Mobile/Digital Castration + Some annoying old dude with PMS

Be Warned: 3G iPhone + OS4 = something short of anal rape.

I still remember those days when an “upgrade” is supposed to make your life easier… happier.
Then a few days ago, after I popped in my iPhone to my Mac so I could sync Mudvayne and 30 seconds to Mars’ new albums, I get a message that “a new version of the iPhone’s OS is available”. Of course, who could resist anything new that Apple made.

Little did I know that pressing that ‘Update’ button was synonymous to pulling the trigger to the digital-shotgun that’s pointed at my techy-balls…

And to add insult to injury, before I could update my iPhone to OS4 I had to update my iTunes to version 9-point-somethingy first. Which at first I thought was okay because my stuff are getting ‘upgraded’, ’till it started downloading. The whole iTunes update took a quick two minutes and A LIFETIME to complete. Which made me wonder if I should change the usual time I check my emails and not do it at 2 in the morning.

After all the bells and whistles have been installed, I finally got the chance to try out the ultra-hyped iPhone OS4…. at 4:30am. But since I’m only left with two and a half hours of sleep before my weekday alarm goes off. I blissfully go to sleep like a child before Christmas day, knowing that I get to open a present and play with my new toy the next day.

Or so I thought. After upgrading my 3G iPhone to the OS4 every damn thing about it was so laggy, it felt like the application icons are about to fall off from the touch screen during the previously-uber-cool transitional animations whenever I fondle (yes you read that right, fondle, you perv) things on the screen.

I thought to myself “maybe it’s just a temporary thing, and my phone is just getting used to the new OS”, who the f*ck am I kidding. I went on for days and days of painful multi-tasking, which was flawless prior to the ‘upgrade’, with my iPhone. I can’t ‘enjoyably listen to music and use anything that requires Internet access, and worse, if somebody calls me when I’m forcefully doing these tasks, the iPhone now gets to decide which of its functionalities it would allow me to use.

Don’t get me started with iBooks… personally I feel they should change the name of the damn app to “iCrash, really, iDo.” Having all these new ‘perks’ to play with for the last few days made me yearn for my last mobile affair with the Motorola SLVR. I really loved everything about that phone. Because of the glitches I was dealing with, in the span of six dragging days, my iPhone quickly turned into an “iAm gonna f*cking trade you for a Motorola DROID X if this doesn’t improve in the next two days” experience.

So there I was yesterday, nearly a year into being a MAC-getarian (completely forsaking anything that only runs on PC engine), reluctant on giving up on my iPhone. Spent my lunchtime looking for answers online. Apparently there are sh*tloads of ‘fixes’ that people have done to address the lagginess. Not being completely sold to the idea of Jail-breaking my phone nor restoring the OS back to 3-point-somethingy, I picked the more subtle approach to my dilemma:

Perform a “hard reset.” Hold down the sleep/wake and home buttons simultaneously for roughly 15-20 seconds, until the screen powers off then an Apple logo appears, which signifies a reboot. Some users have (oddly enough) reported that performing two hard resets resolves the slowness issue.

Which I got from an article at appletoolbox.com

Yay, now that resolved two issues out of I don’t know how many: OS4’s lagginess and the miserable battery consumption. It ain’t as great as it was before but I could live with it. I still haven’t tried if my iCrash err.. iBooks is working properly now, I’ve decided to check it out only on a need-to-know basis. As long as I still don’t have a need to use the damn app, I’ll be completely oblivious to whatever misery iBooks might potentially give me.

I wish apple had at least included a message or an obvious link to these fixes along with the download page:

“This new update might sodomize the otherwise productive setup of your iPhone, but don’t worry, some other dudes totally not connected with apple in any way has found out how to unofficially fix the mess we just did. Click here to know more about the things they know which we couldn’t figure out. Thank you for downloading iPhone OS4.”

On a completely different story (which doesn’t deserve its own entry on my blog):
That guy with the white army-hair and specs running the western food stall at Fusionpolis is the epitome of Bad-Service-Assholicism. He asks the person queueing in front of me “Blek pepah soson numbahnaynne?” (Black pepper sauce on number nine?) in a very distinct Chinese intonation/inflection. Of course the guy in front of me wouldn’t understand (I didn’t) and just gave the old man the ‘Four Ws and a question mark’ (What, Where, Why, When?) look. Angrily, the old man raised his voice and repeated what he said in a very rude “I’m-gonna-talk-slow-and-loud-like-this-because-I-think-you’re-retarded” way. And the funny thing is that he’s talking to another Chinese guy. I mean WTH??! right?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not that fast to judge other people (okay… I actually am, but that’s beside the point). I actually thought that it could be an isolated case. But alas! Another guy behind me ordered the same thing (what’s up with chicken chops today?), and he got the same award-winning TLC. So much for service with a smile. Tsk tsk.

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Lance Sison, Rockstar for Hire.

Rockstar for hire.
I help businesses create memorable branding experiences for their customers.

www.arsnovadesigns.com