Die hard apple fan loses faith

[A dot Ham]

I have been a fan of apple products long before I even owned any... I would say as far back as 7th grade when AOL and instant messenger were still popular.

For me a big part of what attracted me was that the few computer games I played (Blizzard games) Warcraft/Starcraft, and SIMS, they were compatible on MAC and appeared to run so much better than on my PC. Later on I got into video editing, and for the amateur apple products were just way more user friendly.

Fast forward to me graduating high school I went with a DELL which just had a tons of problems (and this was prior to them making customer service a priority) I would look at people who had spent 500-1000 more on their apple products and had no problems and just thought "totally worth the investment"

I graduate college and start dating my (now) wife. She needs a laptop and being the now hardcore frustrated PC user who feels the alternative is MAC convince her she HAS to buy a macbook. Then the iPhone comes out, I make sure my entire family gets one cuz hey its apple... its a "superior" product.

Convince my wife, her parents, and her 3 sisters that apple is the way to go. Who also jump on the apple bandwagon and buy apple products for all their computer needs when they start college.

All along the way I am a huge proponent for apple and relay my experience to just about anyone willing to listen, and definitely anyone frustrated with windows PCs. I had totally bought into the lie that apple products "just work".

My eyes have been opened recently. I don't think it has anything to do with the passing of Steve Jobs... I think they had one really good idea and now... they clearly have nothing.

Apple has not managed to stay competitive, they really aren't producing anything new, innovative, or game changing. Nor are they providing a superior product or service.

Apple care + 1on1s used to be the same package. While the firmware and software run pretty seamlessly... their hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper... I can't even begin to count how many times people in our family have had to replace hard drives. Which of course could not be recovered. Then encouraged to buy a time capsule... but good luck getting that back up on the new computer or hard drive... the whole fucking thing is just a money racket for an inferior product and an outdated trendy product.

Apple I bite my thumb at you, I drop my pants so you can get a good look at my hairy ass and my dark brown hole. Take a good long look because its the last time you're gonna bend me over and take advantage.

PS: Never thought I'd hear myself say that new nokia windows phone looks mighty appealing and better than the iphone.

[time0ut]

Eh, still better than the alternatives. Especially the mac book pro and air. They are excellent machines. Our top end dell notebooks at work feel so cheaply made compared to the mac book pro. Dual boot and you are good to go.

[obdigore]

Eh, still better than the alternatives. Especially the mac book pro and air. They are excellent machines. Our top end dell notebooks at work feel so cheaply made compared to the mac book pro. Dual boot and you are good to go.

'top end dell' is kind of an oxymoron.

[swiftowner]

well, they are supposed to run really well, just don't have the apps to really do much, cuz there aren't too many devs for it. Once more people start making apps for windows phones, they could start selling more phones.

I was OK with Apple before, if someone decided to waste money on buying a piece of hardware $1000 more than an equivalent, just because it is an apple product, I would say, "Oh well, it's their money to waste." Once I found out how shady their business practice had become, it makes me feel a little bad that someone could support a company like apple by buying apple products =\. If it was free via gift or competition, or something, it's aight, but people shouldn't spend money on that company.

There will always be people who will be pro Apple, because they refuse to acknowledge the company's bad practices.

[Ianus]

"No King Rules Forever, my Son"

[time0ut]

There will always be people who will be pro Apple, because they refuse to acknowledge the company's bad practices.

Or maybe some of us just don't care and feel that the OS is worth paying extra for.

[swiftowner]

'top end dell' is kind of an oxymoron.

They do make overpriced sexy looking alienwares, but as far as business laptops. They generally aren't about performance, I *think* it is about reliability and consistency of hardware, which is important to businesses.

[Tribunal]

I was always a little envious of the iPhone (and smart phones in general, I was late to the game on that one) but never really thought much of it. I eventually got an HTC Evo 4g and then a Galaxy S3, really liked them - especially the Galaxy, though there are elements of the HTC GUI I still miss. I honestly didn't think about the iPhone much, but when I did I figured I was missing out some, though how much was slightly debatable.

Then my S.O. finally upgraded and he chose an iPhone, so I got true hands-on time with one. I was surprised at how little I like it. Tiny screen, didn't like the app-grid layout, didn't like the one-button operation, etc. It had a few nice features, but nothing that wasn't within the variance of one Android handset manufacturer to the next (HTC focus on sound vs Galaxy motion controls, for example).

I was honestly rather surprised that it was "the phone" that everyone was so in love with. Market dominance and the resulting exclusive apps/compatibility are really it's biggest selling point, and that has little to nothing to do with the phone itself.

[swiftowner]

Or maybe some of us just don't care and feel that the OS is worth paying extra for.

the OS is not worth it, it is a lie fead by lies. Circular reasoning.

[Eats Compost]

Devoting one's self to a brand rather than assessing products on a case-by-case basis is always a bad idea. Non Apple-example; Windows Vista was trash, and should be seen as such even by those that prefer Windows.

As for my personal take on Apple, they have a strange duality; they promote user-friendly products, but their business practices are incredibly consumer un-friendly. Their premium pricing is a joke, features are intentionally withheld to include in future hardware revisions, they heavily promote forced obsolescence and build it into the hardware, hell, they won't even let you change the battery without charging an arm and a leg. I avoid giving Apple anything unless their product really is the best I can get, and because of their premium pricing, that's rarely the case.

[time0ut]

They do make overpriced sexy looking alienwares, but as far as business laptops. They generally aren't about performance, I *think* it is about reliability and consistency of hardware, which is important to businesses.

Ours are like the best Latitude you can get. Or at least, they were two years ago. $3800 for the whole kit. Probably around $2k for the machine itself. They are nice. But they just feel cheap. Plus its windows. I'd go Linux if I could, but that's not really that great for gaming any way. Its doable, but I'm too lazy.

[Eats Compost]

They do make overpriced sexy looking alienwares, but as far as business laptops. They generally aren't about performance, I *think* it is about reliability and consistency of hardware, which is important to businesses.

Dells are generally a pretty good go-to for bulk buying, for businesses and schools and whatnot. I'm also pretty skeptical about the claim that they're "top-end" machines to begin with. Why would you have a top-end machine for business? Dell's specialty is really low-mid range machines.

[time0ut]

the OS is not worth it, it is a lie fead by lies. Circular reasoning.

Its a good balance of gaming and software development support. Have you ever tried developing on Windows? Its horrendous. The command line on OS X pays for itself 1000x over. Linux is just too much work to game on for me. I'd rather game than tweak that shit.

[swiftowner]

Devoting one's self to a brand rather than assessing products on a case-by-case basis is always a bad idea. Non Apple-example; Windows Vista was trash, and should be seen as such even by those that prefer Windows.

As for my personal take on Apple, they have a strange duality; they promote user-friendly products, but their business practices are incredibly consumer un-friendly. Their premium pricing is a joke, features are intentionally withheld to include in future hardware revisions, they heavily promote forced obsolescence and build it into the hardware, hell, they won't even let you change the battery without charging an arm and a leg. I avoid giving Apple anything unless their product really is the best I can get, and because of their premium pricing, that's rarely the case.

Yeah, their move with the iPhone 5c was interesting, setting the base model at $99 with a contract is appealing to some, but they have just left such a bad taste in my mouth from all the bad things they do, I just cannot buy it, I would rather go for something like the LG G2.

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Its a good balance of gaming and software development support. Have you ever tried developing on Windows? Its horrendous. The command line on OS X pays for itself 1000x over. Linux is just too much work to game on for me. I'd rather game than tweak that shit.

Never played with the command line in OS X, but it seems rather strait forward in both windows and linux.

[time0ut]

Never played with the command line in OS X, but it seems rather strait forward in both windows and linux.

They are straight forward, but when you use it all day long, there's a pretty significant difference.

Anyway, we are different types of users. For me, its worth paying extra for because its the best tool for the job. I don't particularly care about any wrongs or rights Apple has done.

[chazus]

Technology changes, and peoples desire for certain products change as well. Back in the day, Apple dominated the game scene (Who remembers Escape Velocity? Marathon?). Personally, I'd never buy an apple product now, but with people lining up outside Apple stores a day or two before a new release... There's obviously some draw. Maybe not yours.

I used to be a die-hard AMD fan, but recently they just haven't appealed to me. Maybe your finances don't match your technology needs. It could be a lot of things, but I'd hardly say that Apple Products or the company are 'bad'. Maybe just not great for gaming, right now. It's hard to say most of their other products are uncompetitive (Ipod, mac mini, mac tv, etc). As for phones... well.. That's just the phone market. You can say Apple might 'not be innovating'... But neither is every single other brand.

[DarkTZeratul]

My friend was a diehard Apple fan. That changed when she got her Apple gaming laptop. See, for aesthetic reasons, the fans were hardcoded to never run above a particular speed to keep the noise down. Unfortunately, this speed was not really sufficient for a gaming laptop. Most of the time it ran so hot that she could not physically touch the case or she would get burned (she would put a pad over it to use the keyboard). One day - while playing World of Warcraft of all things, not something crazy-intensive like Crysis - it stopped working, because it got so hot that the graphics card melted.

She's been PC-only ever since.

[time0ut]

My friend was a diehard Apple fan. That changed when she got her Apple gaming laptop. See, for aesthetic reasons, the fans were hardcoded to never run above a particular speed to keep the noise down. Unfortunately, this speed was not really sufficient for a gaming laptop. Most of the time it ran so hot that she could not physically touch the case or she would get burned (she would put a pad over it to use the keyboard). One day - while playing World of Warcraft of all things, not something crazy-intensive like Crysis - it stopped working, because it got so hot that the graphics card melted.

She's been PC-only ever since.

That sucks man. I played WoW for years up until six months ago and never had a problem. Not sure about the fan speed thing. Shit breaks?

[Deleted]

Apple do make something right because they get their horde to go "ooooohhw" over the simplest things.
- oh look, it shines
- oh look, you can phone someone with it
- oh look, it has corners

While PC owners demand the world from a $500 desktop.

[Serpenth]

Apple really has never been innovative or the best specifications for any product they produced. They are just user friendly and come with the name.

The iPhone created a blind generation of loyal users for life and that's all that they need. I will admit as much as I hate Apple they did propel the tablet market. It was very small until the iPad. However most people I know that own iPads don't use them because they really aren't that great.

And besides the first iPhone, none of them were innovative after that. It's never been the best phone on the market since it's original release in 2007. Again, same with the iPad. And in my opinion PC is the way to go in terms of a computer or laptop. You can always dual boot if you need those fantsy pantsy art/music programs. However the hold that Apple has on with the iPhone and iPad now people are buying more Macs than ever. I don't know a single "IT" person who uses apple for anything. Again, they are user friendly, which is fine, that's their market. However they are not the best. Anyone who says they are is blind.