Haters Abound

[alep85]

My HTC "brick" is both lighter and smaller than the iPhone, yet does all the same things and a lot more (3rd party applications, Java, "real internet", IM, GPS) so I really don't think it's fair to say that people are jealous of your iPhone because they have something else that works just as well and has a lot of other things going for it.

This is part of the reason you get hated on...you hate on everything that doesn't have an apple logo. Two way street, my friend.

Some of the HTC "bricks" are decent, as I once owned one, but their touchscreen is VERY inferior. You win and you lose with every product, so a two way street is a good way to put it. I just tend to support American engineering; even if the iPhone isn't made in the USA, at least most of the design and implementation of it was done here (unlike HTC and the majority of other cell phone manufacturers).

 

[macaddicted]

ooo, yes, you all live such tortured existences because someone doesn't stroke your ego every five seconds about your choice of computer products. Seriously. Get lives. If you were really appreciative of the product, it wouldn't MATTER to you what other people think.

All part of the apple hype that apple is some kind of "lifestyle choice."

iPhone owners DO think they're envied.

"Comes with the territory?" Please. If you let what someone thinks of your phone or computer get you down enough to whine about it on the internet, never mind that there are hundreds of people who "feel your pain," you need serious therapy.

Yes, I have a mac, but no, I don't feel superior about that.

Well, as stated above, for those of us who owned and sang the praises of Macs in the late 80's to late 90's there was a lot of hate for Apple. One bad CEO after another, you couldn't tell the Macs even with a scorecard, and Apple was acting as an early adopter of the "Longhorn" method of OS development. Unless you were a graphic artist telling someone you used a Mac was like telling them you rode a Vespa to work. The lowest point was Bill Gate$ showing up at MW Expo.

So for those of us who suffered through the Michael Dell "Sell the company and return the money to the stockholders" comments, or the buyout of the quarter rumors there is a certain sense of "If you're not with us you're against us" mentallity. You needed it to be a Mac owner, and being a Mac owner in large part meant you had to become an evangelist.

That became part of the Macintosh, and now Apple, culture. Now that Apple is cool I'm not going to ask for permission to do what I, and many others, had to do as consumers to try to keep Apple alive. We're 1969 Mets fans, amazed and lost in the glory of the bum's we loved being reborn as champions.

Apple has risen from the ashes and I'm going to say "I told you so" to as many people as I can. You can argue the aesthetics of the products, the usability of the UI, and so forth, but for the most part Apple does create a better class of product. Not always the best, not always with every feature that the user may want, but generally the comprimises that Apple makes are better than those of the other companies.

 

[killerrobot]

So what's the difference between everyone bloating about Apple now and call everything else inferior, and everyone bloating about PCs in the 90s and call everything else inferior?

Pride comes before the fall.

 

[A Pittarelli]

For those who aren't old enough to have been Mac users in the mid-80s, welcome to it. People will go out of their way to tell you how much they hate the entire concept and declare you a fool right to you face for having bought into it. Then, in a couple of years, when everybody is knocking off the iPhone, those same people will extoll the virtues of their half-baked imitations, and then proclaim you to be arrogant for reminding them that Apple did it first.

lol just like the ipod

 

[IJ Reilly]

lol just like the ipod

A little, but the iPod effect was somewhat different. It started off very slowly, available only to Mac owners at first, and then to Windows users with bad software. By the time the iPod really broke out as a product, it had been around for a couple of years. The iPhone is attracting much more attention at launch, more like the Mac did in '84. People feel like they must have an opinion, to take sides on whether it's a "good thing" or a "bad thing."

 

[JNB]

Just showed mine off at the office today and...

Everybody from the Pres on down (mostly management types, too) were all drooling. Most of them were kicking themselves in the ass for not going for it by Saturday.

Still won't get IT to open up IMAP, though...

 

[Agathon]

It's the smell of fear.

For whatever reason, some people are worried that the iPhone will do what the iPod did. I don't think that's likely, given the different market, but some people are scared.

Weird thing to be scared about, but there you go.

 

[DiamondMac]

IMO, the media has been 98% positive for the iPhone so we really dont have much to complain about.

Those that are negative are getting a bit more press because they are SUCH A SMALL MINORITY

 

[D1G1T4L]

The thing that annoys me the most is when I see people start going off on things that iPhone doesn't do.

You know what.............I know it didn't do that. I still purchased it and am VERY happy with it. In no way has Apple told me the phone could do something that it couldn't.


Awww the iPhone isn't any good! It didn't make my coffee this morning

PS: Not that I'm against them adding more and more software support as the iPhone matures.

 

[aricher]

My PC-based IT crew here at work were all haters until I gave them the hands on demo today. They're all sold now. Only one out of ten was still close-minded about it and I think that's just due to his intense hatred of all things Apple.

 

[aimfire]

Then you have basic haters. Just last night while out with friends at dinner, an arrogant BB owner dismissed the iPhone for not having push e-mail. He complained, "I want my email immediately. I'm a businessman." Great, the iPhone is not a business phone, so enjoy your freaking BB already

Exactly my feelings...
So much of the criticism seems to come from the business users - and iPhone was not intended for business use, although you certainly could get by with it, depending on what you need it to do.

 

[DiamondMac]

Exactly my feelings...
So much of the criticism seems to come from the business users - and iPhone was not intended for business use, although you certainly could get by with it, depending on what you need it to do.

I think it was intended for a slight business use.

Full corporate use? Of course not.

But I do think it was built up as a great Apple product with ease of use for contacts/calenders/email/music

 

[eddietr]

Well, OS X is a good OS (while OS 9 was a toy).

yeah, I would agree. I got sick of Mac OS, too around System 7.x and I ended up going with NeXT and then Linux until OS X came along. That's when I switched back. If Macs were still using the old MacOS, I would not be using Macs.

 

[eddietr]

Well, as stated above, for those of us who owned and sang the praises of Macs in the late 80's to late 90's there was a lot of hate for Apple.

...

You can argue the aesthetics of the products, the usability of the UI, and so forth, but for the most part Apple does create a better class of product. Not always the best, not always with every feature that the user may want, but generally the comprimises that Apple makes are better than those of the other companies.

Excellent post.