Dear Apple,

A while ago, we started dating. I’d seen you around, met you as you hung out with my friends, I thought you were nice, but I didn’t think there would ever be a future for us. Then one day, in late December of 2009 I was sitting on a roof at work and my Noika left me. Just gone. Didn’t even say good-bye. I was hurt. I turned to you. I thought you my have been a rebound, it my have been a mistake born out of confused emotions, but as it turned out, we just worked.

By 2011, I was ready to make a full commitment. In June I ordered a MacBook Pro, I was willing to give my life to you. And on 26th June 2011, I carried you across the threshold and we began making a life together. For a while things were good. We loved spending time together, making stuff, fun videos, just staying up late at night looking at each other and enjoying YouTube.

Then your father died. I was worried it might affect you, but you seemed pretty perky. You made all these changes, kept a happy outlook and gave me the 4S. Things didn’t seem to change much. Your new friend Siri was a mess, but I thought you kept her around because she was recovering from drug addiction for something. She was our charity case.

When I decided to back up all our memories, you suggested the Time Machine. While I know that time travel is impossible, I humoured you and got one. Or at least a non-Apple Time Machine. You know, our friends, Western Digital? You did back up all our memories, for a day or two. Then you said they were corrupt, destroyed them and started again. Then when you’d finished, they lasted a few days before you declared them corrupt too. You’ve been on this cycle for months. These days I refuse to let you play with the time machine because I know you will just destroy our memories once again. How can treat all that we’ve built together with such disrespect?

Still I decided, you’re not yourself, I’ll give you some space.

But then you brought home our new pet. A Mountain Lion. Now I’m not too sure about having dangerous animals in the house, but you seemed to handle our Lion pretty well so I decided to trust you.

But I think the tragic events of the previous few months had gotten to you. The Mountain Lion was actually a sign of your crumbling hold on reality. Now you seem distracted all the time. I try and get you to recognise some of my friends, our mutual friend 7D for instance. Whenever he comes around you just stare into space for 20 minutes. If I suggest we give our Mountain Lion a check up, maybe an upgrade, you just bounce your beach ball while I try and get him to the App Store. When finally you stop bouncing your beach ball, and you let the procedure go ahead when it’s almost entirely done, you scream “Fatal Error. Try again!” This behaviour is confusing and unbecoming of someone such as you.

When I updated our sound system, you stopped syncing with the 4S. Then today when I thought I’d get the 4S to try on that new iOS, hoping it would capture your attention and you stopped acknowledging it all together.

I’m starting to feel that this relationship is growing untenable. I don’t know if you’re losing your mind, or you’re just losing interest in me. I think we should go see someone together. Maybe a Genius.

But let me just say this. If this genius doesn’t help us, I’m going to start considering a divorce. I know we’ve invested a lot together over the past year or so, and I know you’ve done what you can to make me dependent on you, all your talk of ecosystems and stuff, but maybe it’ll be best to cut our loses. I know I’d be going back to Microsoft. And I remember what life was like with Microsoft, but at least with MS, I knew where I stood. MS was always unreliable, but at least we could work on the relationship together.

You and me Apple, these days, we may just not work.

Yours,

Tom