Luke Marsden: how high tech rules and ruins our lives

​These days, time is up for the old school, tech rules and ruins our lives.

Last autumn I purchased a new Apple Watch. My previous one couldn’t make it through a day without dying and at first I was impressed by how long the new battery lasted without needing a charge, from Ring notifications, WhatsApp messages to even the odd Tinder match my watch could deal with it all, until this week.

When you buy something brand new, despite its being 2024, you expect it to last at least a year without needing to phone customer services.

Apple Customer Services (based in Ireland) is quite the experience. I phoned up to complain that my new watch isn’t lasting a day. In fact after a walk up to Haigh Hall the battery drained by 40 per cent. I know looking at Haigh Hall construction can be draining at the best of times but even the watch couldn’t cope.

Apple logged into my phone, and began to run all forms of diagnostic tests as though I’d told them I had a lump and needed to know what it was. The conclusion was that everything was fine and I should just re-set the entire thing.

They also flagged if they deemed it necessary to go into an actual real life Apple Store and speak to an “Apple Genius” that may well be charged at my pleasure rather than them picking up the tab.

Back when we had a fully functioning Market Hall, I remember taking my old watch in for a repair at a watch stall. The guy fixed it quicker than it took me to walk into town and he said I didn’t need to pay him.

Those days are long gone. In fact I’m just waiting for an invoice from Apple for the 25-minute phone conversation that resulted in nothing.

Needless to say, time ran out on my patience but at least I can tell the time, for now!