To buy or not to buy, that is the question,
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of Angry Birds
In the restricted joys of the iOS walled garden
Or to take up an Android device,
And by so doing, Cut the Rope and run on open pathways?
Which to get? To buy, to keep?
But will the purchase end
The heart-ache, and the thousand commercial shocks
That mobile technology is heir to? To this a solution
Devoutly I do wish. To buy, to keep,
Perchance of apps and updates Dream; Aye, there’s the rub,
For if I do buy and keep, what new gadgets may come,
Or updates new, that may shuffle mine off its technological coil?
I must give pause. And also respect
That newbie which could make a Calamity of the device’s life.
Who would bear the drops and scratches of time,
The user’s wrongs, the proud man’s showy cases,
The pangs of rejected friend request, the UI’s lags,
The compatible insolence of Office suites, and the loading times
That our patience unworthily test?
When one might himself his tech Quietus make
With a bare feature phone?
Who would every year phones bear,
To grunt and sweat about every update?
But that the dread of being phone-less,
Of being in an undiscovered Country,
With neither maps nor apps
Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the ills these have,
Than fly to other devices that we know not of.
Thus does tech make Cowards of us all,
And thus indeed the Native hue of Common Sense
Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Tech terror
And grand plans to purchase simple gizmos,
To just call and text turn awry,
And lose the name of Action.
With due apologies to Shakespeare. Here’s the original version of the speech.