By Nora Soriño
ILIGAN City -- Let’s talk this time of something less deadly than the Covid- 19 although not less unsettling, to say the least. Such as the apple. The apple has been in our consciousness ever since we came into this imperfect world of ours.
Snake tempted Eve to eat it. The latter too coerced Adam to partake of it. After that nothing was ever the same again. Paradise was lost, we are told.
Soon our first parents were told by God to “go into the world and multiply.”
And they did.
Speaking of multiplication, I can not help recalling this joke. Digna couldn’t learn to multiply no matter how hard the teacher tried. Years later the teacher saw Digna and she exclaimed, “Well, Digna, at last, you’ve learned to multiply!” For her former student was now carrying a baby in her arms, aside from three toddlers holding on to her skirt.
But we speak here of another Apple, the apple of many peoples’ eyes. That apple presented in a logo as not in a whole piece. Maybe because somebody has bitten into it? Just like our native fare called “binangkal.” Of which some grade school learner exclaimed upon seeing it the first time: “ Help, someone has taken and bit into a piece of my ‘ binangkal’! Because it seems it’ s no longer whole. “
Back to our apple. In San Francisco, California, Apple has agreed to pay up to $500 to settle a claim action lawsuit over claims it covertly “slowed” older iPhones to get users to upgrade.
Reports say that a federal judge in California presiding over a group of lawsuits will be asked to approve a settlement at a hearing in early April. Apple, it is said, did not comment.
It is reported that Apple, in 2017, admitted that there is a “stealthy mobile operating software tweaked in older iPhones whose battery life was deteriorating to prevent handsets from spontaneously shutting down.”
Critics then accused Apple of surreptitiously forcing users to buy phones sooner than necessary.
A good business strategy, I should say. That is until the owners of the iPhone 7 became suspicious. So the “good business strategy” became a dirty whatchamacallit.
I recall though in some of my readings, a slow but “foolproof” strategy. In a book written by Frederick Forsythe, called “The Afghan” the Abu Sayyaf, yes, in our PH, they don’t use gadgets. They use people to message for another one in their mission. So they’ve got to thoroughly memorize that message. That way, they get a greater assurance of success. Who can then intercept it if there’s no gadget? After all, their mission is only to well, make some successful “assassination” of who?
The President of the United States of America or “Potus.”
But there’s the CIA to contend with. Well, a good plot then.
Some lessons learned about ASGs. In some mangrove areas in the Zamboanga peninsula area, they stay there in the meantime. That’s one of their “settlements,” maybe a “dirty” but good strategy. Frederick of “Jackal” fame knows how to research his piece. How many of us know that much?
But where’s the “Apple” in all this? There’s no “Apple” really on the part of the ASG. Or an android. Meaning, one can accomplish something even without the “Apple.”Or something like that.
Wait, I think I remember something regarding apples. Someone had commented:: “What if Sir Isaac Newton had immediately eaten the “Apple” instead of wondering why it had fallen to the ground?”
Well, I think this is an “Apple” story that measures the “gravity” of the situation. Now, I think we’ve got some things mixed up here.
