Pipped by Apple's charming but accident-prone gadgets

Some of us are just too clumsy to be allowed to play with the coolest hi-tech toys around.

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I thoroughly embrace modern technology and I'm certainly no Luddite. However, there is one maker of gadgets and gizmos that frustrates me to the core: Apple.

Exhibit A: the sleek, sophisticated and surprisingly aerodynamic iPhone. These expensive toys should under no circumstances be sold to those, like me, with clumsy tendencies, as I discovered last year.

Try as I might to keep this beautifully ergonomic device in my mitts, I failed time and time again. Keeping hold of the phone was like grappling with a wet bar of soap, and upon my second trip to Minutes in the Mall of the Emirates to replace the glass face, the kind man behind the counter took pity and gave me a free soft-plastic casing.

Which worked for a period of time, but repeated encounters with gravelly pavements eventually took their toll and left the protective cover scuffed and gaping like a pair of well-worn shoes.

Our final goodbye came earlier this year. As I gesticulated enthusiastically during an animated conversation, the phone slipped clean out of both my hand and the pouch.

In a scene now so familiar to me as a slow-motion replay, the device hurtled towards the marble floor to end its journey face down and smashed to pieces yet again. This Apple iPhone had finally run out of juice.

So I flipped fruits and indulged in a brand new BlackBerry. Which, although it may not have the looks, certainly has the smarts and is, thankfully, the phone that keeps on bouncing.

Alas, my Apple-itis isn't restricted to phones, for I also have a weird and wonderful relationship with my superstylish MacBook Pro laptop.

I use it for huge periods of time daily and receive jolting electric shocks whenever my wrists accidentally come to rest upon the aluminium casing. Despite having tried all manner of surge-protecting adaptors and plugs, nothing seems to earth the vicious static charge whizzing around the computer keyboard.

I'm reliably informed that this is a common problem, and on the upside, there's no chance of my being anything less than 100 per cent alert at my desk with my exposed wrists constantly being zapped back into an upright, ladylike position.

I also lament the loss of my "End" and "Home" function keys - almost as much as the absence of my "Page Up", "Page Down" and "Delete Break" buttons. Woe, woe is me.

Now I fully appreciate that all this whingeing makes me sound not only thoroughly uncool but also truly undeserving of these fantastically fashionable toys. Rest assured, I'll be first in line when Steve Jobs teams up with Stella McCartney to develop a stylish range of non-slip rubber gloves for iPhone owners and fetching, rubber-soled shoes for laptop users.