As if we don’t have enough on our plates as modern adults, there are still mainstream parts of the Internet who vocally hate Apple. Their issues are based on misinformed hearsay or skewed logic and instead of allowing the supposed “sheep” to keep using Apple hardware and software, these vocal naysayers spend a lot of time ensuring that the sheeple fully understand how screwed they really are by owning and using anything with an Apple logo on it.
Of course, Apple versus everybody isn’t the only brand argument happening on the Internet. There are people who love Ford trucks, Dewalt drills, Maytag washers and Sony televisions. The problem with hating Apple is that the brand is so well known and recognizable that it’s very easy to encounter two brand devotees battling it out anonymously on blogs, reddit, forums. Provide a URL to a random Internet forum on any topic (Tattoos, construction, yarn collecting, gardening)and you’ll find at least one page where two people battle over Apple versus something else.
…and it’s quite frustrating to see it so often. Reddit’s r/Technology is possibly the best example of Apple-Hate with anything about Apple being down voted to where anti-Apple opinions reign supreme. If you read that sub-reddit, you’d think Apple has 1% marketshare in everything.
When I see instances of fanboy fights, it’s best to turn to the original mud-flinging book by Scott Kelby titled, “Macintosh…The Naked Truth” which was published in 2002 and the signed copy remains at my desk as a simple reminder of how far we’ve come as Mac users. The battle rages on though and I’ve ready quite a bit about flame-wars among brand loyalists and the logic is pretty simple. Either you truly believe based on facts and your needs that a brand is better than another brand or you believe your brand is better than anything else because it’s yours and you spent money and time on it and therefore there’s no way anything else could be better because, if there was something better, you’d be using that instead.
It’s the same with sports teams. No one admits that someone else’s team is better than there’s even if the historical data is against them.
Maybe this was just a pipe-dream but I really thought that when Apple reached a high profitability, market saturation in many different sectors with devices in the hands of home and corporate customers around the globe, the argument “Macs Suck” would fade away and no longer really be a conversation. In fact, the opposite has happened. It used to be only uber nerds who upgraded their video cards every 18 months circa 2001 would proclaim that Macs are inferior to everything else. These days, the conversation is coming from all directions. Those with Android Wear, Windows Phone, ChromeBooks, Ultralight portables, 5K monitors and PC Builders all have a reason to proclaim that their personal device is better than the Apple equivalent. There are a lot of reasons given by this group:
- Price
- Walled Garden
- ‘Because Steve was a Jerk”
- Apple users are jerks
- Incompatibility
- Planned Obsolescence
- Intel / X86 hardware in a pretty and overpriced package (see price)
- UNIX Software in a pretty and overpriced package (see price)
- Because the product I own is the best
It really comes down to the last item as the most important and relevant fact and I can understand why someone would behave so extremely to defend a purchasing decision and maybe it’s a sign that our technology as it is now, is an extension of our being and because our devices are so personal to us, we develop an identity that’s connected to them. A slight toward our smartphone maker is a slight toward us as individuals.
In a lot of ways, the fact that people are still arguing this feels so old-school. I certainly don’t get involved and despite spending thousands every 2-5 years on Apple hardware, software and services, I don’t feel any reason to defend the purchases. When someone says Olympus or Canon cameras are crap or that Adobe can’t make great software, I don’t feel personally offended by that. I laugh when someone says their insert speedy non-sports car name is faster than my Golf R but I’m not going to disagree with them or challenge them to a race. My things make me feel good, enhance my work and personal life and are fun. That’s good enough for me and it would be nice to see others adopt the same mentality toward their stuff.