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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Letters

iPhones are now the choice of drug barons and arms dealers

Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook, who died in a gun battle with authorities hours after their assault on a gathering of Farook’s colleagues in San Bernardino, California
Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook, who died in a gun battle with authorities hours after their assault on a gathering of Farook’s colleagues in San Bernardino, California. Apple and the US federal government are at odds over unlocking the iPhone used by Syed Farook. Photograph: AP

Your correspondent on Apple (Letters, 2 March) is not wrong – there are people choosing to live behind 3m walls with rottweilers running free. But is that a world that we want? I love the elegance of Apple devices – developed, as economist Mariana Mazzucato points out in The Entrepreneurial State, using technology paid for with public money for the military. But a few weeks ago I decided not to upgrade to an iPhone – partly because of the concealed costs and partly because it has become the preferred phone of drug barons, arms dealers etc. Apple has gained the world but lost its soul. The company has lost touch with its engineering genius and is behaving something like a rogue state. We hardly need to ask if it is in favour of TTIP, which by accident or design would put predatory capital in charge of the world. On one level money does make the world go round, but experience tells that the kindness of other people is what makes life worth living. A padded cell is very safe, but not most people’s des res.
Jenny Tillyard
Seaford, East Sussex

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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