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What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes.com went to MacWorld to ask Apple fans what bugs them about the computer and gadget maker. Turns out the lack of replaceable batteries, need to buy Vista separately, and most of all the stock price bugs people."
I love Apple stuff. I love OS X and it has in the last few months been what Linux (after almost 10 years of trying) never could be for me: a complete and total replacement for Windows.
With that said, I don't like Apple's computer lineup. We have a good selection on notebooks now: cheap, ultra portable, and powerful.
Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer? For anybody who wants a reasonably specced system (better than Mini, not as tricked out as the Pro) with no monitor added, there's just no good choice. I already have a monitor. Not only do I not want another, but I can't use it: I share my monitor between multiple systems and you can't do that with an iMac. iMac also has no upgrade slots for new video cards etc.
I have an old G4 that does well. I have a hacked x86 "Mac" box that fits my computing needs. I have an Apple TV, and I have an iPod. I love Apple's stuff. I just wish that they'd make a "real" Mac that fit my needs so I wouldn't have to resort to building one.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
If you need to buy a new laptop every three years, you can almost justify it when they cost $600. Still annoying but you can live with it. When the laptop starts at $2000 and has the same upgrade cycle, that's when baby jebus starts crying.
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You might actually have a point there. By charging more and carrying on this whole cult of mac mentality, apple is duping people into thinking that they must be buying a superior product. The more Apple fans pay, the more aroused they get gazing at their sleek designer machines.
I hated SWB/SBC (for many good reasons too lengthy for a comment box) and AT&T hasn't done anything to lessen that hatred over time. No matter how many features the iWhatever may have, even a footnote of involvement with AT&T is an instant buzz-kill. I really don't care what mitigating circumstances or defenses might be brought up here, AT&T is an instant "NO!" in my book.
Compared to that, my disgruntlement with their video hardware across the line is a minor thing. The exact nature of that disgruntlement depends on the model in question. Suffice to say that apple has my heart in the portable sphere for offering well spec'd, decently priced, and well-integrated portable Unix with their powerbooks/mac pros but I really wish they had something in the mid-range desktop line that wasn't an iMac (the mini is a bit too constraining, already have a nice monitor rendering the imacs moot, and the pro is far too over-spec'd/expensive for my needs). I'm half-way considering building a hackintosh for my next desktop. (It's either that or ubuntu most likely. Vista is right out.)
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OEM versions of Windows are WAY WAY cheaper than $200, you know? (which is what Apple would be paying for the OS if it came pre-installed) - they could charge $50 extra and probably break even or even make a tenny-weeny profit. Even if they did that, they would probably still charge an extra $200 and laugh to the bank.
I don't like Vista (still run XP on most of my systems) but at least Microsoft documents their bugs and work arounds instead of pretending nothing is wrong.
On the other hand, Apple is cheap. A 130 dollar OS and 80 bucks for a suite of tools for total noob's isn't a bad price.
But I'd pay $400 for an Ultimate edition that worked.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
What strange and pointless article. Macs have all sorts of well documented deficiencies in either hardware or design, and even the most loyal fanbois will usually acknowledge them.
I'll still argue that the biggest weaknesses with Macs is the "we have decided what you need, and that's exactly what you get" attitude. Regardless of how much one may love Apple design, it still remains that one size does not fit all, and a lot of Apple's decisions work against people who have every good reason to do things in another way.
To wit - my preference for a Delete key instead of dragging files to a trash icon is not a weakness on my part, it's a more than reasonable preference. Regardless of all the keyboard options and such, there are many times when I simply prefer to press Delete.
Of course Vista is no better, and wrestling it into submission can also be frustrating, but I have heard few Vista users trying to argue that its deficiencies are in fact strengths.
Three Squirrels
I've been at Macs a long, long time. Started with the Mac 512k, two external 400k floppies.
A few things have really irked me lately that were not true in the past.
- OS upgrade pricing. There is none, just buy it new. Used to be the system software was distributed free.
- Leopard "improvements". This has been hashed out elsewhere, but reduced functionality in the dock and non-movable sections in the finder sidebar are irksome, regardless of purported internal improvements.
- Many more app crashes. In APPLE products.
- Inconsistent user design, focus on chrome and glitz rather than usability.
- Ongoing arrogance and hubris, as witnessed in the $20 iPod Touch software upgrade. Again, quite the kick-in-the-nuts for early adopters.
Lots of things are right with Apple, but I am not that happy with the trend that I am afraid I am seeing.
And honestly, if you're looking for a $600 laptop you REALLY shouldn't be comparing with MacBook Pros, or any high-end laptop like that. Apple has never made secret that it builds only mid-high end machinery, not low-end budget computers.
I've been moving my family, friends, and gf to Macs for a while now, and they're much happier than they've ever been. Between $1100 and $600 you get a heck of a lot more performance (not always relevant to them), but the peace of mind of not being subject to malware, trojans, and not having to buy an AV kit, that's worth the price tag difference alone - all that extra hardware is just icing on the cake.
I've been a Mac faithful for about 15 years. I have owned every high-end apple laptop since the G3 Wall Street. The reason I have owned every high end laptop is that one of them always seems to have a major problem a year into using it. It could be a bad hard drive, motherboard, screen problems, or an OS upgrade that doesn't upgrade well and kills my system so many times, that I say f'it and get a new machine.
If it's not a machine going down, it's the lovely hanging mac. Some app has a problem, and you get the endless rainbow of death, or better yet, a frozen screen. Now all OS' have issues, and I have always loved my Mac(s), but the time has come for me to part ways with Apple (well, except for my iPhone).
I guess the reason is their PC vs Mac ads. Yup, that is the MAIN reason. When these first came out, they made me incredibly angry due to the fact that Apple gave insinuations that the Mac never crashes, or freezes (this constantly happened to me with 10.4 and my machine died when upgrading to Leopard). Or comments about how the Mac is impervious to viruses (which we all know by know is not the case). Apple just took a bunch of stereotypes about Mac and PCs (many of which are completely wrong), and threw them in a commercial, even though most of the stuff they were saying was complete BS.
So I am done now. I am moving on and sold my dead MacBook Pro and am in the process of selling my G5 tower, and will now be using Windows newest piece of crap... Vista. So long Mac news, how I loved thee, but I can't take the smug anymore.
I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.
Take the laptops. The cheapest is £699. A similarly specified Dell would be about the same (or more) but for a lot of people they simply don't need everything that the MacBook offers. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.
Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429). I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.
That's about it really.
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What bothers me is the fact that Forbes can't write a positive article about Apple. They always have to be the spoiler, trying to find the pit instead of the tasty cherry. It's the same thing that bothers me about open source in general.
Okay, that actually is what bothers me about Forbes. You'd think after looking like complete and utter fools for letting Dan Lyons keep writing false, misleading, or just stupid articles about Linux with respect to the SCO farce, they would rein him in a bit. Instead, he starts acting like a complete ass yet again with the fake Steve Jobs thing. The negativity that they have toward any non-Microsoft (and non-SCO, as it were) software is bizarre.
Forbes should be a credible source of news, but given their level of maturity in reporting in areas for which I have a high degree of knowledge, I wouldn't trust them in any other category. Ever.
It's pathetic.
Do you have ESP?
Not vista, but it would be helpful to buy a Mac pre-configured with bootcamp + Windows XP. I don't want it at home, but at work it would be quite nice. I could see small business customers loving it.
Sure, but why should that be Apple's responsibility? Apple is there to advertise and sell MacOS X. People buying Macs are for the moost part buying it for MacOS X. If some people want Windows presinstalled on the system, then they could always pay extra and have a shop do the work for them. Apple offering Windows as a 'Build To Order' option would likely cause confusion about their confidence in their own OS.
Apple shouldn't make it any more easier to use the competing OS than they already have. They aren't a generic computer seller and the more the can convince you to drink the cool-aid the better for them. Anyone who believes in their OS, whether it be Linux, Windows, BSD or Amiga, amongst others, are going to have the same attitude.
As to your gripes about Leopard, I am not sure how you are getting such a bad experience. I haven't rebooted for over a month and I use it daily, putting the system to sleep at night. The usual causes for exessive memory usage, on my computer, have been leaks in Firefox and when that happens I kill Firefox and relaunch it. Admitly one computer has gone done once in a while, and the kernel panic clearly points to an ATI driver issue.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I believe Leopard has been the fastest selling OS X released so far. How much bigger do you think they thought it was going to be?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
This article is just incendiary. It's pure flamebait, and you fell for it. I highly doubt that Apple "fans" are complaining about having to buy a copy of Vista because I highly doubt many of them are running Windows. I highly doubt they are complaining about batteries. The iPod is hugely popular and has never had a replaceable battery. Same goes for the iPhone. The MacBook Air is 50% battery by volume and 80% by weight. Even if there were available, there would be few if any buyers. Apple fans also couldn't care less about the stock price. They care about cool stuff. People who don't like Apple (which can hardly be described as "fans") like to complain about Apple are disappointed that they have to buy Windows from a third party (what? iPhoto doesn't come with a Nokia D80? HOW COULD APPLE DO THIS TO ME?!?!). People who don't carry spare batteries for their PC laptops complain that you can't get a spare battery for Apple devices (an extra battery costs how much??). Day traders who were hoping to cash in on Macworld care about Apple's stock price. Journalists who want to write about how much money you can make as a day trader during the week of Macworld care about Apple's stock price (Apple stock didn't jump 30 points?? I'm ruined! SELL!!! SELL!!! SELL!!!).
Show me a person who doesn't wish for a right trackpad button on the mac, and I'll show you a person who doesn't use Opera.
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I have no idea the truth of your claims, but I've seen them bandied about Slashdot quite a bit. I am highly skeptical of whether they could possibly be true though.
Why is it that Apple seems to be the only company affected by this issue? Why is it that the Microsoft Zunes, albeit pieces of trash, were able to get free upgrades to generation 2 software granting them new features like wireless sync? Why is it that every piece of hardware I can think of that comes with firmware updates seems to be able to get new functionality without charging except for Apple.
Maybe I'm being cynical, but it definitely strikes me as odd.
Remember Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn ad? The tag line at the end, "It's your music. Burn it on a Mac"? At the time, the music industry was up in arms over this idea that people could rip music from CDs to their computers. Apple became a fair-use sweetheart overnight by actively promoting the concept in advertising that it was okay for you to do this. Apple was the consumer's friend, fighting for our rights against the evil music cartels--or so the fanbois said.
Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.
After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?
And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.
What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?
I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"
I need to grow up? It seems the rest of us were having a mature discussion until you came along...
But in answer to your post, we are talking about trackpads here, rather than external mice. Of course a two-button mouse is preferable to a one-button mouse. Of course, the external mouse Apple ships is a two-button mouse. I don't prefer it myself, but it does have two buttons.
Few who have taken the time to learn the Apple trackpad would consider going to back to a less-capable style, unless they have a particular need for pressing both buttons at the same time (I myself don't).
We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all).
As an investor if I held Apple shares I'd want Apple to have a bigger market share but more importantly sell more. As a user I also want Apple to have a bigger share, as well as BSD, Linux, and Solaris. The more diverse the OS market the better.
FalconShould there be a Law?
As far as I can tell, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Apple charging for software upgrades don't have anything to do with each other. Which makes sense, as it seems plenty of other companies seem to be able to distribute software upgrades for free. So unless you can point out exactly why Apple must charge $20 for this upgrade, I'm going to have to call BS.
And leave it to Forbes to get all that and to miss THE ONE MOUSE BUTTON - seriously. The DESKTOPS now have plenty of buttons, but the laptops still only, really have one.
The one thing everyone has been legitimately complaining about for years...
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Their moves to make money at any price, the fact they often neglect their computer market to make more cash.
The DRM and obsession with becoming a media broker.
Their mice.
Lack of an affordable tower machine.
Too much secrecy.
Threatening and suing Apple users for leaking information or using beta software (they're worse than Microsoft for doing this).