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View Full Version : What? Apple is Arrogant? Please, Go On...


Jason Dunn
10-06-2007, 07:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/10/applecriticism/index.php' target='_blank'>http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/10/applecriticism/index.php</a><br /><br /></div><i>"I regret that I’ve seen an increase in this kind of thing lately, and the timing couldn't be poorer. Apple is currently Wall Street’s darling after being the Street’s ugly stepchild for far too many years. While I agree that Apple does some amazing work and deserves every point of its success, much of the world’s view of Apple (and this includes the financial world) is emotional. People are passionate about Apple—for both the good and not so. Regardless of what Apple does in the real world—release great hardware, offer up the finest operating system computerdom has seen, make incredible content deals—if it returns to the days of the Arrogant Apple, it’s going to lose its darling status in a hurry. And this is the path I fear Apple has returned to."</i><br /><br />It sure seems odd to be linking to an article about the arrogance of Apple on MacWorld, but I'll hand it to the author for having the guts to stand up and make some noise about some very valid concerns he has with Apple's recent behaviour. The thing is, Apple has <i>always</i> done things like this in one way or another - it's just that as they become more successful, people are going to notice what they do more often. It's all about Steve Jobs, and it always has been. <br /><br />If you haven't read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/iCon-Steve-Jobs-Greatest-Business/dp/0471787841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5175465-0614516?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191605488&sr=8-1">iCon by Jeffrey S. Young</a>, and you want to know more about why Apple is the company that it is today, I strongly urge you to read the book. Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac, and he always has been - some of Apple's greatest triumphs are because of his singular vision for what he believes people want, but some of Apple's greatest flaws are for exactly the same reason.

Phronetix
10-06-2007, 08:25 PM
This is too juicy to not comment on. :wink:

Looking at the Macworld article...

The iPhone’s recessed headphone jack
Okay. Looks like a stupid move on the outside, but likely came about because of the aesthetics of the device. They may not have realized the issues they were about to face. Sometimes, when it comes to Apple, they can't see the forest because they think they made the trees.

The new keyboard: Today’s equivalent to the round mouse, the ultra-thin keyboard that ships with the iMac is gorgeous, but impractical for a lot of people.
Wow. I do not agree. I am in freaking love with this thing. The best keyboard I have ever used. Second only to the one it was designed after, the one on the MacBook. I mean, the thing feels amazing to type on. I cannot go back to anything else after using it is how I feel.

Video and the new iPods: The third-generation iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod touch, and, with the 1.1.1 update, the iPhone support video out. With the proper accessory or cable you can jack your iPod or iPhone into a TV. Some previous iPod models did this as well.

Video out on the iPod. I guess some people use it. I could not care less what they do with it because I have never used this. I do not know anyone who does.


iMovie: Many feel that the new iMovie deserves a place among Apple’s recent “We Know Best” decisions. Take a perfectly capable video editing application that uses a standard timeline interface, supports third-party effects and transition plug-ins, and plays nice with iDVD and abandon it for a completely new video application that may be easier for some to use, but lacks the power and “tweakability” of the former, doesn’t support plug-ins, and treats iDVD like a stranger. Points for letting iMovie HD live on for those who wish to continue using it, but how about a hint of where iMovie’s future lies?

I suppose this is a legitimate beef. I wonder if he has used iMovie 08. It is outstanding and intuitive and quick. To me, this is where Apple wants to go with iMovie. The purists can use Final Cut Express, like most already have been doing.



The upcoming cat: Some have suggested that Apple’s sense of taste has taken a vacation when it comes to certain publicly acknowledged Leopard interface elements. There’s the new Dock shelf, an analogy that completely falls apart when you pin the Dock to the right or left side of the screen. The translucent menu-bar (the translucency of which apparently can’t be adjusted) has been roundly criticized for being hard to read and ugly. And then there are the dull flat gray folders in an OS that supposedly offers the best 3-D and color in the business.

Then don't upgrade, you moron. I mean seriously.... Apple gets the say in how it looks. Kinda like how Ford says how the F-150 looks. If you don't like the 2008 model, don't go buy it.


Bricking the iPhone: I understand the arguments. You knew you were buying a locked phone when you purchased it. You understood that Apple and AT&amp;T’s Terms of Service forbid you hacking your phone. If you wanted a more flexible phone you shouldn’t have purchased the iPhone in the first place.


This is the only point the author makes that I believe will bite Apple in the backside. They will start seeing lawsuits over this, and they will lose if they try to fight. They should know better. Then again, maybe the unlocking software really did mess with the OS in a non-sustainable way.


******************

I guess that looking at this article as a whole, there might be a pattern emerging. Except that, one could have made similar doomy editorials about the fluctuating iPod nano design form factors, the dropping of the 12 inch powerbook, the iPod HiFi, or the decision to go with Intel.

Steve Job is arrogant, but so are most people. He is not a megalomaniac in my opinion, but he is confident and a risk taker.

There are things about Apple that I hate as well, but on the whole they have made computing and digital media way more manageable in my household and workplace and the products made by Apple fit my philosophy about tech products, and time and time again they do not fail to impress me.

What matters to me is the end product in my hands. If it works, I like it. If it does not, it earns my wrath.

freitasm
10-06-2007, 09:11 PM
I don't mind Apple's ways. It's no different from other companies - Dell, Acer are the same in many ways.

What is really annoying is how you can't write anything bad about Apple on a blog post without attracting the worst on people's lives. Some abuse you if you don't use Apple and talk about Apple products, and they abuse you if you use Apple products and talk about Apple products.

Some try to hide things behind their attacks. For example when I posted about how an update for a newly installed Mac OS X would weight in about 500MB and Windows XP SP2 would require only 100MB people jumped on me, saying how all the Windows updates were security stuff while Apple would product updates - until I pointed out the list of security updates Apple puts out every month.

For the record we have an iMac here at home, in the middle of lots of Windows PCs.

As I wrote, I really don't mind Apple. They make nive products. They work well, but they have faults - like the new Apple iMac having problems freezing after an update. But try and discuss this outside of a Mac forum and they will come with pitchforks and nooses. No, not Apple. Their users.

Read this post for some interesting story (http://www.businesspundit.com/50226711/viral_venom_what_my_mac_post_can_teach_you_about_the_negative_side_of_passionate_customers.php)...

Phronetix
10-06-2007, 09:23 PM
Apple fanboys are probably the worst when it comes to blindly envangelizing their beliefs. That's what they are... beliefs. To a certain kind of Apple fan, using Apple products amounts to a religious experience.

It is supremely sad.

I think more tech-loving folks would use Apple products if it weren't for these fanboys. What was it that Gandhi said about Christianity?.... I might have become a Christian, if it weren't for the Christians. Something like that. For different reasons, but on a superficial level, it works with Apple product use.

D

Felix Torres
10-06-2007, 09:45 PM
Aw, c'mon! Apple isn't arrogant!
Not compared to Sony, anyway... ;-)

None of those gripes are at all meaningful. Apple's arrogance towards their customers is *never* going to hurt them because Apple's customers will forgive everything and will rise up enmasse to defend St stephen of Jobs from everything the great unwashed dares sling at him.

Where Apple's arrogance *is* hurting them is with contracts and partnerships. Its been a year now that Apple has been trying to secure content for AppleTV and except for Disney (where Jobs sits on the board and is a big shareholder) none of the studios has signed up for Apple's take-it-or-leave-it terms. Of course:
1- The way they handled the Universal/NBC negotiations (taking it public, painting their one-time partners as greedy, threatening to cut Universal content off immediately, etc) is bound to bring a warm and fuzzy feeling to the Universal execs as well as the execs of the other big studios, no?
2- Their public villification of their music studio partners, presenting themselves as protectors of consumer interests in the face of the DRM-mad studios is a really good way to grease the skids for the next round of contract negotiations, no? Nothing like taking a private business negotiation and turn it into a public lynching of your would-be partners to win friends and influence people.

Mind you, none of that quite rises to the level of Sony's DRM fiascoes (they're sueing the company they contracted with for the "faulty" DRM), or their great negotiation tactics with Toshiba over unifying HD-DVD and BD (they told Toshiba to abandon everything they'd put into HD-DVD in return for a 5% discount on a BD license. More or less.) or their highly "skillful" defense of the PS3 price point "PS3 will be so great people will work two jobs to pay for it." "The next generation begins when *we* say it does.") Or, best yet, their defense of the new cut-rate/cut-feature PS3 with no backwards compatibility; "PS2 compatibility isn't needed because PS3 already has a great library of 63 games." Uh-huh. 63 PS3 games are better than thousands of PS2 games. Riight!

Compared to that, Apple arrogance is just a friendly slap in the face with brass knuckles.

Clearly, these folks think they are smart and everybody else is stupid. But as honest Abe used to say; "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." And these guys are mostly fooling themselves.

There's plenty of folk out there that know the Emperor's suit is mostly cellulite and the number is growing by the minute...

Janak Parekh
10-07-2007, 06:18 AM
What is really annoying is how you can't write anything bad about Apple on a blog post without attracting the worst on people's lives.
This is certainly true, but it is definitely not exclusive to Apple. Linux fanboys are just as bad, just a bit less numerous. Windows fanboys are equally entertaining, but since the majority of users have Windows, you rarely see this becoming an issue except on established flameboards.

--janak

RichL
10-07-2007, 01:06 PM
If you haven't read iCon by Jeffrey S. Young (http://www.amazon.com/iCon-Steve-Jobs-Greatest-Business/dp/0471787841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5175465-0614516?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191605488&sr=8-1), and you want to know more about why Apple is the company that it is today, I strongly urge you to read the book. Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac, and he always has been - some of Apple's greatest triumphs are because of his singular vision for what he believes people want, but some of Apple's greatest flaws are for exactly the same reason.

Yes, he's here a megalomaniac. But which successful tech company doesn't have a megalomaniac (or two) at it's core? Are you saying that Bill Gates and Steve Balmer aren't megalomaniacs?

Felix Torres
10-07-2007, 01:36 PM
Yes, he's here a megalomaniac. But which successful tech company doesn't have a megalomaniac (or two) at it's core? Are you saying that Bill Gates and Steve Balmer aren't megalomaniacs?

Megalomania is a very specific mental disease. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Being ambitious is *not* being megalomaniacal.
Especially if you pull it off. One could argue that Megalomania begins when your ambition exceeds your capabilities and that fits Jobs better than even Balmer. Balmer, maybe--mostly he is just hyper-kinetic and obnoxiously loud.

But Gates is practically normal compared to those two. Just consider what he is doing with his life and money and his comment about leaving money to his kids. He said something about how he would "leave them enough money to do anything with their lives but not enough that they could do nothing."
Dunno 'bout you, but to me that sounds downright rational.

As rational as marrying a woman that wanted nothing to do with his billions and switched jobs to get away from him. ;-)
I'm thinking history is going to be very kind to William H. Gates III.
Stephen Jobs? Not so much.
Not if his daughter is part of the conversation...

Quiggly
10-07-2007, 02:02 PM
I like Apple products like I like Audi cars. Apple the company? Not so much. And yes, I think there is something medically wrong with Steve Jobs. Probably the traumatised childhood -- finding out that you're adopted is never easy; I have a cousin who's disappeared after she found out she'd been adopted my uncle and aunt. Jobs should get help, but I suspect he thinks he's above all that.

Felix Torres
10-07-2007, 02:44 PM
On the subject of *corporate* arrogance; companies do take on the personalities of their top level execs (witness witless Sony) but the only comment I have to make on Apple is best exemplefied here:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2191373,00.asp?kc=EWKNLBOE100607STR1

Good thing I had zero interest in the iBrick...
(I already have a Dell Axim; last and best of the PDAs...)

Dyvim
10-09-2007, 02:16 PM
I'm sure Apple is arrogant. So what? Most big companies are. Get over it. You either choose to buy their products anyway or you don't.

Apple's been getting a lot of bad press (at least in the tech blogs) lately with people complaining about various customer-unfriendly moves. I'm not sure if Apple is really changing for the worse (or if they've always been that way and are only now getting called out on it) or if the Apple fanbois are just getting even whinier than usual. I suspect it's a little of both. When you're citing a recessed headphone jack on a phone device as an example of a company's corporate arrogance, I think you've gone off the deep end a bit and are grasping at straws.

I read iLounge to keep up with the latest iPod news, but ever since the latest iPod release, they ought to rename the site iWhine- sheesh!