With all the hype surrounding the new iPhone, it’s easy to get caught up. According to Apple, 5 million iPhone 5s were sold in its first weekend frenzy. Since, about 5 million complaints have risen over the fastest-selling Apple gadget.
The top glitches that users encountered started with the new Apple Maps app, which has replaced Google Maps on iOS 6. From the absent public transit directions, to mislabeled cities, Apple Maps is a ‘mess,’ according to users. After that, iPhone woes range from the device being too light and thin (no, really), to scratching too easily, to a too-short battery life. Think about it: you wait in line for a brand new iPhone, drop a few hundred dollars, just to have to charge it everyday, or have Siri give you the weather of a city different than the one you requested. Even worse, it’s so light that it feels like a toy in your pocket rather than 112 grams of the most highly advanced technology available. Who does Apple think they are?
Saturday Night Live, which every once in awhile these days hits the nail right on the head, shed some perspective on the bloggers, like Gizmodo, who moped and cried about their new iPhone problems via the Internet. Basically, SNL pointed out new iPhone problems are equal to first world problems.
The skit, titled ‘Tech Talk: iPhone 5,’ gathers three bloggers on a talk show to discuss the problems they encountered with the iPhone: the maps, a weird purplish tint that appears in sunny pictures, and the too light, too thin disaster. In a turn of events, host Christina Applegate brings out three Chinese factory workers who assembled the phones to talk with the bloggers. #awkward.
“Talk about Apple Map, it no work, right?” asks Fred Armisen in a mocking tone and fake Asian accent. “It took you to wrong place. You want Starbucks, it took you to Dunkin Donuts. That must be so hard for you.”
The bloggers, naturally, grow uncomfortable and attempt to rescind their comments. While the skit doesn’t mention the Foxconn manufacturer by name (whose factories in China produce the phone), it alludes to the allegedly terrible conditions that the workers live under, like overtime hours and minimal pay.
The point is that things could be worse, even if Apple Maps does suck pretty hard.
This skit relates to a commercial recently released by Water is Life, during which people from a Third World Haitian community read “First World Problems” out loud.
“I hate it when I ask for no pickles, and they still give me pickles,” reads a boy standing outside of a rundown hut, a pig searching for food behind him. Other problems read by members of the small village in Haiti concern forgetting your phone when going to the bathroom, phone chargers not reaching your bed, and having a house so big that it requires two wireless routers. Cringe.
So next time we take to our glitchy iPhones to tweet #firstworldproblems, the ironic hashtag and meme might seem a little less attractive with a little added perspective.
