Click

Clicks can be important. In this case I’m not talking about clicking a software button but the click that you hear when something physical happens or something that can mentally happen when things fall in place and something that was dim or difficult becomes clear.

The first click I want to talk about is the click I hear from the new Apple AirPods Pro 3 that were released several weeks back. Specifically the click I hear when I close the lid of the charger. On the 3, it sounds cheap meaning a bit “tinny” and high pitched. On the 1 and 2, it sounded lower and richer. You wanted to hear that click as it was “satisfying”.

That makes a difference when something is considered a “premium” product. Apple used to sweat these details but, it appears, maybe they don’t sweat them as much as they used to. The bare aluminum spine on the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard is another example of this. Whenever you open it, it slides across the surface you’re working in unless you’re careful.

The first bad click.

By the way, I do feel that transparency mode has improved with the AirPods Pro 3 over the 2. It is darn close to having no headphones on at all. The sound quality may be a little better but the 2 was pretty darn good to begin with. Not high end headphone quality, but very good none the less. Fit is different compared to the 2 but still good. I did have to drop one size of ear tip for the 3. Obviously your results may vary. Overall a small but nice upgrade as I bought the 2 when they were first released in September of 2022. But anyway…

The second click for me happened while reading the book “Apple in China” by Patrick McGee. There is way too much to cover from that book here, so I’ll just use two main takeaways for this post and note how ruthless Apple is when it comes to vendors and how much they have invested in China.

Oh, one more thing, you also learn just how much Apple will give in to and support authoritarian governments to move their corporate goals forward. From the perspective of a “greedy corporation” point of view, this isn’t that abnormal. The problem is, Apple has sold itself as something different.

From my point of view, Apple needs to be honest. Either be something different, like you once were, or just be a typical hard nose corporation and drop the something different shlock. Which is what it has become.

I’ve always felt Apple was different. For me, it started when Jobs came back and they were at the point of closing and Apple had to be hungry and different and there was a huge belief in their products and the good they could do in the world with those products (maybe a bit naive on my part) . But, when they became the huge juggernaut that they are now and Jobs is gone, they have become just what they used to say they weren’t. People change, companies change. That’s life.

The second bad click.

But, for me, Apple crossed the line when it started to support the authoritarian government forming here in the U.S. When many, many companies, firms, universities, etc., etc. have to pay what amounts to bribes to hopefully stay clear of any potential retribution, well, that amounts to an authoritarian government in my book. Look at China.

When Apple pays the money and removes apps from their App Store because the government wants them removed, I feel that crosses the line. I’m not talking China, where they did it for that government, I’m talking here in the good old U. S. of A.

The third bad click.

So what do we do. Fight back any way we are able to. We are in perilous times that have been repeated over and over again throughout history. I just wish people would finally wise up when it comes to folks that want to be dictators and stop them from gaining power in the first place. To see what is happening to our country, our government right now is both scary and disheartening.

It is especially disheartening to see so many of our leaders fall in line with this regime. Leaders in congress, the courts, companies, other world leaders, etc. They could come together and stop this today, if they wanted to. But, it appears they don’t, for whatever reason.

That leaves it up to us, the ordinary citizens, to again let our voices and strength be heard! Like when this country was founded and we fought against authoritarian kings from England! Remember? This country was founded not on authoritarian government but on the government of the people! Believe it or not, all the elected folks in this country work for us, the people, not the other way around! We need to remember that and remind them of that!

I’ll leave you with these words from a former president who summed things up way better than I ever could…

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”