What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple 437
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes.com went to MacWorld to ask Apple fans what bugs them about the computer and gadget maker. Turns out the lack of replaceable batteries, need to buy Vista separately, and most of all the stock price bugs people."
Lack of acknowledgment of my market segment (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, I don't like Apple's computer lineup. We have a good selection on notebooks now: cheap, ultra portable, and powerful.
Ok, now for desktop: cheap, all-in-one, and powerhouse workstation. Problem is: where is the regular computer? For anybody who wants a reasonably specced system (better than Mini, not as tricked out as the Pro) with no monitor added, there's just no good choice. I already have a monitor. Not only do I not want another, but I can't use it: I share my monitor between multiple systems and you can't do that with an iMac. iMac also has no upgrade slots for new video cards etc.
I have an old G4 that does well. I have a hacked x86 "Mac" box that fits my computing needs. I have an Apple TV, and I have an iPod. I love Apple's stuff. I just wish that they'd make a "real" Mac that fit my needs so I wouldn't have to resort to building one.
price of hardware considering upgrade cycle (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yeah! That Stock Price! (Score:5, Insightful)
partnering with AT&T (Score:4, Insightful)
Compared to that, my disgruntlement with their video hardware across the line is a minor thing. The exact nature of that disgruntlement depends on the model in question. Suffice to say that apple has my heart in the portable sphere for offering well spec'd, decently priced, and well-integrated portable Unix with their powerbooks/mac pros but I really wish they had something in the mid-range desktop line that wasn't an iMac (the mini is a bit too constraining, already have a nice monitor rendering the imacs moot, and the pro is far too over-spec'd/expensive for my needs). I'm half-way considering building a hackintosh for my next desktop. (It's either that or ubuntu most likely. Vista is right out.)
Re:And which people did they talk to? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The attitude that "almost but not quite" is goo (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like Vista (still run XP on most of my systems) but at least Microsoft documents their bugs and work arounds instead of pretending nothing is wrong.
On the other hand, Apple is cheap. A 130 dollar OS and 80 bucks for a suite of tools for total noob's isn't a bad price.
But I'd pay $400 for an Ultimate edition that worked.
Attitude... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll still argue that the biggest weaknesses with Macs is the "we have decided what you need, and that's exactly what you get" attitude. Regardless of how much one may love Apple design, it still remains that one size does not fit all, and a lot of Apple's decisions work against people who have every good reason to do things in another way.
To wit - my preference for a Delete key instead of dragging files to a trash icon is not a weakness on my part, it's a more than reasonable preference. Regardless of all the keyboard options and such, there are many times when I simply prefer to press Delete.
Of course Vista is no better, and wrestling it into submission can also be frustrating, but I have heard few Vista users trying to argue that its deficiencies are in fact strengths.
an annoyed Apple customer (Score:4, Insightful)
A few things have really irked me lately that were not true in the past.
- OS upgrade pricing. There is none, just buy it new. Used to be the system software was distributed free.
- Leopard "improvements". This has been hashed out elsewhere, but reduced functionality in the dock and non-movable sections in the finder sidebar are irksome, regardless of purported internal improvements.
- Many more app crashes. In APPLE products.
- Inconsistent user design, focus on chrome and glitz rather than usability.
- Ongoing arrogance and hubris, as witnessed in the $20 iPod Touch software upgrade. Again, quite the kick-in-the-nuts for early adopters.
Lots of things are right with Apple, but I am not that happy with the trend that I am afraid I am seeing.
Re:What are you talking about? (Score:3, Insightful)
And honestly, if you're looking for a $600 laptop you REALLY shouldn't be comparing with MacBook Pros, or any high-end laptop like that. Apple has never made secret that it builds only mid-high end machinery, not low-end budget computers.
I've been moving my family, friends, and gf to Macs for a while now, and they're much happier than they've ever been. Between $1100 and $600 you get a heck of a lot more performance (not always relevant to them), but the peace of mind of not being subject to malware, trojans, and not having to buy an AV kit, that's worth the price tag difference alone - all that extra hardware is just icing on the cake.
Smugness perpetuated by Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
If it's not a machine going down, it's the lovely hanging mac. Some app has a problem, and you get the endless rainbow of death, or better yet, a frozen screen. Now all OS' have issues, and I have always loved my Mac(s), but the time has come for me to part ways with Apple (well, except for my iPhone).
I guess the reason is their PC vs Mac ads. Yup, that is the MAIN reason. When these first came out, they made me incredibly angry due to the fact that Apple gave insinuations that the Mac never crashes, or freezes (this constantly happened to me with 10.4 and my machine died when upgrading to Leopard). Or comments about how the Mac is impervious to viruses (which we all know by know is not the case). Apple just took a bunch of stereotypes about Mac and PCs (many of which are completely wrong), and threw them in a commercial, even though most of the stuff they were saying was complete BS.
So I am done now. I am moving on and sold my dead MacBook Pro and am in the process of selling my G5 tower, and will now be using Windows newest piece of crap... Vista. So long Mac news, how I loved thee, but I can't take the smug anymore.
My thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.
Take the laptops. The cheapest is £699. A similarly specified Dell would be about the same (or more) but for a lot of people they simply don't need everything that the MacBook offers. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.
Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429). I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.
That's about it really.
What bothers me about Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, that actually is what bothers me about Forbes. You'd think after looking like complete and utter fools for letting Dan Lyons keep writing false, misleading, or just stupid articles about Linux with respect to the SCO farce, they would rein him in a bit. Instead, he starts acting like a complete ass yet again with the fake Steve Jobs thing. The negativity that they have toward any non-Microsoft (and non-SCO, as it were) software is bizarre.
Forbes should be a credible source of news, but given their level of maturity in reporting in areas for which I have a high degree of knowledge, I wouldn't trust them in any other category. Ever.
It's pathetic.
Not a generic PC (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but why should that be Apple's responsibility? Apple is there to advertise and sell MacOS X. People buying Macs are for the moost part buying it for MacOS X. If some people want Windows presinstalled on the system, then they could always pay extra and have a shop do the work for them. Apple offering Windows as a 'Build To Order' option would likely cause confusion about their confidence in their own OS.
Apple shouldn't make it any more easier to use the competing OS than they already have. They aren't a generic computer seller and the more the can convince you to drink the cool-aid the better for them. Anyone who believes in their OS, whether it be Linux, Windows, BSD or Amiga, amongst others, are going to have the same attitude.
As to your gripes about Leopard, I am not sure how you are getting such a bad experience. I haven't rebooted for over a month and I use it daily, putting the system to sleep at night. The usual causes for exessive memory usage, on my computer, have been leaks in Firefox and when that happens I kill Firefox and relaunch it. Admitly one computer has gone done once in a while, and the kernel panic clearly points to an ATI driver issue.
Re:Leave it Forbes... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're kidding, aren't you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lack of acknowledgment of my market segment (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Old complaint... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:iTouch upgrade fee = Sarbanes-Oxley requirement (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that Apple seems to be the only company affected by this issue? Why is it that the Microsoft Zunes, albeit pieces of trash, were able to get free upgrades to generation 2 software granting them new features like wireless sync? Why is it that every piece of hardware I can think of that comes with firmware updates seems to be able to get new functionality without charging except for Apple.
Maybe I'm being cynical, but it definitely strikes me as odd.
Subservience to the music industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.
After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?
And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.
What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?
I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"
Re:Attitude... (Score:4, Insightful)
which is fair enough if they've only had Windows experience so far. but so many seem in such a hurry to scream and rant. if they just took the time to learn the "Mac" way of doing things or asked questions rather than bitching it would be better.
when I got my first Mac I loved learning all the new things. I'd think "it would be great if I could do..." then spent some time searching. more often than not it was there. maybe not "obvious", but powerful nonetheless if you put a little effort in, e.g. there's no reason why Apple-Shift-4 should save a copy of a selected screen area as a file on the Desktop, but it does, and it rules.
Re:Old complaint... (Score:3, Insightful)
But in answer to your post, we are talking about trackpads here, rather than external mice. Of course a two-button mouse is preferable to a one-button mouse. Of course, the external mouse Apple ships is a two-button mouse. I don't prefer it myself, but it does have two buttons.
Few who have taken the time to learn the Apple trackpad would consider going to back to a less-capable style, unless they have a particular need for pressing both buttons at the same time (I myself don't).
market share (Score:3, Insightful)
We Apple fans like to see Apple do well, but probably more in terms of selling more products (higher marketshare, becoming more popular in society, etc.) than just higher profits (most of us aren't in it for the money, after all).
As an investor if I held Apple shares I'd want Apple to have a bigger market share but more importantly sell more. As a user I also want Apple to have a bigger share, as well as BSD, Linux, and Solaris. The more diverse the OS market the better.
FalconRe:greed (Score:3, Insightful)
And to miss THE ONE MOUSE BUTTON (Score:3, Insightful)
The one thing everyone has been legitimately complaining about for years...
A few things (Score:3, Insightful)
The DRM and obsession with becoming a media broker.
Their mice.
Lack of an affordable tower machine.
Too much secrecy.
Threatening and suing Apple users for leaking information or using beta software (they're worse than Microsoft for doing this).
Re:Smugness perpetuated by Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lack of acknowledgment of my market segment (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because Windows desktops are low-margin, doesn't mean a Mac desktop has to be. They could keep the same margins, build a regular desktop and it would still either be more capable than the Mini, or cheaper, because desktops are simply more cost-effective. I'm sure Apple's design geniuses could make an elegant desktop case, it just wouldn't be as small.
You're asserting that people buy Apple because of the "sexy" hardware and I just don't buy it. I buy Macs purely for the operating system, and I think many other people do as well. Probably some people want to but they can't because of the overpriced hardware. Nobody likes to deal with security problems and that alone would be a big selling point.