Why I distrust Apple, in one short video

Okay, seriously. I know that WWDC is a sales pitch moreso than a tech demo. But this supercut of superlatives tweaks every nerve I have as regards manipulative language.

There’s not a lot of actual innovation in their new iteration, that I can see, just a nice coat of paint slapped on the same old stuff. “This changes everything” was true when iOS first got introduced, but now it’s all “this keeps everything the same except for a prettier wastebasket.”

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Why I distrust Apple, in one short video
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14 thoughts on “Why I distrust Apple, in one short video

  1. 2

    All it took for me to strongly dislike every thing that’s come out of Apple was installing itunes on my PC for the first time because I wanted to upload some mp3s onto a borrowed ipod shuffle.

    For me Apple’s core principles are “flashy, expensive, proprietary”.

  2. 3

    When the iPhone 4 came out, a friend needed to buy a new phone and was curious about it. I told her that if she could get the salesperson to give a single reason to buy one that didn’t involve the word “cool”, she had my blessing. Salesperson failed. I even got to the point where I said, “Is there anything you can say about this phone that talks about what it does better than any other phone?” and she said, “It’s really cool, and has lots of cool apps”.

    Fail. But typical of Apple.

  3. 4

    All it took for me to strongly dislike every thing that’s come out of Apple was installing itunes on my PC for the first time because I wanted to upload some mp3s onto a borrowed ipod shuffle.

    I know that experience.

    “I see you’ve got your PC configured the way you like it. I’m just going to go ahead and change your settings so every sound and video file gets played in Quicktime instead.”

    MS Office’s Clippit may have been annoying, but he at least had the courtesy to ask before doing anything.

    For what it’s worth, iTunes for PC is much less “Fuck you, PC user” than it was back then.

  4. 5

    Nobody with a brain ever trusted apple. They’re an american computer company; they have to sell lies to stay in business.

    My favorite apple lie was “it’s OK that we’re stuck using an outdated processor – our software is faster so that makes up for it.” (O RLY. as if, if that were true, you wouldn’t love to be twice as fast as Windows on the same processor) then the mandatory processor architecture re-do and forklift operating system upgrade. What a bunch of jokers. They should just stick to making expensive overpriced beautiful shit and be open about it; there’s clearly a market for it.

  5. 6

    For what it’s worth, iTunes for PC is much less “Fuck you, PC user”

    Are you kidding? It’s designed to make even a honking mighty slab of computer like mine run like an old jalopy – its as if it figures out how much available RAM you have, then asks for twice that much. I mean, seriously, on processors as fast as the stuff we run in our desktops, sporting 16 or 32gb of RAM, its a feat to make a music player/browser that lags for seconds when you scroll a window. I am guessing Apple developed a whole new programming paradigm designed to make non-Apple machines suck ass. Maybe they’re running IOS under emulation and then running iTunes native inside the virtual machine. Nah, even that wouldn’t be as slow as iTunes manages to be.

  6. 7

    It’s weird. I can’t watch political speeches even by people whom I agree with, since the self-promoting bullshit is too much for me.

    But I still watch the Apple keynotes.

    I’m not even a complete Apple fanboy. I have Windows 7 on my iMac for gaming, and bought a Windows 8 tablet instead of a MacBook Air or iPad. I’ve looked into linux a few times, but can’t justify the switch; too much software I want or need is missing.

    I have no idea why the showmanship here is fun, while political showmanship is unpalatable.

  7. 8

    Unfortunately, the qualities I value in computers (backwards-compatibility, reliability, user-serviceability, customization, provisions for internal expansion) and the qualities Steve Jobs and his successors value have been at polar odds for years. I can’t bear to watch a keynote or sales pitch unless I want to cringe.

  8. 9

    Huh. I use Linux and Windows and OS X in my work. Windows is an exercise in making things one or two steps more difficult than they have to be because they did not understand what the UI they were copying was trying to do; Linux is an additional exercise in frustration because its UI designers do not understand what Windows UI designers were trying to do.

    When I get home, I want a system that works well and without needless complication. For example, I don’t want to have to open six dialog boxes just to change the IP address. That’s OS X for me. I get paid to tinker; I do not want to tinker with my computer at home, as Widnows or Linux seem to require.

    Yeah, okay, Apple’s marketing is smarmy and the iOS UI designers are trying too hard to make OS X look like iOS … but love is what makes a Subaru a Subaru, Coke would like to teach the world to sing, and Windows is the standard. Those statements by marketeers do not change the chemical composition or engineering design of the products.

    If you don’t like Macs or iOS or Apple, fine; they’re not the systems for you. I’m not going to call into question your sanity or intelligence for having different criteria than mine for choosing an OS. So there.

  9. 10

    I am a little nervous about Apple since Steve Jobs passed away but, still a happy Mac user. My iMac computer and iPad give me everything I want in computers and more. The two PCs I owned back in the ninties were nothing but a headache, programs crashing and warnings about viruses. I used to joke with my PC tech person that I was certain I was paying his mortgage because of the number of times I needed his asstistance.

  10. 11

    I used to really like Apple. Then the MacBook I had purchased a couple years previous had the graphics chip die. Wasn’t covered in the recall, and would cost as much as a new computer to replace. Plus, I didn’t like the way they were handling the iphone. I felt like they were doing a lot of the same tactics that apple fanboys used to accuse windows of doing.

    So, I got a cheap PC and installed linux. I’m pretty happy with it so far. Plus, now it seems that Apple’s whole business model is pushing consumers to get the latest iteration of iwhatever at some ridiculous price.

  11. 13

    I hated Apple and Mac back in college, but I was told that was because the campus computers all had safety features that slowed up the system. So I bought a used Mac and wound up throwing it away because it sucked, but I was told it was just old. I then installed iTunes on my PC, and it sucked royally—it changed the format of songs that I already had, then locked them to that computer, so I couldn’t play them on my next one … it fucking destroyed my music collection … and it was far worse than drag-and-drop and play-by-folder. My daughter wanted iTunes on the next PC, so it all happened again, but with a screaming teen.

  12. 14

    All it took for me to strongly dislike every thing that’s come out of Apple was installing itunes on my PC for the first time because I wanted to upload some mp3s onto a borrowed ipod shuffle.

    For me Apple’s core principles are “flashy, expensive, proprietary”.

    +1

    Fortunately, I discovered MediaMonkey.

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