Apple has been a famous brand since the release of their Macintosh in 1984. THe purpose of Apple system has always been ease of use. A GUI with a mouse was a big leap forward in computing compared to the competition, because users didn’t had to memorise complex commands. The Macintosh did had a problem, with a price tag of $2500 it didn’t support multitasking and it could only run Apple software (which was about next to nothing). It didn’t really go well with Apple during the 90’s. Steve Jobs wasn’t working at Apple anymore, and the CEO during that time was John Scully. The company was starting to collapse, until Steve came back and relieved Scully of his duties. Apple started to be come popular because it released the iMac, the iPod and of course Mac OS X. They released the iPhone in 2007 and the App Store in 2008. Developers could use the App Store to develop applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, if it passed the insane approval process. 2010 is the year of the iPad, the long awaited Apple tablet. It runs on iPhone OS, also known as iOS. The popularity of Apple mobile devices has contributed to the success of the App Store for both consumers and developers. At time of writing, the iPad is the most sold tablet and the iPod the most sold music player in the world. There’s been a problem though, the absence of Adobe Flash. According to Steve Jobs it’s slow, causes crashes and had a bad impact on the battery life. He also told that HTML5 is better because it doesn’t require any plugins and loads videos instantly. That’s the reason why their mobile devices don’t support Flash. To make things even worse, developers are not allowed to incorporate Flash in their apps. Due to the insane demands for approval to the App Store and the absence of important plugins, they are basically controlling what their customers can see and what not. Fortunately Apple doesn’t have a monopoly, this means that they are not the only brand that sells smartphones and tablets. That gives users the option to buy these products from the brand of choice. Commercial companies have just one purpose, making money. That’s why they’re called commercial in the first place. Don’t think that Apple wants to create a better world by making better products. By making better products they sell more than the competition and also become more popular to get more customers. And on top of that, most Apple fans don’t look at the price tag, they just buy it for any price. This is also their secret weapon. Make great products and wrap it into a great presentation, so their customers keep buying their stuff. Just imaging, people are setting up camps in front of the Apple Stores a few days in advance of the release dates. Many Apple fans would like to hang me because I just said all of that. They seriously think that Apple IS creating a better world. I can image the vision of Apple for a better world. A world where everyone has an iMac on their desk, a Macbook while on the road, an iPod to listen to music, an iPhone to communicate, an iPad to read books and surf the web from anywhere, an Apple TV to view movies, the iTunes Store to purchase music and movies and of course an AirPort router to connect everything to the Internet. Thanks to iAds only Apple gets involved for any advertising and customers only see what Apple wants them to see. Microsoft doesn’t exist anymore, Linux has no market share anymore, there is no competition because Apple owns all patents, and companies have to purchase Xserve servers because Mac OS X is the only OS in the world. That is the vision of Apple for a better world. I’m a fan of Apple myself, owning quite a few of their products. I notice I’m immediately purchasing Apple products and not looking at alternatives because their products works much better with each other. I started to purchase even more Apple products, even though the advice from others to not purchase too much, I ignored it and did whatever I wanted. Until I woke up and started to realise the problem. Now there’s nothing wrong with their products, but don’t overdo it. You could be a part of Apple’s communist regime within no-time. This might seem stupid at first, but just compare it to communism and you’ll see. Just try to send an email to Steve Jobs about a serious problem you’re having, like no Flash support on the iPhone. The response is always very short and basic. It just means „there’s nothing wrong with us, it’s you. And if you don’t like it, don’t buy our stuff and go live in the Middle Ages”. Another similar situation is Google. They started with the slogan „don’t be evil”. It basically means that Google doesn’t act like a commercial company. The company became rich using their targeted ads. They even became so rich, that even Bill Gates was afraid. At this moment Google is one of the richest companies in the world, knowing what everyone is doing at every moment of the day and their interests. Basically money turns commercial companies into evil organisations. Now I’m not telling everyone to stop purchasing Apple products and stop using Google services. On the contrary, everyone should make that choice for themselves . But don’t forget that we as customers sometimes need to pull on the strings, showing companies that we have to choose what we want to see and which features we’d like to use. What's your opinion about this? (please remember, no flame wars or I'll have to close the thread)
Apple has been the way it is for years. They could've had a much larger market, but they decided to not open up the Mac for Mac-clones, and companies like Dell and Compaq came into existance. I do think that Apple can be in its own little world sometimes, as with the Flash thing, but also coming out when Windows 7 is released and saying how it was crap while having a major OS X problem with user data being erased/deleted (I don't recall exactly). I also find some die-hard Mac fans obnoxious, specifically the ones that like to come up and talk how their Mac is the greatest, most flawless piece of technology to come to life. They are nice, but there's a point where the quality is transcended by the hype. Overall, IMO, Apple is a mixed bag. For me, it would be cool to have a Mac, but it's not adding anything I need.
I completely agree to what RHochstenbach said. I do like Apple products, too - for their exceptional quality - mainly (only computer stuff like hardware and software, though - I am skeptic toward all the other things like iPads, iphones, ipods etc, but that's a whole different story there), but I see what that company is doing. Apple's leaders do want to be on top of everything they do and it seems that they'd be ready to go quite far for that - and that might just strangle them a little. Hell, sometimes even Microsoft seems to be a lot frendlier than Apple. Every company fights for profit - the question at hand is - how far are they willing to go, because, fortunately, we don't live (yet, anyways) in times where companies can 100% dictate how the market will behave and the consumers have still some voice to be reckoned with.
I'm not much of a fan of macs, i played around with a few macs and had loyal mac users give me a demonstration of their belved machines, my thoughts were meh. with regards to the macbook pro, its essentially £900 for a mid spec laptop, i dont see what makes the os so special either. otoh i do own an iphone and like it, the sync between my iphone and itunes is amazing
I think it's mostly the die hards having a "holier then thou" attitude. There are some people that own macs that are normal people, but the vocal people ruin people's perception of the brand. People associate them with being "douchebags that are rich and snobbish" and this is what hurts them. Steve Jobs is a saint in the eyes of many and apple fans worship him as their god. The following is very fanatical. They often pit him against Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer and they paint epic battles between the two. Even though Gates has little to do with MS anymore. LOL. Also the price is rather high. You can get a windows based system much cheaper. If they lowered the prices and opened up a bit on the software end they would do better and sell more. Those are the biggest two turn offs for apple that I know of.
