What is this, 1999?

[The iPhone commercial] goes like this: An airline pilot tells us about the time he was working a flight from Chicago to Newark, N.J. Before departure, he was notified by controllers of a three-hour weather delay. Suspicious, he whipped out his iPhone and browsed over to Weather.com (“with our engines shut down,” he carefully notes, avoiding any conflict with the rules). Noticing that the troublesome rain showers had already moved through, he contacted his dispatcher. The dispatcher “took another look” at conditions, and 30 minutes later the flight was cleared to go. IPhone to the rescue. ¶ For the record, I’ve been an Apple user since the day I bought my first Mac Powerbook in 1994, but I despise this commercial so deeply that I need to leave the room every time it comes on. I’ve worked hard writing articles that provide passengers with an inside look at the difficult logistics of these situations (see related stories at the end of this article), and in 30 seconds Apple is able to hopelessly mislead millions of viewers, dumbing down the realities of flight delays and presenting airline operations as childish and unprofessional.