The shooter in the San Bernardino killings had an iPhone with details the government wants to get at. But everything on an iPhone is encrypted and Apple’s policy is to not allow anyone a key to their encryption.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote this Customer Letter, posted it on the Apple website:

February 16, 2016A Message to Our Customers

Someone who isn’t a techie or part of the digerati would read Cook’s letter and say to themselves, “Great. Apple is trying to protect us”. Yes, in this case Apple is trying to keep the government out of its business and send a message to us citizens that doing so is good for us.

No one should read Cook’s letter and think that Apple is all-in on our side.

Because after all, Apple basically makes a device that enables developers to track everything we do. Yes, we have to opt-in to be tracked. But make no mistake about it, the iPhone is a tracker. So is an Android phone.

And Apple isn’t exactly what I’d call a great company.

Ever try calling their tech support? Apple’s tech support is the worst. It’s like they hired a bunch of people and their only training was, “When they call, Google their problem”.

Today I couldn’t get my Quick Time Pro registration to transfer over to my new Macbook Pro. Instead of searching, I decided to call Apple to get help. Bad idea.

So I call the Quick Time Support number, 512-674-8700.

It took the first person who answered 10 minutes just to get my serial number right. Maybe Apple needs better phone lines? Then that person transferred me to another person.

An hour later, after this person did nothing but guess what my problem was, asked me “if I don’t mind being put on hold while I contact a senior adviser” (who is really just someone who can use Google better), apologized profusely for me being on hold, the person tells me, “Paul, I’m really sorry. But we don’t handle Quick Time support at this number. Please call 512-674-8700”.

After spending yet another hour of my life dealing with shitty software support, I searched for “how to transfer my quick time pro registration” and got this link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201691

I put in my registration code, hit Tab, it worked.

Of course I didn’t follow my own advice, which is never call Apple for tech support because searching is better.

Note to self. Repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Ever try logging into Apple for an order you placed a couple of years ago? It’s not there. Apple only saves 18 months of order history. Maybe they need more disk space?

Every try getting a hold of someone at Apple for an iTunes purchase? OMG, good luck with that.

More issues I have with Apple.

I pay more taxes than Apple does. Yes, they’re taking advantage of what tax laws allow for. Tax laws should be changed. Hopefully when they are Apple will start building its products here in the United States. When Apple pays more taxes than I do we’ll all be better off – because we are not broke.

Back to privacy and protecting us citizens. If Apple is so concerned about privacy, if this is an issue of free speech, why won’t they let me read Playboy on my iPad?

Apple is telling the government, “Hey. You. Get off of my cloud”.

They’re telling the government to pound sand. Yes, I like that. But when I think different, it seems to me they’re more powerful than the government. That I don’t like. If so, than this is another example of how powerful a handful of companies are.

Apple wants the world to think they’re on their side. Ya, right.