....but think of all the after market jobs created by companies scrambling to market "add-on" battery packs to the iPhone! All that would be lost with a truly efficient slim 'n trim battery. Oh, wait, then that talent could be used elsewhere...DUH!
Illustration: Christian Northeast for Newsweek
SATIRE
Let’s Stop the Whining
Yes, batteries suck. But the iPhone is still a piece of heaven in your pocket.
Published Nov 22, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but for once I actually agree with something a hack NEWSWEEK writer is saying: batteries suck. At least I think that's what he's saying. To be honest, I didn't really read the article, but someone read it for me and gave me the gist of it, and apparently NEWSWEEK has reached the life-altering, mind-blowing conclusion that batteries suck. Stop the friggin'presses! Of course they do, and the imbeciles who make them can't seem to make them better, which is holding back everything that is good and noble about our brave new electronic world.
Example No. 1: the iPhone. True, it's the most advanced, elegant, sophisticated device ever created in the history of mankind. It's almost perfect. Almost. I mean, it's so close to perfect that you might call it perfect if you weren't a total, 100 percent perfection-loving perfectionist like me, in which case you have to add "almost."
Frankly, I'm sick to death of the carping about the iPhone's battery life. Look, the fact is, we warned people about this. When we made the original iPhone, everyone was bitching because it didn't have 3G networking. I was like, "Dudes, hear me out on this. If we put a 3G chip in it, the battery life will seriously stink, so just live with the slow networking while the batterytards get their science squared away." But no. People bitched. And bitched. And bitched.
So fine. We came out with a 3G phone. We used every trick in the book and invented some new ones to find ways to squeeze more life out of that battery. But I'm not a magician. We're talking about the laws of physics here. I don't even know what those laws are, because I dropped out of college after one semester, and during that semester all I did was attend a calligraphy class, so if you have questions about fonts and typefaces, then great, I'm your guy, but as for physics, all I know is there are laws that cannot be broken. The only way we could make the 3G iPhone have better battery life would have been to make it big and thick and clunky. And I'm sorry, people, but Apple doesn't do thick and clunky. We do sleek and slim. You want better battery life? Get a BlackBerry. And good riddance. Honestly. We don't want you in our club. Peace.
Fake Steve Jobs is the alter ego of NEWSWEEK’s Daniel Lyons.
© 2008
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