The Internet is maturing.

What does that mean? Stunts will be scarce and the odds of going from obscurity to fame are dropping ever lower.

Remember when record labels used to sponsor YouTube contests? Those evaporated. You can’t ask people to make clips for a small prize when they’re too busy uploading their own concoctions in an effort to become famous themselves. But it’s worse than that…you just can’t get the message out.

The other day, Paul McCartney played Hollywood Boulevard and it was a nonevent. Oh, the L.A. “Times” did a story, and there will be footage on Kimmel, but we learned long ago that appearances on late night television don’t sell records, because live shows are far from scarce, they populate the aforementioned YouTube, there’s more than you can see.

Kind of like documentaries. Now everybody’s got one. Not a week goes by without someone hawking their new one or asking me to appear in one. Who’s going to watch all these? Probably nobody, just like all those songs that are never downloaded on iTunes. Oh, you can post your stuff online, that does not mean anybody will see it.

This is not the way it was supposed to be. The Internet was supposed to level the playing field and give everybody a chance to play. Oh, we can all now play, but alone. The Internet now resembles America at large, the rich get richer and the middle class evaporates and the poor don’t matter.

Used to be we were all thrilled by the next innovation. First it was e-mail, then it was texting. Along the way we burned through jokes and online greeting cards and MySpace. Now we’re left with Facebook and Twitter and there are new services but none of them seem to reach critical mass, none of them seem to be used by everybody, because the public is fatigued. That’s the number one problem facing both Facebook and Twitter, fatigue. After you’ve posted your history to Facebook, where you went to school, who you married and pictures of your progeny, the thrill is gone, especially when you realize fewer are paying attention, that only a small core care. But it’s even worse on Twitter. If you’re a nobody on Twitter, you’re truly nowhere. And now no one goes from no followers to many unless they’re already famous offline. Never mind all the stories about fake followers, even Obama, you see people sign up for Twitter and abandon the service.

Not that you’d expect Wall Street to take notice, not that nobody plays anymore. But the excitement of these services was built on the fantasy that everybody had an equal voice, but that turned out to be just a fantasy.

Meanwhile, we’re all overloaded with input. A mentally ill maniac shoots up a Naval Yard and days later it’s gone from the news. Miley Cyrus will have her moment of fame and then drop off the face of the earth like every teen star before her, she thinks it’s forever, we’ve seen New Kids On The Block.

And even if you’ve been a star for decades the new reality is harsh. No one cares about Elton John’s new album other than those beholden to his handlers. Yes, the press trumpets it but there’s no audience for it. Youngsters don’t care and oldsters have already got enough Elton. Meanwhile, his voice is a shadow of what it once was and do we really expect him to be as great as he was in the seventies?

That’s a baby boomer problem. The belief that what was once important will continue to be.

But look at it this way… When we were listening to the Beatles back in 1964, were we also listening to the music from 1914? Of course not! So why do baby boomers expect that kids today care about what happened fifty years ago?

They don’t.

As for boomers saying they loved Frank Sinatra growing up… I don’t believe this is true, Sinatra nostalgia came much later, but in any event, his moment of fame came only twenty years before the Beatles, it’s like patting today’s kids on the back for liking George Michael.

Track the spread of today’s stories and you will almost always hit…a dead end. If you’re lucky, what you’ve done has been forwarded once or twice, but when it hits the great sea where you sink or swim on your merits, not based on who you know, it sinks. Oh, some things swim, but very few, and not for long.

So what we’ve got is the old era, but it’s even worse. Only a tiny sliver of stuff breaks through and becomes successful. The rest is wiped clean, as if the world were a giant magic slate.

So be thrilled if you’ve got friends who care about what you do. If you’ve got non-friend fans, even better. But if you’re dreaming of your one big break, the odds are exceptionally long.

“Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers, with more than 19.5 MILLION online fans who don’t really exist”

1. You can make the text bold.

To do this go to Settings to General to Accessibility to Bold Text and make the circle green (i.e. on.)

This will make the time more readable, as well as the name of apps, but e-mail text will also be bold, which I find slightly bothersome, but overall, the trade-off is beneficial.

2. To access the command center, i.e. the panel with all your favorite settings, don’t scroll from the bottom of the screen, but from OFF the screen. Yes, start down around the Home button and push your finger up and voila, the command center appears.

3. To improve battery life:

a. Turn off Background App Refresh.

Go to Settings then General and it’s in the third panel down (why we would need background refresh when we’re running on battery power baffles me, since it’s almost no effort to open the app and have it refresh then.)

b. On the aforementioned command center, turn off AirDrop, unless you need it. Just click on it and the option to turn it off will appear.

c. Turn on Reduce Motion in the Accessibility pane of Settings referenced above. This will also reduce headaches, which many are experiencing, I am not.

4. You can improve visibility by turning on Increase Contrast in the Accessibility panel.

5. If raw readability is your issue, you can increase Text Size in the first General panel under settings, and you can also turn on Larger Dynamic Type in the Accessibility panel. I did neither, raw type size is not my issue, then again, I was not one of those people running around with a BlackBerry with huge fonts so I could read text without my glasses.

6. There is no cure for overall brightness of the screen. Yes, you can adjust brightness in the command center that appears when you swipe up from the Home button, but I find that this does not solve the problem.

7. No matter what you do, you cannot change the font in the typing panel in Mail, the letters do not get bolder when you adjust for Bold Text in number 1 above.

8. Having done all the foregoing, my battery still drained quickly yesterday, today it’s doing better, although not as well as on iOS 6.

9. People with Android handsets hate Apple, on principle. They laud Android’s customability, but as we well know, most people don’t want to adjust that much, they just want it to work right out of the box.

10. Historically, “Accessibility” has been for the handicapped in Apple’s lexicon. Either they’ve changed the definition or I’m now handicapped, I’ll let you decide.

11. Misinformation rules. For everybody who sent me tips, there were others who sent me non sequiturs, stuff that made no sense, the problems they were encountering were most definitely pilot error. Meaning most manufacturers are doing a lousy job of instructing their users how to use their products, or not making them usable in the first place.

12. We live in a no user manual world. It’s every man for himself. But if you’re plugged into a group, you can learn new tricks. Furthermore, many sites online delineate these tricks, but unfortunately most are unaware of them, because they’re not part of a network that points to them.

If you’re interested in some helpful links (most of the content of which has been covered above), click here:

Make iOS 7 less nausea-inducing

How to stop iOS 7 from destroying your iPhone’s battery life

Trouble Using iOS 7? Here Are 15 Tricks To Make The Transition Easier

Six frustrating iOS 7 features and how you can fix them

13. Just because Apple sold 9 million handsets over the weekend, that does not mean iPhone 5s sales will maintain. As for the 5c, stock is still plentiful, it appears to be a misfire, expect a price drop, if Apple is smart.

(Maybe people are wising up. It makes no sense to save a hundred dollars on the handset, since you’re paying many more via the contract. In other words, you get a worse phone for almost the same money.)

14. If your contract is up, get a new phone. You’re paying for it anyway. Yes, built into every monthly payment is a charge for a new phone. After twenty four months, your provider is just banking this money. So upgrade.

15. If you have any iPhone less than a 5, upgrade as soon as you can, for LTE. Surfing on LTE is broadband compared to 3G dial-up, especially if you’re on Verizon, which you should be, it has the largest LTE build-out and the best and most reliable connections, and yes, you can use your iPhone overseas on Verizon. People don’t switch from AT&T because they’ve never experienced anything better and don’t believe you can get connections and no dropped calls. Having said that, Verizon’s connections are not like those in Europe, in other words they’ll frequently work underground, but you won’t get signal absolutely everywhere. You can go to Sprint for unlimited data, but you won’t be able to get LTE in most places. On T-Mobile, it’s even worse. In other words, if you use your phone for business, you must be on Verizon in the United States.

16. Spotify uses no data if you are listening to synced playlists. The company is doing a lame job of conveying this message.

17. It takes a village to accomplish anything today. If you know no one and are not hooked into the web, you’re clueless. I’m lucky, I’m the beneficiary of tons of feedback, but I still believe Apple bungled this launch, by not publicizing the abovementioned options and…the screen is too bright and I still cannot see the keyboard!

P.S. To unlock the phone, you do not have to swipe on “slide to unlock,” you can swipe from left to right anywhere on the screen!

P.P.S. I could inundate you with tons more tips, but the above will get you started and bring your iPhone as close to iOS 6 as possible, which seems to be what most people desire.

Who’d want to watch it?

Oh I know, it’s all paid for by Ford. And whenever a brand gets involved, everybody in the music business bends over and takes it in the rear for the little cash flowing their way.

That’s how far we’ve come. Tour riders were about rock and roll excess, the lifestyle, the truth, and now they’re just another ancient ritual employed to sell product that no one wants.

Come on, does anybody really care about what these bands have to say or do? The Lumineers are a one hit wonder, I’m waiting for them to prove themselves otherwise. Fitz & The Tantrums are coming off a completely stiff album, where they changed direction and lost their audience. Edward Sharpe is one of those bands so bland, you’d think their rider contained a request for milk and cookies. Fall Out Boy is making a bit of a comeback, but their fans are already out of college, starting careers, making babies, not interested in the mindless shenanigans of the reality TV underclass willing to do anything for exposure. As for Kid Cudi… it wasn’t rap acts that demanded extravagant stuff backstage anyway.

What a tired paradigm.

And Van Halen had a reason for asking for the removal of brown M&M’s, to see if the promoter actually read the rider. What is the reason for this show to exist?

As for rock star riders, read Michael Walker’s book, “What You Want Is In The Limo,” to discover the creation of these demands. Music is so bankrupt, it just keeps recycling ideas. The Beatles and Pink Floyd stretched the boundaries, but the above acts don’t even know where the edge of the envelope is, never mind pushing it.

Come on you nitwits over at Live Nation, at least create a show we’re interested in watching!

How about the Great Groupie Challenge, wherein young women vie to service the real stars? Even more interesting, how about young men going after women, we’ve never seen that one before!

As for Ford…isn’t this just asking for trouble? Idiots speeding around to fulfill unimportant requests smacks of Domino promising to deliver pizza in half an hour or less. People got killed in the process, all to deliver an imitation product that will fill you up, but still leaves you hungry.

I just don’t get it. There’s no FCC on the Net. There are no limits!

Then again, concert promoters were always dumb, they always took their cues from the labels. But now that they’re the bank of choice, they act about as innovative as your local institution, inspiring about as much passion in the process.

Unless we stand up and punch holes in the industry music has become, we’re going to continue to be presented with lame product. Once upon a time, music was cutting edge, we wanted to be rock stars. Whereas the only people who want to be rock stars today are the underclass, everybody with brains and an education doesn’t even bother. Talking Heads go to RISD and start a band. Today’s acts don’t even get to high school and expect us to pay attention.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Live Nation could be a force for good instead of evil.

Then again, the public is so dumb, voting against its interests all the way, while the rich overpay scalpers to go to the concerts of the acts worth seeing.

Oh, didn’t catch that Live Nation announcement? Its Ticketmaster division is listing scalper tickets alongside the ones offered by bands. That’s how low we’ve sunk. Instead of combating the problem, we’ve thrown our hands up in the air and declared there’s no solution.

But there is. The acts control the tickets. The acts can clean this up.

But not the acts who are participating in this lame reality show, they’re just tools, cogs in the system, no one really cares about them.

“Announcing The World Premiere Of The Rider Challenge, The First-Ever Digital Reality Series Produced By Live Nation, Powered By Ford Fiesta”

I can’t see it!

If Steve Jobs were alive today, iOS 7 would look nothing like it does. An alta kacher baby boomer, Jobs would peer through his glasses aghast at the thin font employed, he’d say usability comes first and he’d send Jony Ive back to the drawing board.

That’s what I can’t understand about these companies, how they can be so myopic. I’m not saying they should do market research, but was there anybody at Apple born in the fifties who could raise their hand and say…I suddenly can’t tell time? When I go to type it’s like the letters are hovering in a bad space movie, wherein the planet is moving closer to the sun and we’re all in danger of being burned up.

Oh, I’m all for the future. iOS 7 looked great in Apple’s presentations. But from the moment I first saw it live, I knew it was too bright. Yup, at the beginning of August, Daniel Glass’s teenager gave me a peek, he’d registered as a developer, he had iOS 7 on his handset. Looking at it was truly being blinded by the light. This was my first impression, and we all know the first cut is the deepest.

As for scrolling upwards to get instant access to the most used settings? I’ve been consistently unable to do this. Where do you put your finger to push up?

Now Spotify and Echofon, the two apps I use most other than Safari and Mail, have not employed the new keyboard. I implore them not to. They’ve still got the blocky letters an old fart like me can see. As for old farts…they’re the ones with all the money, they’re the ones paying for their kids’ iPhones.

Yup, isn’t it funny that in a music business, an entertainment business, an entire society wherein youth is revered, where if you’ve got pubes you’re over the hill, that Steve Jobs was our country’s number one rock star? A fiftysomething? Who’d realized his arrogance was a hindrance and remade his personality, well, softened it, in order to succeed?

Yup, only a petulant youngster rants and raves that he’s made a mistake hiring John Sculley. Oh, Jobs was right, he just didn’t send the message correctly. Rather than taking cues from Kevin Spacey in “House Of Cards,” he acted like a teenager, kicking and screaming and pouting, the end result being he was put in a years-long time-out.

But then Jobs outmaneuvered Gil Amelio. Stabbed him in the back at the same time he appeared to be cozying up to him. That’s what an adult does. Someone who’s actually lived and experienced the ups and downs of life.

Oh, I know, music is for the young ‘uns, and only the young ‘uns are willing to sacrifice for it. But it’s the oldsters who truly drive the economy, not that the oldsters want to own this, they just want to diet down into their True Religion jeans and get plastic surgery resulting in skin so shiny they can light up an entire room with their reflection.

Now I’m not switching to Android, for reasons of sync if nothing else. Oh, those Android applauders…with their multiple operating systems and malware. It’s just anti-Apple arrivistes, nothing more. But Tim Cook has lost the plot and Jony Ive needs someone to bounce ideas off of. That’s what a great record producer does, filter through the concepts and keep the act on track. And hasn’t Cook seen his own Apple movie? The Mac was a failure, it limped along until Apple could execute a truly dominant product. The iPod was for everybody, at all price points, and at first the iPhone had no competitors. Going upscale only with iPhones is a recipe for death. Because it’s not about the hardware but the software. And the smaller your market share, the fewer people who write apps. Sure, the internet/web browser saved the Mac, but on a tiny phone, it’s all about the apps.

Now if Ive were smart, he’d send an update wherein I could choose my own font, so I could add a blocky one that allowed me to peck my fat fingers in the right place.

As for Cook… No Tim, you want to make cheap phones, you want to dominate the market, and you do this by undercutting everyone else. Yup, the iPod victory was all about the lock-up of solid state memory, cornering the market like a right wing industrial titan.

As for the new Mac Pro… Looks great, but you’ve got to add devices via Thunderbolt to make it work? The tiny professional market isn’t interested in design but usability. They don’t care what the device looks like, they just want to put it under their desk and have screaming I/O.

Now I hate beating up on my favorite tech company, but if I don’t, who will? Naysayers who don’t use the equipment don’t matter, fans do. Steve Jobs was not only a futurist, but an arbiter. He knew the tiniest little things made a difference, like the font employed. If you can see the time and typing keys in iOS 7, you’ve probably never had sex, you certainly don’t have kids.

Furthermore, the battery life sucks! I’m boasting to everybody that my iPhone 5 never runs out of juice, and suddenly the percentage of battery left is dropping faster than the air pressure in a tornado!