A World Without Apple Would Be a Nicer Place to Live In

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wwa

So I’m not an Apple fan, but it’s not the products I don’t like, it’s most of the people that own them.

I should note that I’m not a PC or Windows fanboy either, I’m not running around the internet flaming people or trying to start fights over which product is better. I honestly don’t care, use what you like, I do and that makes me happy, so if what you use what makes you happy then all the better for you.

I should also note that I do own a couple iPods, I had three of them but sold one actually, but yes I’ve bought their products. I’ve also reviewed iPhones and I found them to be rather underwhelming honestly.

Before I continue let me preface this by saying this is an editorial, or actually I guess you might call it a rant. It’s not grammatically correct and it’s certainly not politically correct either, and I don’t care.

I was recently having an email conversation with the guys over at MobilityDigest.com, this was email only an it wasn’t public but it got me thinking and it kind of got me worked up a bit honestly.

The conversation started out with one of the guys talking about how he was watching a show and how that show basically said Steve Jobs was a genius in-line with the likes of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein and I think that’s just ridiculous. Steve Jobs was a marketing genius sure, he sure as hell knew how to sell a product, but actual genius I highly doubt it.

Sure Apple had brought some great products to the market, but even that is questionable really.

I think the world would be a lot better without Apple in it honestly. The company and products have created a “race” of people who feel entitled and better than everyone else. With all of the crap going on in the world, we don’t need more of it because of some little technological device you’ve got in your pocket or bag. We have enough racism and discrimination going on that I don’t need to be discriminated against because of which product I choose to own.

The majority of Apple owners I’ve met think they’re just these wonderful and special people who think they deserve special treatment, they think that because they own an Apple computer, device or whatever that they’re better than everyone else.

I don’t care for people looking down on me because I use a PC, I don’t care for the smart remarks, I don’t care for the holier than thou attitude.

I remember this guy who I did some work for years ago, his wife worked from home doing graphic design or something along those lines but she used Apple products specifically and she very vocally thought they were the most amazing things in the world. To her it was like God himself made them magically appear on the earth. Her husband mentioned I was into computers of course but no matter what I had to say she had an argument, even if it wasn’t valid, that Apple does everything better. She basically dismissed anything I had to say about computers if it wasn’t an Apple. It was just to the point where I stopped talking to her about anything computer or tech related.

I don’t understand how you can so blindly support a product without ever even considering something else. I also don’t understand how you can blindly dismiss what someone has to say based on what computer they use.

I stopped going to Starbucks years ago. It wasn’t the coffee, sure it’s good, yes over-priced and all but pretty good. I would stop in and grab a coffee and go, then I would look around and see other people there with their laptops and such and thought this might be cool, maybe get out of the house, be among people, not isolated and even get some work done. If you look around a Starbucks you’ll see mostly Apple products, I should have known right there it was going to be a bad idea for me to go there.

I have really good hearing, to this my kids can attest, I hear everything, all the stuff they do and say, even when they’re upstairs, a lot of the time I can still hear them, if not what they’re saying but I can hear them walking around and doing things other than sleeping like they’re supposed to.

I remember sitting in Starbucks with my laptop, a PC of course, and overhearing things like “look at that piece of crap” or “get a real computer” or “oh look, he must be poor” or one of my favorites “maybe he should stop buying Starbucks and save his money to get a real computer” or another one of my favorites “he must be a republican” or another favorite “how can he afford Starbucks when he can’t even afford a real computer”.

That’s just a few of the more memorable comments I heard whispered, there are plenty more where that came from.

Why should anyone have to put up with that? Why should anyone have to deal with that?

So I eventually just stopped bringing my laptop and just got coffee but then I even stopped doing that as just being there pissed me off and made me want to scream and smash every Apple product in site. I have a philosophy I guess you could call it, in my life that if it pisses me off or aggravates me it has to go. This has served me well… for the most part…

I’m sorry, you’re human and I’m human, we all live here, just because you bought a device with a piece or fruit stuck to it doesn’t mean you’re any better than I am.

Most every PC user/owner I’ve met is down to earth and friendly, but most every Apple user I’ve met is an asshole who thinks I’m shit and lower than them because I use a PC and don’t own and iPhone/iPod and/or Mac… Just because my device doesn’t have a piece of fruit on it, doesn’t mean that I’m not as good as you are, it doesn’t mean I’m a lower class citizen who should be looked down upon.

You could argue that Apple brought good things to the cellphone and portable audio market. You could also argue that someone else would have done it if Apple hadn’t. Apple brought us a closed and locked-down system that’s just ridiculous and not user friendly at all. Apple brought us overpriced and over-hyped products and made it ‘cool’ to spend lots of money on their branded products, when there are much cheaper alternatives out there that are just as good if not better but because it doesn’t have a piece of fruit on it people think it’s garbage. Apple brought us stupid ass proprietary connectors that are expensive and overpriced just like the product they connect to.

Yes you could argue about the connectors, but if you haven’t noticed the trend is to move away from proprietary to a more common microUSB connection that can be replaced cheaply, but Apple products still MUST use these special connectors. The majority of devices out there use a common USB connection, but Apple still clings to their proprietary connectors and then changes them without warning making all those accessories you bought worthless.

Apple brought innovation yes, but they also forced the industry and people to accept their dictatorship over their store and what you can do with your devices. I think this whole mentality is wrong, but Apple users accept it freely and that’s not only bad for them but it’s bad for everyone else too. Other companies see that consumers will happily accept this sort of thing they then think it’s ok for them to do it as well.

Bottom line is that PC users are considered lower life forms according to Apple users and it won’t change anytime soon.

Look at the world we live in that has people getting robbed, attacked, hurt and even killed over a phone or tablet. Apple made this possible. Just posted over on the Chicago Tribune site, a woman was attacked and robbed of her iPhone four hours after she arrived in Chicago by a group of eight juveniles. I mean really? Just look at the news, the crime and robbery and assault rate has skyrocketed when it comes to iDevices.  You might argue it’s not Apples fault. Really? Apple, or should I say Steve Jobs, made and/or promoted their products into something to lust after, something to even kill over. They made their products into a status symbol. Are their products really worth a life? Is an iPhone or iPad worth the life of a human being?

People talk about drinking the “Kool-Aid” as it were and I’ve seen it happen. I have a buddy of mine who I’ve helped for years with anything to do with computers. Don’t get me wrong here about him, he’s a great guy, he’s friendly, he’s nice, he’ll help you out if you need it, but he’s not the brightest bulb in the box and he thinks he knows better. When it comes to tech he doesn’t know the difference between a CPU, GPU, Ram or even what any of them mean. This is a guy, who up until about a year ago, thought dial-up internet was great. Over the years I’ve tried to help the guy by suggesting things to him and offer him advice about buying things or doing things a certain way and he always did what he wanted to do, he never took my advice. It never failed though that a few months or so down the line he’d say I should have listened to you and did what you said in the first place. Well he drank the Apple flavored Kool-Aid sadly. He now owns a crap load of Apple products and he keeps buying them, he’s been seduced and I think brainwashed by that little piece of fruit. If it has an Apple on it, he buys it, plain and simple. He’s one guy and last I heard he had five iPads, and three MacBooks, and he was planning on buying another, a Mac Mini along with an Apple Tv, and of course an iPhone and an iPod. If tomorrow Apple introduced an underpowered, crappy resistive touch screen tablet, he’d be first in line to buy it I guarantee it.

Another thing that irks me to no end is the iPod. Every mp3 player is now an iPod, it just pisses me off so much that every mp3 player no matter what brand it is has now become an iPod…  no my ZUNE is NOT an iPod, it’s a motherfucking ZUNE!

My kids were talking one time about me and how I take my iPod with me in the car to listen to music, NO I DON’T, I take my ZuneHD actually….  it’s not an iPod, it’s not even close to being an iPod, it’s a much superior device…

The same thing happens with phones to a point as well, this is more the media that does this, when they talk about a smartphone it’s automatically an iPhone. My kids for example have never called my phone an iPhone, but I can’t count how many times I’ve heard them referring to an mp3 player as an iPod, iPod seems to have become a generic term kind of like Kleenex is for tissues or Q-Tip is for cotton swabs..

It also pisses me off that if you don’t own an iPod then people think what you own is junk or garbage or inferior. The same can be said about the iPhone as well.

 

 

To end this I just want to say that personally I don’t care what product you use, just don’t think you’re better than me because I don’t use or own what you do.