WASHINGTON: A video of US senator John McCain complaining to Apple CEO Tim Cook about the need to update apps on his iPhone has gone viral, as it seems to be a sentiment many consumers share.
The ex-Republican party presidential election candidate and current US Senator, John McCain, took time out from grilling Apple over its alleged tax avoidance practices to ask the company’s CEO: “Why the hell do I have to keep updating apps on my iPhone all the time?”
Tim Cook responded: “Sir, we’re trying to make them better all the time.”
The video of the exchange is already going viral but McCain is by no means the first US political heavyweight to express confusion around smartphones or to have this confusion captured and uploaded to YouTube.
Earlier this month, a Newt Gingrich video, in which another former Republican presidential hopeful claimed to be “really puzzled” by modern cell phones and called for viewers to come up with a better name to describe them, went viral. “Think about it. If it is taking pictures, it’s not a cell phone. If it has a McDonald’s app to tell you where McDonald’s is, based on your GPS location — that’s not a cell phone. If you can get Wikipedia or go to Google — that’s not a cell phone. If you can watch YouTube — that’s not a cell phone. Or Netflix,” he says while holding up an iPhone 5.
Though both clips have generated their fair share of laughs, both politicians have a point. Consumers are prompted pretty much every week to update the apps on their iPhones, which means logging into the App Store (unlike on Android handsets, Apple app updates are not automatic), while Gingrich’s video highlights the fact that smartphones’ primary use is no longer voice calling, and therefore the ‘phone’ part of their name has become less meaningful.
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