Your first link "5 signs that Apple is a Cult," is filled with bias confirmation. . .
- # 1 "Applicants are readymade acolytes "
Apple stores are inundated with job applications". . .
Apple hires from people who apply! Wow! They don't hire from people who don't??? They don't hire people who don't apply? They're young! How offensive. The guy who met me at the door at the Arden Fair Sacramento store appeared older than I am the last time I was in there. . . and I am 66. So much for that meme. They hire people who know about the products they are going to show people about. Shocking! They gleaned this information from a former Apple employee. Great source there. . . why isn't he still working there? Oh, he was let go because of his poor work attitude. Great source. - # 2 "New employees are indoctrinated
The training for new Apple employees is more like an "indoctrination process,"
Have you ever been to any corporation training? RahRah sessions to enthuse the new employees about their new employer. You don't tell them all the negatives about their new employer. SHEESH! - # 3"Employees aren't allowed to speak to the media . . .
Apple has implemented a virtual cone of silence over its retail operations, barring employees from speaking to the press. However, the company made an exception for Cory Moll, a "vocal labor activist" who tells Segal that he recently got a raise from the Apple store in San Francisco."
Except when it doesn't??? Almost every major corporation doesn't allow average employees to wily-nilly speak to the press on behalf of the corporation. They have press relations departments for that purpose. This is not cult like activity, just common sense. - # 4 "Apple is immersed in weird lingo
The help-desk technicians at Apple stores are known as "geniuses," and Segal reveals that Apple also has a Scientology-like title for its sales staffers, who are known as "specialists."
ROTFLMAO. . . - # 5 ""Rapture gives way to disillusionment
The low wages, the lack of career advancement, and the frenetic workday tend to cool the average employee's fervor, says Segal. There are reportedly far more "detractors" than "promoters," and many seem eager to leave the job after a couple of years. "
No, not quite, from your sources source article:- "By the standards of retailing, Apple offers above average pay -- well above the minimum wage of $7.25 and better than the Gap, though slightly less than Lululemon, the yoga and athletic apparel chain, where sales staff earn about $12 an hour (actually, discostu, the NYTimes reported that Apple Store employees earn better than $13 and hour and up according to Cory Mora above—Swordmaker). The company also offers very good benefits for a retailer, including health care, 401(k) contributions and the chance to buy company stock, as well as Apple products, at a discount. (how does a free latest model iPhone, Apple Watch, and a $500 discount on Apple Macs strike you?—Swordmaker) "
You cannot deny that entire article was not a load of biased, inaccurate junk. . . FUD!
In your second link, "Anthropologist 'confirms' Apple is a religion," you quote an article written by a Anthropologist with ties to SOUTH KOREA (the research fellow conducted fieldwork on new religious movements in South Korea until 2005) where he claims he believes Apple is littered with cult like symbols, citing the Apple Logo for the cultists to venerate. How absurd!
South Korea is the home of Apple's primary competitor, Samsung, which in the year he published his "study" expended more than $14 billion on "marketing" their competing phones, of which only $4.3 billion was in advertising. Guess who funded this anthropologist's so called "study" of Apple. It's important to follow the funding, discostu. I did when I posted that stupid study back when it was first published. Can you spell FUD? How about "smear"?
The release of this "study" just happened to coincided with Samsung's ad campaign showing Apple fans, wearing Apple shirts, standing in line for the next Apple iPhone and then having Samsung users approaching them and showing their "next greatest thing is already here" Galaxy phone to the line standers who would then leave the line to rush off to buy a Samsung Android phone. I do not believe in coincidences.
Your third linked article, "Turning Customers Into Cultists," ignores that fact that Apple makes products that people WANT to assume that it is entirely about creating a cult religion worship culture as witness the graphic they start the article with:
The fact is that people do not make product decisions based on such matters. . . but want products because they offer ease of use, do what they are designed to do without erecting barriers to the user by adding cruft and crapware, and do it elegantly, and the company who sells them offers excellent customer service. It has NOTHING to do with religion. . . especially when those sales have grown to over 1.2 billion in only seven years from the product's introduction! This article is FILLED with confirmation bias, including claiming that other companies are using the same marketing techniques as Apple has and claiming they are ALSO cultish. That is patently absurd. !.2 billion is not a cult. . . it is a successful sales approach. . . and the people who are claiming it is a cult are trying to spread NEGATIVE characterization to keep people AWAY from companies who are that successful using FEAR tactics by using psychologically loaded fearful terminology. . . as are you and anyone who uses such intentionally loaded epithets as Cult.
So you respond with a flurry of FUD articles written by people who don't have clues who wrote those article to generate Internet CLICKS. . . They cannot grasp the idea that people buy PRODUCTS because they like things that work, not because the worship them like a religion. You spread your lies as much as you like and then dance around claiming you are not. . . then end your screed with proof of your ignorance by saying "Enjoy your Apple junk."
And your fifth link to the "Cult of Mac" website is a tongue in cheek SATIRE name based on those claims from the FUD spreaders who have named Apple a "cult". . . and you don't see it, taking it at face value because of a total lack of a sense of humor.
I will give you this: You do Google search moderately well. . . but you don't do critical analysis based on facts or even cursory research well at all.
You show your entire base of ignorant lack of knowledge of what you are talking about. You do not have a clue about what you are criticizing. . . That makes you a biased, ignorant bigot on the subject of Apple and Macs and iOS.