When Apple follows standards they are a few steps ahead, and when they sidetrack them in favour of an non-standardized tech they are still thinking a few steps ahead?
Am I the only one who thinks Apple is treated slightly differently when it comes to...anything?
I'm not pro-anything, but sitting on the sidelines, it seems as though Apple is always right regardless of what they do, how they do it, or reasoning behind the decisions.
They're not always right, but they usually do things for a reason. Like how they've stuck with Core 2 in the 13" MacBook, 13" MBP, and MacBook Air.
Most other companies throw every new interface and bus in their machines without much thought. There's a reason most other computers are larger and have worse battery life.
edit: It also depends on the crowd you're in as well. If you ever read any overclocking and general hardware enthusiast forums you'll see that Apple is always wrong and behind. It's all about perspective, and different people care about different things. I used to want to upgrade everything all the time, tweak this and that, etc. Now that I want a machine that's more like an appliance I see more value in Apple products. I'm not going to buy an Apple desktop to overclock for a gaming rig, but I wouldn't consider any other notebook at this point in time.
Infallibility is a dangerous, if not deadly, attribute one could give any system.
I hope people should understand my point: I'm going to use the Canadian Health Care system as an example.
If you've watched Sicko (Michael Moore), you'd be under the impression that our Health Care system is tits. There are no wait times, everyone gets the transplant they deserve and we have a government that cares about its people first and foremost. Sadly, this is not quite the case.
Canadians believe that we have a great health care system, despite continual cutbacks, ten minute appointments, still a mostly paper-based family patient system, drug coverage cuts and some of the longest wait times in the world for cancer treatment. We slip down the "global list" quite often: http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html, http://www.thestar.com/article/526494
When our politicians are under budget pressure, it's our once grand Health Care System that sees cuts. No one is watching our precious Health Care System at the ground level.
There will be Canadians to defend it and offer it extreme fandom, ignoring the obvious decay. Not because we're specifically ignorant, but because a great Health Care system is part of our identity. We are not concentrating as to why we identify with it, just that we once did so we should always do so.
In the same way, Apple and Apple products can be apart of one's identity. With extreme fandom, Apple is less concerned about negative feedback. As an example of that, one could say that Apple was completely unprepared for the iPhone4 AntennaGate issue - even ignoring internal advisories about it's potential reception problems.
I hope to convey that, if you love a system, be more critical than you would be otherwise.
The problem with Apple is that people often have extreme opinions about them & their products, whether they love or hate them. Both sides are crazy.
There definitely are some Apple customers who look at them with a critical eye, and in my experience they are very critical of Apple. We expect the best from Apple products and don't hesitate to pipe up when Apple delivers less. We expect perfection but realize that Apple is still run by humans and the first revision of every product they ship isn't going to be made of unicorns and double rainbows. In fact many long time Apple customers never pick up the first revision of a new product, knowing it's going to have issues.
I don't think products from other companies are very different in that regard. But people jump and shout about every tiny detail about Apple products, whether it's good or bad. You have to take it all with a massive spoonful of salt, on both sides. It's unfortunate.
Apple has done a good job cultivating a user base that doesn't really care that much about the sausage making process. Whatever shows up on our new MacBook is what we're going to use. There's always a little Internet Riot over major changes but it fades once people realize it just doesn't really matter that much.
Yes, many people appear to feel they are right quite a lot of the time, that may be why a lot of consumers feel happy to part with their hard earned money (voting for them with their wallets if you will).
Apple does what it wants, and if that strikes a cord with the consumers then they will pay up, if its not what they are looking for they an go somewhere else. This will dictate where the technology leads us.
That's a bit oversimplified. The purchasing decisions that consumers make regarding Apple products are driven by the overall value of the complete product. That doesn't necessarily say anything about the individual components that make up each product.
For example, I suspect that people buy iPods despite the nonstandard Dock connector, not because of it.
Am I the only one who thinks Apple is treated slightly differently when it comes to...anything?
I'm not pro-anything, but sitting on the sidelines, it seems as though Apple is always right regardless of what they do, how they do it, or reasoning behind the decisions.