Morally bankrupt AT&T is behind most iPhone problems, but Apple still has some of its own.

I feel violated. Two weeks ago, Steve Jobs and company broke into my home, changed my computer settings, and stopped my iPhone from working.

Really.

This is what technology has come to. Instead of the grandiose promise of the future with flying cars, robot servants and computers and phones that both work and make life easier, I get to spend half a day trying to fix my broken iPhone only to discover that it was  the phone’s creator, Apple, which harnessed the power of technology and the internet to break it.

Ironic. Even more ironic was that the only one who could finally help me fix it was Microsoft.

Let’s backpedal. I thought my two part rant about why the iPhone is a terrible choice for travelers and golf travelers was over after fully covering my issues with morally bankrupt and possibly criminally fraudulent AT&T, the only iPhone service provider in this country. I still maintain that AT&T is responsible for the bulk of the iPhone problems (not counting the antenna issues with the new iPhone 4, which I don’t have, which seem to be all Apple’s doing), and AT&T is certainly the main reason to not buy an iPhone and to absolutely never ever buy an iPhone if you travel internationally.

But I digress. After much refection, I decided that Apple had introduced enough iPhone problems of its own, without AT&T’s help, to warrant facing the music. My home invasion was the last straw.

First, I should say that Safari, Apple’s internet browser, is terrible. I mean that for the iPhone – I don’t use an Apple computer so maybe the home version is better. Or at least usable. The one on my iPhone is so bad I quickly gave up using it all. Search engine Google, while now simple and commonplace, has become my very favorite iPhone app, because even if I know the address of the site I want to go to it is faster to query it on Google and follow the link than to try to simply go to the page in Safari. Of course all of this is moot when you can’t access the data network, which with AT&T and the iPhone is all too often. Having a way to interact with the internet is a pretty important feature in a web enabled smart phone, but Safari is the least of the iPhone’s problems.

Pocket dialing is super annoying. I know lots of people with other touch screen phones, but I only get pocket dialed by iPhone users, and it happens a lot! It’s like the old “Do you have Prince Albert in can?” crank phone gag without the punch line. Please make it stop!

Apple is a design driven company that unfortunately sometimes puts form over function. And I have to say, its products look good. But sometimes buttons have their place. Consider the iPod: navigating through levels of menus, and even turning the damn thing off is difficult using one button for everything. Ditto for the iPhone – it is much too easy to exit the application you are using and have to start over.

I’ve read that Apple, the company that introduced the brilliant computer mouse, now wants to make it obsolete in their obsession with minimalism and touch screening and no buttons. Sometimes things are too complicated, especially technology and less really is more. But I am afraid with the iPhone and its lack of user inputs, less is simply less.

But the big picture problem is the one that stopped my email from working, and the thing that confuses me most about Apple as a beloved company. There is this incredibly loyal legion of fans who will lineup overnight to pay full retail (who does that anymore for anything else?) for untested products that often have initial issues. The crazy thing is that Apple fans, at least the ones I know, intrinsically hate the company’s rival, Microsoft, and think of it as some big corporate monster Goliath, with Apple playing the role of David. The crazy thing is that as far as I can tell, Microsoft got its market dominance from making the best selling products (do you ever hear anyone pining for Wordstar or Lotus 123 spreadsheets?) while Apple maintains its monopolistic practices by creating non-industry standard jacks and plugs to license and control all accessories and to make customers constantly buy new chargers and cables. Microsoft doesn’t care what kind of hardware you use, what machine you run its software on, or what other software you run. Apple on the other hand does everything in its power to stop you from using non-Apple (or Apple licensed) products and is much more of a closed shop in this regard. If the hipsters lined up in the middle of the night outside the Apple store really thought about it, Apple might be the company they hate for its dictatorial efforts to control its customers.

Like making them use AT&T for the iPhone (and iPad) and AT&T only. Let’s not forget that this is a choice Apple had, and still has, a choice that they have made differently in other countries. You can buy Blackberries and Droids and HTC smart phones with different service providers. It is only Apple that will not give its customers the ability to choose. Maybe Apple thinks it knows better than its customers what is good for them? Or maybe AT&T gave them big chunk of money? Obviously when Apple negotiated to make AT&T the sole provider they got something. They also know of the very high level of consumer complaints with AT&T service, especially as it pertains to the iPhone. So from where I sit they did the standard thing big faceless corporate giants do – they sold out their customers. Food for thought, hipsters.

Apple’s desire for control extends to its software which is why once you install iTunes, which most people do to be able to use their iPods, buy music and download videos, it continuously tries to take control of your computer, even your MS powered PC, and wants to control your other music, other videos and even pictures of your dog and baby. iTunes is not content to be something you use with Apple products or to buy downloads from (through yet another industry non-standard proprietary system run by Apple). It wants to be something that uses you.

So why did my iPhone stop working? Since I work at home mostly, and get a lot of emails, and don’t need them going to my iPhone when I have already read them on my work computer, I have it set up so if Outlook is open on my PC, the emails do not go to my iPhone. At the end of the day or when I go out during the day, I shut Outlook and then emails that come in go to my iPhone and to my computer. So one day I suddenly stop getting emails on my iPhone. Of course, it is not the first time this has happened, but it seems to be a different problem. Turns out iTunes installed what is called an “add-in,” piece of software, deceptively hidden below several sub-menus (one of the only times you get to click on the ‘advanced’ tab is to find and kill something like this), and what it did was stealthily prevent my Outlook from closing. So I’d shut Outlook, it would appear to close, yet if brought up Task Manager it would show it Outlook still running darkly in the background, This stopped emails from going to my iPhone. And in the end, it took MS technical support to figure it out.

My iTunes still works fine without the add-in, which I deleted, so I am not sure what motive Apple had for installing it on my computer. I certainly didn’t ask for it, but like so many other experiences I have had with my iPhone, it did succeed in causing aggravation and wasting a lot of my time.

Final message to Steve Jobs: stay out of my computer and spend your time fixing your iPhone 4 problems, not creating new ones for me.