I Don’t Get Why People Love Apple

OK I get the fondness for some of the design. Well the hardware anyway. Great stuff. The software not so much. But what I really don’t get is why people like the company itself. Twice they have allowed companies to make Apple clones to run their software and then shut them down completely. Twice! The government took IDM to court for ten years and set the industry back years for doing pretty much the same thing only once. And yet people give Apple a complete pass. Apple is as closed a system as it gets – listen to all the restrictions they place on apps for the iPhone store. People would jump all over Microsoft for less – far less. They limit iPhones to just one vendor and people are more upset at the vendor than Apple for being so closed. Its all but incomprehensible to me.

And then there is the fuss over the iPad. Tablet with no keyboard. Been done for years for Windows devices. Years. And people don’t like them but when Apple does it it is magic? Oh but there is multi-touch. Big whoop! There have been multi-touch laptops, even netbooks, for months with Windows 7. Clearly Apple is a latecomer. Wi-fi and 3G? Also been available for Windows systems for years.

How about development? I want to write some apps. Can I use a language like Visual Basic or C#? How about standard C++? Ah, no, I have to use Objective C. Not even Java? Crazy!

Oh I can read books on it! Impressive if I hadn’t been able to do that for years on Windows PCs and laptops. I run Kindle for the PC on my systems now for example. Works great.

But surely the iPad can do all the things I do most right? Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook? Ah, no, they don‘t run. But I can get a web browser – really impressive. If only I could get one for a Windows system. Oh, wait, I think there are some available for Windows.

My netbook has a removable battery, USB ports, a web cam, a microphone, and I can mark up things with handwriting recognition. The iPad can do those things right? Whoops! Not it can’t. Wait, can that be? The iPad is magic.

You know what it feels like? It feels like the iPad is the new wardrobe for the Emperor. If you are a true cool geek you can see the magic of the iPad and few want to admit that they are not real cool geeks. Sigh.

One Response to “I Don’t Get Why People Love Apple”

  1. Matt says:

    sleepwell: Are you a professional spammer? You spam very poorly.

    “Apple is as closed a system as it gets – listen to all the restrictions they place on apps for the iPhone store. People would jump all over Microsoft for less – far less. They limit iPhones to just one vendor and people are more upset at the vendor than Apple for being so closed.”

    I love my iPhone and am a Mac user who hasn’t looked back — at Windows or Linux. Just wanted to set the frame for what I’m about to say…

    …I completely agree. The restrictions on the iPhone are infuriating. It was a victory when they dropped DRM from their music, but it was just one of the millions of places DRM is used to cripple what we can do with the things we pay for.

    I’ve been thinking of building a Hackintosh for a bit, actually. It’s a taboo subject since it’s “illegal,” except that I’d buy a box copy of the OS and install it on hardware I bought…

    (Oh, and Palm tried to get their Pre to sync with iTunes. It became a cat-and-mouse game of Apple doing things to cripple it and Palm finding a workaround.)

    All this said… A coworker brought in his new iPad today, and I was sold after about 60 seconds playing with it. I think the struggle is how to define it. It’d be a terrible tablet, for the reasons you mention. I don’t really see it filling the same roles as my iPhone, either — like the ability to get my email, check the web, or put things on my calendar anywhere, because I always have my phone on me. But for casual web browsing not around a computer, checking your email, or playing some games, it seems fun. It’s hard to articulate exactly what I’d do with it, I suppose.

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