Mac-Worshipping Heathens, Repent!

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Alright, yes, I know Steve Jobs was a great man, and I admired him myself, but holy crap, CNN.com, can we please stop with the deification of Apple? Not a day seemingly goes by without a new story about how innovative and magical and life-changing this-or-that new Apple product is or is going to be, or how great the Apple company is, or how much it loves and cuddles its slavishly loyal fanbase, or how [insert Apple product] > [insert non-Apple product].

Apple designers > everyone!
300% more than a PC - $100 is still a sale!
Suck it, Amazon!
The software gods at Apple have solved yet another major world problem!
Apple is a powerhouse of ingenuity!
Bow down and worship the exalted god among lesser corporations!
And so on.
And so forth.
Et cetera.
Ad nauseam.

It's things like this that make we PC people hate Apple culture even more. I am forced to assume that those millions of people with their cute little MacBooks still don't realize that their sleek, aluminum-cased beauties are made with the very same internal components as an average PC, and that they are essentially paying 300%+ more for a name, a slick exterior, and "user-friendly" software. (Apple's MacBook starts at $1,199, while you can get a decent PC laptop for around $400.) I must assume that those millions with their outrageously expensive iPods and iPhones don't realize how truly shitty the iTunes experience is once you've used a non-DRM-burdened service like Amazon MP3.

No, Windows isn't all that great, either, and nor Android...my laptop is currently fried because Vista Service Pack 2 decided to royally fuck-up when I installed it the other day, on the heels of a trojan/rootkit issue that drove me guano loco for weeks, while my phone works fairly well for anything that doesn't actually involve using it as a phone, and God help you if you're trying to use an app while the damned thing is updating something. But I would rather suffer through all the travails of being a Microsoft and Android customer than pay over $1,000 for the right to be snooty and smug. Yes, snooty and smug!

I am tired of people who think they're so awesome because they paid a small fortune for a selection of overpriced toys with that magical little logo on them, who think they're so much smarter, cooler, and more sophisticated than the obviously impoverished, benighted folks whose Dells and Androids are the Information Age equivalent of Mousterian flint knives to Apple's bright copper tools! Apple, they ceaselessly preach, is the most innovative, most well-run, most environmentally-responsible company in the world, whereas Microsoft and PC makers are poorly-run, pollution-belching dinosaurs. That old 1984 commercial still speaks to the very soul of Apple-worshippers everywhere.

Really, I don't care what tools people use, as long as they use them because they genuinely think they're better, for objective reasons that don't include "Apple is so cool" or "I'm a hipster!" If you really do think Mac OS > Windows, more power to you. I've used it myself, and I didn't care for it much (I don't care for Vista, either...I'd run everything on Windows 98 SE if I had the choice. Or hell, give me DOS or straight UNIX. They, at least, never crashed on me!). What pisses me off is the holier-than-thou attitude sported by so many Apple fans, especially the, shall we say, more non-technical users who bought an iPad just to watch videos on and couldn't code HTML to save their own lives. And what really pisses me off is when, once confronted with their arrogant superiority complex, they accuse non-Apple folks of being "just jealous" (read: too poor or too stupid to use Apple products).

No, I am not in the least bit jealous. Even if I were wealthy I wouldn't shell out $1,200 for a laptop, or $200 for a music player. I don't care about what's fancy, I care about what works, and I couldn't care less about what other people think of my gadgetry choices. Before I got my new phone, which works great as an mp3 player (though, again, as a phone it's still lacking something), I used my old, clunky little Coby mp3 player. It doesn't have a touch screen. It doesn't have games. It can't get online. It can't get radio. It has six buttons, a tiny little LCD screen, and runs on a single AAA battery. But you know what it does? It plays music. My laptop, when not out of action, does everything I need it to do, as does my comparatively ancient desktop PC at work (which still has a working 3.5" floppy drive, two boxes of blank discs for which are in my desk. Ahh, old times...). They ain't fancy, and they ain't pretty, but they get the job done.

And in the end, that's all that really matters to me.

Comments

[southwest]

By the way, the Apple products are not always the best. When it comes to smartphones, Samsung is actually superior. I saw it myself, on TV. Here: http://youtu.be/6h5JSojJN3Y

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Mine is a Samsung. I really do love it, other than when I'm getting a call. lol

[telemann.livejournal.com]

They still don't have Blu Ray players for their laptops.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

Err, the Galaxy SII runs Android.

Android is such a giant tasteless clusterfuck I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I would use a PC, but...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

When it comes to the nuts and bolts Office applications, I prefer to use a PC. Unfortunately our machines were recently updated in such a way that only the Macs support audio. I put in a maintenance request, but nothing has been done about it.

In the meantime, I have been getting quite acclimated to using a Mac. It is like traveling to the BRD after spending most of your time in the DDR.

Re: I would use a PC, but...

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Heh, I felt exactly the opposite when I had to use one....

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I have a 6 year old Lenovo that's been dropped from around that height twice and kept right on going like nothing ever happened. It's still working today, far exceeding my expectations on its lifetime too).

Sure, it's nowhere as light as a Macbook air, but then, I'm the type that likes to feel a little bit of substance when I'm toting it around.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Haha! I may print that out and stick it on the bulletin board at school. :P

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I very much love my $189 Gateway netbook.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Fine but you're inflating costs for Apple products and while you may like your old clunky hardware, don't think that your $400 laptop is comparable.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Inflating costs?

My laptop was $500, actually. :P

[kurtvonnegut.livejournal.com]

I have a Sony Vaio. It's basically similar to Apple design-wise, without having to deal with actual Apple software. :)

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

How about a story on ethically irresponsible offshore manufacturing?

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Apple's Chinese workers had the right to observe a minute of silence.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Apple products are fine products. I don't dislike Apple products, I dislike Apple culture, which is the like, the Aldous Huxley version of Consumerism and the One True Religion of the computer industry. The idea that people actually find existential satisfaction when buying Apple products makes me think of it as a semi-technocratic cult-like system where empty consumerism is turned into a meaningful life... somehow.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Yep. I wonder what the hammer-wielding chick from the commercial would think??

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

After all that, I still don't know what Steve Jobs really invented.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Nothing. The comparisons to Edison are absurd.

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

I don't like Apply products but I don't necessarily despise them...but I do hate 'Apple culture'. WTF it's a freaking computer company. What culture? Most Apple users are okay - they shell out that extra money because they're not computer people and Apple products are very user friendly and more idiot-proof than non-Apple PCs. And that's fine, not everyone is good with computers and not everyone has to be.

What bugs me, though, is that whenever there is someone showing off a computer or being superior because they own a specific computer/product, it's ALWAYS an Apple user, always.

Steve Jobs did make some computer innovations, and somehow he got a great marketing team that shot Apple up to what it is today. But that's far from the cultural force of god everyone keeps seeing him as.

[nyxelestia.livejournal.com]

*Apple products, not Apply, that typo came up a lot

[oportet.livejournal.com]

My $30 Phillips MP3 player is still going strong after 4 years.

My $60 Samsung cell phone (which is the most I've ever paid for a cell phone) does the same thing for me that a $400 IPhone would do - it sits in my arm rest on silent and I get it out when I need to make a phone call

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I will light the candles on either side of my APPLE (praised be its name), and say a prayer for non-believers.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Macs and PCs are essentially the same price now, sure you can get a perfectly fine laptop for $400, but it'll be *comparable* to a 4 year old macbook. The reason they seem so expensive is because they don't run obsolete lines. In fact before I bought this, I did comparisons, and with the educational discount I got through Apple, plus not having to spend $400 on an OS, the macbook came out about 30% cheaper than the comparable PC.

I never run a virus scanner, I haven't reinstalled an OS in over 12 months (I used to do windows every six months), hell, I didn't turn this thing off for three months and I had hardly noticed the difference. Sure, you can call me a fanboy, but that's because I am absolutely blown away by the fact that I bought a computer and it's just worked from day dot, to now, with no maintenance or stuffing around. I can't say the same for *any* windows machine in 20 years of running windows machines. Oh, and when I do decide to upgrade OS's it costs $25, not the $400 ass raping that microsoft give you for their latest steaming turd pile. If I wanted to spend most of my time tinkering with my software, installing updates and loading drivers, I'd use Linux. But I don't, so I use mac, the faster, more stable and in the long run cheaper option.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I don't buy Macs because I'm too cheap but you'd have to pry my iPod from my cold dead hands. I've had other mp3 players and the ease of use and features of the iPod are miles above anything else I've tried. Plus it's purple!

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

neat! just like my _______

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/apple

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Mac-Worshipping Heathens, Repent!

God bless my Palm T/X Palm Pilot (you guys call it a tablet now) and my Motorola RAZRV3 phone (not the new one). For Christmas, I'm going to put $100 of minutes on it like I did last Christmas. I figger $100 a year for phone service (including text) is pretty good.

I am also sticking with my Windows desktop PC with Windows 7, Outlook, full Adobe Acrobat and IE9. My Email and you guys can wait until I get home from work. I love my paperless life.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Not having Excel on their phones is a huge issue for me, as is the lack of ability to run ArcMap natively or being able to add ports that take laser inputs on their laptops.

But I recommend them for all of my employees - granted my employees managed to get a virus, on a computer bolted to the passenger seat of a Nissan Titan without a wi-fi card.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

On the bright side, we can look forward to a similar wankfest when Bill Gates goes the way of all flesh.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

I don't care what Bill Gates did as CEO of Microsoft, he's out curing malaria and trying to fund education. He's like a modern Andrew Carnegie.

[taiki.livejournal.com]

err, same components? Sure most of the chips are the same but the board layouts? The case design? I used to use a ThinkPad for work and the thing felt ridiculously cheap. Like the body panels could fall off at any moment if held wrong cheap.

Most PCs don't even ship with Thunderbolt for God's sake. Everyone's rushing to USB3.0, which is solving a problem very few people have(compare that to USB1.1 to USB2).

Arguably Thunderbolt is too, but, when you consider you're getting external PCI-E for essentially free in the same socket that you get video out from...

Still, things don't work. Windows is complete garbage. The fact that the TCP/IP stack can still eat itself is a bad thing, not a good thing. The registry is a giant clusterfuck that could topple at any moment. NTFS should've been shot in the head a long time ago(so should've HFS+, but HFS+ doesn't die with the same regularity and has less frustrations than NTFS does; HFS+ is still crap but I'd rather have it than NTFS).

Android is a goddamned mess too. I don't care how open it is, you can't bolt on usability. Until ICS, the OS's GUI wasn't even OGL accelerated. Most handsets have Carrier IQ running under the hood mucking things up. Google's not in it for user freedom people, they're in it to harvest your Google search and other relevant data; they dont' give a damn if HTC, Motorola, et al. bloat their OS.

Microsoft and Google are not working in your best interest. You are not their customer. Google's customers are the handset vendors who answer to the carriers. Microsoft's customers are OEMs and large organizational IT purchasers. They do not care about you.

Apple wants your money. They want to give you a damn good product in exchange. Yes, they're not the only ones who are, but good OEMs and vendors are hard to find. They are rare. Cherish and treasure those who try to do something for you rather than use you for as many secondary revenue streams.