then, is DON’T BUY AN IPHONE, DUDE! And that’s right, of course. I am under no obligation to purchase this miraculous piece of hardware, and Apple is under no obligation to support me if I choose to use it in ways it deems inappropriate.

Fine. But not the point, I’d argue.

I think the reason that I — and people like me — are so zealously attached to Apple isn’t because you guys make beautiful machines, or write lovely software, or have miraculously good customer service. It’s all that, of course. But, fundamentally, it’s the aesthetic that attracts me — this manic devotion to the user, to providing a satisfying experience on every conceivable dimension.

But that’s not quite it either. Apple is doing more than trying to please its customers — it’s working toward some inchoate ideal of perfection, a kind of shadowy Platonic form, and is unwilling to compromise anything to get there.

Ok, a little overboard, maybe — but that’s more or less how I feel. Apple appeals to the bits of my lizard brain that respond to that kind of passion and purity. But when Apple does something like this — turning its backs on legitimate customers who have done nothing worse than go the extra mile to use their products — it subverts the whole thing. It’s not just that it’s screwing us over. It’s worse than that. It’s poisoning the beautiful ideal, in a fundamental way.

So that’s my beef. Take it as you will. My addiction to all things Apple continues unabated. I’ve already begun to feel the unmistakable heartpangs of pure love whenever I see an Air, so I’m clearly just as smitten as ever. But there’s a fly in the ointment now. It doesn’t make me angry, or irate, or even annoyed. This is, after all, a very minor thing. But it does make me sad.

Anyway. I hope you guys are planning to drop this exclusivity thing, and soon. It just doesn’t belong.