iPhone topic

Imagine trying to work today without a mobile phone. Unless you are a deep-sea diver, or a miner, it would be impossible. We used to manage, but now it would be like trying to work without a head. Or lungs.

Sky+ is another fine example. We used to watch a TV show when it was on. And then we spent a few years on our knees, with our arses in the air, setting the timer on our video recorders for Tuesday to record a programme that was on on Sunday. And then along came Sky+. When that doesn't work, and it doesn't quite often, it's as though your face has been amputated.

All of this is making life extremely expensive, because when something goes wrong, you cannot repair it. No one can mend Sky+ or an iPhone. You have to get a new one. And you have to get a new one immediately because life is impossible without it.

‘Imagine trying to work without a mobile phone. It’d be impossible. It’d be like trying to work without a head. Or lungs’

Part of the problem is the designer. If an item were built solely to perform a function, then it might stand a chance of not breaking. But because everything these days is ‘designed', form is allowed to kick function out of the back seat and into the boot. This applies, especially, to shoes.

The idea is, of course, that if you have a ‘designer' product, it won't matter when it goes wrong because by then, it will be unfashionable and time for a new one anyway. This month, for instance, I'm supposed to hope that my iPhone suddenly explodes because then I have an excuse to buy the new version with the HD video facility.

I have decided that if I were to live my life again, I would build a house with no gadgets in it whatsoever. And when I say no gadgets, I mean nothing from the 21st century. There would be no insulation in the walls. The windows would be in wooden frames. The lights would be 40-watt bulbs the shape of cul-de-sacs. Low energy, one touch, enjoy-your-food pinging dishwashers? Nope. And I'd have a typewriter.

Strangely, however, I'm not sure that I would apply this logic - and it is logic - to cars.

I have spent a great deal of time in the last few weeks driving around in cars from the Eighties which, when you're my age, was yesterday. But despite this recent-ness, none of them had air bags, or satnav, or anti-lock brakes, or iPod connectivity, or valves in the exhaust to produce nice noises at high revs, or adjustable side bolsters on the seats, or automatic wipers or indeed any of the things you find these days on even a Kia Cee'd.

Of course, all of the aforementioned things became invaluable the moment they were first invented. Would I buy a car these days that could not play the songs from my iPod? Not on your nelly. And it's the same story with satnav.

However, what makes these products different from the products in your home is that they are still working.

You bounce through pot holes at 70mph. You leave them outside when it's snowing and when it's 90 degrees. You let your dog play with the buttons. And still they continue to play the Doobie Brothers and find the quickest route to Bishop's Stortford.

It's the same story with the rest of the car. When was the last time you broke down? Unless you have a Peugeot, the answer is "I can't remember". When was the last time you had a puncture? Not that long ago, a tyre would burst because it was bored with being a tyre. Now you could drive through a nail factory and emerge on the other side still with 30psi at each corner.

Part of the reason for this is that despite strenuous and understandable efforts from the car makers to turn their products into disposable designer items to be bought and discarded like handbags, they remain a ‘big buy'.

There's more though. BMW knows that if you buy a Z4 and it goes wrong after six minutes, you will replace it when the time comes with a Mercedes. No big deal. It's effectively the same thing. Both have steering wheels, pedals, speedo, wheels and so on.

This is the problem we have with iPods and Sky+ and Gaggia coffee machines and British Telecom's internet services. If you do decide to switch horses, you end up with more instruction books, more buttons you don't understand and realistically, just as much of a chance of complete failure within a few days. So when my iPhone goes wrong, I buy another. I don't even consider a Raspberry.