The Apple thread - Why do people buy Apple products?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:29 pm

Seriously. Cider, juice, pie, apple products are all fucking horrible. They don't even taste good.

Oh, capital A. Right.

Apple products resist innovation and actively crush 3rd party support. They charge hundreds of dollars more than their hardware is worth and yet people buy that shit. A prime example is the iPad, a tablet that was, by all means, nothing special. Tablet computers already existed and weren't particularly popular, and the tablets of the time could do things the iPad could not. The iPad made people realize tablets existed and that bitch sold incredibly well. I don't know if the iPad 2 did, but it's shitty and horrible. What did it add? Multitasking. Less shitty hardware. Higher price.

I could list specs of apple products side-by-side with specs of competitors and have people guess prices, but that's just masturbating. Everyone who knows anything about computers knows that Apple products are expensive pieces of shit, but the question to ask is WHY ARE PEOPLE BUYING THEIR STUFF?

They get upset if you modify your device in any way (even though you own it) and make money off of 3rd party apps. People are totally willing to pay them to do this. I need to understand WHY this is.

So, apple owners. Why do you own that shit? There are programs that emulate garage band and iMovie (seriously? People like iMovie?). I knew one guy who really liked Apple products and wasn't an idiot, but he summed up his enjoyment of the mac book to "I don't get viruses (which is weird, because neither do I)" and that it has good battery life.

Talk about Apple software and hardware here, along with their stupidly expensive (but almost required) accessories. I want to see a reason to not automatically assume people with more than one Apple product (they may have gotten it as a gift or something, I'm accepting of that, though I'd try and sell it and buy two of a better product if I got one) are idiots. I really do have that much of an anti-Apple bias, but I've received no evidence to refute my claim that buying an Apple product is a stupid decision no matter what.

Correct me.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:57 pm

I remember when I lived in Key West. The organist at the Episcopal church and piano player at a number of restaurants always spoke of the praises of real apple cider (the hard stuff). Unfortunately, there was absolutely no brands of hard apple cider available at the time. Today I can go to a store and count at least a half dozen brands. John Adams used to drink hard apple cider for breakfast.

Oh right, the big A … back to topic.

I don't buy apple products. My reason for this is simply that I have not felt the need to do so. Apple is the modern IBM. There was an old saying among people who purchased hardware for their companies, “you can buy better, but IBM is the best.” The idea is that while IBM wasn't always the most superior product, people thought it was. If you bought product X and it had a problem you were greeted with “why didn't you buy IBM.” If you bought IBM and it had the same problem you could respond with “I bought IBM; I bought the best.”

I've only manged to look, glance and occasionally hold and operate an iPad. Contrary to popular opinion, the cutting edge isn't popular. The automobile industry found that out the hard way with the Edsel. But it's the little things that are important. The iPad has a lot of little things. Sure there were tablets before, but why didn't they have this or that? Because no one thought it was a good idea. No one wasn't thinking beyond the box. Apple did.

One example. It's easy to put a mini camera on a tablet. So why not put one on both sides of the tablet? The camera abilities of the device were already obvious, the ability to do self photography is also a given, but to be able to do both practically at once is something that appeals to the touch and feel of ordinary people.

Second example, wii control logic. The same logic sensors that determine which way is up can also be used to determine rotation angle and tilt. All of a sudden you have a full tilt controller in your hands; a vital element for the modern video game.

Yes it's simple. It's crap. No one else did it and no one else really marketed it. You would be surprised at what crap can do. Before it was thought you needed a high powered laptop in case you had a problem at work. Now you can use a iPad (or gasp iPhone) and simple connection software (not originally developed for the Mac) to turn that device into a terminal to your work computer.

And that's the reason.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:57 pm

Because, if you're about as technical as a hamster, Apple Products JUST WORK. You get a good experience, out of the box. The products is aesthetically pleasing, user interface is a priority. You don't usually have to worry about blue screens, or strange bugs.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:25 pm

When I was younger, I used an Amiga because point-and-click was easier than learning DOS, which looked more like work than fun. I got my first Mac because the interface looked like an Amiga's. I got all my subsequent Macs free, so cost hasn't been an issue.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 5:54 pm

I admit to having a soft spot in my heart for Macintoshes because my school was packed to the brim with them. And I have fond memories of playing Carmen Sandiego, Simcity 2000, SimTower, Addy Works (you know, that slideshow presentation program with the dog mascot named Addy), Oregon Trail CD, and so on.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:19 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:They charge hundreds of dollars more than their hardware is worth

The disk that Photoshop comes on is worth maybe a few pennies, yet people still buy it for hundreds of dollars. The cost of hardware is quite possibly the dumbest metric you could use for how much the final product is going to cost.

I don't know if anyone remembers, but tablet computers fucking sucked before the iPad came around. And then when it came around and everyone and their mom was rushing out with clones, they all sucked. Only now is anyone aside from Apple finally putting out something that actually works in that space. The only other company that even had a workable idea for the concept was Microsoft, and that wasn't even a consumer device.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:38 pm

I think part of it might be anti-Microsoft. The Apple fans I know like to bitch about Bill Gates and seem to think they're sticking it to the Man.

But yes. Apple can be pretty pretentious. I still remember an interview where Steve Jobs bitched about Segways, saying they're ugly and the design isn't anthropomorphic, but grudgingly conceded that they work very well. Like it was an offense to him that something like that could work.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:58 pm

Ipod vs Zune
Iphone vs Blackberry
Ipad vs what was there.

Mac vs tool it yourself PC kits.

If you look at it, Apple goes into a space, creates a genuinely innovative piece, and then everyone scrambles to make clones.

Apple is an evil company, on par with Oracle, and WORSE than Microsoft (and I say this being an avid hater of Microsoft business practices)

But they make solid products, and what you pay for, is the solid.

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:11 pm

Quite simply, I don't have to fuck with my Mac.

I open it up, turn it on, and go.

If I were working deeper than the interface, I might want a Windows machine. (I still have my desktop for school projects I can't do on a Mac.) But for casual surfing and chatting, the touch interface works so much better.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:07 pm

sabs wrote:Ipod vs Zune
Iphone vs Blackberry
Ipad vs what was there.

Mac vs tool it yourself PC kits.

If you look at it, Apple goes into a space, creates a genuinely innovative piece, and then everyone scrambles to make clones.

????

The only innovations at all are in user interface, and even the Ipad and Iphone didn't do that well.

MP3 players already existed, were cheaper, and better than the Ipod. Touch screen phones already existed, they just weren't popular.

The Ipad has approximately zero functions that other tablets didn't have better and cheaper.

It seems like the only think Apple really does well is market, so that people genuinely believe that the Ipad was the first tablet, or that the Ipod was the first mp3 player.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:37 pm

If you go to r/desktopdetectives, you find a section where people post screenshots of their desktop. The number of people that I've seen spending substantially more than they need for facebook machines is...shocking.

What apple has done is very successfully is market themselves as a brand identity to people that don't need the power of their machines, but will pay it for a combination of brand identity + percieved stability.

I say percieved stability, because of this:
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/Squa ... y_1109.pdf

I read another version of that study, which I think PCMagazine put out, which showed Acer a fair bit higher (3rd to Toshiba and Lenovo), but Apple coming in 4th; it had 1 year and 3 year failure rates, not 2 and 3 year rates. The PCmagazine version was based off insurance claims from several hundred thousand laptops, which does result in some selection bias. Tried to google original study, but couldn't.

What you get with apple is you pay more for a UI you like, programs you may be familiar with, and a brand identity.

For the power that most apple uses want (I'd guess 97%+), they could buy a 300$ cheap-ass laptop and find themselves with 700$ in the pocket and a product that they have trouble distinguishing from their apple, in terms of power.

For example, for 400$, I got an Acer Aspire 5742-6823; 4 gigs of ram, 15.6inch screen intel I3-370M core, 640 GB Hard drive, and an integrated graphics card that runs Skyrim and Starcraft 2. It has a 7 hour battery life on lowest settings with the wireless card off, and managed to play me 5 hours of TV on my latest airplane flight.

My room-mate has a 1000$ mac, which she uses for Facebook and wordprocessing.

Mac has very successfully marketed themselves to a group that needs far less power than they pay for. Same with the Ipod series; you can get, and have been able to for years now, identical Sansa's for 50-100$ less to whatever Apple is doing.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:38 pm

Kaelik wrote:The only innovations at all are in user interface, and even the Ipad and Iphone didn't do that well.

This and the pretty cases explains why 80% of Mac users choose Macs from my experience. It's similar to why people pay tens of thousands of dollars to get an Audi and a BMW instead of a Honda, appearance and how it makes them look.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:38 pm

Maxus wrote:But yes. Apple can be pretty pretentious. I still remember an interview where Steve Jobs bitched about Segways, saying they're ugly and the design isn't anthropomorphic, but grudgingly conceded that they work very well. Like it was an offense to him that something like that could work.

But in the end, you don't see a plethora of Segways being sold to the average consumer. There's sort of a border in that they work but they don't make a movement. Steve wanted to have things that were the next greatest thing. His biggest complaint about Bill Gates was that Microsoft did far too many things and really stopped doing things exceptionally well as a result. He once accused the management of Google of tring to be just like Microsoft.

I remember when Microsoft was courting us (yes us, a crappy little internet gaming company that barely had a few hundred people online at a time) for our chatroom interface. (Pretty much crappy but it was sort of like how Zynga has the texas holdem poker game on facebook.) They stll thought AOL was the future of the internet (end of the 90's) and they wanted to pwn them. I remember when they tried to get into television networking ... you do know what the MS in

M
S
NBC

Stood for ... right?

Microsoft was probably the only company to fall on its face, break its nose, only to find that in the end, it really was the onlygame in town. They then bandaged themselves and actually got better.

Some of the late 90's operating system editions they put were real jokes. Millenium was the greatest flop of all time.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:16 pm

I've had three macs. One was an iMac, it was a hand me down from my father, who is a graphic artist and believes, for whatever reason, that macs are better for art. The other two were ibook g4s, one a gift from my father the semester before I went off to an art college, the other a replacement for the first when that one crapped out because Apple's laptop soldering is crap. Note, the second also crapped out for the same reason.

They weren't bad computers, decent ui, I prefer pcs because I'm used to them. Far as I'm concerned, though, all computers cost the same, "more than I can afford."

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:29 pm

Mostly it's the Steve Jobs advertising campaign. they marketed it to hipsters and people who like to brag about the superiority of their X while at the same time knowing absolutely nothing about X.

As for lower-case apple products, I really like apple pie/stewed apple with ice cream. Fuji apples are awesome to just eat without preparation, but the fact that you're left with a core to dispose of is annoying.

As for juice, most kinds of concentrated apple juice (so almost ALL mixed fruit juice things and carbonated fruit juices) immediately give me the shits. Literally. Possibly that's irritable bowel syndrome? At any rate, my solution to this (and a doctor agreed) was "Don't drink concentrated apple juice, even if you like the flavour".

Even McDonalds apple pies actually taste good (despite being the hottest substance known to man). Though when they boosted the price from $1 to $5, I decided "Fuck. That. Are all apple products so fucking expensive for what you get?"

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:55 am

Kaelik wrote: The only innovations at all are in user interface, and even the Ipad and Iphone didn't do that well.

MP3 players already existed, were cheaper, and better than the Ipod. Touch screen phones already existed, they just weren't popular.

The Ipad has approximately zero functions that other tablets didn't have better and cheaper.

It seems like the only think Apple really does well is market, so that people genuinely believe that the Ipad was the first tablet, or that the Ipod was the first mp3 player.

Here's the thing: The user interface on the phone is what matters most. Compared to all the other smart phones available, the iphone really was better. It had most of the check box features and was easy to use.
More than that, it wasn't forced into network's walled gardens when used for web browsing. Sure, windows pdas of the same era were similarly specc'd, but they were dismal to use. Completely terrible. We couldn't force people to use them. Blackberries were ok, but were almost entirely email focused. We still have Blackberries, but people prefer to use iphones (and androids), because they're nicer to use.

The ipad though I think was completely better than any of the competition. Previous tablets were almost exclusively tiny laptops, running windows. Because of the over wrought os, they were incredibly slow, had no battery life and required a stylus. The hardware was anemic, the screens sucked and the cost was astronomical. I can't think of
The ipad is still at the same price as the majority of the competition (avoiding the ultra-slow androids), has a ridiculously good battery life an excellent screen and a really nice ui. FWIW the ipad2 was introduced at the same price as the original ipad.
The archos was available pre-ipad, but it was a dud - too slow to actually do work with it.

The ipad and iphone seem to be in the same rough price bracket as the competition.
Given the niceness of the design, I've got no problems with people purchasing them.

When it comes to laptops, until recently Apple had no competition for the 'air' series, now ultrabooks are available, they seem to be the same price as the Apples, so there's nothing to say there.

I do have sympathy for people who would prefer an Apple computer because there's no crapware preinstalled.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 2:44 am

iPhone currently offers a much more practical user experince than the adroid solutions. The downside is that the hardware is artifically gimped. Your iPhone's broadcomm chipset and provided antenna's can do FM transmission. So why do I have to buy a third party device to transmit FM?

Overall though the iPhone is a winner atm because google has its head so far up its own arse that it's torpedoing a good solution because it hates its own alliance partners. That is the only rationale explation for why Google is tolerating so much platform fragmentation in the Android space - which makes the handsets inexplicably harder to use and makes life difficult for App developers.

The other likely contender - MS - is just to focused on the corproate market atm and needs a major new leader if it wants to compete in the consumer products space. The amusing part is for the first time in a long time a completely MS shop is both a realistic and practiable option that makes commerical sense and IBM/Oracle and co are looking very expensive and very shit. At the same time they are torpedoing anything in the end user space. (I do not care one iota if you think that being an MS shop is horrible because open source). None of the above applies if you're in a mainframe enviroment obviously.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:54 pm

I'll admit the iPhone is the only Apple product that I won't consider somebody a massive idiot for buying. Granted, Droid phones are genuinely superior and their interface has really caught up, so if you just went out to buy an iPhone now I'd probably call you a knuckle dragging chimp. I've got a droid pro (I was offered an iPhone 4, but fuck that) and it's easier than an iPhone. This may be primarily because it lets me use a physical keyboard if I want to, and onscreen keyboards are strictly inferior unless you use that whacky slide setting, but other than having a physical keyboard and being several hundred dollars cheaper it's just a superior piece of equipment (except its screen and storage, but why are you storing more than 4G on your phone?) with a UI that is just as good as the iPhone's.

You know what the best part is? Apps don't need to get reviewed. I can download HUNDREDS of different porn apps, all for free, and not worry that Apple doesn't approve of Dragoncock and thus won't let me have my Dominatrix & Dragons app.

The iPad is a hunk of shit and I think it's hilarious somebody thinks it's better than what was out before it. It did have an easier UI, but it had worse hardware, software and couldn't even fucking multitask. That's a slap in the nuts when you have a device that big and it can't do something as simple as have your email open while running a game. The iPad was a joke to anyone who was good with computers, and while Apple went laughing to the bank the people who bought them were left wondering why the fuck they even got it before going back to playing Angry Birds, the same game they have on their phone.

As far as Macs "just working", so do PCs if you're using them as facebook or game machines. You can do MORE with PCs because you can actually play the games you want and run other programs that often aren't developed for Mac. Most serious Mac users I've seen run a Windows emulator half the time because Macs can't fucking do anything. Unless you're going onto sketchy sites you won't get a virus on your PC.

If you go out and purchase a mac because you think PCs break all the time you are a victim of marketing and didn't do any research before making a major purchase (all Apple products are a major purchase). Return it immediately and purchase multiple superior laptops, then spend the leftover money on food or something.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:41 pm

At this point I'm not sure if you're trolling or just retarded. Your name seems rather apt.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:The iPad is a hunk of shit and I think it's hilarious somebody thinks it's better than what was out before it. It did have an easier UI, but it had worse hardware, software and couldn't even fucking multitask. That's a slap in the nuts when you have a device that big and it can't do something as simple as have your email open while running a game.

1: UI...is...software.
2: Software is far more important than hardware in making something good.
3: "Couldn't", but, who cares? Who has email open while playing a game? Honestly, wtf?
4: What was even out before the iPad that was worth using?

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I'll admit the iPhone is the only Apple product that I won't consider somebody a massive idiot for buying. Granted, Droid phones are genuinely superior and their interface has really caught up, so if you just went out to buy an iPhone now I'd probably call you a knuckle dragging chimp.

I own a Droid X. Had the iPhone been available on Verizon when I bought my phone, I would have gotten one instead, as it really is better for my tasks. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software bug but the Droid X wifi completely blows (randomly disconnects, forgets login credentials, locks up and errors out requiring a reboot to fix). As for the other task I like to use my phone for (aside from phone calls), taking pictures, the iPhone camera is much better than that thing they were gluing in just about every Android phone that came out around that time and around that price point.

Thankfully fixed now, but when it came out email with SSL did not work at all. "Oops".

The UI is very not-smooth. Which is strange because when you moved stuff around it flowed smoothly when it came out, but an Android upgrade broke that entirely.

Both phones have artificially gimped hardware. I can expound more on this for Verizon phones in general if anyone is interested.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:27 pm

No shit UI is software, but generally people separate the OS from every single other piece of software on a machine. Why would you even argue something like that? It's like you're grasping at straws.

I haven't compared the specs of Droid X vs iPhone whateverthefuck. Wasn't the Droid X one of those really early Droid phones? I understand those were pretty...not great.

Why have email open when playing games? Because I want to be able to check email without closing out my game. Maybe I'm between levels in Angry Birds and want to take a look, then switch right back to Angry Birds. Maybe I'm in the middle of writing an email, go all ADD, and want to play some Angry Birds before getting ADD again and going back to email.

Have you never thought over something you were writing and wanted to do something else in the meantime? I have 4 tabs open on my computer right now, I almost never have just 1 thing open at any given point in time (unless I'm gaming or something, but even then I might have a browser or media player in the background). If you're trying to sell me a computer-equivalent you'd better be able to multitask because I do that all the time on my computer.

My Droid pro flows quite well. I have multiple home page options, programmable buttons and can do tons of shit in a short amount of time on it. I've also never had problems with wifi, and the Droid has better wifi capabilities and a faster processor to keep up with those capabilities. I have no idea why yours is borked, mine is fine.

Mentioning early release problems? Really? Do we need to talk about the iPhone 4 antenna debacle? At least my phone worked as a phone when it came out.

As far as pre-iPad tablets, they were generally aimed at people who wanted to do shit with their tablets. Check out the Microsoft Tablet or the Slate PC. They were full computers, just in tablet form. The iPad really is just a big iPod touch (or iPhone without the Phone part), as common as that comparison is. MS Tablet and Slate PC were full on computers that did big boy computer things.

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:09 pm

I have two computers, a PC and an Apple. The PC is a top of the line gaming rig I built from components myself. The Apple is an AirBook that would chug trying to run games from three years ago. The PC occasionally shuts down with no warning or error message - literally going from on to off in the span of half a second, usually in the middle of a game. The Apple does not.

It's reliable, is all.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:21 pm

Here's the thing, most people don't WANT a pad to be a big boy computer.
THey want a pad to be something they can browse the web, watch videos, do skype in their bed, and get on facebook.

A pad that does big boy computer things, but without enough horse power to really do them well is not what people wanted.
Laptops are cheap enough that if you want a big boy portable, you buy one. A pad is not a big boy computer, it's a consumable that does a few key things well.

And yes, the IPAD is just a big ipod touch.. NO SHIT. That's what people wanted.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:31 pm

RiotGearEpsilon wrote:The PC occasionally shuts down with no warning or error message - literally going from on to off in the span of half a second, usually in the middle of a game.

How big of a power supply do you have in it? I ran into the exact same problem when I built my current computer and tried to skimp with a 400W power supply when I should have gotten a 600W. It'd run fine almost all the time, but every now and then, when I was running a game, it'd lose power.

If that's the case, you can likely fix the problem for $70 or less.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:55 pm

I notice how you are glibly not replying to the question of "what was around before the iPad that was worth using". I can't think of a single thing, which was my whole original point. So, really, what was there? If anything.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 10:29 pm

Surgo wrote:I notice how you are glibly not replying to the question of "what was around before the iPad that was worth using".

Machines that were $200 less, had 10x HD space, ran flash, multitasked and which traded built-in 3g for a built-in keyboard.