The love/hate relationship with Apple

I love Apple. I love Macs. Best of all, I love Steve. Call me whatever you want, but what's wrong about loving a person / company / brand that makes my life hell lot easier and my work hell lot more enjoyable?

I spend long hours at my desk everyday, and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like if it was a Windoz machine sitting in front of me. Heck, I'd probably go kill myself.

I'm proud to be a Mac user. Am I a racist? Who are you to judge?

"I will not taunt Windows users, for they have chosen their own worst punishment."

Hmm. Since when is it paramount to "love" a company in order to use its products. Do you "love" GM or Chrysler? Do you "hate" Toyota so refuse to buy a Prius even though it would save you lots of money now that gas is headed for $5 a gallon?

Geeze Louise.

I love my Macs. I've owned an Apple computer since 1982 ... had one of the first IIe's off the assembly line and had the jumpers to prove it. We owned and used that one for 10 years before I got a used //GS. A year later made the jump to a Mac Performa 600 (which is still out in the garage and STILL works, btw. incredibly slow but it still runs). Next was a PowerPC G3 MT which I used for 7 years and it's in storage waiting to reawaken so we can use it as a gaming console for all our System 9 (and earlier) games. Hubby has 700GHz FP iMac which is 3 years old and beginning to show signs of age (i.e. it seems to be "slowing down.") and I have a year old 1.42GHz Mini. I lust for a G5 iMac. Also want a dual-core Intel Mini for the HDTV but those will have to wait a bit.

Is there anything I DISlike about Apple? no. We own stock in the company (and how I wish we had more) and, frankly, I think they're doing just fine. But what do I know? I'm just the end consumer and as long as they keep turning out great products that push the envelope, I'm happy.

Seriously. What's not to like? This is a publicly traded company that makes consumer goods and is growing like mad with lots of cash on hand. You don't like the way their products work go buy something else. But quit trying to second-guess corporate. Unless you own a huge block of stock. But then, if you did, you'd be Steve Jobs and since he is the founder/CEO he can pretty much steer his ship in any direction he chooses.

I realized yesterday while logging in my itunes card that Apple has become the very thing they have despised - a company sold out to the "capitalist system." Why should I have to give itunes my credit card number to use my itunes gift card? The reason for me getting the gift card was so that I would not have to use my credit card. I love my ipod, my imac, and the great service I get from Apple, but sometimes I wish Apple was not so information hungry.

I agree with #6 Mike; love my Macs but can't stand Apple. From time to time I consider ditching my love in favor of something closer to my ideology, like Linux. But then I read the Linux forums for about 30 seconds and... dear god, no.

There is still something great about the Mac community.

Well put - I love my mac because it fits perfectly into my life as an average consumer - I have parallels to run windows if I need to, but as you bring out most things are just easier to do on a mac (just an opinion). I enjoyed reading this - keep up the good work.

I hate the windows lovers that say "aint macs supposed to be perfect when hearing they are recalling batteries" so again no company is supposed to be perfect, it just cant happen. So Apple will have the odd problem now and then, get over it, it happens

I love Apple. I love Jobs. I love that Apple had the balls to move to Intel. I love being the underdog. I love the innovation. I love that my 5 year old Powerbook runs better than some of my friends new PC laptops (spyware, virii etc.) I love that OS X is beautiful and elegant.

I hate the RAM prices. I hate that the keynote wasn't streamed from Apple. I hate that some people that do love Apple think that everything they make should be perfect and groundbreaking. No one, even Apple, is perfect. iPod Hifi happens. It's what you get when you follow a company that takes risks. I hate that here is no Macworld NY anymore. I hate the name 'MacBook.' Pro only makes it worse. I hate the new Apple ad that mentions Walt Mossberg. That just seems a little sad to me. It's like me showing how great I am from a review by my mom.

The thing is the dynamic really keeps changing. In somewhat chronological order ...

It was the garage guys versus an American icon (upstarts versus the establishment).

It was cute versus corporate.

It was graphical interface (toy!) versus the green teletext type.

It was my geek is richer than your geek (Bill G versus the Steve's).

It was the "we're #1 in market share" and you're no longer - nah, nah, nah bandwagon jumping.

It was the your-closed-proprietary- standards/way of doing things versus our free for all (programmers).

It was your networking is too chatty while ours does nothing until we add a card and write instructions for it or pay staggering amounts to a third party for networking (I.T.)

It was our GUI is just as good as yours (Windows 3.1).

What we need are standards - so get with the program already!

It was the Macs just for the graphics department - the rest of us need real machines.

It was our machines are way faster than your machines ... why are you still here ...

Years later, why are you still here? - Tandy, Zenith, Osbourne, CPM, are dead - why aren't you?

We keep predicting you'll be dead - we resent being wrong - die, die, die ...

Damn it, you're still here ... oh Steve Jobs is back - we hate him ... he was just lucky with TOY STORY - they'll never create another movie as good.

The iMac - that's stupid - there's no floppy - no one will buy that.

Damn it, you sold 6 million iMacs?! This was not the plan. You're confusing the plot. We revere Bill G as the all-be-all because he's the world's richest man - that must make him the smartest - we can't have you ... you upstart come back in and mess up the clean story ...

An iPod? What a stupid name - who needs that, I have my CD player ...

AND ON & ON & ON ...

People hate being wrong and Apple has proven tens/hundreds of millions wrong from Mickey Dell to the nitwit PC consultants "writers" to MS.

Apple pretty much does things their way and refuses to follow any clean script or prediction. It confuses linear people and annoys them because they come off looking like idiots and 1-dimensional which Apple is operating 2 moves ahead. People don't like looking stupid so Apple has a lot of haters and will always have a lot of haters.

Just look at the ipod - the haters dismiss it as a fad or that it being cool is the only reason people buy it - even if that were so, selling 50 MILLION of something with an average selling price of around $200 is pretty damn amazing. But of course, the haters just dismiss it as a fad or that "the rest of us are dumb" and fall for the marketing while only they are too smart and sees through it - and yet, even after they've "told" us how "dumb" we are - damn if we don't keep buying.

I guess it never occurs to them they that are 1-dimensional and out of step ...

I own 5 computers,3 macs and 2 pc's.There is no question that I prefer the mac hardware and software. To me computer' are like cars, They all get you where you are going, but in a little different way. I frankly don't need to justify my choice at all. Having fewer software choices is only bad if the choices you have are bad. In the case of Apple software most of it is very good.To me it is more a matter of quality as opposed to quantity. Most of those who criticize the mac have never used one for any length of time to make an intelligent choice. As for hardware cost it is like comparing a Lexus to a Chevrolet. Windows has some nice features but is more complex than it needs to be. I think if more companies ran macs they could loose half their IT departments.OOPs

The "here" I mentioned in my previous comment was a piece we wrote a couple years ago. You can read it at:

http://blackfriarsinc.com/totm.html

-Carl