Digital Meld

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

- Keyser Söze

Okay, let me start out by saying sure the title is a little over the top but let me explain myself. If you’ve read this site for the past few months I’ve made several posts damning certain aspects of Apple’s wicked ways. I also will openly admit that I am a Microsoft fanboy and a bit biased when it comes to the boys in Redmond, but that doesn’t mean I limit myself to their products.

I currently own my second 17” MacBook Pro in four years (although it is mainly a doorstop). I owned and used an iPhone for over a year and I have also owned about eight iPods in my time; I’ve even recently purchased a copy of OS X for my Dell Mini 9 that I will cover in a later post. So while I do have Microsoft blood coursing through my veins I also admit that Apple does make great hardware and software that I have enjoyed using.

I will be honest, I don’t like Apple as a company… I actually despise them, but they do make great products. I just can’t understand how a company that does such evil things still remains the savior of the technology world. No matter how screwed up a policy or rule is for Apple they never seem to get a black eye in the pool of public opinion. Meanwhile poor Microsoft takes a beating every single day.

Look, I know Microsoft isn’t a perfect company. I’ll be the first person to call Microsoft out when they come up short. They absolutely fumbled the ball with Windows Vista. They’re quality control and technical support with the Xbox 360 and the red ring of death was FUBAR as well, and don’t even get me started on dealing with Microsoft sales representatives when truing up Enterprise licenses. Or how many different SKU’s of Windows can you have?

I hate actually comparing Apple and Microsoft because in my opinion they are two completely different companies. Apple has a core set of hardware and software that they do really well. Microsoft on the other hand is a behemoth in comparison in the hardware, software and gaming departments. When you compare apples to apples, the product line of Microsoft is ten fold to that of Apple and the vast majority of those products are pretty damn innovative.

Microsoft Office, Windows Desktops, Media Center, Xbox, Games, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL, Server, Hyper-V, Hotmail, .NET, Visual Studio, Messenger, Windows Mobile, Tablets, Skydrive, Zune, Mice, Keyboards, Cameras, Live Mesh, Live Search, Live Writer, Live Galleries, Virtual Earth, Photosynth, Surface and on and on. Microsoft makes hundreds of amazing applications and services and sure they miss on some but they knock it out of the park on most.

My argument isn’t between Microsoft and Apple even though it may seem that way, I am just using Microsoft as a reference point. My point is Microsoft can make all of these great products and slip up once (like Windows Vista) and they become the joke of the technology world. Meanwhile, a company like Apple who releases far fewer applications and services and they’re the golden child, even though they are evil at heart.

Apple evil? No way you say. Well let’s break it down shall we? Apple has fought tooth and nail to shutdown Apple clone and hackintosh makers for years. This is even more baffling now that the inside of a Mac nearly identical to that of a PC thanks to the switch to the Intel platform. Why not give the power to the people and openly support people building their own Macs? So much for “think different.”

Apple charges a huge premium for their hardware. It is no secret that a $1299 MacBook is basically a $600 Dell in an aluminum body. The technical specifications of most of Apple’s hardware are at least two times as much as their PC counterparts with the same hardware specs. Sure the devices may look a little sleeker but is it really worth an additional $600 bucks for that pretty aluminum case? For some people it obviously is. Apple charging a premium made more sense when they made their own processors but now that they are Intel, why don’t the prices reflect that?

Apple openly rapes the hardware makers of iPod and iPhone accessories and have for years. Apple basically charges an “Apple Tax” to perspective accessory makers if they want the “Made for Apple” tag on their products. The accessory makers obviously just pass the cost of that “tax” on to the customer which just further fattens the wallets of the boys in Cupertino. They’ve gone so far now as to require an Apple authentication chip on the new iPod shuffle for headphones! Seriously?

Apple also severely “locks down” the Jesus Phone iPhone and limits the applications that you can install to ones that they “approve” for their app store. During my year with my first generation iPhone I used Jailbreak to load up all of the applications that I wanted without having Big Brother from Cupertino telling me what was acceptable on the handset I paid $400 for. Also, why in the hell has it taken two years to get a simple function like copy/paste for the iPhone?

Apple finally won some praise for the iPhone applications when they announced the SDK and the App Store and for good reason, at first look the App Store is awesome. Apple allows developers who pay for the SDK a well integrated platform to sell their applications while Apple takes a 30% piece of the pie. 30% is a little steep but the developers don’t seem to mind. However, Apple’s completely baffling approval and rejection process which frustrates developers has lead to an upstart rogue app store that may take a piece of that pie.

iTunes is another amazingly successful venture for Apple with over six billion songs songs sold. However, up until recently the vast majority of those songs were sub-par quality, DRM-crippled tracks. After losing some ground to Amazon MP3’s higher quality, DRM-free and iTunes-free service Apple finally unveiled they’re high-quality DRM-free service dubbed “iTunes Plus.” So, you pay thirty cents more per track for high-quality DRM-free tracks. They even made it easy to upgrade your entire library with one click of a button. How thoughtful of them.

Apple is known for their innovative products but why do they continually create products that you have to send in for basic repairs? Nearly every other phone on the market has a battery that you can remove on your own as needed yet Apple has to seal the iPhone up tight? The same goes for the MacBook Air; God forbid people with an ultra-portable notebook want to carry around more than one battery. Also, make sure to round the edges in future MacBook Pros please and learn to design a mouse while you’re at it.

Okay, if you couldn’t tell by now I could babble on for hours about how Apple continues to use their power and status in the technology industry to bleed the pockets of their loyalists dry. That’s my entire point for this grand charade. How can a company that time and time again shows that everything is all about the bottom line be the poster child of technology perfection? The products that Apple makes are great, I will give them that much but their lack of openness and high cost piss me off.

It really is just like the devil convincing the world that he doesn’t exist. Sure the products are pretty but as my friend Carlos put it this morning, that Apple is more like a serpent in disguise.