Why is Apple not a "good" company?

DanHibiki

HOLDENN wrote:

DanHibiki wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

How is Apple "liberal arts?"

Emphasis on design presumably?

How is Emphasis on design presumably "liberal arts"?

Steve jobs explains it better than I

That doesn't answer any questions at all, you're just avoiding the issue.

Grid System

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Are people not entitled to disapprove of decisions that seem ham-fisted and/or arbitrary?

mrt144

Can we ban this person for being a troll.

HOLDENN

Feral wrote:

I also have to admit to being a little irritated by their Cupertino campus proposal. I suppose it's a good thing, economically, in the Keynesian sense of digging ditches and filling them back up again, in that any large construction project puts people to work. But there's plenty of vacant cheap office space in the Silicon Valley, there clearly isn't a burning need for this building, so it strikes me as largely a vanity project. Google has their Googleplex, so Apple wants an Appleplex.

What's wrong with building a new building with their own money that will create jobs and replace a massive amount of dead empty asphalt parking lots with lush green grass and vegetation?

Jokerman

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Lester Maddox has a similar question on why he shouldn't get to decide on who he does and doesn't serve.

mrt144

It depresses an already sagging commercial real estate market's rent rates, thus potentially thrusting the management company into bankruptcy.

HOLDENN

Grid System wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Are people not entitled to disapprove of decisions that seem ham-fisted and/or arbitrary?

Yes, but why would they?

ArbitraryDescriptor

Holden

Consider, for a moment, how you've chosen to respond to the notion that someone does not like a company you prefer to buy things from.

Now imagine that you expressed a negative opinion Campbell's soup, and someone who does not work for Campbell's made it their job to change your opinion. You declined to engage them, and so they made a thread about it.

Would this tactic better endear you towards Campbell's soup products?

No, that would seem an unlikely outcome.

Holden. This is important. Listen: this thing you're doing? This is one of the things they talking about when they express disdain for 'Apple culture'. Not Apple, per se, but you, and people like you. People do not like having their opinions called out in this manner. You are making it an argument; you are telling them that their opinions are wrong. People do not respond well to this tactic.

You need to let the plumber fix the sink, Holden. Apple has a formidable marketing department*, and if converting these wayward sheep is important to you, then leave it to the professionals.

(Non-Apple fanboys are welcome substitute their favorite company in place of "Apple" and read this again)

*

Spoiler:

Though if they're paying you to do this, I may have to reconsider the efficacy of their methods.

Wassermelone

Modern Man wrote:

Not all

Incenjucar wrote:

Apple's marketing has a long history of being snobby, divisive garbage, promoting irritating, stupid behaviour in the population - and not just their own customers. I don't care for how restrictive their policies tend to be, either. Beyond that, and their often-terrible sense of aesthetics, they're a valuable, innovative company.

Can you give an example of this?

Heres an example right here!

Eat it, You Nasty Pig. wrote:

The whole dislike of apple seems like it primarily stems from apple putting emphasis on design (and to a lesser extent usability) that lots of long-term computer using folk find spurious. So when their advertising and messaging says "yes, these things are valuable and you should pay a premium for them" and other users buy into that, it rubs them the wrong way.

Clearly, if you don't really like apple, it probably primarily stems from your dislike of design.

Septus

mrt144 wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

mrt144 wrote:

Eat it, You Nasty Pig. wrote:

The whole dislike of apple seems like it primarily stems from apple putting emphasis on design (and to a lesser extent usability) that lots of long-term computer using folk find spurious. So when their advertising and messaging says "yes, these things are valuable and you should pay a premium for them" and other users buy into that, it rubs them the wrong way.

For me it's the insistence of their use by a small minority of people despite their impracticality in an enterprise environment.

What can't Apple products do in enterprise environments that other machines can?

Integrate with Active Directory easily.

I guess this is primarily an issue with their PCs? Apple makes lots of products that are not PCs. I've also not run across any problems using iPhones with our Enterprise email servers.

Octoparrot

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Dude. Please. Really. Stop it.

My head is starting to hurt.

AngelHedgie

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Sure. That doesn't change what I said, I though.

Thanatos

Jokerman wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

So what you're saying is War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength?

Kind of ironic, when you think about it.

Alistair Hutton

iTunes on Windows is a spectacularly mediocre-to-bad piece of software. Apples own software in general often shows staggering hypocrisy in breaking their user interface guide lines. The Quicktime plug-in is a level of dire on Windows to defy description and has (lolanecdotelol) been the greatest source of browser crashes on my computer to the extent that I no longer install it. Quicktime on Windows is such a resource hogging browser crashing piece of crap that I was genuinely amazed that Steve Jobs didn't choke to death on his own hypocrisy when he talked about how bad flash was.

HOLDENN

ArbitraryDescriptor wrote:

Holden. This is important. Listen: this thing you're doing? This is one of the things they talking about when they express disdain for 'Apple culture'. Not Apple, per se, but you, and people like you. People do not like having their opinions called out in this manner. You are making it an argument; you are telling them that their opinions are wrong. People do not respond well to this tactic.

I'm not telling anyone their opinions are wrong, I have made very few statements on the matter.

I'm merely asking questions because I'm curious to see how they justify what they say.

Thanatos

HOLDENN wrote:

AngelHedgie wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Jokerman wrote:

How is Apple peaceful?

Well, if you look at the iTunes store, they enforce peace by pulling anything they don't like.

So, you know, peace through iron-fisted tyranny. Kind of like Burma is really peaceful.

Oh, there is another one - they prohibited anything controversial from the Apple Store, unless it becomes an embarrassment - at which time they add a narrow exemption (the"Fiore Rule ").

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Do we not live in America? Can we not criticize businesses for what they decide what to and what not to sell?

Would you be making this argument if they were refusing to sell anything made by someone who is black?

porc

HOLDENN wrote:

porc wrote:

Modern Man wrote:

Not all

Incenjucar wrote:

Apple's marketing has a long history of being snobby, divisive garbage, promoting irritating, stupid behaviour in the population - and not just their own customers. I don't care for how restrictive their policies tend to be, either. Beyond that, and their often-terrible sense of aesthetics, they're a valuable, innovative company.

Can you give an example of this?

Have you ever seen the opening of an Apple store on the day a new iPhone/ iPad/ iWhatever is released. It's quite disturbing.

Lines of people waiting for something are disturbing now?

Well it's not just the queuing, although frankly I find huge amounts of people queuing up for an electric device at anytime other than just before Christmas slightly weird, it's the cultesque rituals: the cheering, the hi-fiving of customers coming into the store, the clapping, and the general fervor of everyone. The only other place I've seen that kind of behavior is at one of those crazy faith healing churches in which they employ the same tactics; sure, the faith healers are infinitely more damaging but it's still disturbing to see that sort of thing wherever it's found.

edit- Watch this video from 2:20 onwards and tell me you don't find it disturbing.

Ziggymon

Its basically a snowball effect. You start to dislike the little things with Apple, maybe its itunes policies or something else, and these things slowly start to grow until you build a total loathing of everything barring the fruit.

In reality, they produce some of the best products in the market currently.

Thanatos

Alistair Hutton wrote:

iTunes on Windows is a spectacularly mediocre-to-bad piece of software. Apples own software in general often shows staggering hypocrisy in breaking their user interface guide lines. The Quicktime plug-in is a level of dire on Windows to defy description and has (lolanecdotelol) been the greatest source of browser crashes on my computer to the extent that I no longer install it. Quicktime on Windows is such a resource hogging browser crashing piece of crap that I was genuinely amazed that Steve Jobs didn't choke to death on his own hypocrisy when he talked about how bad flash was.

Wait, Quicktime works better on Macs?

I just always assumed it was wholly a complete piece of shit; I hadn't considered that maybe they're doing it on purpose.

Feral

HOLDENN wrote:

Feral wrote:

I also have to admit to being a little irritated by their Cupertino campus proposal. I suppose it's a good thing, economically, in the Keynesian sense of digging ditches and filling them back up again, in that any large construction project puts people to work. But there's plenty of vacant cheap office space in the Silicon Valley, there clearly isn't a burning need for this building, so it strikes me as largely a vanity project. Google has their Googleplex, so Apple wants an Appleplex.

What's wrong with building a new building with their own money that will create jobs and replace a massive amount of dead empty asphalt parking lots with lush green grass and vegetation?

Is it wrong? No, it's not wrong. They could pay people to make a giant paper mache sculpture of Steve Jobs with hundred dollar bills and cornstarch if they wanted to. It would be better if they used their money to start a philanthropic foundation.

HOLDENN

porc wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

porc wrote:

Modern Man wrote:

Not all

Incenjucar wrote:

Apple's marketing has a long history of being snobby, divisive garbage, promoting irritating, stupid behaviour in the population - and not just their own customers. I don't care for how restrictive their policies tend to be, either. Beyond that, and their often-terrible sense of aesthetics, they're a valuable, innovative company.

Can you give an example of this?

Have you ever seen the opening of an Apple store on the day a new iPhone/ iPad/ iWhatever is released. It's quite disturbing.

Lines of people waiting for something are disturbing now?

Well it's not just the queuing, although frankly I find huge people queuing up for an electric device at anytime other than just before Christmas slightly weird, it's the cultesque rituals: the cheering, the hi-fiving of customers coming into the store, the clapping, and the general fervor of everyone. The only other place I've seen that kind of behavior is at one of those crazy faith heeling churches in which they employ the same tactics; sure, the faith healers are infinitely more damaging but it's still disturbing to see that sort of thing wherever it's found.

What would you prefer to see? People restraining their excitement?

Alistair Hutton

Oh, and their decision to ban cross compilers for the iPhone (a decision they claimed was good for the consumer but quietly reversed a few months later when the EU threatened an investigation) cost people jobs as all the investment in cross compilers suddenly vanished overnight.

AngelHedgie

And to the OP, care to address these?

AngelHedgie wrote:

Let's see...

They actively attacked the First Amendment.
They've been caught engaging in greenwashing.
They gave into blackmail by the Parents Television Council.
They force vendors to pull products that they find embarrassing, such as a SSD upgrade for the newer Air models.
They have tried anticompetitive tactics to cripple their competition.
They make it so that users can't replace hardware that should be user serviceable, and like hard drives on the new iMacs.

And that's just to start.

JebusUD

Apple sells high priced products with an assload of design crap in them. Swiss army knife style computers with all the bells and whistles. However, I feel like they make their products harder to tinker with if more "intuitive" and "user friendly". Neither of those apply to me as I've always used windows, so everything they do is inherently counter intuitive and user unfriendly for me.

Their desktops are overpriced, you can get the same components for cheaper last time I checked, which was admittedly a while ago.

Apple inspires some kinds of bizzare religiousity. People get all weird about it, as if we can't discuss it among other computers, as if it is above other computers. This makes people annoyed by the people who buy into this. They have a great marketing department.

Reminds me of a documentary I saw about them where they had lots of their former engineers on talking about apple. One guy straight up looked at the camera and told people to stop freaking out, it is just a computer. Don't get all weird.

shryke

Thanatos wrote:

Out of curiosity, Holdenn, how much is Apple paying for forum shills these days?

No Than, that's the truly brilliant part of Apple. They don't need to pay him. They just need to convince him his own sense of self-worth is tied to Apple and it's beautiful, "peaceful, liberal arts and technology culture".

He's been brainwashed, not payed off.

mrt144

Septus wrote:

mrt144 wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

mrt144 wrote:

Eat it, You Nasty Pig. wrote:

The whole dislike of apple seems like it primarily stems from apple putting emphasis on design (and to a lesser extent usability) that lots of long-term computer using folk find spurious. So when their advertising and messaging says "yes, these things are valuable and you should pay a premium for them" and other users buy into that, it rubs them the wrong way.

For me it's the insistence of their use by a small minority of people despite their impracticality in an enterprise environment.

What can't Apple products do in enterprise environments that other machines can?

Integrate with Active Directory easily.

I guess this is primarily an issue with their PCs? Apple makes lots of products that are not PCs. I've also not run across any problems using iPhones with our Enterprise email servers.

As long as you're running an exchange server it's all gravy.

Jokerman

Ziggymon wrote:

Its basically a snowball effect. You start to dislike the little things with Apple, maybe its itunes policies or something else, and these things slowly start to grow until you build a total loathing of everything barring the fruit.

In reality, they produce some of the best products in the market currently.

The Zune outclassed the iPod in every way, but it didn't have the "Cult of personality" built around it.

Octoparrot

Quicktime. I fucking hate Quicktime, but I can't really give a more detailed breakdown of my hatred. They're always trying to slide iTunes in there with it, too.

JebusUD

HOLDENN wrote:

porc wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

porc wrote:

Modern Man wrote:

Not all

Incenjucar wrote:

Apple's marketing has a long history of being snobby, divisive garbage, promoting irritating, stupid behaviour in the population - and not just their own customers. I don't care for how restrictive their policies tend to be, either. Beyond that, and their often-terrible sense of aesthetics, they're a valuable, innovative company.

Can you give an example of this?

Have you ever seen the opening of an Apple store on the day a new iPhone/ iPad/ iWhatever is released. It's quite disturbing.

Lines of people waiting for something are disturbing now?

Well it's not just the queuing, although frankly I find huge people queuing up for an electric device at anytime other than just before Christmas slightly weird, it's the cultesque rituals: the cheering, the hi-fiving of customers coming into the store, the clapping, and the general fervor of everyone. The only other place I've seen that kind of behavior is at one of those crazy faith heeling churches in which they employ the same tactics; sure, the faith healers are infinitely more damaging but it's still disturbing to see that sort of thing wherever it's found.

What would you prefer to see? People restraining their excitement?

Yes. People talking about apple goes into



territory.

reVerse

AngelHedgie wrote:

And to the OP, care to address these?

He's not here to address things, he's here to "ask questions".

Feral

HOLDENN wrote:

I'm not telling anyone their opinions are wrong, I have made very few statements on the matter.

I'm merely asking questions because I'm curious to see how they justify what they say.

Well, okay, but the rules pretty clearly say:

Express your opinion!
This is an opinion-based forum, after all. Don't hide your thoughts, we want to know them. This goes double for thread-starters - threads which consist of link+'discuss' will be mocked'n'locked, no matter how timely or interesting they may be. You can try again, or someone else will.

mrt144

shryke wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Out of curiosity, Holdenn, how much is Apple paying for forum shills these days?

No Than, that's the truly brilliant part of Apple. They don't need to pay him. They just need to convince him his own sense of self-worth is tied to Apple and it's beautiful, "peaceful, liberal arts and technology culture".

He's been brainwashed, not payed off.

And he can't engage in discussion, so I'm thinking he or she may also have a social interaction mental disorder.

Grid System

HOLDENN wrote:

Grid System wrote:

HOLDENN wrote:

Do they not own their store? Do they not get to decide what should or shouldn't be sold there?

Are people not entitled to disapprove of decisions that seem ham-fisted and/or arbitrary?

Yes, but why would they?

Why shouldn't they?

To add something more substantive to the discussion, I haven't bought anything from Apple because my experience with their products has not given me much faith in their reliability.

shryke

Thanatos wrote:

Alistair Hutton wrote:

iTunes on Windows is a spectacularly mediocre-to-bad piece of software. Apples own software in general often shows staggering hypocrisy in breaking their user interface guide lines. The Quicktime plug-in is a level of dire on Windows to defy description and has (lolanecdotelol) been the greatest source of browser crashes on my computer to the extent that I no longer install it. Quicktime on Windows is such a resource hogging browser crashing piece of crap that I was genuinely amazed that Steve Jobs didn't choke to death on his own hypocrisy when he talked about how bad flash was.

Wait, Quicktime works better on Macs?

I just always assumed it was wholly a complete piece of shit; I hadn't considered that maybe they're doing it on purpose.

I wonder, is it as malignant a piece of spyware on macs as it is on PC?

Jokerman

mrt144 wrote:

shryke wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Out of curiosity, Holdenn, how much is Apple paying for forum shills these days?

No Than, that's the truly brilliant part of Apple. They don't need to pay him. They just need to convince him his own sense of self-worth is tied to Apple and it's beautiful, "peaceful, liberal arts and technology culture".

He's been brainwashed, not payed off.

And he can't engage in discussion, so I'm thinking he or she may also have a social interaction mental disorder.

Don't attribute to mental disease what can be easily ascribed to goosism.

mrt144

Jokerman wrote:

mrt144 wrote:

shryke wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Out of curiosity, Holdenn, how much is Apple paying for forum shills these days?

No Than, that's the truly brilliant part of Apple. They don't need to pay him. They just need to convince him his own sense of self-worth is tied to Apple and it's beautiful, "peaceful, liberal arts and technology culture".

He's been brainwashed, not payed off.

And he can't engage in discussion, so I'm thinking he or she may also have a social interaction mental disorder.

Don't attribute to mental disease what can be easily ascribed to goosism.

Goosism is a mental disease as far as I'm concerned.

Casually Hardcore

I dislike Apple because they're contributing in the splintering of the Internet.

You want to use flash? Tough shit!

useless4

shryke wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

Alistair Hutton wrote:

iTunes on Windows is a spectacularly mediocre-to-bad piece of software. Apples own software in general often shows staggering hypocrisy in breaking their user interface guide lines. The Quicktime plug-in is a level of dire on Windows to defy description and has (lolanecdotelol) been the greatest source of browser crashes on my computer to the extent that I no longer install it. Quicktime on Windows is such a resource hogging browser crashing piece of crap that I was genuinely amazed that Steve Jobs didn't choke to death on his own hypocrisy when he talked about how bad flash was.

Wait, Quicktime works better on Macs?

I just always assumed it was wholly a complete piece of shit; I hadn't considered that maybe they're doing it on purpose.

I wonder, is it as malignant a piece of spyware on macs as it is on PC?

How is it spyware, I thought spyware was defined roughly as : Software that enables a user to obtain covert information about another's computer activities by transmitting data covertly from their hard drive

mrt144

Casually Hardcore wrote:

I dislike Apple because they're contributing in the splintering of the Internet.

You want to use flash? Tough shit!

How does one play facebook games on ipads?

Jokerman

mrt144 wrote:

Casually Hardcore wrote:

I dislike Apple because they're contributing in the splintering of the Internet.

You want to use flash? Tough shit!

How does one play facebook games on macs?

One does not simply Flash into Apple.