Mac Man tries to gobble up all the Apples. Illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Posted on 08/11/2016 11:07:31 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Cult of Mac 2.0 bugYou don’t see long lines for the latest Lenovo PC or LG Android phone. But take a quick peek on the internet and you’ll find plenty of people lining up to say how much they hate Apple.
Every successful person or company has its critics, but the expressions of vitriol for Apple are more complex than the popular refrain ‘haters gonna hate’.
Some are bugged by the price of Apple gadgets, others sneer over the enthusiasm of Apple fans, mockingly referring to them as iSheep or fanboys. Others are rubbed the wrong way by late founder Steve Jobs, whose charisma and marketing savvy repelled some as strongly as it attracted others.
Even in death, his critics could not be silent. “I don’t wish anyone to die,” wrote one on a message board on League of Legends on Oct. 6, 2011, the day Jobs passed. “However, I refuse to sanctify him.”
Fuel for the fire
Saying so only makes the fans circle the wagons. Apple occupies rare air, in that its customers have become a distinct and potent brand community that only grows stronger from the hatred, says Albert Muniz, professor of marketing at DePaul University.
“It gives legitimacy of true membership,” Muniz says. “It’s such an entrenched user base. That sentiment (against) has persisted as Apple has gone from David to being Goliath.”
So to the “misfits, crazy ones and rebels,” here is a small dose of what you put up with because you love your iPhone or Mac.
“People who buy exclusively Apple all the time are unsettling. A sense of loyalty to a multinational, profit-driven company is just weird in my book, especially when it manifests itself in utter loyalty, a refusal to accept any alternative, an unnatural love for the product and an inability to accept that there are any flaws in the love they feel.” —David Stewart, Australia, on Quora, Sept. 13, 2014.
“I wonder if their new guy is going to try to continue building a fortune off of artificial quality and people who don’t know anything about computers.” —DinerCar on League of Legends, Oct. 6, 2011.
Or from this YouTube tech blogger last September with a channel named Gaming Wildlife:
Apple haters
If you find humor in the insults, there is an Apple Haters blog as well as the “official” Twitter account of Apple Haters “We are everywhere.” Any time stocks dip, malware strikes, or a new product gets tepid reviews, these and other forums come to life. The blog even has a store, on which you can buy coffee cups and T-shirt, including one that says “KEEP CALM and DESTROY APPLE.”
The chatrooms stir up some interesting discussion and often include reformed Apple haters or even some current user Piyush Michael, a student in Delhi, Indiana, who likes Apple products enough, but otherwise is not swayed by Apple’s messaging or the passions coming from what this website lovingly refers to as a cult.
Michael told Cult of Mac he has used both Apple and non-Apple products, his favorites being the iPhone and MacBook. He describes himself as indifferent to Apple, but his emotions are more likely to get stirred up by expressions of loud love for Apple.
“It’s just the smugness of the fanboys I hate,” Michael says. “In India, those who can afford (it) almost always buy iPhones. It’s supposed to make you stand out of the sea of mid-rangers. And in most cases the smugness isn’t even discrete. The same attitude you get from the PC (camp). Both camps form opinions without any experience of the other side and stick to it.
“In order to justify the money spent, they spend the rest of their lives denying any flaws in the products.”
Popular YouTube tech blogger Austin Evans has an audience that mostly uses PCs, especially for gaming.
He is reminded how deep passions run whenever he reviews or unboxes an Apple product, like a new iPhone. Evans can count on a small flurry of comments accusing him of being paid by Apple.
“I don’t do a lot of Apple videos because I am mindful of my audience,” Evans tells Cult of Mac. “Apple is one company I don’t have much of a relationship with. I do full-sponsored stuff all of the time and nobody cares, but when I do an Apple video, it’s ‘How dare you say something nice about them.’”
Another tech blogger, Lamar Wilson, has an interesting theory that may explain some of the hate for Apple.
He considers himself an ex-Apple hater who used to make a living building and fixing PCs. He even saw a number of viewers unsubscribe from his YouTube channel when they realized he had become “one of them.”
“There may be fear in the tech community,” Wilson says. “There’s a morbid fear of things that are easy to use. They hate tech that is dumbed down. For some, their jobs and personal reputation is ingrained in being the tech person.”
What’s the big deal?
Apple mostly shrugs and may even revel in the free advertising the debate gives its products.
Sometimes impatience and even hot rage comes from its own community, which expects Apple to put out a perfect game changer every time.
Jobs may have even handled some direct hostility from one customer, complaining about poor reception with the iPhone 4s in the early days of what became a widespread antenna problem.
Several tech websites published what was believed to be an email exchange with an angry man and Jobs. The writer allegedly threatened to go back to using an Android phone and said he was ashamed to be a Mac fan.
Apple’s public relations team said the emails were fake, but even in fiction, the final word from Jobs may be the best response the next time an Android loyalist gets in the grill of a happy iPhone fan.
“Relax … It is just a phone.”
Apple sells computers, MS sells software. Secondly, try upgrading hehe will cost an arm, and FINALLY Apple is Liberal, always has been since I can remember:https://www.2ndvote.com/scores/apple
Apple sells computers, MS sells software. Secondly, try upgrading hehe will cost an arm, and FINALLY Apple is Liberal, always has been since I can remember:https://www.2ndvote.com/scores/apple
Apple sells computers, MS sells software. Secondly, try upgrading hehe will cost an arm, and FINALLY Apple is Liberal, always has been since I can remember:https://www.2ndvote.com/scores/apple
Apple sells computers, MS sells software. Secondly, try upgrading hehe will cost an arm, and FINALLY Apple is Liberal, always has been since I can remember:https://www.2ndvote.com/scores/apple
I am an economist. Apple sells every single product they make to willing buyers around the world. Other manufacturers make similar products in the same tier as Apple products that cost the same, often more, than Apple products with similar attributes. When trying to match Apple products such as computers, which has frequently been done here on FreeRepublic, providing the same level of components, hardware, and software, as are already included with an Apple product, one frequently finds that the Apple product is not only competitive with the build price of the name brand competitor's product, but is frequently less expensive.
In the phone arena, Apple's smartphone is LESS expensive than Samsung's when they first release their newest models. . . but Samsung, because of rapidly dropping sales, always rapidly drops their prices within two months to prop up sales. Apple never reduces prices because their sales never drop so drastically for their top tier flagship phones until the next model is due. Apple has never felt the need to sponsor Buy one, get one (or two, or three, or even four) for free programs to move their iPhones, not once in nine years and over 1 billion sales of iPhone sales to willing buyers around the world.
All of this means that Apple is not overcharging for their products because the public is willing to pay the prices they are being offered for. That is the way any correct price is determined in economics in a competitive market.
Nah, that's now Government Motors since Obambi took them over. I drive a Lincoln.
The Apple iMacs are made in Elk Grove, California. The Apple Mac Pros are made in Austin, Texas. All Macs and iOS devices are designed in California. Many of the parts of iPads and iPhones are made in the USA but they are assembled by a Taiwanese (Free Chinese) company, in China. . . but so are all the rest.
Well, this is either ignorance or lying, don't know which.
MS sells the Surface tablet, which some claim is a computer.
I have upgraded memory and hard drives in my Apple computers for prices comparable to the same upgrades in similar Windows boxes.
Yep, Apple is liberal. So is Microsoft. Your point?
Why do you think that Apple customers only by Apple because they think it makes them look cool?
My main Computers are two 2009 Mac Pros they run 24/7. I have the new iPad Pro just for the heck of it but I also have the first iPad that still does everything it did when I bought it.
Every year or so I purchase a new Parallels and install Windows and Linux, I occasionally fire them up and stare at them for a while and decide there is nothing I care to do that I am not already doing on my Mac.
There may be thousands of things that I could do with Windows that I can't do on my Mac but apparently I don't have a need for them.
To be truthful there are a couple things I would like to have that do not work with OS X but not enough to abandon Mac OS.
Most Mac users do not want to be cool, they just want a computer that will run reliably for many years, and they do.
On the contrary, the SJWs are the Apple Hate Brigade members in the Apple Threads, the ones who just have to educate the Apple users how wrong they are to be Apple users. Like you.
Why is that a problem? You actually have to hold that power button for ten second for it to actually force a power off. . . or it merely brings up a requestor to ask you what you want to do. If you hit it accidentally, cancel it.
About 80% of your post is based on misguided information.
The suicides, as you've been told before, were FAR BELOW the suicide rate for similar age cohorts of AMERICAN COLLEGE AGE, 18 to 32 year old students at Ivy League Universities. . . and it would be the envy of any American factory with similar numbers of workers. You keep lying about it. When you've been told the truth and repeat the lie, that makes YOU the liar.
Apple works fine with third party peripherals such as printers, scanners, etc. In fact they configure far easier and quicker on an Apple than on a PC.
About 80% of your post is based on misguided information.
How can you say that when you have no idea what he uses a computer for?
Like I said.
China.
China is taking over the world, and all of our companies are sold out to them.
All of them.
And typically you reply without even noticing the point that it is satire.
It’s not cheaper. I never bought a second iPhone after my first slowed down too much to be useful after a software upgrade 1.5 years into the phone. They’re designed to be useless after 2 years of service. My Samsung on the other hand is still going strong 4 years later. I need extra storage on my phone for work which Samsung allows with a flash memory card. Over all value goes to Samsung.
What you’re mostly paying for with your iPhone is advertising.
“On the contrary, the SJWs are the Apple Hate Brigade members in the Apple Threads, the ones who just have to educate the Apple users how wrong they are to be Apple users. Like you. “
Really?
You seriously think I’m trying to actually direct you to use some other brand? Like why the hell should I care? Does it look like my name is Swordmaker? The only two groups on this site that are pathetically obsessed with trying to get people to use some other platform are Apple and Linux people.
The only thing I point out are your exaggerations, contradictions, and blatant hypocrisies (still waiting for all of the supposed posts I make bashing Apple’s products that you claim I make), which are a hallmark of most Apple fanatics who seem to be wholly unable to justify the use of any of that company’s stuff outside of claiming that it’s because everything else is almost wholly unusable, that people are stupid for having the nerve to somehow actually use a platform like Windows and not emulate the pathetic trope where our machines are “confusing”, “crashing”, Full of malware, being “spied on”, or whatever goofy cliche of the week the Verge or Gizmodo cough up for clicks. And don’t forget how you guys like swinging around that company’s balance sheet as if that makes you better people because they charge you more for a pretty case.
In short you guys spend more time talking yourselves up for using a brand BECAUSE you use a brand than actually showing anything you do with it that actually would impress anyone.
The smarmy, snarky, and elitist attitude of Apple users is an almost direct mirror of your average SJW when it comes to how they engage in political discussion.
The whole whining about “Apple hate” is no different from some leftist idiot talking about “Islamophobia” or “homophobia” or “sexism”, “racism”, and “transphobia”. They feel the need to shame people for being critical of them (just like you) and believe that people just need to be “reeducated” to rid them of their wrong-think.
Just another branch of the victim stooge Olympics.
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