Yes.

I still hate Macs, and iPhones.

I still say I have as much dislike for them as I do for Microsoft, or Sony for that matter. Distaste, but not above most other companies with similar markets.

so if you hate apple and microsoft, I assume you use Ubuntu or some other linux distro?

Debian FTW, Ubuntu is too newbie-oriented, and not configurable enough (not to mention the UI is too slow for my old PC, and it sucks)

heh, I use fedora, or at least I used to... when I get a second laptop I shall..

Different distro? Or something happened?

He wasn't cool enough to ditch Windows fully so that he didn't have to boot and reboot and reboot to switch OSes.

Woohoo, another Apple vs X debate.

Look - Apple isn't perfect, but they're doing a better job than pretty much every other company I can think of. Across the board, they're doing a pretty stellar job.

Their customer service is amazing.
Apple stores willingly swap out iOS devices free of charge, and do a pretty good job of fixing up bork'd macs.

Their hardware is smexy.
Seriously, take a look at a Macbook Air, or an iPad 2. Fast, insanely light, and reasonably priced.

Their operating systems are polished.
Things are intuitive. Plus, if you hate OS X, you can easily swap it out for whatever the hell you want. Also, iOS makes automatic nightly backups to Apple servers, while Mac apps increasingly make use of a simple, built-in form of version control.

Their products were designed to work well together.
Books, magazines, music, notes, apps, photos and more are automatically synced. For example, pictures you take on an iPhone are instantly synced back to your Mac. Music you buy on your laptop is already on your iPod. Your iPhone transforms into a powerful remote for Keynote.

Sure, you can do almost all of that stuff with other platforms - but it almost always feels like a hack. Apple magic comes at a premium, but for many, it's certainly worth it. Aside from Google (and potentially Amazon), no one has a chance of beating Apple across the board.

Agreed. I've been meaning to take my out of warranty iPhone in and see what they can do about it; it stopped playing sound when I connected it to a docking station at work so I could demo the station. Now I can only get sound through headphones, A2DP bluetooth or docking stations.



I don't fully agree on the reasonably priced, since there's nothing on the market to reasonably compare with. But the other statements help myself justify the difference.



Version control has saved my rear many times already. It requires a specific File System, and takes additional space, but with two HDD's and a 1TB external drive for things like my media library, I'm not too worried about running out of space. Since I already use Time Machine, I already knew how to use Versions.



This, multiple times. It's great when I buy an album at work, but I can't download it to my phone. When I get home it's on my computer waiting to be burned to a CD and played.



Google can only fight Apple if Android gets it's rear in gear. It had a superb starting strategy, and it's still what makes Android great. However, you have hundreds of devices running Android. But at the same time, you have dozens upon dozens of handsets with different screen sizes, specs and capabilities.

Amazon doesn't have many Android tablets/devices on the market, but I feel they may potentially be the strongest rival to Apple.

$499 for a tablet is competitive with similar tablets, and $1299 (for the decent 11 inch Macbook Air) is competitive with other "ultrabooks". And yes, you're buying into much more than just the hardware/OS - you're getting an ecosystem of apps and other media, coupled with exceptional services + support.


On a side note, most people reading this comment should really be using git/hg/svn. MacOS Versions/Time Machine is no substitute for a real version control system.


Indeed. Also - you use CDs?



Neither Android nor iOS would be as awesome as they are now had the other not existed.

Side note # 2 : decided to accept an offer to work at Google NYC this summer

For my car, yes. I still rock the CD wallet! For everything else, I stream the music to my headset or with other means. I'd like my next car to have A2DP Bluetooth, but I don't want a reason to give up my headset. Luckily, I have a few more years to see what's out there as my current car won't be going any where any time soon



Neat! I fortell a meetup with Kerm

The latest Macbook Air's did indeed fix the heat issues but I still wouldn't say they are worth the price. The only mac's that I have seen in seemingly decent price ranges are the Mini's. They usually are a bit cheaper than similarly spec'd hardware. Everything else is still just Intel hardware and thus should be priced similarly to higher end dell or HP(I can't believe I said this) kit, yet it often isn't.

Apple support isn't bad but when Dell will next day air you parts if you want to fix your laptop yourself I say they win there.

As to MacOS versions, I still argue that Windows NT's equivalent is much better implemented and if Microsoft wanted they could easily show that their system has existed long before Apples. That said both systems have their strengths and Apple did do a service by making the system more obvious, but it isn't anything new.

As for the Free iOS devices when people have issues, tell that to all the 4S owners who are increasingly looking like they got crap batteries in their brand new Apple kit, I doubt apple has any plans on giving out new kit in that case. From what I've been reading it doesn't look like the iOS updates designed to fix it have done much good, but I could be wrong. When apple gives out free stuff it is usually to hid flaws that haven't hit the media yet, once its out they will deny the crap out of it, see the whole antennae issue for proof. They still claim that people were just holding the phone wrong. I've also seen safari get infected on my fair share of macs. At least two of them were surprised when they took the infected machines to the Apple store they got told, "Macs don't get viruses, but here is a free copy of the latest OS X even though there is nothing wrong."

And yes you can install Windows on your mac Hardware, but will Apple let you install OS X on your Dell or HP hardware, of course not, I don't blame them, but saying they are great for giving you choice is BULL.

At least they give competition to a monopoly, although they don't give competition in the usual sense. Generally competition tries to undercut the other products' sales through feature ripoffs and lower prices.

You know, like Linux!

Are you accusing Linux of "ripping off" OSX features? Because it's actually /exactly/ the opposite. Some of OSX(like the dashboard) was actually built using what was previously linux code.

Or, get it fixed the same afternoon

They swapped out an iPod Touch because of a broken screen, and an iPad that had a few dead pixels. Sure, sometimes they give free stuff (like Bumpers) when they have larger issues, but they also frequently replace devices for other issues. A lot of it seems to be up to the Genuises themselves.


Well, you *can* run OS X on your non-Apple hardware, but that wasn't my point. I was trying to say that if you're particularly opposed to OS X itself, you can run whatever you want on your Macbook. No biggie.


Yeah, Apple definitely copies the best bits of its competitors - just look at notifications in iOS. But just as they were the first to popularize touchscreen smartphones, they were also the first to popularize the mouse-driven desktop as we know it today.

Google is currently curb-stomping iPhone's face, so clearly your conditionals are false. Google can not only currently fight Apple, they are winning - big time.

Dozens of handsets with difference screen sizes, specs, and capabilities is a *HUGE ADVANTAGE*, it is absolutely not even remotely negative as you imply.

Oh, and Apple's strongest rival is Samsung - who is actually outselling Apple in phones.

The iPhone will pick up where Mac left off - a profitable niche that is ultimately an afterthought for most.



No they weren't. Most smartphones had touchscreens well before the iPhone, and you seem to have limited your focus to the US market only. The iPhone didn't revolutionize or innovate anything - everything had already been done before, including all those intuitive multitouch gestures such as pinch zoom.

Agreed - Android's marketshare is a huge advantage. That said, Apple still makes tons of money selling awesome devices backed by a giant ecosystem of quality applications.

For now, I still recommend iOS devices over android counterparts, because of the ease of use, customer support, overall polish, and wealth of quality applications.


You're right - I do remember seeing people with awkward touchscreen-driven Windows 6.x mobile devices, Palm phones, and what not. When looking back at popular pre-iPhone devices, things like the LG Voyager, Motorola Razr, Nokia N95, Helio Ocean, and various Blackberry models come to mind.

What I really meant to say is that the iPhone popularized the (essentially) entirely touchscreen driven form factor that is so prevalent in today's smartphones. In addition, at the time, mobile Safari was significantly slicker than existing mobile browsers. Sure, there were stylus-driven touchscreen phones prior to the iPhone, and multitouch existed (only?) on large "surface" displays, but Apple was the first to build a compelling multitouch-driven phone that actually gained traction.

Eh at this point much of the android vs iOS debate has come down to personal prefference. There are very high quality devices on both sides, the App libraries are of similar size(with android having greater momentum) and support depending more on your provider than the handset maker. When it comes to which people generally like more Android has slowly but surely wining out and passing Apple in market share. Yes there are some cheap and crappy android phones out there, but they work well as entry level devices to get people interested and actually work as gateway devices to people used to feature phones.

To put it simply you recommend iOS because you are an Apple fanboi and you enjoy the taste of their kool-aid, it just so happens that the rest of the market seems to like Google's a bit better.


I still say multitouch is overrated, I got by just fine with resistive touch, and Opera Mobile on WinMo is a hell of a lot better than Safari ever was. Up until a few weeks ago I still used my WinMo 6.x phone and loved it. Sure the app library was starting to show it's age and it didn't have some of the killer apps due to the same reason but it was still very usable and competitive with modern devices. In fact I still miss parts of WinMo when using my Android phone. Say what you will but for many people WinMo did many things right and companies like HTC and Samsung released a heck of a lot of high quality kit running it.

They may have popularized the form-factor but all Apple did IMO was stick their logo on the back of a phone and call it the latest and greatest. I will admit their entry into the market influenced the other device makers but in many cases I disagree on that being a good thing. For instance I kinda like having hardware buttons, and preferably more than 2 usable ones. Not to mention the whole, you can't run more than one application at a time bullcrap, at least even Apple learned that one was retarded. If I want to do multitasking then let me, stop trying to protect me from myself just to make the phone seem faster. I could go on but I think you get the point.

It's some good kool aid


Out of curiosity, why do you love Opera mini? I use it on my non-smart phone, and I've never been particularly enthralled by it. It works, but I prefer Safari's responsiveness and rendering.


Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe ICS is switching to all-touch buttons.

Sure, iOS used to lack copy and paste, multitasking, and even apps themselves. But now it has these features, and they've been implemented really well. We can argue about the merits of iOS multitasking, but the point is iOS has had it for a while now.