During yesterday's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing with Apple -- accused of avoiding taxes upwards of $74 billion -- Senator John McCain used the Q&A session with CEO Tim Cook to ask a few questions about his phone. (Ingeniously skirting the need to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar.) Basically, the former Republican presidential candidate asked Cook why he couldn't get his gosh darn flibbertigibbet to update properly.

"Why the hell do I have to keep updating my apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don't fix that?" Old man senator John McCain demanded of Apple's Cook during a subcommittee investigation.

Allow us, Mr. Cook. Next to peeling plastic film from a new remote control, manually updating your phone apps is one of life's greatest small pleasures. When we find a little red circle next to the App Store icon, our heart flutters. Will it be for something important, like a much-needed Vine update? Or will it be for something pointless, like an obscure bug fix for Free Emoji 2, an app we used once and keep forgetting to axe? Who knows! That's the excitement of it all. (Also, if you have an older generation phone, which we assume you do, Mr. McCain, because you have 4S written all over your face, handpicking app updates will save you much grief.)

Sen. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, also chimed in with some Apple buttocks-smooching, saying, "I have an iPad right here. My granddaughter even knows how to use it — all of it." In fact, most of the senators in yesterday's hearing proudly admitted to being Apple sect members. (Democrats, as you may recall, are bigger fans of Apple than Republicans.)

Apple stands accused of using loopholes to avoid paying billions of dollars worth of taxes. Congressional investigators claim that "Apple has developed an overseas network of obscure subsidiaries that are run by executives in Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, often with no employees in the locations where they are technically based." These subsidiaries make it possible for Apple to keep that money outside the IRS's radar. "One Irish subsidiary has paid almost zero tax on $30 billion in profits since 2009, according to investigators," LA Times reports.

Watch McCain ask Cook to help him with his urgent iPhone issues:

[AtlanticWire]
[LA Times]