The 10 Worst Things About Apple

I love articles like this… Seb Janacek (I know… Before this I never heard of him/her either… Guess we know why he/she wrote this..) has explained the 10 worst things about Apple. Oh sure, lots of others have written about this, but I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of rebutting it, I’m going to demonstrate how it’s absolutely not an Apple thing… Read on.

1. The ‘reality distortion field.’
I agree. I think saying full system exploits are created every day to take over the competition and calling an OS with features available in another platform for 5 years innovative while proclaiming that the “Wow” starts now as textbook an example of marketing speak you can find in the ‘reality distortion field.’

2. The Zune
An iPod knockoff crippled by committees of lawyers, entertainment companies, and DRM. Who could love it? Oh, and it’s brown.

3. Style over substance
Windows Vista is more about the look than the OS. Security features like kernel protection and the new WinFS file system were both scrapped. Instead, you now have the ability to manage your photos better and you have a great new interface with translucent borders. Amount of substance? Zero.

4. Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile has been upgraded 5 times. 3 times since it started appearing in phones. In that time, ActiveSync still sucks, phones still periodicially crash during phone calls, and the X button doesn’t actually close an application. In recent updates, the ability to use your Windows Mobile phone as a Bluetooth Dialup Networking device has disappeared and instead requires a long procedure to get working. The Connection Manager, arguably the worst part off the entire OS, has only gotten worse with time. Thanks, Microsoft.

5. Arrogance.
Microsoft thinks it’s easier to upgrade to Vista than a new version of OS X. Despite the fact that OS X Tiger will run on just about every Mac from a G3 onward with full functionality and Vista won’t run “completely” on anything but the latest and greatest hardware, Bill still thinks the experience on Vista is easier than on Mac OS.

Well, certainly we’ve done a better job letting you upgrade on the hardware than our competitors have done. You can choose to buy a new machine, or you can choose to do an upgrade. And I don’t know why [Apple is] acting like it’s superior. I don’t even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you’re really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There’s not even the slightest shred of truth to it.

Not even the slightest shred? Tell you what, Bill. I’ll grab a 10 year old Mac and a 10 year old PC, and we’ll upgrade them at the same time. You tell me which is easier. Arrogance is taking a superior attitude over your competition, and arrogance + ignorance is taking that attitude while lying about something you know nothing about.

6. Litigation, Litigation, Litigation
Microsoft sued Google for hiring away talent. Microsoft sued a student at Kent State for selling two pieces of software on Ebay. Microsoft sued a company for having hundreds of domains that “are confusingly similar” to its own. Oh, and don’t forget my personal favorite, Microsoft sued Mike Rowe for having a site called MikeRoweSoft.

7. iEverything
Apple loves the i. Microsoft loves their own name. Microsoft Office. Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Expression Engine. Microsoft Windows Mobile. Microsoft SQL Server. MSN. MSN Hotmail. MSDN. Microsoft Works. Microsoft Encarta. Microsoft Streets and Trips. Microsoft Mouse. Microsoft Keyboard. It’s a branding thing. All companies do it.

8. DRM
Well, the Zune is a closed system. Zune music only plays on a Zune. Plays for Sure is a closed system and only works on Windows. The running gag of “plays for shit” didn’t get started because PFS worked well.

9. Environmental Record
Anything that cites Greenpeace is to be ignored. Microsoft doesn’t make PC’s (yet) so we can’t really compare Apples to Apples (no pun intended) here.

10. The lunatic fringe
Mind numbed zombies wandering through the world thinking the blue E is the internet and that everyone should have the latest Microsoft Office Plus Expanded Deluxe edition just because it added a new word to the spellchecker counts as lunatic fringe to me. Not to mention the folks who find the need to bash other operating systems (Linux and Mac) while at the same time ignoring the fact that their operating system is a swiss cheese mess of security flaws and bugs. A perfect example of the lunatic fringe will probably show up in the comments section of this very post. In fact, you can bet on it.

What have we learned here? That if you open your eyes wide enough, this list can apply pretty much to every company. Go ahead. Make your own. Link it here so we can all laugh.

(Inspired by the article I first found at Artie MacStrawman’s Orchard)

[tags]microsoft, apple[/tags]

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  • nathalie

    on that note, MS is patching the latest batch of “critical” security holes today. if you don’t have IE7 on your system, their system update process installs it by default– you have to uncheck it to avoid. talk about annoying… I’ll take a Mac any day.

  • http://journal.pdsys.org/ Nicholas

    Nathalie,

    IE7 will _never_ auto-install. You get a dialog telling you what the IE7 update is, and asking if you want to decline or accept the EULA.

    Vincent,

    I’ll respond point by point:

    2. Come on, man. There’s going to be other DAP products out there, not just the iPod. And of course they’re going to share common things. Competition = good, right?

    3. The kernel was significantly overhauled both for security and to move drivers out of the kernel space (and into the user space where they should have been in the first place.) This will help get rid of driver-caused crashes, especially video card drivers and sound drivers, which are the worst offenders. WinFS was never intended to be a security measure, as far as I know…

    4. I’ve had three phones running Windows Mobile. Yes, they sucked in the past, but now they’re actually pretty darn good. Have you tried a Motorola Q? I have yet to have it lock up or restart on it’s own. And you have to place some blame on the manufacturer’s and the vendors, who modify the OS and load up their own software. Treo is famous for doing this, and that’s why my 700w would crash daily.

    5. Sure, you can install OSX on a 10 year old iMac or PowerMac, but you know it’s going to suck. Same thing goes for Vista on 10 year old hardware. Unless we’re talking about adding gobs of RAM or something..

    And I think the type of arrogance we’re talking about here is pretty evident. Just look at Apple’s commercials. If you didn’t know anything about PCs or Apples, you’d probably think the Apple guys are real dicks when it comes to touting how superior they are.

    I’m waiting for the Apple commercial that is just Steve Jobs with his ding-dong out saying “Suck it, PC.”

    7. The i prefix is getting a bit annoying to myself. But eh, whatever. It’s marketing. I care not.

    8. I think the point of mentioning the DRM is that Microsoft lets other companies use it’s DRM scheme, so Creative, etc. can benefit from it on their players. Apple does not let anyone do this, and even sued Real to stop them from reverse engineering it into their own software.

    And to end it all.. who cares what OS people use? Vista and OSX are both great operating systems! Why go back and forth fighting about it?

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    Nicholas,

    I could care less. My only point is you can drag that article’s points out and talk about any company in the same way. Every single thing he said Apple is guilty of, Microsoft is guilty of. It’s the way of the world. NONE of that is unique to Apple. Not one single word of it.

    Oh, and Tiger runs quite nicely on a G3 (read: 2 generation old processor). Windows XP on a P2 or p3? Not so much).

  • nathalie

    My mom just bought a new MacBook and was able to move everything from her old iBook BY HERSELF. She’s not exactly an IT engineer. My in-laws, on the other hand, have PCs and are constantly calling my husband for IT support. He has literally spent dozens of hours helping them with with everything from setting up wireless routers to fixing driver issues. Mind you, many of the problems stem from user error, but the fact is that Macs don’t leave a lot of room for user error. My husband always said (before he got out of IT last year), “as long as there is Microsoft, I’ll have job security”.

    Nicholas– didn’t say anything about auto-installing– it is listed as a critical update and set to install by default during an update; you have to uncheck the line item to skip it. I usually don’t pay close attention to the updates, and I just click through the wizard. You can install it without really realizing what happened until it’s too late. Now I pay closer attention to what’s in my update list. Lesson learned! :-)

  • http://journal.pdsys.org/ Nicholas

    Nathalie,

    (This is not intended to be directed at your in-laws..) You have to realize that most people are lazy. A majority of the people who hire me to do computer repair/etc. work are just plain ignorant, and usually do not want to know about drivers, hardware, spyware, or how their computer works in general. They just want the thing to work. What a terrible attitude to have, unless you’re a gazillionaire or something. It’s like buying a brand new car and never changing the oil, leading to you having to take it to a repair place. If you had just read up on the maintenance requirements and how the car works in general, you’d probably have been okay.

    I pretty much think any new computer purchase (Mac or PC) should come with a “Read this, dummy” handbook, that gives you the basics, because there are a lot of common things between that platforms that can be discussed and educated upon. But then again, people probably won’t bother reading that, either. I still get jobs where people hire me simply to unbox and set up their computer. Ugh.

    Regarding IE7, why are you avoiding updating to it?

  • nathalie

    Agree, agree and agree. My husband got out of IT mostly because of the ignorance factor. No matter how advanced your IT skills are, you always have to deal with the dopey stuff. He got tired of it.

    I’m only avoiding IE7 because my company hasn’t finished testing our product on it. We develop enterprise on demand applications for human resources and I don’t want to risk a crashed demo. That’s all– no anti-Microsoft tirade… The thing is, it’ll probably work fine and most of our customers (who are probably no different than what you described above) are likely using it.

  • nathalie

    on that note, MS is patching the latest batch of “critical” security holes today. if you don’t have IE7 on your system, their system update process installs it by default– you have to uncheck it to avoid. talk about annoying… I’ll take a Mac any day.

  • http://journal.pdsys.org/ Nicholas

    Nathalie,

    IE7 will _never_ auto-install. You get a dialog telling you what the IE7 update is, and asking if you want to decline or accept the EULA.

    Vincent,

    I’ll respond point by point:

    2. Come on, man. There’s going to be other DAP products out there, not just the iPod. And of course they’re going to share common things. Competition = good, right?

    3. The kernel was significantly overhauled both for security and to move drivers out of the kernel space (and into the user space where they should have been in the first place.) This will help get rid of driver-caused crashes, especially video card drivers and sound drivers, which are the worst offenders. WinFS was never intended to be a security measure, as far as I know…

    4. I’ve had three phones running Windows Mobile. Yes, they sucked in the past, but now they’re actually pretty darn good. Have you tried a Motorola Q? I have yet to have it lock up or restart on it’s own. And you have to place some blame on the manufacturer’s and the vendors, who modify the OS and load up their own software. Treo is famous for doing this, and that’s why my 700w would crash daily.

    5. Sure, you can install OSX on a 10 year old iMac or PowerMac, but you know it’s going to suck. Same thing goes for Vista on 10 year old hardware. Unless we’re talking about adding gobs of RAM or something..

    And I think the type of arrogance we’re talking about here is pretty evident. Just look at Apple’s commercials. If you didn’t know anything about PCs or Apples, you’d probably think the Apple guys are real dicks when it comes to touting how superior they are.

    I’m waiting for the Apple commercial that is just Steve Jobs with his ding-dong out saying “Suck it, PC.”

    7. The i prefix is getting a bit annoying to myself. But eh, whatever. It’s marketing. I care not.

    8. I think the point of mentioning the DRM is that Microsoft lets other companies use it’s DRM scheme, so Creative, etc. can benefit from it on their players. Apple does not let anyone do this, and even sued Real to stop them from reverse engineering it into their own software.

    And to end it all.. who cares what OS people use? Vista and OSX are both great operating systems! Why go back and forth fighting about it?

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    Nicholas,

    I could care less. My only point is you can drag that article’s points out and talk about any company in the same way. Every single thing he said Apple is guilty of, Microsoft is guilty of. It’s the way of the world. NONE of that is unique to Apple. Not one single word of it.

    Oh, and Tiger runs quite nicely on a G3 (read: 2 generation old processor). Windows XP on a P2 or p3? Not so much).

  • nathalie

    My mom just bought a new MacBook and was able to move everything from her old iBook BY HERSELF. She’s not exactly an IT engineer. My in-laws, on the other hand, have PCs and are constantly calling my husband for IT support. He has literally spent dozens of hours helping them with with everything from setting up wireless routers to fixing driver issues. Mind you, many of the problems stem from user error, but the fact is that Macs don’t leave a lot of room for user error. My husband always said (before he got out of IT last year), “as long as there is Microsoft, I’ll have job security”.

    Nicholas– didn’t say anything about auto-installing– it is listed as a critical update and set to install by default during an update; you have to uncheck the line item to skip it. I usually don’t pay close attention to the updates, and I just click through the wizard. You can install it without really realizing what happened until it’s too late. Now I pay closer attention to what’s in my update list. Lesson learned! :-)

  • http://journal.pdsys.org/ Nicholas

    Nathalie,

    (This is not intended to be directed at your in-laws..) You have to realize that most people are lazy. A majority of the people who hire me to do computer repair/etc. work are just plain ignorant, and usually do not want to know about drivers, hardware, spyware, or how their computer works in general. They just want the thing to work. What a terrible attitude to have, unless you’re a gazillionaire or something. It’s like buying a brand new car and never changing the oil, leading to you having to take it to a repair place. If you had just read up on the maintenance requirements and how the car works in general, you’d probably have been okay.

    I pretty much think any new computer purchase (Mac or PC) should come with a “Read this, dummy” handbook, that gives you the basics, because there are a lot of common things between that platforms that can be discussed and educated upon. But then again, people probably won’t bother reading that, either. I still get jobs where people hire me simply to unbox and set up their computer. Ugh.

    Regarding IE7, why are you avoiding updating to it?

  • nathalie

    Agree, agree and agree. My husband got out of IT mostly because of the ignorance factor. No matter how advanced your IT skills are, you always have to deal with the dopey stuff. He got tired of it.

    I’m only avoiding IE7 because my company hasn’t finished testing our product on it. We develop enterprise on demand applications for human resources and I don’t want to risk a crashed demo. That’s all– no anti-Microsoft tirade… The thing is, it’ll probably work fine and most of our customers (who are probably no different than what you described above) are likely using it.