“In some circles, Apple is roundly despised,” John Martellaro writes for TheStreet. “Is it because the company makes poor products? Clearly that’s not so. Is it because some people don’t personally like Apple’s executives? It’s really hard to dislike someone you’ve never met.”
“Is it because some people don’t like Tim Cook’s execution and vision? Apple’s performance and financials are excellent and there’s a growing list of successful products he’s shepherded to market,” Martellaro writes. “Actually, there’s more to the despise thing than meets the eye. I can explain.”
“When it comes to creating products that other people use, complexity has its benefits for the creator and for others in its ecosphere. Complexity bestows power, control and financial opportunity,” Martellaro writes. “Apple removes complexity, and that creates havoc in certain circles. For example, think about IRS support forms with their unfathomable logic and tedious calculations. The difficult logic can obscure inconvenient truths about tax law. Fear of mistakes, perhaps an audit, is created. Books and applications spring up that make a profit explaining to you what you couldn’t figure out before.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Going further: A giant industry exists that is devoted to helping people “do their taxes” – for a fee, of course. These people and companies band together to form “interest groups” which, of course, contribute to those politicians who promise to perpetuate the status quo, i.e. not derail their gravy train. More complexity is encouraged.
They’re just like mom and pop “PC repair” shops, corporate IT departments, and the anti-virus industry. No wonder these leeches hate the Mac, OS X, iOS, iPad, and iPhone. Microsoft’s incompetence is their lifeblood.
Now, whenever somebody with common sense comes along and starts talking about simplifying taxes in some way – just as Apple simplifies computing, content acquisition, and so much more – then the threat must be destroyed by whatever means possible.
Most tech journalists despise Apple. In their minds, Apple makes products for the mainstream at the expense of the geeks, and so the geeks (and by extension tech journalists) mostly see Apple as an enemy threatening their way of life. It’s why they cling to [a] geekier platform like Android, no matter how junky or far behind it might be. – Bill Palmer, January 6, 2014
Of course, as with Apple and so many other things, we also can never overlook the pernicious effects of Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance.
Apple should create an “Genius mode” that allows consumers to “turn on” more complexity in their customization choices, if they want.
Too complex.
too complex for you. Apple often locks down its OS and apps far too much. the cries for Apple to stop dumbing down its products have been growing louder these last few years, and with very good reasons.
Just sudo to root in terminal and have all the complexity you could possibly want. If you want a more complex gui experience you could always write your own apps.
@ gold hawk – I respectfully disagree. I am a power tech user and have been for a long time. As I get older I realize that tech should just work without messing around with it too much. I have more important things to do. So do you – I just don’t think that you have figured that out yet.
From the Finder, hold Command and type G.
Then type “/Applications/Utilities” and press Return.
Then double-click the “Terminal” application.
Have fun.
Or…cmd-space bar and just start typing “ter” and hit return key.
:shrug:
Or: click on Spotlight in the top right corner of the menu bar and type “term” and hit return. Or that just to simple? 🙂
That’s called the Terminal and it’s been there since day 1.
Yes, that works on a Mac, for OS functions only. How about the dumbing down of Mac apps? How about iOS, which at times feels like an ugly implementation of OSX with both hands tied behind your back?
For iOS, Jailbreak, install Terminal, then have fun.
And if you install SSH on iOS, for the love of Jobs, change your phone’s super user account password.
People should be suing M¢ in addition to Target; who has the deepest pockets?
… and the reason that analysts hate Apple is that Apple does such a great job of making money that there should be nothing for an analyst to say about Apple. The advice ought to be buy AAPL, hold AAPL and sell AAPL when you need the money.
However many analysts work for companies where they only benefit financially when stocks are bought or sold, so simply buying a promising stock and holding onto it would not make those analysts rich.
The solution is to hype up irrelevant stories and make out that there is something wrong with Apple so that people get scared into selling their shares. Then hype up how well Apple is likely to do so that people buy Apple shares again. All the time that people are being fooled into buying and selling shares, those analyst’s employers are making a nice income.
Great article. It’s what I’ve been thinking for quite some time now but just couldn’t put it into words like this guy has.
Of course it’s despised. Think of those 90+% of PC users who’ve used PCs for decades all of a sudden learning their “choice” was wrong, very wrong. They resent that fact. They are annoyed that they spent hundreds of hours fixing their PCs all those years, becoming “expert” at it, and now finding out it’s all useless knowledge. They can’t commiserate with each other at parties comparing how much suffering they’ve had to undergo while cleaning their PCs from viruses.
Yes, it’s idiotic, but we’ve all seen PC users compare their suffering like a badge of honor.
Oh that’s a load of BS. Talk about exaggerating
No exaggeration he paid me from the heart
I will no longer commiserate with those people but try and lift them up
Thank you can C4 clearly elucidating this issue
cheers
was i drunk or was the spell check failing?
eMo
Thursday, January 16, 2014 – 8:19 pm · Reply
No exaggeration he pegged me from the heart!!!!
I will no longer commiserate with those people but try and lift them up
Thank you KenC for clearly elucidating this issue
cheers
Rate This
I think it’s just mere jealousy..the benchmark of the lesser mind. What I like to call “The Salieri Syndrome.”
typical apple fan: everyone else is an idiot! Great argument..
pretty much, shill.
your opinion is erroneous this way:
1. it is not Typical Apple fan!
ANY fan of anything argues like that!
so simply calling Apple fans typical is simply a simpleton way to dismiss them & only proves your thoughtless view.
you do not show a logical, smart counter-argument.
2. if Apple has such enemies in media & other circles, it is natural for Apple fans to DEFEND it!
3. Apple simplifies everything. so, how are Apple fans incorrect? All Apple competition is flummoxed! Either because they have no clue what to invent next and just copy. Or because they have no clue how to simplify things elegantly and humanize tech. Or they simply lie in ad campaigns as they have no vision, no creative intelligence. Or they enjoy complexity and complicating, not simplifying consumer’s lives, as they profit more from after-sales, tech support & forcing extra costs due to complications upon laymen.
To some extent you are correct, jealousy and the unwillingness to actually have an experience or make a decisions, right or wrong by themselves.
Similar to people who say things about others vehicles. “Oh, I hate BMW’s or I hate Audi’s”, even though they have never actually owned one or even driven one. These people have preconceived opinions or bigotry towards people or products, not for any good reasons but just because someone or something told them to think this way. Many times it’s not based on their own experiences but someone else’s or by someone who has influence over them.
Sad really but that is life and a life without true freedom to experience or make one’s own decisions. To many people are so afraid to fail or make a mistake they can’t or won’t without having something or someone to blame if it doesn’t work.
So the haters can hate but really, deep down they are the ones who are afraid, insecure and on deaths bed will wish to live just a little longer so they can make their own decision and truly live.
Sorry for my rant.
Analysts hate Apple because they have been wrong about Apple every time. If they can bring it down they can save face.
exactly, “Why do you listen to that ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ anyway, you cretans!”
Ok,ok….you just finished watching Amedaus. We get it! I would have thought it was the wrong movie for a tea partying kind of guy.
well, I’ve been playing classical piano for at least thirty years before “Amadeus” was released, so Salieri’s jealousy was hardly a news bulletin to me. However, I hope you enjoyed the film.
Thanks for the 1 star and the correction of Amadeus….truly the mark of a great mind.
Now excuse me I have to prepare for tonights concert.
of course, maestro, sorry for the intrusion. (however I did not rate your comment.)
I know quite a few Apple haters. I’d chalk it up to resentment of success, but they hated Apple 15 years ago when it was struggling. They twist themselves in knots to deny that devices like the iPhone and iPad were truly innovative and are now widely copied, and they are determined to find proof that Apple does not truly deserve its recent success. Meanwhile they use knock-offs of Apple concepts like Playbooks and Android phones as a point of pride or something.
Sample conversation:
“Unlike the iPhone, Android is customizable.”
“OK, well, tell me, how do YOU customize your phone?”
“Mutter…mutter…screen background…”
“Really? That’s it? You can of course do that on an iPhone.”
“Yeah…well…I COULD customize more if I wanted to. That’s the point!!”
Sheesh.
Genius is simplicity.
less is more.
Actually…
Less is more.
God is in the details.
Content dictates form.
10 points for anyone who can guess who said that.
=:~)
You did.
Where’s my points? 🙂
“less is more” is Mies Van Der Rohe…thought the second one was “the devil is in the details.” Dunno third.
Stephen Sondheim
10 points and your choice of coconut! 🙂
=:~)
This Idea would never even be a topic of discussion if it were not for the FUD campaign being produced by paid bloggers funded by Apple’s competition.
It is about money and interviews now. The lack of CEO interviews and what has again become almost no TV advertising from Apple make them a target. If the talking heads piss off Samsung then they loos their paid advertiser. However, you will notice almost all the talking heads pushing Samsung and Google Android are Apple iOS device users along with all their family.
Tim Cook does not do regular guest CEO interviews. Neither did Steve Jobs.
They are trying not to bite the hand that feeds them. And Samsung and Android feeds them and they pass along the BS to us.
And don’t forget about those server farms!
At a Billion (with a capital B) dollars apiece!
Having used only Apple products since 1985 and being an evangelist, I may have hit the wall.
Since upgrading to iOS 7 for my iPhone 5 and getting an iPad Air, I can’t stream video longer than 2 hrs before my WiFi throttles from 22 Mbps down to .6 making any video impossible until I reset WiFi in Settings on the mobile devise. Don’t even have to restart my router because the problem/bug is IMHO in iOS 7.
It isn’t my ISP, or my router because this only happens with iOS 7. After weeks of calls to AppleCare, I get no admission they’ve ever heard of this issue.
Yet as a rough indicator, if you Google “iOS 7 WiFi problems” you’ll get approx. 150,000,000 search returns many on Apple Discussions. Yet Apple claims no knowledge!
Even tier 2 Senior Tech Advisors. I can’t even get them to search Apple Discussion being told they aren’t allowed to refer to Discussions to research call-in problem claims. They can on their private time only.. During work they can only refer to internal memos. So no iOS 7 – WiFi bug memo? Then, problem doesn’t exist.
After dropping $1,000ish bucks on my new iPad with AppleCare, and weeks of calls and trouble shooting all to no avail, not even a suggestion to take my iPad to a Genius Bar, Apple used to always suggest at least this when they were stumped and even offer to make an appt for you.
With all the user out cry, and Apple complete unawareness or trouble shooting ideas or Genius Bar or replacement discussion or even reviewing my LAN configuration… It sure feels like they know and are just not talking or admitting.
So am I starting to despise? That’s a bit strong, but I’m pointed that way.
speaking of “FUD campaign being produced by paid bloggers funded by Apple’s competition.”
lol, the script is always the same:
• unregistered user
• open with declaration of devotion to from years of patronage.
• Insert ambiguous, questionable “problem.” “memos” is a nice touch.
• apply the the coup de grace with the lame “overpriced” meme.
• close with a heartfelt plea for reader’s understanding.
well done, Shmeris. Goebbels would be proud.
the script reminds me of the old Penthouse Forum letters..
“I thought I’d never be writing to Penthouse, but I was shopping for shoes, when a buxom saleswoman approached me…”
Screw you, bot.
iOS7 reeks. Many problems were introduced. Hideous interface is just the tip of the iceberg. Longtime Apple users are not impressed.
YOU are the one bringing no facts to the table here. It used to be that Apple was happy to hear feedback that helped improve products. You seem to think that there are only two perfect things in the world: you and Apple. Well, you’re wrong. Apple software quality has slipped, and you never had it. Stop with the fanboy act already.
zzz.
Where are your facts, Paul?
iOS7 reeks. Many problems were introduced. Hideous interface is just the tip of the iceberg. Longtime Apple users are not impressed.
Where is the data to support your childish rant? What problems? All I see are your personal opinions.
What a douche.
Geez, dude gets down-voted for speaking ill of apple. This is one of the worst places on the internet!
see ya’.
No difference when Apple is spoken of positively on cnet, and gets bashed in the comment section.
This is a pro Apple site, so what do u expect. At the same time there are readers here that are objective and even critical of Apple because of what of the standards that Apple has set in the past.
Ok, not going to slam you…but why are you so sure it’s not your router? In my experience, dropout can easily be solved by changing your router settings and/or the channel. Inter channel interference is common from many household electrical appliances…my wife’s hair dryer for one! Your ISP is likely not without blame either…sustained loading can create problems if your connection is not optimised at their end. I’d go further…not all ISPs are created equal.
Have a go rather than blaming your idevice or iOS.
First of all, a search with the criteria you listed does return 150 million hits, which, by checking random pages in the results, all results of “WIFI”, “iOS”, “7”, and “problems” before Google truncated the search. I suggest you may want to refine your search a bit. Secondly, I cannot duplicate your issue on my iOS7 Air or on my iPhone 5. I suspect there is not a problem on iOS or Apple would work with you.
Every seen “Tucker” the movie?
wonderful film.
Apple products are not without complexity, but 90+% of that complexity is hidden from the average user in day-to-day use of the Apple product. But Apple has an official, trained cadre of professionals (the Apple Consultants Network) to deal with the unavoidable complexity that happens either at setup time, or when the inevitable unusual situation happens.
I tend to wear my ACN shirts a lot (with the Apple logo and “Consultants Network” on the front) just because of the great reaction I get from people when they see it. You’d think it was actually a large “S” in an irregular pentagon.
(Can you imagine if Microsoft set up such an organization, and those consultants wore the Microsoft logo, what the public reaction would be? Somehow I don’t think it would be quite as positive.)
People don’t despise Apple. That is so much nonsense. Are you worried about the PR machinations of other platforms against the market leader? Do you really care what other people use or say?
Apparently some do. This writer and 200 commenters were taking the question seriously even back in 2011:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/06/why-do-people-hate-apple
Comments are closed after all this time, but the final, 268th comment resonates and burns.
I’ve had conversations with people before about how there are huge swathes of the population employed to do f all. I speak to people at companies I deal with and leave them with something to do and then hours/days later it hasn’t been done, meanwhile I’ve gone through dozens of files and am sitting around waiting for other people to do simple tasks. Many, many years ago, before the rise of computers, when my father first started working he was chastised by his colleagues for finishing his week’s allocation of work in less than a day and making everyone else look bad. He quit in the end.
I don’t want to live in a world where you’re having to work at a break neck pace all day every day, but we live in a world of complication and inefficiency where it seems for every step forward we take a couple back, then hop from one foot to the other and fall over.
In my opinion IT departments are the biggest haters of Apple.
I work in the hospital that banned Apple products 15 years ago. We were saddled with terrible PCs that you could buy your local drugstore for $500 but for which the hospital paid $3500. The remaining $3000 went into service contracts.
I have owned Apple Macs for 30 years and have required very little service .
Simplicity does indeed threaten a lot of rice bowls
IT departments and Tech writers are known haters of Apple. The ones that REALLY burn my ass are those people who crap on Apple simply to be different.
Hey, if everyone owns an Apple, the it is not cool. I must be different so therefore I will buy a Samsung phone and tell everyone why it am so smart because it is SOOOO much better.
Didn’t you know Aple copied the OS from Samsung? That Apple copied the Galaxy phone look? That Apple only has a few apps. etc etc?
Sigh…………
Occam’s Razor is also a practical tenet.
it is not only apple for years our prison industry has been keeping itself fed by booking the rooms with pot smokers. now arizona for instance has 95 % of its prisons privately rin needing new customers they turn to jan brewer to fill the rooms with little brown people awaiting deporting, Sarah Palin made a deal to send extra alaskan prisoners to arizona for housing then she quits as governor and buys herself a house in that state. follow the money in any industry and you will find entrenched interests. apples problems are the least of it
you need to lie down.
Heard an advert today, Government sponsored, on how to create simple and remember passwords to help you secure your digital life… couldn’t understand a word of it, in fact I thought it was a spoof that was going to have a simple punchline for some alternative simplifying product, nope it was serious. A great advert on behalf of all those who want to obscure the truth with complexity.
I teach in an IT environment, and there is no hatred of Macs. A good IT professional doesn’t care what box they serve.
Now, there are complaints and many are justified. Replacement components for many Mac products are simply eyepoppingly expensive. Try replacing an out of warranty power supply on a Cheese Grater Mac Pro. IT professionals need to be able to fix hardware without the gauntlet that Apple parts ordering puts them through including outrageous wait times for replacement parts. And don’t squawk at me about that because I have personal experience with those dealings, where Apple will dole out parts to its own repair shops before it sends parts for IT techs.
Apple also EOLs many products before their utility is dried up.
In the real world, hardware breaks; from wear, from stress, from age, from idiot users. You can’t take production machines offline for the often very long time it takes to procure repairs.
While I despise using generic Windows boxes, repairing them is a simpler process than it is doing the same thing for my Macs. Even the idiots at Dell understand this.
In the modern IT shop, supporting machines in daily use is not the problem.
Finally, you can’t equip everyone with a Mac. Clerical people don’t need iMacs to input business letters.
I think Apple scared the crap out of a lot of business during its rise to $700. It had way to much money ($140 Bn) for anyone competing against them. Apple’s profit margin was/is (35-40%) and no debt. There was no one who could play in their sandbox. The competition looked at the changes Apple “forced” on the music industry and they were scared.
2013 was the year of FUD for the sole purpose of trying to humble Apple. The FUDites succeeded in humbling the Apple bulls causing the stock to crash down to $400. However, Apple just kept on doing what they do best. Make great products that people want.
2014 is the beginning of a reality check. The bulls are starting to come back. In two weeks the king may be returning. If there was an increase in the profit margin then sit back and watch the explosion.
We here at MDN have been entirely aware of the IT ‘professional’ factor that locks out anything not-Microsoft in Enterprise businesses. This cow-think, ‘gotta protect my job’ herd mentality was one of the biggest factor that killed off Xserve and motivated Apple to neglect and drastically drop the price of OS X Server software. At the time of OS X 10.4 Tiger, it certainly wasn’t due to quality. At that point OS X Server was incredibly cheaper and better than the dreck Microsoft was foisting to the Enterprise.
At one point it was proven it was proven that a company could reduce its IT support staff by a factor of 10 (ten) by switching to Apple gear and OS X. That’s scary to selfish-stupid IT ‘professionals’.
‘it was proven’ that it’s lunch time for my brain for my brain. 😉
In the early days, Steve Jobs frequently referred to his desire for his products to be an “appliance” – simple, useful, straightforward, not complex, and he wanted to “make it great” (which was really made up of much of the aforementioned characteristics). While many have valued this thinking and moved into this camp, others (after all these years) still rail against it…out of fear of loss of their investment (purchases, training, job), because they like to tinker, or out of lack of understanding. Some of those have eventually come around…after learning the hard way. Stay the course Apple. Even more will come around…eventually.