dr.stevil
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 9,265
[Seriously... since every thread about it seems to devolve into, what an outsider would perceive as, a bunch teenage girls arguing about consumer electronics, I wanted to start a thread away from the front page with some actual rational discussion. Be completely honest, I have a lot more respect for someone that hates them 'just because' than using some fake moral line in the sand.
It really interests me because I used to be a really really hardcore "PC or nothing" "Apple is a POS" guy when I was younger. To this day, I still have friends and family that refuse to use an Apple product based on my previous convictions. I was confrontational (a douche bag) with people that preferred Apple over another product, when 9 times out of 10, they really didn't care what I thought or used and usually took me asking to even know what they used a Mac in the first place. It really makes me cringe now that I'm a little older. In the grand scheme of things, who gives a shit if someone doesn't like the same brand?
It's a little long winded, but necessary (IMO) to get across my thought process.
What made me despise them was their hardware and interface (which I can now appreciate what they were trying to go for, even though it missed the mark). Back when I first got into computers, I had a hand-me-down 8086 that no one really knew how to use (I'm eternally grateful that my father used computers to a small degree before and knew some of the basics that he taught me) . Around that time, I think the 286 had recently made it's way into a lot of home computers. I (as did most people here I'm sure) grew up using a command line interface. As I learned commands and switches, I began to explore the rest of what DOS had to offer. I can't describe how psyched I was as an 8 or 9 year old kid learning, what I thought were, the deep fundamentals of computing when I discovered how to use diskspace. With some software and trial and error, I was able to get my 5MB hard drive to store 10MB worth of data.
Books about computers were really hard to come by as a child and 'grownups' didn't generally know a whole lot about them back then. Most everything you had to teach yourself or learn from friends. For years, the command line was a source of entertainment. I used to get a kick out of writing batch files and then re-writing them again to make it as elaborate as possible with as few lines as possible or calling BBS systems with the hand-me-down fax modem my dad was able to get with some other spare parts. When windows 3.1 become mainstream, I felt like a badass in the classroom and I was able to really get away with quite a bit due to my time with DOS (since windows was just a shell). I used to drive my teachers insane
Anyway, so when I made it to middle-school, I had my first real experience with a mac. I used to spend my study halls in the school library, using one of the only two computers in the building (both identical) trying to learn on it the same way I learned a PC. To my horror, it was incredibly locked down. I couldn't access the command line/console, I couldn't write native mac "batch" files, I couldn't manually configure the start up sequence and I didn't understand at that time why it wouldn't read my FAT floppy disks. I honestly thought that it was the biggest POS on the planet, despite it's user interface. That's not even addressing the instability issues (random lockups), memory errors and incompatibility with hardware and peripherals that I already owned for a PC.
From that point forward, I swore off Apple forever. I gave it an honest chance with absolutely no preconceived notions about Apple or a Mac and I found the whole experience infuriating. I was forced to use them here and there throughout college for graphic design classes, which I gave my professor a really hard time about, and experienced the same old issues that initially turned me off (the pinwheel of death and losing work). I thought that they were god awfully ugly as well with really crappy build quality (those old plastic G4 all-in-ones).
So I harbored that opinion of Apple for quite a long time and refused to use ANY Apple product. Around 6 months before the Uni-Body macs came out I remember betting a friend, who was fond of Apple, that "there's no way they're using a chassis milled out of a solid piece of aluminum". My reasoning was A. they didn't need to, as nobody else was and B. it would be god awfully expensive to do (as at this time, I got a job doing product design and engineering), despite rumors otherwise. A few months later, I had egg all over my face. The design REALLY impressed me, but I wasn't going to 'go to the darkside' just because they made a nice looking laptop.
Around that time, Apple released the iPhone. Shortly after, and mocking the people buying them (while anticipating the rumors of a Google phone), said friend that I bet above had purchased one. My friends and I were all heading over to his house that evening for a poker game. It took a lot of convincing for him to let me mess around with it, as he probably though I was going to break it lol, but I was absolutely blown away.
The concept of a FULL web browser, email, google maps and other functions available at a consumer level was pretty revolutionary. The biggest thing before it, at the consumer level, was probably the Sidekick or the Motorolla Razor. You needed a clunky enterprise device that used pretty crappy technology in general (resistive touch screen and stylus's we're still better than the blackberry 'ball' though lol) if you wanted similar functionality on a phone. It had an amazing touchscreen and was incredibly responsive. It felt like you were holding a full fledged computer in your hands that was fully connected to an unlimited data stream. Nothing I had ever used, that was that small and thin, had performed that well.
I was sold. The very next day I went to Cingular (I think the store hadn't changed yet at the time) and purchased an iPhone. To this day, I can't help but appreciate the design decisions that they make and the ease of use that they strive for (although often messing it up). I do think that a lot of my opinion was based on the way that I wanted their products to work, versus how they were designed to work (except the pinwheel of death)
I'm still a power user and advocate using and building PC's (I'm a technology fanboy... if it uses new tech, I'm generally interested in it), but after realizing how I was potentially missing out on things that might make my life easier or work better for a particular situation, I try to keep a more open mind about stuff like that. I guess I just wonder how many other people, that hold Apple in a similar light as I did, held/hold the same opinion for the same reasons. I can't help but notice how particularly strong people's opinion of Apple is... more so than most any other electronics company. It's bizarre, but I can certainly relate to it... even though I no longer hold that opinion.
I don't buy the corrupt/money hungry/etc excuse that a lot of people use though. Apple has only become successful in recent years (which is pretty remarkable in itself IMO) and the hatred of Apple from PC users is much much older/deeper than that. Steve Jobs wasn't always the polarizing/controversial figure that he is today either (unless you worked for him) So, with all that said, why do you hate Apple as much as you do?
It really interests me because I used to be a really really hardcore "PC or nothing" "Apple is a POS" guy when I was younger. To this day, I still have friends and family that refuse to use an Apple product based on my previous convictions. I was confrontational (a douche bag) with people that preferred Apple over another product, when 9 times out of 10, they really didn't care what I thought or used and usually took me asking to even know what they used a Mac in the first place. It really makes me cringe now that I'm a little older. In the grand scheme of things, who gives a shit if someone doesn't like the same brand?
It's a little long winded, but necessary (IMO) to get across my thought process.
What made me despise them was their hardware and interface (which I can now appreciate what they were trying to go for, even though it missed the mark). Back when I first got into computers, I had a hand-me-down 8086 that no one really knew how to use (I'm eternally grateful that my father used computers to a small degree before and knew some of the basics that he taught me) . Around that time, I think the 286 had recently made it's way into a lot of home computers. I (as did most people here I'm sure) grew up using a command line interface. As I learned commands and switches, I began to explore the rest of what DOS had to offer. I can't describe how psyched I was as an 8 or 9 year old kid learning, what I thought were, the deep fundamentals of computing when I discovered how to use diskspace. With some software and trial and error, I was able to get my 5MB hard drive to store 10MB worth of data.
Books about computers were really hard to come by as a child and 'grownups' didn't generally know a whole lot about them back then. Most everything you had to teach yourself or learn from friends. For years, the command line was a source of entertainment. I used to get a kick out of writing batch files and then re-writing them again to make it as elaborate as possible with as few lines as possible or calling BBS systems with the hand-me-down fax modem my dad was able to get with some other spare parts. When windows 3.1 become mainstream, I felt like a badass in the classroom and I was able to really get away with quite a bit due to my time with DOS (since windows was just a shell). I used to drive my teachers insane
Anyway, so when I made it to middle-school, I had my first real experience with a mac. I used to spend my study halls in the school library, using one of the only two computers in the building (both identical) trying to learn on it the same way I learned a PC. To my horror, it was incredibly locked down. I couldn't access the command line/console, I couldn't write native mac "batch" files, I couldn't manually configure the start up sequence and I didn't understand at that time why it wouldn't read my FAT floppy disks. I honestly thought that it was the biggest POS on the planet, despite it's user interface. That's not even addressing the instability issues (random lockups), memory errors and incompatibility with hardware and peripherals that I already owned for a PC.
From that point forward, I swore off Apple forever. I gave it an honest chance with absolutely no preconceived notions about Apple or a Mac and I found the whole experience infuriating. I was forced to use them here and there throughout college for graphic design classes, which I gave my professor a really hard time about, and experienced the same old issues that initially turned me off (the pinwheel of death and losing work). I thought that they were god awfully ugly as well with really crappy build quality (those old plastic G4 all-in-ones).
So I harbored that opinion of Apple for quite a long time and refused to use ANY Apple product. Around 6 months before the Uni-Body macs came out I remember betting a friend, who was fond of Apple, that "there's no way they're using a chassis milled out of a solid piece of aluminum". My reasoning was A. they didn't need to, as nobody else was and B. it would be god awfully expensive to do (as at this time, I got a job doing product design and engineering), despite rumors otherwise. A few months later, I had egg all over my face. The design REALLY impressed me, but I wasn't going to 'go to the darkside' just because they made a nice looking laptop.
Around that time, Apple released the iPhone. Shortly after, and mocking the people buying them (while anticipating the rumors of a Google phone), said friend that I bet above had purchased one. My friends and I were all heading over to his house that evening for a poker game. It took a lot of convincing for him to let me mess around with it, as he probably though I was going to break it lol, but I was absolutely blown away.
The concept of a FULL web browser, email, google maps and other functions available at a consumer level was pretty revolutionary. The biggest thing before it, at the consumer level, was probably the Sidekick or the Motorolla Razor. You needed a clunky enterprise device that used pretty crappy technology in general (resistive touch screen and stylus's we're still better than the blackberry 'ball' though lol) if you wanted similar functionality on a phone. It had an amazing touchscreen and was incredibly responsive. It felt like you were holding a full fledged computer in your hands that was fully connected to an unlimited data stream. Nothing I had ever used, that was that small and thin, had performed that well.
I was sold. The very next day I went to Cingular (I think the store hadn't changed yet at the time) and purchased an iPhone. To this day, I can't help but appreciate the design decisions that they make and the ease of use that they strive for (although often messing it up). I do think that a lot of my opinion was based on the way that I wanted their products to work, versus how they were designed to work (except the pinwheel of death)
I'm still a power user and advocate using and building PC's (I'm a technology fanboy... if it uses new tech, I'm generally interested in it), but after realizing how I was potentially missing out on things that might make my life easier or work better for a particular situation, I try to keep a more open mind about stuff like that. I guess I just wonder how many other people, that hold Apple in a similar light as I did, held/hold the same opinion for the same reasons. I can't help but notice how particularly strong people's opinion of Apple is... more so than most any other electronics company. It's bizarre, but I can certainly relate to it... even though I no longer hold that opinion.
I don't buy the corrupt/money hungry/etc excuse that a lot of people use though. Apple has only become successful in recent years (which is pretty remarkable in itself IMO) and the hatred of Apple from PC users is much much older/deeper than that. Steve Jobs wasn't always the polarizing/controversial figure that he is today either (unless you worked for him) So, with all that said, why do you hate Apple as much as you do?
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