My Complaint About Apple
Following a Jobs keynote there's always a ton of complaining about Apple, along with a lot of lusting over the new goodies. For my part my complaint with Apple is one that has been growing since the release of OS X - I'm sick and tired of Apple trying to make me buy stuff through them.
In fact, this started with the introduction of QuickTime Pro and the nagging to upgrade. In OS X we started seeing the addition of things like Buy Printer Supplies (which I'm sure used to be in Print Center but isn't anymore - score 1 Apple), requesting a .Mac subscription during initial configuration, print photo books from iPhoto and since the advent of the music store, a ton of different links to it scattered through iTunes.
iTunes isn't so bad, I can turn off the music store and it all goes away, .Mac is really starting to annoy me though. I'm a geek so I like to have my own server that I can tinker with however I like. I'm also a bit of a productivity nut so I like to have things work seamlessly when I'm not in tinkering mode. Thus, I'd like to have the iApps and synchronization work with my server and work well. It frustrates me no end that this is difficult or impossible to do.
It frustrates me that most of the stuff that Apple wants me to buy is US centric or only available in the US - iTMS for ages, are photobooks available in Australia yet?
I like the fact that Apple make money and I'd like them to make more money - when they have more money they can invent more cool stuff and invent it faster, at least in theory. I don't like when their attempts to make more money make their products and users suffer. At the moment it's not too bad but I'm concerned that it's going to keep getting worse.
January 13th, 2006 at 2:00 am
It annoys me that QTPro is required to SAVE movies from the web, though there are workarounds. It annoys me that “.Mac” upload speed is abysmal. What DOESN’T annoy me is that I get to use the best OS money can buy.
January 13th, 2006 at 6:54 am
What is wrong with the fact that Apple is trying to make money just as any other company? Some are writing and releasing buggy softwares especially for doing so; now that is crooked ways… No need to name Microsoft here. They killed Netscape to make money. They “unstandardized” standards to “close” the internet to other systems to make money. However, I understand your point, but I think that in Apple case they fulfill their “envy” in more honnest and respectable ways than Gates and co. My opinion.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:02 am
As I mentioned, I have no problem with Apple making money, I have a problem with them letting their desire for “add-on” sales like this get in the way of making their main product great and making their customers happy. The “add-on” sales will make Apple far less money than the main products do so detracting from those main products will make their customers unhappy and result in Apple making less money, not more.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:04 am
To give a concrete example, it makes sense for Apple to offer easy synchronization via .Mac, but they should also make their more technical customers happy by making it possible to use a different server for synchronization with the same level of integration. This applies even more to the iApps publishing to .Mac.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:20 am
This all reminds me so much of MS-Outlook on MS-Windows, which you need garlic-smeared silver-plated oaken stake to get rid of — and then when you install an update, lo! it shambles forth from the grave once more.
So perhaps Jobs is trying to emulate Micro$oft, but hasn’t been filtering the idea$ very carefully?