Sent from your pretentiousness

It’s been with some shock and amazement that the computing community has been given the news that Steve Jobs won’t be giving the keynote address at MacWorld this year. For the uninitiated, MacWorld is the annual trip to Mecca (otherwise known as the Moscone Center in San Francisco) for the Mac faithful. On top of that, this is the last year Apple will be part of MacWorld, so Steve isn’t even coming to say goodbye.

*sniff*

Why on earth should anyone act surprised by this? Most people that don’t have an ego the size of a larger solar body would certainly want to give a last tip of the hat to the cultish followers that drive their company’s success. But Steve is not in the category of smaller-sized egos. He does things on his own terms. He strikes new paths. He blazes trails. Even Chuck Norris is scared of him.

And Steve makes sure everyone knows it and promotes it by infusing four little words into an ever-increasing number of people’s lives: "Sent from my iPhone".

Those four little words just bug the bat-crap out of me. I work with no fewer than three people now (it started with just one, like a Lay’s potato chip) who have iPhones. Sometimes they’ll fire off an e-missive…yes, that’s mine and you’ll have to pay to use it…using their little bundle of joy when they’re out and about. I don’t mind that part. But I mind that every e-missive comes with the four little words tacked on at the end.

Says Steve Jobs, "This guy just sent you something from this really cool phone I made, and I want you to know about it. I want you to feel inferior for not having one, and to go by one."

I say, "I have a phone I think is way, way more cool than your iPwn. And it lets me install anything I want on it. And when I send an e-missive from it, there’s no chance of something thinking I’m a pretentious iPwn user. Because there are no little words appended on my messages. For that matter, you won’t even know if I’m on the road, sitting at my desk, or sneaking up behind you to choke you with the cord to the crappy headphones that came with your iPwn."

Says Steve, "You can buy better headphones for your iPwn now. They’re from Apple, which means they’re great. And they’re only $99."

Says I, "Didn’t the crappy headphones come from Apple too?"

I believe in good marketing, design, etc. etc. but geez. Maybe now the cult will simmer down a bit that Steve won’t be giving people "one more thing" each January.