I was an Apple and Mac zealot when there really was a significant difference in technology and user experience between Apple and Microsoft. That was when Windows was a poor substitute for the experience the Mac OS delivered. But around the time of Windows 95, things changed. The Mac became almost as unstable and complicated to run as Windows 95.
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My number one gripe, and still is today, is Apple’s attitude towards closed hardware. The PC has so many more options available, whether it be hardware, software or peripherals. The Macbook Air proved again Apple’s arrogance about closed hardware. Same with the iPhone. Who wants to be without their laptop or phone while their battery is being replaced.
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What’s ironic is now that I don’t wear my Apple fan boy glasses anymore, today Apple looks more like the company Apple fought against in the “1984 doesn’t have to be like 1984″ commercial. ^
Apple, like many marketing efforts, is the anti-sell. Don’t be a stodgy old boring fuss, get a Mac, and be an artist. You keep using that boring corporate software, if you want to be like your dad. We’re young. We’re hip. We’re the counterculture. As if there are such clear divisions in life, and as if image made reality.
It’s an appealling message to their audience, most of whom are paid better than average but not enough to really make any kind of long-term difference in lifestyle. Upper-crust wage slave is still wage slave. Graphic designers, writers, programmers and others get paid a fraction of the value they generate for a company, but having an elite computer brand helps (they think).
As any experienced marketer will tell you, however, the problem is that marketing is just marketing. It aims to provide for you a picture of a brand, and in that picture, the product is made with one concept in mind. In reality, it’s a variation on other ideas, and is never as innovative or different as you think. Apple has become an entertainment industry version of the 1984 IBM they despised, complete with lawsuits against competitors and C&D letters to bloggers.
I once was an Apple believer as well. I put up with buying $2000 computers only to have Apple come out with a new model six months later that I could just about upgrade to for $1500. I put up with the defective motherboards whose status was never announced, leaving us to figure it out on our own and stagger into an overpriced Apple service bureau. I put up with the failure of backward compatibility, of the flaky marketing, and so on.
A brand is only so strong as the image on which it delivers, consistently.
But after years of seeing shoddy hardware hyped as “the next big thing,” and hearing about Apple innovations which are either bought from other companies or borrowed ideas made better, I’ve concluded that like most other people I don’t need overstyled hardware. What I need is solid technology that interoperates well, and doesn’t require my slavish devotion to a marketing meme.