Part I: The New Loyalty - What it Looks Like 17 Years Later

The taste of betrayal. Why was I calling it quits even as things were just getting started?

2026 retrospective: I rage-quit the iPhone in 2009. Seventeen years later, I was wrong about what would disappear—but surprisingly right about what would get worse.

Reading this again feels less like revisiting an obsolete technology rant and more like an archaeological excavation of problems that never really went away. EDGE disappeared. Netbooks mostly disappeared. The original iPhone is now a museum piece. But rapid obsolescence, expensive ecosystems, constant connectivity, recurring fees, digital lock-in, and the uneasy distinction between buying something and merely retaining permission to use it are all still with us.

Apple has become considerably better at avoiding the brutal kind of technological cutoff early adopters sometimes experienced. The leap from EDGE to 3G was especially painful: suddenly a recently purchased, premium device could feel generations behind simply because the underlying wireless technology had advanced so dramatically. I still remember waiting what felt like forever just to send an email with a single photo attachment.

What I miss most from that era, strangely enough, is physical media. You bought a CD, DVD, book, or piece of software and—barring damage—it remained yours. Digital distribution brought enormous convenience, but ownership became more conditional. Accounts, DRM, subscriptions, licensing changes, compatibility requirements, and discontinued services can all stand between you and something you once thought you had purchased.

So the title still works: Why I Ditched My Apple iPhone. The reasons have changed clothes, but many of them are still hanging around.