darkhunter

Not trying to start a fight or being sarcastic. Just asking a legit question as I simply wonder myself and wonder what it is I am missing or not getting. I just want to understand.

If I post wrong info let me know as I am not super up on my apple knowledge but have had a chance to use some of the products briefly in the past.

I do not have any strong feelings about any brand or whatever. I am not a "fanboy" of anything. I'll use android or windows, whatever is cheap/works for me at the time. I am not married to any 1 brand. But I just cannot understand the appeal of Apple ? I just do not get it ?

I mean here is my take on it. You pay sky high price, which I am not against, I do not mind paying more if something is truly better. But with apple it seems you pay premium price but what do you get in return for it ?

My problems with apple are everything is so closed and proprietary.

I mean you cannot do ANYTHING to your Itouch/phone whatever without going through itunes right ? I mean you cannot just plug it in a PC and transfer your files over same as you would to a USB drive for example.

Or maybe I am stupid/doing it wrong ?

Like if I have movies, like xvid I wanna watch I cannot even play these.
They all have to be converted to some apple format. Who wants to do that. And I did try it once years ago and when converted they were way out of sync.

But I had a nokia phone a few years back and I was able to just put my xvids on a microSD card, put the card in the phone and boom they played.
No converting no special software. Just load and play. I'm sure its probably like this for any Android/Windows windows item.

Speaking of SD card, non existent on Apple. You cannot add any storage. You cannot remove the battery (last I knew anyways) You cant do friggin anything.

I guess to me that's really frustrating. It just seems like apple is this closed un-usable device. They just want you to buy and use everything through them.

The only "pro" for apple I can think of us app choice, I assume they have more apps than anyone else (though android has to be close right?) but honestly what does this really mean? Any major app is probably available on all platforms. Do I really care about some obscure thing that is on apple only ?
I guess some would but me, no.

I dunno I just cannot wrap my head around it. I do not get why anyone would choose, (and be happy about it) apple over a much more usable and friendly android or windows device ?

Is it really just a brand/prestige thing for people? People just buy apple because its viewed as cool or luxury like how people buy certain clothing or something like Nike, etc ?

And if people do I guess that's fine, I am just asking is that the reason? is the cool factor all there is to it?

Or am I missing something about what apple does functionally ?

I mean even their tech is way behind, like all I hear about now is this apple pay thing but aint it been on Android for years now, the ISIS thing ?

I know the new iphone has a larger screen now but previously screen has always been smaller too.

I dunno I just do not get it. Help me understand ?

QtownDave

My experience with them is limited to a few iPads and the reason I like them is that they work. Plain and simply work. That's all. Itunes is annoying but it is what it is.

pseudoswede

If you want your head to explode, you can participate in this thread...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni/...ate-apple.html

darkhunter

Don't everything "work" though ? I mean technology get old fast. Any device gets slow after a while. But if you go and buy an Iphone 6 or a higher end android/windows device I mean don't they all work ?

I mean I know like on PC's windows used to crash a lot way back in the day, blue screen of death and what not but I don't think I have seen that in many years. Aside from a failure like a bad hard drive my PCs never crash for no reason.

And if you look at work in a practical manner to me apple "works" the least. Like I said you have to jump through so many hoops to view your files. Why go through that extra step/steps of transferring and maybe converting your files to play in itunes ?
Just seems like un-needed hassle ?

Also to clarify I am not someone who is all obsessed with benchmarks or something either. I do not sit with a stopwatch to test all my devices. So if so and so device beats some other device in the milliseconds I mean I can't say I care. I am not going to notice. As long as it seems fast to me that's all that matters. So maybe I have low expectations of "works" as well, I dunno.

darkhunter

Holy crap. wow, thanks I guess ? but wow 6000+ posts, I'm gonna be honest here, I am not sure I am gonna read all that. Does anyone have a cliff notes version?

I also don't "hate" apple. I mean I do not hate or madly in love with any one brand. I just do not get what apple "does" ? Like why are people so passionately and madly in love with it.

You want to go where?

I like apples. They are low in calories, high in dietary fiber, have a respectable amount of vitamin c. I personally am a fan of some of the older varieties such as Jonathan, Macintosh, Winesaps. Oh...this is the Technology forum...never mind.

pricesquire

On a serious note, count me in as one of those who like them 'because they just work'

I had PCs for the first 20 years of my life. My experience was they worked for 6-12 months, then they became bogged down with thousands of needless files/folders, ran slow, became virus ridden, and were shoddy/needlessly clunky versions of what Mac was putting out.

In addition to 'they just work' - I like:

Aesthetics/style

Easy of use

Simplicity

iPhone product in general

MacBook product in general

I'm sure I have another half dozen reasons, just too lazy to get into another long winded debate about it.

lhgreengrd1

Well, in the case of my computer, the main reason is, it's not a Microsoft PC.

Mac OS-X is a superior operating system to Windows. It's more robust and secure, and it's leaner, meaning it requires a smaller memory footprint, leaving more for applications to run.

And with careful shopping, I'd say I paid less than $150 more for my Mac Mini than I paid for a Windows PC having similar underlying hardware. A premium well spent, IMHO. And $50 of that would have gone to more RAM, had I bought a Microsoft PC, due to the memory footprint issue I mentioned above.

As far as my phone and tablet are concerned, I don't actually buy Apple, as I think Android is very comparable to it. My use of a Tablet is minimal, and I use a very cheapo one - which cost me well under $100. My phone is an HTC phone that runs Android, and is on a no-contract plan that meets my needs and is cost effective.

darkhunter

Fair enough, I have never used apple long term so maybe over the course of "years" an apple product would work better than a PC product.

But to me I still feel like anything "works" I personally do not see how apple is so much easier to use ? You turn on any device and don't they all get you on the internet and run the same apps really ?

I guess if someone has basically always been apple all their life and everything they own is the apple format then maybe life is a lot easier. You do not need to convert anything, its all already in itunes, etc.

I dunno fair enough to that. I guess I am not sure though why anyone would get locked into that so badly though. I just feel like you get so much more value elsewhere just the things like removable memory.

It just seems like people could do better on a non-apple platform and to me those devices are just as easy to use.

FlyingDoctorwu

Sigh. Asking this question is like throwing gasoline on a fire.... But I'll bite.

I'm very computer savvy. Computer science TA in college. Used UNIx and Sun spare stations in high school, silicon graphics stations in college. Even played with a NEXT cube some... Now I use windows xp machines at work(don't get me started but we do have a transition plan to windows 7 in place...) my work computers consistently crash on me, but it could have to do with the buggy EMR that's been forced on us, which apparently are not compatible with the recent windows versions. And don't get me started on windows 8..touch screen? Really? On a laptop. Ridiculous. I bought my mother in law a HP and the touch screen died, which is fine because the mouse still works.

But my home machine has always been an apple, except for 1 windows PC in the 90s. And, it's hard to explain but it's because they just work. And keep working. I still use Lightroom on an iMac from 2006. I've thought about replacing it but haven't really found the need to do so. There is no objective reason to buy an apple product. The specs aren't nearly as good and the price is always higher. But I have had zero down time on that machine. And, it still performs beautifully. My wife's laptop is from 2008. Also zero downtown. Works better today then when I got it because I put a ssd drive in.

My iPad is the second generation model. People wonder why iPad sales are down... It's because they just don't need to be replaced. Still works perfectly. I have a brand new kindle fire hdx and it to no end frustrates me. I can't seem to consistently bring up the home button when in using the reader. I put ice cream or honey graham or some sort of 4.x version of android on another tablet of mine that's 1 year old and it's been so buggy with a poor app performance that I want to throw it out the window. So for my video viewing, book reading needs I reach for my iPad.

Phones are a different story. I like my iPhone. It has evolved since my first one. I tend to also like the htc one products but have stayed within the apple ecosphere because I'm very happy with my other products. I do like that I've managed to get good value out of my old iPhones. Just this year I traded in an iPhone 4 to att (actually 3) for $200 credit. Bear in mind that that's the same price I paid for it on a two year contract 4 years ago. Apple products tend to depreciate much slower than other products. If you factor that into your value analysis than the price delta dissappears.

So buying an apple product isn't always about upfront cost. There are more intangibles. Walk in service at the Genius Bar, high resale value to name a couple. I'm would rate myself as extremely happy with my apple products. I do not view them as a status symbol but as products of convenience.

Fdw

darkhunter

I am much less familiar with MacOS than the portable things like Itouch/Phone.

Do you still have to use Itunes to do anything on a Mac PC or can you just instantly do things? Like I mean if you plug in a USB drive to a mac and you have pictures and videos can you just click them and play them or do you have to convert them to apples format ?

Also with Mac it is the opposite with Itunes as far as leading in app selection.

Many programs do not run on mac right? Or you have to wait a long time for a Mac release ? Like if someone was a gamer aren't most PC games windows only or at least at first or has that changed over the years ?

Again my Mac knowledge is super limited, sorry. I guess I was thinking more along phones and tablets when I posted.

lhgreengrd1

I've never used iTunes in my life. I use Photoshop Elements and Lightroom for my photos, and Premiere for videos. Most major software supports Mac and PC on the same release disk. I wouldn't know what power gamers do, I use my Mac for photo/video editing and organizing, e-mail, document production, and internet access. For those purposes, it's at least as strong a platform as any Windows PC.

It's simply not my experience that Windows PCs "just work". In fact, it was frustration with Microsoft's frequent, involuntary overnight security "upgrades", one of which blew away my system and required many hours to recover from, that caused me to switch over to Mac.

And as I said, I don't use an iPhone. I use an HTC Android-based no-contract phone.

gfunkdave

Darkhunter, you seem to be under the impression that it's impossible to do what you want with Apple devices. It really depends on your use case. If you want to do what Apple has designed the iOS devices for, in the way they have designed them to work, then they Just Work and everything is great. This is probably the case for 95% of the people out there. I'm typing this on an iPad, and it's a really nice little tablet.

I rarely if ever use iTunes for anything. Itunes for windows is awful bloatware.

Let's take the example of copying files, since you mention it. If I plug my iPad or iPhone into my computer, it shows as a separate drive with just photos viewable. I can copy my photos and videos to/from the iPad and computer. That's really the only file copying I really ever need.

As for video playback, ios does only support a certain format - I believe it's MP4 containers with H.264 encoding for the video and AAC for the audio. This is as close to a de facto standard for media as you're going to find. So it's never an issue.

Now, if you want to use custom ROMs and get under the hood to tweak every setting, I agree that non-jailbroken iOS is not ideal. I used to love doing that when I had an Android phone. But I have realized since using iOS that the extra flexibility just isn't that valuable to me, and I much prefer the stability and polish of he Apple world - plus the consistently high app quality.

Of course, iOS 8 has been a lot of buggy for me, so YMMV.

DenverBrian

I think you see a lot of Apple fans who got frustrated over Microsoft/Windows in the 90s and early 2000s for legitimate reasons. However, basing 2014 decisions on experiences in 1994 or 2004 can be problematic.

Sure, Apple's OS is leaner and uses less memory - but in a day and age when 8GB of RAM costs $50 and SSD hard drives make all processes super fast, who really cares anymore?

Viruses and malware appear to be targeting the Apple universe at an increasing rate, so I'm not sure the "more secure" argument holds up so much these days. Essentially, no electronic devices are really secure these days without significant firewall, malware and antivirus protection that's constantly updated.

There have been some anecdotes here about Windows systems crashing and being "blown away" by automatic updates; I'll counter that by saying I haven't seen a blue screen on any of my Windows systems since 2007, and routinely run my Windows 8.1 laptop and tablet for months at a time without having to restart. <shrugs>

That brings us to iTunes, which is a great illustration of Apple's closed-garden universe. I, like many consumers, love the idea of choice, and it's a big reason why I've never gone with Apple. If you're in love with Apple's elegance and style and OS, more power to you - just realize that that's the choice you're stuck with. I'll stick with Windows and Android for the broader choices in hardware, software and apps.

There are definitely some Apple fanboys out there that seem to have irrational emotional attachments to Apple such that they get VERY defensive. They contribute to a cultish flavor among Apple users that's a strong turn-off for me. I don't join cults.

ScottC

People use/like/buy it because they like it. They buy it because of brand loyalty and a continued perception that their platform is the best one. It is hard to switch to something new, and unless there is some pressing need for the "other side", most people won't bother switching.