Are you ready to laugh… with terror?
You are? Wow. The Macalope’s not even sure how one does that. But writing for Fortune, Don Reisinger says “FBI’s iPhone Crack Has Scared You Silly.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Tay Bass.)
Literally spraying yourself in the face with Silly String kind of scared. So scared, it’s wrapped back around on itself and you’re actually having a good time. That’s how scared.
Now for the conclusive evidence proving your delightful, abject terror. Look on… if you dare.
In a Fortune poll of more than 2,000 registered voters, 49% of respondents said that they were “more concerned” about the privacy of their data following the FBI’s iPhone crack.
Your mouth opens to scream, but nothing comes out. Probably because you are not actually scared in any way. You are, in fact, yawning. Because the entirety of the horror here is that not even a majority of a relatively small sample of a slice of iPhone users expressed “more concern.” Which they should! But having concern is not being “scared silly”.
This is like a 7-layer bean dip made entirely of caveats. You pick up a chip, all excited, and then you’re like “Ugh, it’s all caveats. I hate caveats.”
The way the Macalope visualizes this, the role of caveats is played by chickpeas. Which are unarguably gross.
Nearly a third of respondents said they’d be less likely to be [sic] an iPhone…
One out of three shape-shifters agree with themselves that they’re just not that into becoming an iPhone.
These are the kinds of people who answer Fortune polls, people who think they can turn into popular electronic devices. Makes sense now.
Probably the scariest thing here is if a third of people presumably think that getting an Android phone is going to better. Point of fact, however: It’s probably going to be worse. Fortune is predictably mum on what these people think they’re going to do instead of buy an iPhone.
“Weeeell, the Romans used to write a message on a runner’s head, wait for his hair to grow back and then send him off. I’m probably going to do that.”
Not that we should necessarily believe them since they’ve handled this with the same level of forthright concern for straightforwardly educating the public as Randy on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, but according to the FBI, their hack only works on the iPhone 5c anyway.
It’s probably the plastic. “Turns out the back just pops right off! Then all the data just fell right out.”
…Republican Donald Trump supporters are least likely to buy another iPhone, following the FBI-Apple kerfuffle.
That’s the entirety of the explanation about that. If you didn’t know about Trump’s call for a boycott of Apple (which, shocking spoiler, Fortune neglects to mention), you might think Trump supporters were concerned about iPhone security.
So, a fairly unrepresentative poll shows some concern but mostly miseducation on the issues. You’d think the thing to do would be to write a piece clearing things up.
That’s what you’d think, Myrtle. But that’s why you’re getting your PhD in library science instead of writing for Fortune. You know this. You’re not even supposed to be in this story.