What's so fantastic about Apple?

[Chris L]

You Apple haters have some mad dialectic skills
to paraphrase: Apple sucks and is stupid and my way is better, so there...

I understand the desire to handle files in the way I prefer. I have all my music in a file share. Organized the way I want. And I can still use iTunes. Shocking, I know.

Also, is it really that difficult to believe that a majority of computer users don't really want to use a computer ? That they just want an easy way to put manage their media, and that they can't even find the downloads folder without help ??? That even though the iphone is a walled garden, it works well for them because they don't care about all the things you are going on about, and not just because of marketing ?

It's a simple matter of preference. I prefer not to have to deal with iTunes, as it doesn't work the way I want it to work. That doesn't mean I'm evil or stupid, it just means that iTunes doesn't fit my personal needs for handling media files. The fact that it fits other people's needs doesn't mean they are right and I am wrong, or visa versa for that matter. In the end, we are just talking about tools, get over it.

 

[TheL8Elvis]

It's a simple matter of preference. I prefer not to have to deal with iTunes, as it doesn't work the way I want it to work. That doesn't mean I'm evil or stupid,

And I don't recall anyone calling you either evil or stupid. Apple hater was over the top, and I apologize.

it just means that iTunes doesn't fit my personal needs for handling media files.

Calling it stupid and crap-ware implied more than that to me. Sorry for mis-interpreting you.

The fact that it fits other people's needs doesn't mean they are right and I am wrong, or visa versa for that matter.
In the end, we are just talking about tools, get over it.

I agree. But others in this thread have taken a more ... absolute ... view on things.
And if we all got over it, what would there be to argue discuss ?

 

[Almo]

Nope. According to Steve Job's official biography (Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson), the iTunes/iPod paradigm was actually a product of Jobs needing to control every aspect of the "user experience". This stemmed from (more like was exacerbated by) his run in with Adobe over wanting iMac versions of their movie and photo editing software. When they turned him down, he decided to produce his own. iTunes was the natural evolution of that idea, which has nothing to do with pleasing record companies (remember, the original slogan for iTunes was "rip, mix, burn"). Making the iPod a slave to iTunes was just an extension of that philosophy.

I stand corrected. Thanks.

 

[Almo]

I was using the word to mean the hardware architecture, not the OS.

This is not what "platform" means in the industry. I come from the software development industry, so your use of the word is confusing.

Ahhh, but I was the same way once. Back when I was first switching to "the dark side". Now, I prefer Windows to Mac OS - but that's because that's just what I use.

I use Windows at work 40 hours a week, and Mac OS when I come home. It's been this way for over a decade. I still don't like Windows.

 

[Chris L]

Calling it stupid and crap-ware implied more than that to me. Sorry for mis-interpreting you.

For me, iTunes (the Windows version) is crap-ware. It uses more resources than I think a media organizer should and makes handling media files more complicated than the process really requires. There is nothing mysterious about reading the meta-data from media files and using that meta-data to organize those files. You really don't need to control all aspects of the "user experience" to make that work. I think a product design philosophy that has more to do with Steve Job's own personal pathologies (read Isaacson's book for details) than sound engineering is not necessarily something "fabulous". Of course, YMMV.

 

[John Albert]

Not in the case of power consumption and battery life.*

You're making an assumption that the raw processing power is necessarily contingent upon using more power. I'll acknowledge that, all other things being equal, the same chip running twice as fast will result in an increase in power consumption and a proportional decrease in battery life.

But I never placed such conditions on my question, did I?

Who says I'm necessarily talking about laptop computers, where power consumption and battery life are an issue? Apple desktops are even more overpriced per specs than their low-end laptops.

I'm assuming you also realize that most of today's mobile processors are capable of throttling down their clock speed and power consumption under certain operating conditions, like when the unit is operating on battery power. At any rate, the powering of hard drives, fan, and wireless cards, and screen backlighting have a far greater impact on battery life than microprocessor clock speed.

Therefore, that point is really moot. Buying a computer with a slower, less-advanced processor is not necessarily going to result in shorter battery life. There are many factors involved, other than simply the raw processing power, which itself is contingent on other factors besides straight power consumption.

 

[mikeyx]

That would depend on the cost of all that extra computing power and what it's going to be used for. If all Aunt Martha wants to do is look at pictures of the grand kids on Face Book, having her spend another $1000 dollars on a screaming fast gamer machine would be silly. If the system is going to one of Aunt Martha's hard core gamer grand kids, then the extra grand is well worth it.

One of the things I like about non-Apple x86 systems is that I can build the system to fit the needs of the person using it. I can also easily upgrade the system with commodity parts as the needs of that person change. I can also put whatever OS is best suited to the applications being run without voiding any warranty. Not everyone needs that kind of flexibility of course, but I do.

You people are all Steve Job's mindless thralls, it is quite revolting.

 

[mikeyx]

You really don't know when to stop, do you. I warned you in advance of my brilliance, and instead of putting on sunblock, you say "ooh , shiny" and expose yourself completely.

I thank you for your agreement on my first quoted point - even if you appear to have trouble with using words. Your assertion of false belief may well be the case if we allow the word "false" to indicate "something that isn't supported by the evidence", but that is exactly my point. People choose to believe a bunch of stuff based upon accrual of information at a point in time and that becomes their baseline for all subsequent discourse. They choose not to re-examine their preconceptions or gather new information to test their baseline against new realities.

You need to be more careful with your use of absolutes. Saying "in **ALL** (my emphasis) cases more raw processing power is a definite benefit." Absolutely wrong. Raw processing power can be undesirable in some situations. Ponder for a second and I'm sure you'll think of some. I only have to produce one scenario to invalidate your proposition, so consider this as giving you a gentlemanly chance to corrrect yourself.

Your strawman claim of having to spend more money has previously been invalidated. Clinging to your quaint belief that "more expensive" is a synonym for "overpriced" is becoming and increasingly precarious position, leaving aside the whole tawdry argument about realistic price comparisons and comprehending the concept of "value".

Thank you for finishing with a passing reference to Dunning-Kruger. It gives me an excuse to do this:



Anyhow, must go now. My Mensa meeting is about to start.

You must be head thrall.

 

[John Albert]

I find Apple hardware pretty robust. About my only issue in the last decade or so is the built in SuperDrive on my MacBook Pro, which first got wonky and now barely ever works. I still like to use CD's and DVD's for archives, and still rip the occasional music CD.

Turns out the "SuperDrive" ain't so "Super" after all, is it?

I still have a Dell Inspiron laptop that I bought in 2005, and everything on it still works fine. The CD/DVD burner drive works great. No problems at all, except that it's sometimes a little slow when running some current software.

Anyone buying a MacBook Air that needs a CD/DVD burner can do that.

But with my Dell laptop, I don't even need to do that. Sounds like my $1500 top-of-the-line Dell has turned out to be more reliable than your $2500 Apple MacBook Pro. Guess Apple hardware might not be so robust as you're so eager to give it credit for.

I think over the next few years physical media will be seen less and less, and CD's will become about as utilized as floppies are now.

I don't know, man, I don't see Blu-Ray going away any time soon.

*only weird thing is that is requires two USB ports, so if you only have one available on your device, you need a powered hub to make it work - pretty poor design on LG's part, I'd say.

I'd say it's pretty poor design to make your users go out and buy an external drive to watch movies and burn music, but I guess my petty concerns are just light years behind Apple's futuristic ambitions.

 

[Kid Eager]

You must be head thrall.

Well, as non-sequiturs go, that was quite disappointing, not to mention unexpected.

Did I accidentally run over your pet rock on the way to work this morning?

 

[John Albert]

You really don't know when to stop, do you. I warned you in advance of my brilliance, and instead of putting on sunblock, you say "ooh , shiny" and expose yourself completely.

I thank you for your agreement on my first quoted point - even if you appear to have trouble with using words. Your assertion of false belief may well be the case if we allow the word "false" to indicate "something that isn't supported by the evidence", but that is exactly my point. People choose to believe a bunch of stuff based upon accrual of information at a point in time and that becomes their baseline for all subsequent discourse. They choose not to re-examine their preconceptions or gather new information to test their baseline against new realities.

You need to be more careful with your use of absolutes. Saying "in **ALL** (my emphasis) cases more raw processing power is a definite benefit." Absolutely wrong. Raw processing power can be undesirable in some situations. Ponder for a second and I'm sure you'll think of some. I only have to produce one scenario to invalidate your proposition, so consider this as giving you a gentlemanly chance to corrrect yourself.

Your strawman claim of having to spend more money has previously been invalidated. Clinging to your quaint belief that "more expensive" is a synonym for "overpriced" is becoming and increasingly precarious position, leaving aside the whole tawdry argument about realistic price comparisons and comprehending the concept of "value".

Thank you for finishing with a passing reference to Dunning-Kruger. It gives me an excuse to do this:



Anyhow, must go now. My Mensa meeting is about to start.

 

[Stray Cat]

Guess Apple hardware might not be so robust as you're so eager to give it credit for.

Apple don't make the optical drives.

 

[John Albert]

Apple don't make the optical drives.

Nor do they make any of the other value-added components.

That stuff is made by ASUS (mobo), Intel (CPU, mobo chipset, audio chipset, etc.), ATI (video/graphics adapter), Seagate (hard drives), etc.

That's why I find it so ironic when people talk like Apple's stuff is so much better, more reliable, etc. than any other computer, when all their stuff is made by the same manufacturers in the same factories right alongside the parts that go into all the other companies' computers.

I think Apple customers talk that way because they paid so much more for the Apple stuff, they really need to believe it's that much better, when in fact it's really pretty much the same. It's just designed to look different and marketed as if it's different.

Of course, the OS is different, but that's another issue entirely.

 

[Chris L]

You people are all Steve Job's mindless thralls, it is quite revolting.

Did you read the last paragraph in that post?

 

[El Greco]

Wow, this thread is turning into something like an Apple Knox!

 

[Chris L]

Of course, the OS is different, but that's another issue entirely.

And even that isn't entirely their creation, the core is the BSD Unix variant used by the NeXT computer. Only the GUI is pure Apple. I guess that's what they mean by "innovation".

 

[TheL8Elvis]

That's why I find it so ironic when people talk like Apple's stuff is so much better, more reliable, etc. than any other computer, when all their stuff is made by the same manufacturers in the same factories right alongside the parts that go into all the other companies' computers.

Yeah, what a bunch of BS....
https://www.rescuecom.com/2010-annual-computer-reliability-report.html

On Monday, Rescuecom released its 2010 computer reliability report, with Apple winning the top spot in the survey. The company also led the pack in Rescuecom's last quarterly survey.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/22/apple-is-no-1-in-reliability-survey/

For the third year in a row

 

[kajata]

And even that isn't entirely their creation, the core is the BSD Unix variant used by the NeXT computer. Only the GUI is pure Apple. I guess that's what they mean by "innovation".

Seriously, don't you think you're really reaching now for a way to try and knock Apple? I know after 12 pages the well is pretty dry but c'mon.

 

[kajata]

Yeah, what a bunch of BS....
https://www.rescuecom.com/2010-annual-computer-reliability-report.html

On Monday, Rescuecom released its 2010 computer reliability report, with Apple winning the top spot in the survey. The company also led the pack in Rescuecom's last quarterly survey.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/22/apple-is-no-1-in-reliability-survey/

For the third year in a row

Well, let's be fair...

http://ctwatchdog.com/business/2011-computer-reliability-reports-lenovo-asus-on-top

 

[TheL8Elvis]

Well, let's be fair...

http://ctwatchdog.com/business/2011-computer-reliability-reports-lenovo-asus-on-top

Well, 3 years of number 1 is worth something.

Saw this, too, from may:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/25/consumer-reports-hearts-apples-macbooks/

Consumer Reports doesn't always love Apple's (AAPL) products. It still doesn't recommend the iPhone 4 because of problems its testing lab had with the external antenna. But in its survey of the current crop of notebook computers released Tuesday, the magazine gave the MacBook line its highest ratings in every category in which Apple competes, from the 11-inch MacBook Air to the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Probably that pesky apple marketing dept again ... damn them tricking consumer reports like that.