First of all I would like to say that the title is deliberately provocative. I don’t just hate macs. I dislike all apple products. Just for the records a hate a lot of software and products. For a partial list click here.
So now lets get down to the grind, and I’ll attempt to explain my seemingly irrational hatred for the stupid white box.
1. The hype that apple puts on all of its products
Case in point. The iPod. This is basically the device that put apple back in the market, but I hated all the hype that apple surrounded it with. After all its just an mp3 player isn’t it? What really annoyed me though was apple introducing the shuffle feature and touting it as an original idea. As if apple first came up with the idea of playing songs on random order. Puh-lease
Second example of this is the iPhone. Please tell me who in the world wasn’t disappointed to find that their first generation iPhone wasn’t 3G compatible. I would have been gutted. But don’t worry shiny white zombies. Apple came back a year later with the ‘brand new’ 3G iPhone. YAY!!! (by this time 3G technology was about 4 years old, and was in use on almost all mobile phones. )
2. The hardware and software is made by the same company
Apple peddles this as an advantage, but I personally take it as a disadvantage. I think that fact that the whole machine is produced by the same people reduces, or eradicates competition. When your the only person selling a particular product, you can sell it at any price you want. And Apple have set their price very high indeed. What happens in the (capitalist) world, is that different parts are manufactured by different companies that specialize in different areas. This allows better and more powerful products, and also serves to reduce prices for the end consumer. The end consumer is then free to choose the parts that they want.
There is an exception to this however. Some of the professional desktop equipment uses ‘conventional’ hardware.
3. The only good stuff is professional
The only worthwhile hardware that Apple create it their professional range. The rest hardware aimed an less technically minded users is generally rubbish. The main disadvantage of macs professional hardware as I mentioned before though is the price.
4. Yes its ‘good’ but how long will it last
The most common thing I hear from people that have recently bought macs, is how good they are and how well they seem to run. My question to all of them is “Isn’t that the same with any new computer” (the obvious exception being Vista). While macs seem to work well out of the box, I wonder how long they will last. As we all know, when we buy brand new factory built computers, or even when we assemble them ourselves, how smoothly the systems run. Then after some time they get bogged down. My main point, it how can you judge a whole commuting experience, based on a few hours with the system, or even worse, after you’ve spent the price of a small car on the thing, and your judgement is obviously skewed.
5. Compatibility
Most would say that this point is irrelevant, but its not. Some hardware and a LOT of software isn’t compatible with apples OS* OS. I think if your going to spent that much on a computer, it might as well be able to run hardware and software.
Conclusion
Now that I’ve gone ahead and given my few reason for disliking macs, and apple in general, I’d just like to say that some of there hardware is pretty impressive. For one the latest macbook pro looks quite interesting. I even hear it has a feature that allows you to change the window by tapping one of the sides of the screen.
To be pretty honest, if Apple could address the few reservatinos that I have, I could see myself even begining to consider thinking about planing whether I should make a decision to buy a mac in the distant future. You never know…
Posted by doublement 