John C. Dvorak thinks iPhone owners are about to be screwed. Actually, to be more accurate, he thinks everyone is going to get screwed. Constantly. That's his M.O. after all, as a tech "journalist" who's credibility has pretty much dwindled to nothing over the last few decades. As one of the first writers to cover computers in the 80's, he seems to have earned himself a seat at the table, and PCMag apparently sees some value in keeping him around. You have to wonder what that value, is, though, since he's wrong about just about everything he writes these days. It's not because he's lost his mental facility, but because he seems to love indulging the caricature of himself as a "cranky geek." Oh, when you're in your late 50's it's probably fun to play the curmudgeon, but that doesn't mean that you're entitled to people taking you seriously, either. That's probably why he seems most at home as a frequent guest on the TWIT network's This Week in Tech these days. When you're on a video broadcast designed to entertain, it doesn't matter how unfounded anything you say is, particularly when there are three other hosts ready to disagree and obscure just how off-base you might be.
So what has Dvorak so worried this week? Well, according to his PCMag editorial, iPhone users are about to be screwed. Why? Because Apple is rumored to be pushing NFC or "Near Field Communication" in the next iteration of the iPhone. NFC will allow people to use their phone as an e-wallet of sorts, essentially replacing credit cards by enabling a payment system in the phone to process payments with a mere push of a button or wave of the phone. Google's Nexus S has NFC and Android developers are working to create apps and uses for it right now.
So why is Dvorak worried about NFC? He says that routing payments through your phone is a huge mistake because it will give tremendous power to the carriers. He goes into detail about the power that phone companies have and the manner in which they've supposedly scammed people in the past. To embolden his argument he pulls out an obscure reference from the "modern era of communications" that involved phone calls being rerouted in order to jack up fees to absurd levels. He then reveals his own paranoia by claiming that he always believed this was a test to show banks and "everyone" that phone companies are the best collection agencies because they can deny service for failed payments. Because that's what phone companies want: to weave an elaborate scheme for banks (don't worry about why), wait years for the technology to advance, and then pounce.
It would be easy to dismiss Dvorak's paranoia on the grounds of absurdity, but why bother leaving any room for debate? After all, there is a fatal flaw in the very premise of his article. While Android may cede issues of NFC billing to carriers, there's no way Apple is going to go the same route. Apple will enable NFC payments through their iTunes store, like they do with everything else. If you think Apple is going to bother with the complexity of carrier and country relations by giving the phone operators control over the billing, then you know nothing about Apple and how they have operated so far in the mobile space.
But then, why would we expect Dvorak to sweat the details on anything? This is the guy who used to review software based on the packaging it came it. The same one who predicted absolute failure for the iPad. The same one who said Apple should kill the iPhone. The same one who dismissed the original Macintosh because he thought the mouse would be unappealing to users. Striving to be "edgy" or "controversial" may be his thing, but when you don't even bother to understand the basic behaviors of the companies you cover, you end up with worthless articles based off horrible premises. It's like the Andy Kindler stand-up routine from the 90's that made fun of comedians whose jokes are based off an incorrect premise.
That may be a little unfair, though. Dvorak isn't officially a comedian.