Reader’s Digest: “The iPhone is the Devil”
At the checkout line today, the cover of Reader’s Digest caught my eye in a way that usually only the cover of Fitness Magazine is able to do.
The above shot of the iPhone – complete with horns and devil tail – makes it clear. The iPhone is the work of the devil, if not the devil himself.
Seeing as I only had 7 of my allowed 8 items or less, I picked up this “rag” to see what it was about the iPhone that made RD‘s editors feel the need to vilify Time Magazine‘s gadget of the year. After all, as an iPhone user, I had to know if my soul was in danger!
But imagine my surprise when after reading through all 6 pages of the featured article “Get A Grip”, (a fluff article about the intrusiveness of technology in our lives) I found not ONE mention of the iPhone. Not even an iPod. I DID, however, count 5 mentions of the Blackberry, one of the Sidekick, and one more of the xBox.
Now, I can’t imagine the folks over at Reader’s Digest would choose to slap the ultra-famous iPhone on their cover (dressed as Satan) just to bring in more readers, but that appears to be the case. It’s the old “bait and switch” (geek-style), and RD successfully swindled me out of my hard-earned $2.99.
But, am I bitter? No, of course not. $2.99 is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing my iPhone will not suddenly burst into flames in my pocket should I enter a church this holiday season. In fact, when you combine that knowledge with the kick-ass article on “What to do when you can’t remember someone’s name“, I would have paid $3.49.
The Reader’s Digest has been predigested pap for non-readers since its founding. “We take things that are hard to read and make it more like TV: big print, and no big words!”
RD is only trying to expand its readership to Mac devotees, who will only buy anything with an Apple logo or product image on it.
RD used to have decent issues right until 1995 or so; then the volumes became thinner (both in terms of number of pages and paper quality) and fluffier (pages started tearing easily and content quality was reduced)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11…
That picture of our dark lord’s missing something, isn’t it? You think if they were going to insult our intelligence, at least they’d use a current picture, wouldn’t they?
(Oddly enough, you can do all those things described in the subhead for the story with an iPhone. Fake but accurate.)
I expect they’re just making reference to the fact that MacOS X is based on a BSD-derived kernel, which as any fule kno, has a little devil as its mascot.
Fully agree with Mark; It’s a reference to MacOSX BSD. I am actually quite surprised that Reader’s Digest is that subtle. OTOH, their readership is unlikely to have heard about BSD and them placing the photo without clarifying it is, well, malevolent. 🙂
Tell an RD reader about BSD, they’ll think you mean BS devil 🙂
The nice thing is that since you can still take your iPhone into church, you can surf the web whilst ignoring the preacher.
Before I stopped going to church, thus eliminating the need to ignore anybody, I used to sit and read the bible while ignoring the priest. To hell with your interpretation, preacherman, I’m going right to the source, it’s much more juicy!
Greenpeace has used this publicity tactic recently with the iPhone too. I’m predicting that the next issue of RD will have Greenpeace on the cover (and not mention them either)!