Apple and Foxconn's Working Conditions

This is not an issue for Apple, it’s Foxconn’s problem and no consumer electronics company that sources their production to Foxconn can do a thing about it. 

It’s not Apple’s job to make sure that worker conditions in production facilities is acceptable, the fact that the company audits these factories at all is already generous. And, if from the goodness of their own heart (heh, doubt it) Apple really does give the slightest care about worker conditions in China, they’re not in a position to dictate terms. Apple can beg and beseech, but poke the bear and you’re treading on super thin ice.

Apple relies solely on Foxconn to make their nut. The majority of Apple’s supply and manufacturing, as with many other consumer electronics companies, is sourced to Foxconn. No other company in the world exists that can manufacture to quite the scale, speed and efficiency that Foxconn does. 

Foxconn relies on almost the entire industry to make their nut, so really, Apple, though of course a cash cow of a customer, doesn’t mean nearly as much to Foxconn as Foxconn does to Apple. The Chinese monster knows this, and permits themselves to cut corners and cross moral lines knowing that Apple really isn’t going to do anything about it, aside from throw a few unsubstantial ‘demands’ for better working conditions. It’s all PR.

As long as the company doesn’t significantly attract government attention or that of rights activists, Foxconn really does have the freedom to hire as many under-age workers as they want, have as many 12 hour workers as they want, and ignore as many safety regulations as they want. Chi-ching. Money, money, more money.

Even then Foxconn has the Chinese government in a strangle hold too, why would the Chinese government dare hamper the growth of such a lucrative corporate gem? They’re probably sitting there in their spin around chairs going, ‘Dayum our economy good’. And who’s to blame them, their economyis good.

To point fingers at Apple, or Sony or Dell or Microsoft as acting immorally and permitting torturous slave like conditions in Foxconn is akin to blaming your professor for poor grades, not their problem.

They’ve done their job, Apple has done their job in R&D, their job is to dream the ideas and create beautiful products for an end user. Foxconn’s job is to make it, and all the unfair blood, pain and suffering that goes into the birth of an Apple product is weighted on the manufacturing side of things.

Don’t blame Apple, blame Foxconn, it’s their job and they’re the ones doing it wrong. They’re the ones acting immorally on so many different fronts, not only by providing abysmal worker conditions but by abusing their monopoly position to permit themselves to do it even more.

Foxconn has a history of issues, a mainstay in which was the fourteen suicides in late 2010. The company resolved the problem by installing suicide prevention netting, like that was totally attacking the source of the problem. Not only does it show that Foxconn doesn’t get the staggering effect of their actions, but that they simply don’t care. 

But that’s business, and that’s capitalism. When someone makes some killer cash, somebody has to be on the other end of the trigger. When we look for something that is both awesome and affordable, and seek the best of everything, somebody has to end up with nothing.

The world is full of compromises, all we’re doing is shifting them, playing with the economics of life. I’ll just drop by my carrier store and get an iPhone that doesn’t quite burn the bank, while you, get no iPhone and pay for my cash savings through your weary eyes, swollen leg and back pains. 

The worst thing is, we’re all just like each other, I’m just like everyone else. While I do care about the workers, when its buying time I’ll do everything to nail that Mac at the best price possible.  

It doesn’t have to be this way though, Foxconn just needs to show a little heart. But shit, who am I kidding, it’s all money and vested interest.


Also on A Pony For President

A Pony For President - My 2 Cents on Google Search Plus Your World

My 2 Cents on Google Search Plus Your World - on my Tumblr 'A Pony For President'.

Just some thoughts on the antitrust debate surrounding Google's new personalised search feature.

"I’m definitely one that is a fan of competition, count me in for that, but I also run under the belief that corporations who have worked hard to gain their position as a leader should be able to leverage their position in the industry. Google have worked hard to maintain their position as the number one search engine, they’ve earned their spot not through sly tactical means, but for the pure fact that they have a better product.
I believe that claims for anti-competitive behaviour by not including Twitter and Facebook in personalised search results are unfair to Google."

Carrier IQ isn't tracking you, it's helping you

With a class action lawsuit and the whole world against them, Carrier IQ have found themselves in a place they never thought they'd be in - a target for litigation with the torch of the public eye shining right in their faces.

Trevor Eckhart, a 25 year old man from Connecticut discovered a mysterious piece of software by the name of 'IQRD' installed on his HTC Android smartphone. It wasn't seen in his running programs list in task manager, but it was always running, and virtually impossible to stop. Through investigation, Eckhart discovered that this humble little software was capable of much more than any other application on his phone. It could see what he was doing.

Carrier IQ has software installed on almost 150 million phones, software which has the capability of tracking your every activity - your keystrokes, your text messages, your calls and even your browsing history. The company didn't do themselves any favours by sending a cease and desist letter to Eckhart. After all, telling someone to shut up, albeit in a orderly and business-like manner isn't too different from telling the rest of the world that you have something very sinister to hide. But this ill-informed perception multiplied by the sensationalist media is quite contrary to reality, Carrier IQ have nothing to hide. And surely nothing sinister to hide.

The whole scandal has been in most part an enormous public relations disaster, with what is genuinely a small issue being blow exponentially out of proportion. The phrase 'your phone is tracking you' has an unnecessarily dire ring to it and unsurprisingly it's been a phrase that the media has overused countless times throughout the duration of this scandal. The truth is, even though your phone is capable of tracking your every move, is it really? And to be entirely pragmatic, why would the carrier have even the slightest concern on the content of your text message or browsing history?

Sure, Carrier IQ, along with the carriers may have stumbled into a moral grey area by not clearly informing consumers of the presence of the tracking software on phones. But the basic use case of Carrier IQ's software doesn't deem it as a necessity. Despite the fact that Carrier IQ can see everything you're doing, the software acts a lot like a drug sniffing dog. It sniffs into every nook and cranny but only barks when it finds drugs. Carrier IQ reads everything, but only records abnormal or undesired behaviour - like a dropped call, unloading webpage or a failed text message. The software discards everything else almost as soon as it comes in.

At that, Carrier IQ is really just a mandatory process, another gear in the whole working mechanics of the carriers and your phones. Your carrier contract doesn't inform you that your calls and texts operate by sending signals to satellites and that your phone operates by passing electronic currents through wires and complicated circuit-boards. Why then, would it be necessary to inform users that their phone occasionally picks up abnormal data in order to ultimately better their phone experience? It's just part of the process.

By the hard stencilled writing of the law, the company have potentially acted illegally, breaching federal wire-tapping law. But to what good is the law when it can't account for crucial contextual detail, and in this case Carrier IQ have engaged in unlawful activity but whilst benefiting everyone involved. What they're doing simply isn't a bad thing.

To give the company what they've been handed in the past week is unquestionably unfair. As the world shoots at the company for immoral and unethical behaviour, this destructive negativity itself is in breach of ethics. It's unethical to throw metaphorical faeces at an innocent company simply doing their job.

Nobody's reading your text messages, nobody's looking at your web history, nobody is stalking you. Carrier IQ is helping you, while the media attempts to earn the ad dollars by selling the lopsided hyperbole they're here to write.

It's time that people got a look at the broader picture of the Carrier IQ 'scandal', instead of spreading the word that Carrier IQ is 'tracking you', 'stalking you', 'watching you' and a bunch of other bull excrement that the media put into their mouths. 

Rant: Blackberry Buzzkill

RIM earlier this week made the maligned announcement that the much anticipated Playbook OS 2.0 wouldn't be out until February 2012. RIM made clear that they wanted very much to have the product in our hands today, but unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to wait until they were confident they had a decent, complete and market-ready product. Well, that sure does speak a lot about the initial launch of the Blackberry Playbook, doesn't it?

The leaders at Blackberry have shrouded themselves in a cloud mushroom of lies and broken promises, and are desperately trying to make amends of their tattered public image by hiding behind a veil of PR small talk. Whatever it is they're doing, it's really not working because more than ever, consumers have lost faith in what was once the beloved makers of the Blackberry. A few months ago, the well-informed technology society was given the clearest indication that RIM was a breaking company. Aside from the declining market share and dwindling influence that was so plainly obvious on the outside, the open letter written by a disheartened RIM employee to RIM's senior management team gave us a snapshot of the turmoil residing inside RIM's inner sanctum. It became clear that it was not only a company that was losing a battle to the competition, but a company that was a losing a battle to itself, a company run by people who forgot their goal and were too busy playing catch up to recognise what they were really here for.

RIM's response to this letter funnily enough encapsulated entirely what was so wrong with this company - they were, and still are, completely out of touch. The letter response dodged every single valid question and objection posed to the RIM senior management team, cluelessness was haplessly disguised in phoney statements of optimism and opportunity pursuits, written by a person who much like the group he represented had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

Which brings me to now, and why I'm writing this rant today.

Back when the Playbook launched, the RIM leaders promised a native email client, a native contact client and a native calendar app 'soon'. We later found out that the root cause for the delays of these instrumental applications was deep within the foundations of RIM's system itself. We accepted this, so we gave RIM time. After Blackberry World 2011 RIM representatives told the press that we would be getting native email sometime this 'summer' without a specific date. We waited. We never got it. We were then told Playbook OS 2.0 would be made available in mid October after Blackberry Devcon America. But it wasn't. And now it's been pushed back 4 months to February 2012 which will make it little less than a year for an update that really should have been available from day 1.

Buying the Playbook always meant taking the good with the bad, and with the Playbook it meant filling a few gaping holes with a few tolerable compromises. Being an early adopter means buying products not for what they are, but for the potential that you see in them. When I bought the Blackberry Playbook, I didn't turn my back on it and make snide remarks on the absence of essentials, but I saw it for the multitasking prowess that QNX possessed and the ways it could integrate with RIM's acclaimed services and their overall vision.

Early adopters drive the market, and they drive competition. Without them, there wouldn't be a tablet market at all, but merely an iPad market; because what sober person, save for the Apple haters, would pick up a Honeycomb tablet as the product it is today against the iPad 2 as it is today. I'm trying to remain as objective as I possibly can here, so here's a few points you can't possibly argue against - Honeycomb has a serious app deficiency against the iPad and Honeycomb is unarguably a less stable operating system. And a few subjective points that I hold against Honeycomb are the inconsistency of aesthetics within the UI and the utter uselessness of multiple home-screens on a large display.

But I digress. The crucial point here is that early adopters are driven by promise of what will be delivered in the future. As an early adopter of the Blackberry Playbook I was fed by the promise of native email, native calendar, native contacts 'soon', 3 essentials that would make the Playbook a more complete utility - something that the product wasn't when it launched. It's taken more than half a year and deducing from RIM's sly previous efforts at PR, these three native apps are nowhere close to fruition.

Congratulations on killing the buzz, and absolutely butchering the first year of your entrance into the tablet world RIM. Stellar job. You failed to excite the average consumer market, you failed to entice the enterprise, and worse, you made the early adopters second guess their risky investment in buying your incomplete product. I don't regret purchasing a Playbook, not at all. In fact, despite its glaring omissions I'm still proud to say it's the greatest tablet on the market. But, had I known RIM were going to take their sweet time in blessing us with native email, contacts and calendar then I sure as hell would have taken my time in buying one too.

When things start to get a little out of hand

'Super size me,' is what the smartphone told the world. And so we did.

The inexorable rise of the mega-phone, or the super-phone or the jumbo-phone pretty much sums up the trajectory of the majority of smartphone vendors - Power = bigger and bigger = better. I talk a lot about the superficial and non-pragmatic spec wars that so many Android vendors are focused on, attempting to make their phone that 1% faster for succeeding generations instead of making the basic phone experience better. It now seems that this focus for more powerful, more 'mega' and more 'super' is now translating to the phone's physical size - in a way saying 'I made this phone faster, but since specs are nothing more than a whole lot of coded tech jargon to most, I'm just going to make the screen bigger so you can easily see what I've done.' And yes, we can see what you've done, because now your phone is that much harder to grasp in the hand.

Whatever happened to small and chic? 6 or so years ago when there was no iPhone or big touch screen phones and the only successful smartphone was a Blackberry, small was in. Small was hip, and miniaturisation was definitive of high-tech. People were amazed that you could fit so much awesome into something so small. The whole line of Siemens phones comes to mind, a market failure no doubt but still undeniably cool. As a kid I didn't know a friend who wouldn't have pounced on a Siemens handset had they the cash - which is unfortunately something that elementary school kids inherently lack. Successful examples of handset miniaturisation are the Sony Ericsson W880i - a supermodel handset and the Motorola RAZR both emphasising their merits for both thin and small.

Fast forward several years and at the rate we're going we'll have six inch phones in a couple of years, and I hate to be the one to break it but the human race won't have hands big enough to account for such gargantuan gadgets in 2 years time - evolution is not that fast. Evolution isn't running a 1.2ghz dual-core, in fact it's probably running the same piece of junk hiding shamefully inside my graphics calculator.

I claim no hatred against these 'larger' phones nor do I consider myself a Luddite desperately clinging onto the simplistic past, but perhaps I do long for a society and a technology industry that embraced more the notion of holding a cute little pebble to my ear as opposed to a pancake to the side of my face. Times change implacably though and the altering physical form factor and size of smartphones is the most obvious simulacrum of the new way in which we communicate with our phones.

The iPhone augured a significant shift in phones, the paradigm shift in phones from passive to active. Phones used to be the passive device, a device that alerted us when someone wanted to contact us but was otherwise expect to remain discreet - seen but not heard. Hence, why make a phone big when we're meant to pretend it's not even there, why make it big when the only time we're meant to have it with us is when someone wants to contact us or when we want to contact someone else. Phones were passive and discreet, so they got smaller and smaller. Enter smartphone - a phone that we're always meant to have with us, and one that we're always using. Phone call or not, we're always on them because we can do so much more from them - we can browse the web efficiently, we can play worthwhile games and we can keep updated on the latest. With these smartphones, we're not waiting for them to surprise us with a phone call, we're not waiting to see what it's going to throw at us because we're hoping that it handles the tasks that we want to throw at it. Smartphone has to be a superlative in power and size to handle our growing demands, so it's getting bigger and bigger.

But something's got to give and these immense display sizes are actually subtle inconveniences in real world use. This preternatural display growth has got to find its limit, before it becomes borderline tablet.

To illustrate the point of the 'subtle inconvenience' I'll call upon an interesting article written by Matthew Panzarino on 'The Next Web'. He stated that designer Dustin Curtis had done a test in which he found that the disparate display sizes of both the iPhone 4 (3.5 inches) and the Galaxy S II (4.27 inches) made a genuine difference in terms of their usability and could perhaps pose a niggling issue for the Galaxy S II through time. He found that the display size of an iPhone 4 allowed every icon on its home screen to be reached with the thumb whilst holding the phone with one hand, whereas the limited thumb span proved too small to reach to the further edges of the display when using the Galaxy S II. To the left is a diagram that designer Dustin made to complement his contention.

Sure, you have to make a few sacrifices if you want the big and the better. That's how life and nature works right...a little give there and a little take there. But I don't think that's how it works for phones - because a smartphone is meant to materialise a vision for easy, portable computing. And traditionally a phones have blessed us with the advantage and accessibility of quick one-handed operation; the fact that phones have increased in brain size and processing power shouldn't compromise this one distinctive trait. Smartphones need to retain their one-handed usability and size because it's the only characteristic that preclude the smartphone and tablet from convergence. It's the only reason why they're still different things. Heck, if I could grab a tablet and hold it in one hand and use it with that one hand with ease I wouldn't need my phone, because my phone would just be a smaller and more eye-straining version of something I already have.

So I'm here looking at the new Galaxy Nexus and its 4.65 inch display, and I'm thinking to myself 'how big are your hands?' You might think I'm overreacting and these seemingly minor nitpicks are all in for the sake of a more spacious experience. But more than you think it's the insignificant things that leave an otherwise perfect product completely smitten - thumb hyper-extension and unnecessary two hand use are just a couple of those things. I use a 3.8 inch HTC Trophy daily and for me and my average sized hands that's just about the limit. Again, this is all completely subjective and for some of you this large screen size may suit your needs, and your hand-span, but strictly from my own personal vantage and I'm sure that of many others anything above 4 inch is a heck of a size, and anything larger than the Galaxy S II is really really pushing it.

Super size? Are you really lovin' it?

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs - You Changed the World

There are people in this world that either love or hate Apple, and there are people in this world that either love or hate Steve Jobs, but I know that there is not a single person in this world who doesn't respect Steve Jobs for not only his achievements, but with what heart and passion that he has managed to achieve them. Jobs' is the embodiment, a personification of unparalleled genius. His incredible foresight and vision for seeing how products interweave into the very cobweb of our lives has made this place we live in a better place. With this genius, and creativity he has brought us products that have revolutionised markets, the technology industry and the way people live their lives. Without any connotations or mockery, to describe Steve Jobs' leadership as 'magical' is truly justified.

These are all in the making of what makes Steve Jobs so incredible, but without a doubt the greatest thing that Steve Jobs takes with him, is the simplest, the most obvious and the most primal of his traits - and that is his passion. To meet a man with such love, and such enthusiasm for the things he does is rare, and with this, Steve Jobs has inspired us to pursue our dreams not for secondary and reactionary means as finances and stature, but purely for the satisfaction close at heart - because it makes us happy. 

To put it in his own words - 'The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.'

Steve Jobs story is almost a fairy tale of where passion and love can take us, and his love and passion augments and provides for the immeasurable genius and creativity that the man has been blessed with. We can all be happy knowing that Steve Jobs died doing what he loved the most. Even with his diagnosis of cancer several years back, Steve Jobs' love for Apple never waned, and he was there at Apple for as long as he could possibly be, with the baby he crafted and nurtured himself. And if getting fired from his own company came to prove anything, it was that Apple only truly has one father. 

So here we are, typing away on our Macbooks, slicing fruit on our iPhones and tapping away on our iPads - embracing ourselves in the magic that Steve Jobs has provided us. We're all saddened by the news of his passing, the world only ever gets one Steve Jobs and it's such a shame that the appreciation has only really been expressed openly once it's all gone. But Steve Jobs probably wouldn't have it any other way, loving our Apple products is our way of saying a subtle thanks, and thank you Steve Jobs so very much.

It feels strange imagining the tech industry without a Steve Jobs, but how much stranger and how much different would it be had he never even come around. So to quote the wise words of Dr. Seuss, 'Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened'. And Mr. Jobs, the radiance of your innovation makes us all smile, every, single, day.

Why I love you, Sir Windows Phone

I'm going to keep this intro short, sharp and shiny. An untimely and most unbidden event occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, my Walkman lost its ability to charge. Often, it's quite difficult to forget instinctive life procedures, however I've got to hand it to my Walkman X1060, she just forgot. And what's more, she's also blatantly refusing to talk to my computer. I've just ordered a new cable off eBay just in case it's a cable problem and I'm still waiting for that to arrive, just hopefully that will fix my Walkman's most unfortunate disorder. Despite this, I know my Walkman won't last forever so I've been searching for alternatives to replace my mobile device shortage, I've decided to settle on the fact that Sony won't ever release a decent Walkman ever again.

The sheer immensity of available devices on the market was simply astounding, I went in with the expectation of landing on my dream device within a day or two, however only a fortnight later have I come to a really solid conclusion. This might surprise you, but I have fallen head over heels for Windows Phone 7. It's disappointing that this operating system is often frowned upon in the tech world for its lack of...well tech geeky features. The lack of customization is probably the OS's biggest claim to shame. Windows Phone 7 has taken a different approach than some of its competitors, and even Microsoft themselves in the past has taken, an entirely different approach. Making an operating system easily accessible and customisable places the nerd in heaven, but often too much freedom and too many options leads to inconsistent and unreliable experiences. Windows, and the previous Windows Mobile have a reputation for being highly technical, at least more so than its competitors. However this time round, I support Microsoft's new approach and strict hardware guidelines for Windows Phone devices, because boy does it pay off.

Microsoft's UI design philosophy

User interface is one of the prime factors of a great mobile experience, and this is the area where Windows Phone 7 truly delivers. It doesn't just deliver because of its visual appeal, nor is it because of its mind-blowing animations, but it is extraordinarily fun to use. The UI experience of Windows Phone really succeeds in taking a big jump away from traditional UI designs epitomised by the likes of iOS and Android. The multiple home screen and widget design of Android simply looks outdated when laid side by side with a Windows Phone. It allows us to beg the question of why we honestly need so many home screens, Windows Phone makes do with one beautifully scrolling collection of 'live tiles'. To be brutally honest, I've never met anyone who actually uses more widgets than the music player, clock, calendar, weather and news feeds; let alone use up all of their home screens. It also shows us why Apple haven't bothered with a widget implementation on their iOS platform yet, though competitive pressure somewhat obliges Apple to do so with their iOS 5.

Live tiles: Another winner for Windows Phone. To be honest I haven't had much experience with the live tiles, as you really have to own the phone for a period of time to evaluate its real world practicality and usefulness. But the concept is brilliant and far as my 10 minute trial of it went, my god its amazing! It really does add to create a really pleasurable mobile experience. The idea of Live Tiles is you can pin the things that matter to you most onto the start screen, and it will show you any updates that occur live. For example, I'm an avid Facebook user, so the Facebook Live Tile will show me any notifications that I receive without the need to access the application. And also without any irritating notification pop-ups. Same goes for Twitter and many many other applications. Heck, I can even pin people to my Live Tile display. Stalking just got a whole lot easier.

Music + Video Hub and the general WP7 sliding interface

Another thing I noticed when using Windows Phone is the feeling that things just really flow. Mind you, I'm not referring to a 'no lag' or 'high-speed' experience here but the design of the 'Metro UI'. Take the Music and Video hub or Zune as an example. When you first open the application it presents you with a list of essentially what you can do: music, video, podcast etc. But if you simply swipe to the right it will present you with your media history of all the tracks you last listened to, swipe to the right again and it will show you new additions to your library of media. This exceptional interface design is really successful in challenging and taking a jab at the concept of navigational buttons (non-tactile obviously). If you're in the music menu, there is no need to tap at anything to switch between the metadata you're viewing, rather swipe to the left or right to switch between artist or album or genre. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 UI feels natural and intuitive - a theme I discussed in my previous article about the fate of the PC and evolving technologies.

It can be said that the umbrella reason why Windows Phone provides such a pleasurable experience - for me at least - is that it feels like a phone designed for you and adapted to your needs. Most consumers don't like having to adapt and learn their technologies, but rather in essence have technology learn the way they want to do things. This is an area where Windows Phone has hit a home run, perhaps even two home runs with one ball.

UI design is severely underrated, tech analysts have made a big deal about how many apps are available on a platform, how highly featured it is and what not. At the end of the day though, the user interface is what you feel, touch and experience and this should be the thing that makes or breaks a purchase. It's not to say the UI of competing platforms is poor, but this is an element where Windows Phone absolutely delivers. The application range of Windows Phone measures poorly against some competing platforms, but it is sufficient and will continue to grow. I'm going to throw my eggs into the Microsoft basket, and I'll be damned if the platform never gains traction.

Who has a Windows Phone and what are your thoughts on it?

*Next week, I will be doing an in-depth discussion behind the potential of Windows 8 and what it means for consumers and the tech industry.*

Confessions from a Walkman devotee. How long can a fan hold on?

Dear Sony, when are you due for a Walkman X upgrade?

Often I ask myself this question, yet I can never be sure whether a new Walkman is in the works. Nobody really knows if Sony have completely given up on the Walkman, the X series I mean. Will there still be a market for standalone PMPs in around 5 years time? Questionable. My Walkman X1060 isn't getting old or dilapidated by any means, in actual fact I can proudly say it's in pristine condition. My leather case has protected my little baby well. But why do I always search Walkman in Google news to see what rumors have sparked regarding an upgrade. I guess, it's just the comfort I'm seeking of knowing what my next media player will be once my Walkman really does go down the drain.

...Perhaps I should tell you the story from the start.

3 years ago I was the proud owner of a Sony Ericsson Walkman W880i phone, if you're familiar with the 'About Me' section of this blog you would know exactly the phone I'm talking about. That very phone served me from late 6th grade through to mid 8th grade as my primary music player. With its 1GB M2 micro memory card, the little in-ear Sony Ericsson buds and that booming Megabass EQ function, that phone kept me rocking all that time, my boredom buddy I would call it. Yes I know, 1GB was enough for me at the time, how many songs could a 7th grader have? As time progressed though, I started to feel like some sort of outcast. All my mates had their iPod nanos and those ubiquitous white buds while here I was rocking my 1 gig worth of tracks on a Sony Ericsson handset. Like the normal kid I was, I succumbed to the pressure and bought an iPod, an iPod Touch. How quickly I went from just the ordinary phone guy to the one with the iPod was astonishing. Back in that time the iPod Touch was a rare specimen in our school, I believe I was the first one in the year level to get one. I would have mates scrambling around me often to try out that cool app: iBowl, Tap Tap Revenge, Crash Kart, old classics like that. I would even have kids I had never talked to or affiliated myself with come up to me for a spin on the Touch. But over time the cool appeal faded. Everybody had an iPod Touch, apps lost their usefulness and jailbreaking took the satisfaction and joy out of purchasing apps.

And I was missing my booming Megabass.

Then strolled in Walkman A729, my first dedicated Sony media player. Oh, the sound! Boy I missed the bliss of quality sound after using that iPod. That booming bass, those fantastic rubber tip earbuds. But how an upgrade could be such a downgrade! I took for granted the convenience of a browser on a mobile device, I took for granted so many functions on my iPod that I overlooked when I had it in my possession. The dictionary I missed the most. Oh, the arduousness of flipping through an actual dictionary. With my Walkman A729, I felt unique that's for sure, but along with that I felt regressed somewhat. I had thrown away all the perks of the Touch and gone back to the bare basics of music, video and photos. And a clock. How could I enjoy the sound quality of owning a Walkman, yet still enjoy the extra perks that my Touch had offered? I knew that I couldn't quite have it all, there had to be some kind of compromise somewhere. Walkman X was my first viable option, it had the internet browsing, touch screen and Youtube, and as far as my research concluded still had the same legendary sound quality I had expected from my experiences with Walkman A729. And like a cherry on the cake it had Digital noise cancelling to top it off. Timely as a sparrow at dawn I spotted a great deal on eBay, and prancing in came Walkman X1060. 12 movies, a TV season and 1500 songs later, here I am today.
The proud owner of a Walkman X series.

There's about 3 years of my life summed up in a lengthy couple of paragraphs. I hope you get the gist. I've never been afraid of voicing my devotion to the Walkman, however that has changed of late. I'm still a fan but lately I've felt that I'm only devoted to the brand and not so much the product itself. I have absolutely no problem in saying I'm a proud owner of a Walkman but every time I pull the contraption out of my pocket, the feeling doesn't quite equate.

I have received an innumerable number of inquisitions over why I didn't just get an iPod Touch instead. The apps and the whole iTunes ecosystem is so bloody tempting. There is no way I could possibly counter iOS's enormous ecosystem of content. What could I say about the Walkman? Well it has great sound quality and it...it...has an OLED screen and it...well yeah. Here I am defending a brand that I've been solely devoted to for the last three years when really there is nothing of fundamental value there to defend. I was a fanboy by all means and perhaps I still am. Fanboys are blind, and now I realise how blind I really was. I look back and I see that sacrificed so much just to get behind a brand and a product that I was so mindlessly in love with.

Had I stuck with the iPod instead perhaps things would be so much different. I haven't touched that horrific browser on the Walkman in months, I would rather wait for a computer to boot if I wanted to Google something. At least I have the comfort of knowing that it will be able to render correctly the sites I will be visiting. Not to mention that diabolical keypad on the Walkman. The real world practicality of apps is questionable but perhaps I would be doing so many things in a more mobile manner and more efficiently with the iPod. The Walkman X's limited capabilities don't help with anything besides enjoying my media. How many times have I shamefully asked to use someone else's iPod or iPhone to briefly check something up, or even worse, to play an app? Numerous times, and all that time they're probably thinking: 'sucked in bud, should've got an iPod'.

I was fully aware of the Walkman's limitations before I purchased it. I can't recall what was going through my head when I made my mind and settled on the Walkman, but I guess I figured, it's a great price on eBay, when the new Walkman comes out I'll just sell the X back and hopefully break even. Then of course purchase the new one which would hopefully be awesome. It seemed like a pretty hole-proof plan, I did overlook one hole though. That was if Sony never made a new Walkman. Well right now, air is seeping through that one hole, and its getting larger and larger.

Sony knows what the fans want: a proper browser, apps, a comparable experience to what the iPod Touch is offering. But instead they mock us, chucking out irrelevant junk like the E series and the S series. The only decent offering being the A series, which satanically isn't available in the states and has been removed from the market here in Australia. The Xperia phones are nice aren't they, but I've already got a phone, I'm not a mountain of money. Not to mention the Xperia phones don't even carry Walkman brandng for their music players - no thank you says Walkman fan. Additionally a dedicated Walkman phone doesn't appeal to any of us, because it's just not the same, it doesn't offer the legendary sound quality we've all been spoilt with and it's really just fan bait. I get the feeling that Walkman phones only take advantage of the loyalty of Walkman users.

'Oh, our smartphone business is a little down, don't worry we'll chuck a 'W' on one of those phones and those fanboy suckers will be salivating more than a twelve year old reading Twilight.' 

There's nothing differentiating in terms of their functionality, they just have a nice orange 'W' slapped on. Sony I hate to tell you, but your Walkman devotees have a sweet bevy of alternatives at their hands: Zune HD, certain Cowon models... We're not readily just going to pick up a Zune and just ditch the Walkman. But Sony's tempting an exodus.

It's confusing, what do they want to do with the Walkman. Are they just going to ditch a brand that literally carried them for 30 odd years, one of their most famous and beloved brands thrown into the dust just like that? Are they really that morally deficient? I don't know, perhaps for the sake of business sense. Nobody can know what's going inside the heads of the Walkman department at Sony HQ, but I think they're confused. Stuck between saving an old brand, or utilising other methods to get themselves started in portable entertainment. But all this time while they're stuck deciding, my Walkman X gets older and older. New iOS and Android devices keep on pouring in, pushing my Walkman further and further behind the times. In a few years time my Walkman will be like the tortoise in the the tortoise and the hare, but this time, the hare never stops. Yet, when my Walkman's time is up and no new quality Walkman comes out...I'm in uncharted waters.

Do I think Sony's going to roll out a new Walkman? No, but I still want one all the same. I'm hesitating in getting a new PMP or maybe a smartphone simply because there is still an inkling of hope I will be able to enjoy Walkman again in a beefy new flavour. If I make the leap and switch somewhere else, I would sorely miss the sound, and the Digital Noise Cancelling. But do these features and that 'W' logo really measure up against the sacrifices I've had to make to obtain them. I used to think so, but in a growing and expanding age I'm beginning to doubt it now. Zune HD will give me great sound with some apps and a decent browser. iPod Touch will give me everything with forgiveable sound. And an Android smartphone will give me everything too, with decent sound also I suspect. Perhaps it's time to make the leap, I'm beginning to think waiting for a new Walkman won't bear me any fruits.

I don't regret my purchase of the Walkman X mind you. It's a great media player and the noise cancelling has really assisted in shutting up the noisy private school snobs on the tram. However when it's time for upgrade and there really is no upgrade, I have no choice but to jump ship. It doesn't leave me, a Walkman diehard in a good place, to me, it's a moral dilemma. I take this stuff too personally. In the face of stiff competition and continual releases of new devices, the limitations and sheer backwardness of Walkman X really come to light. Thus I've come to the realisation and many other anxious Walkman fans that we can't let the connection for the 'W' hold us back any further. How can we expect to cling on and have faith in a brand that really doesn't have any faith in itself.

I'm sticking with Walkman X for now, it's not the time yet. But remember Sony, time to get the act together, or you're losing me too...