Here we go again
T3 has 10 things they hate, and 10 things they love about Apple. I assume these lists are both in general tongue-in-cheek, since T3 is not exactly a serious magazine. However, as with a lot of people who don’t know a lot about Apple or Apple products, some of their “hate” list is quite weak and ill-informed.
For example, how could any list of bad things about Apple not include a) exorbitantly overpriced memory upgrades at the online store, and b) the $30 they want for Quicktime Pro, or c) the poor value of .Mac (or now-called Mobile Me?)? The fact those three actual problems are omitted just shows the lack of thought that went into such a list.
Anyway, the most dubious things on this list are:
1 – The smugness Apple rips you off, dicks you around, releases products as virtual public betas, and has the worst customer service department in the known universe. Okay, everyone does that these days – tech products are now so complex, it’s virtually inevitable – but Apple do it with the air of Moses returning from the mount with a new batch of tablets.
Apple tops the customer satisfaction and the tech support surveys in Consumer Reports every year. Maybe it’s worse in the UK, but this seems demonstrably false.
2 – Apple Stores Like airport departure lounges, they’re cavernous, soulless and full of bored-looking tourists. They are staffed by “geniuses” who know nothing.
Two Apple stores just made it into Retail Week as “must visit” stores, including one in London.
3 – The first one’s always rubbish From the iMac to the iPod to the MacBook Air, there’s always some clanging design flaw in every new product Apple brings out.
This is an urban legend. With the exception of one iMac model, there’s no history of first generation problems with Apple products. The first iPod worked great. The first iPhone worked great. The Macbook Air is just fine. T3 seems to be confusing the fact that the second generation is always better with the first one being flawed.
4 – The prices Nobody minds paying a bit over the odds for a premium product, and some iPods are now perilously close to being good value. However, the prices of Apple’s computers and, for some reason, the iPod Touch, remain quite mad. Worse, the days when Apple was synonymous with rock-solid build quality are long gone. Our original iMac is still going strong, 8GB hard drive ‘n’ all. Our last one packed up after just over a 18 months with terminal hard drive and logic board failure.
I love build quality by anecdote. Ok, your iMac died in 18 months. That’s unfortunate, and outside the warranty period. I had some problems with my iBook G4. My PowerMac G4/400 is still working 6 years later, and my Macbook is going fine. Statistically, some models are more reliable than others, but that doesn’t mean all are bad now. Anyway, the price, yes – they cost more. But you get more. Apple’s Macs are comparable to equally equipped PCs. There just aren’t any “cheap” Macs. Mmm, and the Mac Mini may be overpriced.
5 – Apple TV A device that allows you to watch video in your front room. Cheers.
Maybe it doesn’t work properly in the UK, but the Apple TV does a lot more than let you watch video in your front room. You can purchase movies and TV shows and rent movies on it directly from iTunes, view photos, video files, and listen to Music. With the 2.0 software update, any iTunes machine can stream music to the AppleTV just like an Airport Express. For anyone with a good home theater setup and a lot of music in iTunes, this alone is a great feature. But no one is forcing you to buy one.
6 – The “keynote speeches” 2,000 hyped-up uber-nerds whooping like they’ve just won the lottery, just because Ocelot, or whatever the new Apple OS is called, now makes a slightly more booming “bong” sound when fired up. Apple’s product launches are like a Nuremberg rally on dress-down Friday.
Heh. This is funny, but it’s not exactly true. The crowds get bored and are unimpressed plenty when there’s nothing that exciting. Maybe they overreact now and then. I’m not sure T3 has ever actually watched an entire one.
7 – The iTunes Store DRM? 128Kbps tunes at 79p a track? Constant promotions for dreary, middle-of-the-road toss like Katie Melua? We’ll stick to Emusic and illegal file sharing, thanks.
DRM is something the music industry has thrust upon us, but I’d be fine if the music cost less, was a higher bitrate, etc. Fundamentally, the media owners control most of these things – not Apple. iTunes is the best thing to happen to online music for consumers in the last few years, period – before it we had crap subscription services and restrictive DRM that wouldn’t even let you burn things to CD. iTunes is a particularly dumb thing to be complaining about.
8 – The adverts Not the ones with Mitchell and Webb. They’re great. No, we mean the ones with “cool” silhouettes dancing to “cool” music by whatever “cool” band (or Bono) Apple has oh-so-easily convinced to whore themselves this month.
I think they’re just getting desperate for things now.
9 – Steve Jobs And his stupid voice, stupid hair, stupid clothes and stupid, unfunny jokes.
Yep.
10 – People who like Apple products Middle of the road bores who’ve convinced themselves they’re edgy. Passive aggressive twerps who go on Apple’s own message boards to defend Apple’s products from customers with legitimate grievances, saying things like “You’re not using it properly” and “You haven’t repaired permissions”. Beaming evangelists with hyena smiles and thousand-yard stares. Empty men with empty lives.
Ah, Artie Macstrawman is back. Most Mac/Apple users are gracious, helpful, knowledgeable, and critical of Apple when it makes mistakes or bad decisions. Witness the distaste when there was no real SDK for the iPhone.
Anyway, there are plenty of bad things about Apple – I just mentioned a few of them at the top. I could mention the lack of phone support after 90 days unless you buy Applecare, or the fact the iPhone can’t sync over WiFi when my Apple TV can, or plenty of other things. But this list is pretty absurd, as are most lists like this published.
