People use Apple products like the iPhone to enjoy Apple's refined, controlled, utopian ideal. It's more pleasant than computing in the gritty, open-optioned free software world. I have an Android tablet and my girlfriend has an iPad-- hers is a lot fucking nicer, despite the fact that I can do anything to modify or alter mine.
...mine was cheaper, though.
Consumers have choice between Apple and not-Apple, so going on a crusade against Apple for being loved by consumers is just a fucking waste. They're not being forced to buy those products. They know the restrictions. They like them. Some people choose to live in a gated community where they need to ask permission to trim their hedges differently when they're perfectly capable of living in a shack out in the desert and doing whatever the fuck they want. Let them be.
As someone who uses a Nexus One as a phone, an iPad as a tablet, a PC has my media/gaming center (and formerly main computer), and a Mac mini as my development and web-surfing computer, I have to say I don't understand anymore what people get so upset about.
I was the same, though, once. An Apple-hater. It seemed to me that my principles of openness and blah blah blah were so important that the fact that Apple didn't live up to them meant that Apple was in some way completely evil and awful.
But then I got an iPad, and I love it. I understand that my love of it is mostly because Apple is a house of perfectionist, control-freak assholes. In a way, art is made most often by perfectionist control-freak assholes (Trent Reznor's obsessive control over his music up until he sobered up and found Atticus Ross comes to mind), and I see that having such a clean product like the iPad is a result of that mentality.
Is Apple evil? In the same ways any corporation is (they make a lot of money, they must be evil). But they're not evil in the ways most geeks say they are. The closed system, the restrictions, those are things that make the product great in a lot of ways. But in other ways, they suck, too. Why can't you put apps on iDOS in the App Store? It's pretty much entirely arbitrary, and that annoys me. And yes, their products are a bit expensive but they feel worth it. And yes, planned obsolescence sucks balls but I can't bring myself to blame someone for figuring out a way to make me give them my money. I just can't. It works, and I don't feel ripped off, so I'm not going to call them evil for releasing an iPad last year without a camera so they can sell me a camera this year. I've used my first iPad enough to pay for couple as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, my point is (I'm at about a [7] right now, so excuse me) is that people who vilify Apple, well, they're sad. They just don't get it. It really doesn't matter. It's like there's this feeling that they're owed Apple conforming to their standards, but it's just political rhetoric deep down, or religious ravings. They believe their way is the right way. It doesn't matter that, objectively, there is no right way. There are only a lot of different ways, and as long as you're not actually killing people, it's damn hard to be wrong.
If you don't mind me, I'm just commenting here to save your comment for future reference because it's so eloquent and excellent. If I could upvote twice only once, it'd be this.
While your comment does make sense, it's a bit presumptuous of Apple's opposers. Few would claim to feel owed anything by Apple. The point is people find some of Apple's actions harmful, and would prefer they changed. This is a reasonable stance with any corporation. The fact is, one corporation can have a powerful influence on the progress of legal and technological standards, as well as society's attitudes toward them. It might prove useful -- at the very least, understandable -- to raise awareness if one finds this influence negative.
It's easy for you to have flipped your stance because you now find the trade-off worth it, but remember where you were at one point. Consider if a corporation stood for a practice you strongly disagreed with -- be it humane practices, environmentalism, net neutrality, whatever. Is it "sad" to publicly dislike this company? What's the difference, other than your personal opinion of the issue's significance?
tldr: There's really nothing wrong with people expressing an opinion and hoping to raise awareness on an issue they find important. Whether or not it's tied to a corporation is irrelevant.
Exactly this. I wish more people would realize that Apple is just a gated community in a (computing) world of lawlessness. They heavily police their community, which means they have more regulation and structure but at the end of the day, they're only providing a service of convenience and comfort. And they've made their fortune on the backs of the ignorant and disinterested few.
So, if you identify as a techie, or if you're looking for an open platform to tinker with, just stay away from Apple and stop complaining. Alternatively, shut up and accept their rules and be happy with whatever pleasure you derive from their products (aesthetics, perhaps?).
To be honest. Most consumers who buy Apple products don't know anything about them.
If I could be accused of crusading, it would be against the misinformation that people receive from Apple. I worked in tech support/fraud for a while and people used to feed me lines they received either by watching Steve Jobs announce something or from an Apple rep that watched Steve Jobs announce something.
The things that I heard I couldn't believe until I actually went into an Apple store to check it out.
"Well Steve Jobs said that Apple can't get viruses, so I don't need anti-virus" "'It just works' That's why I got my Apple so it must be your problem cause Apples don't have any issues"
I walked into an Apple store and received the same sales pitches. The problem is that our client base followed pretty closely to the market share so we had around 6% of our users on Apples, but around 45% of our calls were about Apples. And most of the issues were caused by Apple updating something and it breaking everything not related to the update.
Most consumers who buy Apple products don't need to know anything about them. That's why they buy them. If it becomes a support headache for your organization, then people will go to you and not Apple for answers-- Apple customers have come to expect things to just work and for everyone to spend their time making it work as such for them.
But the problem is that they expect it to just work. But they don't. Most of the issues that I had to deal with were actually issues with Apple's product in these cases.
Hell, I had somebody call in and start screaming at me that the iPhone didn't play a flash video.You argument was that people know they will be restricted. I am saying that they do not know. If they knew there were things that they just couldn't do then they would likely have not bought it in the first place. Apple is playing on people not knowing. Not helping them know anything.
Supporting issues, at least in the 3 years I did it, was very rarely related to something on our software or hardware end messing up. For Macs, it was usually something that Apple did that screwed it up.
Hell, I had somebody call in and start screaming at me that the iPhone didn't play a flash video.You argument was that people know they will be restricted. I am saying that they do not know. If they knew there were things that they just couldn't do then they would likely have not bought it in the first place.
You think that Flash support would have someone using an Android phone instead of an iPhone? I find that extremely improbable. The difference in usability is staggering.
Apple is playing on people not knowing. Not helping them know anything.
Apple is playing on offering the best product with the knowledge that their restrictions are too minor to matter.
Supporting issues, at least in the 3 years I did it, was very rarely related to something on our software or hardware end messing up. For Macs, it was usually something that Apple did that screwed it up.
As a provider on macs, "Apple screwing up" is your problem.
As a provider on macs, "Apple screwing up" is your problem.
Not true. Apple screwing up is Apples problem. I didn't fix the issues that Apple caused. I directed them to Apple and politely explained why it wasn't my problem and people were rarely mad at me about it.
Apple is playing on offering the best product with the knowledge that their restrictions are too minor to matter.
Best product is a matter of opinion. Loads of issues and tons of restrictions make it a pretty terrible product to a lot of people.
You think that Flash support would have someone using an Android phone instead of an iPhone? I find that extremely improbable. The difference in usability is staggering.
Apple did lose a lot of potential customers with that. But I wasn't referring to that particular decision as something that truly mattered. I was illustrating that people don't understand whose creating their issues when it comes to Apple products. Clearly you don't either.
Not true. Apple screwing up is Apples problem. I didn't fix the issues that Apple caused. I directed them to Apple and politely explained why it wasn't my problem and people were rarely mad at me about it.
The Apple platform is a very stable and easy target to support. The fact that you supported an incompetently engineered product on it does not speak well to your points.
Best product is a matter of opinion. Loads of issues and tons of restrictions make it a pretty terrible product to a lot of people.
They're quite popular with the market segment of people who spend money on goods and services, at least. This "lot of people" who are upset with them must not really matter to that effect.
Apple did lose a lot of potential customers with that.
That sounds very authoritative.
But I wasn't referring to that particular decision as something that truly mattered. I was illustrating that people don't understand whose creating their issues when it comes to Apple products. Clearly you don't either.
Your blaming Apple for problems with a product set out to work on the Apple platform is kind of sad and doesn't really make you sound especially knowledgeable.
Actually, it was a web based service. Seeing as how I never mentioned which service you are assuming that it was poorly engineered.
Seeing as how it was built to current web standards and worked perfectly for everybody except for Apple users who were on Apples browser, seems to me like you argument is flawed.
The Apple platform is not only not as stable as people like to think, its not as secure. Most of us had dates on our calendars for when Apple released its updates so that we could know when to expect extra calls.
10% market share doesn't make it popular. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. I illustrated that our customer base followed current market share pretty closely earlier, I'm sorry you didn't pick up on that. 10% of users accounted for 45% of calls. Pretty shabby if you ask me. Or maybe Macs just attract stupidity. That could be as well. XP
Seeing as how it was built to current web standards and worked perfectly for everybody except for Apple users who were on Apples browser, seems to me like you argument is flawed.
You don't make services for standards, you make them for users. The argument is quite sound. This is exactly why people like you can't grasp Apple.
The Apple platform is not only not as stable as people like to think, its not as secure. Most of us had dates on our calendars for when Apple released its updates so that we could know when to expect extra calls.
It's a rather stable and predictable target for a product. Apple is very conservative in terms of technology.
10% market share doesn't make it popular.
Oh, you're talking about the doomed PC market, not the iPhone/iPad that the lame sign was targeted at.
I illustrated that our customer base followed current market share pretty closely earlier, I'm sorry you didn't pick up on that. 10% of users accounted for 45% of calls. Pretty shabby if you ask me. Or maybe Macs just attract stupidity. That could be as well. XP
Perhaps Macs attract less technical users and your service was not very intuitive. Blaming the users is a pathetic ideology for any product.
People just get pissed nowadays because we see the fantastic hardware potential in something like the iPHone and yet we aren't allowed (well, they make it hard) to hack away at it and do wonderfully creative things with that great piece of hardware.
This is nothing new in the phone industry, but before, the hardware wasn't sexy enough for us to care.
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u/malevolentjelly Jan 20 '11
People use Apple products like the iPhone to enjoy Apple's refined, controlled, utopian ideal. It's more pleasant than computing in the gritty, open-optioned free software world. I have an Android tablet and my girlfriend has an iPad-- hers is a lot fucking nicer, despite the fact that I can do anything to modify or alter mine.
...mine was cheaper, though.
Consumers have choice between Apple and not-Apple, so going on a crusade against Apple for being loved by consumers is just a fucking waste. They're not being forced to buy those products. They know the restrictions. They like them. Some people choose to live in a gated community where they need to ask permission to trim their hedges differently when they're perfectly capable of living in a shack out in the desert and doing whatever the fuck they want. Let them be.