The Cult of Apple

This is a little off topic for the blog, but I'm just kind of annoyed with everyone's friends at Apple, so consequently, I'm going to rant about it.

Everyone loves Apple these days. And in some respects, they should. They are one of the if not the most innovative company out there. Anyone who has used one of the computers is an instant convert. And geez, everyone has an I-Pod by now, don't they? Or an I-Phone? Or I guess the newest addition to the fleet, the I-Pad.

((Apple I-Mac aluminum//Courtesy: ephoto.wordpress.com))

We've (ok, me) been fans for awhile. I'm on my 3rd I-Pod and was an early convert to I-Tunes. I had the earliest I-Mac as well. I went away from the I-Mac when I bought my Gateway laptop back in 2003.

The Gateway was a custom order and worked for what I needed it to. Along with being my primary computer at home for a couple of years. It also went on the road with me, everywhere. All my work road trips around the country. My scuba diving trips to Nassau. Literally, it went everywhere, was durable and held up to a airplanes, airports and being jammed in a corner in my truck.

My wonderful Gateway died on me about two weeks ago. It didn't die in the literal sense, the hard drive was fine and it had no problem booting up. No, the problem was the monitor, which lit up enough for me to barely see that it booted up.

So, though we are the proud owners of a top-of the line 2009, 27 inch I-Mac, I can't say that I am incredibly happy with the fine folks in Cupertino, California at the moment.

The reason. I-Tunes. Yes, the all-purpose, multi-featured music program used by what seems like almost everyone.

What ticked me off you ask? I had I-Tunes on the old Gateway. Getting your music from an old computer to a new one (we bought a nice HP laptop/couldn't afford a macbook), is roughly akin to pulling a tooth.

Why I ask, does Apple make I-Tunes so easy to use yet virtually impossible to move? Yes...quite possibly the most annoying, difficult thing that you will ever have to do is try and move I-Tunes from one computer to another.

The program inherently balks at the thought. It doesn't want to Synch with your I-Pod. It flashes warning messages that you can't have I-Tunes registered on more than one computer. Okay, great.

Do they think that we want to start our libraries from scratch every time we buy a new computer? I say yes.

The reason: Money. They hope you'll start from scratch and start buying again from their library. Morally wrong, corporately greedy.

Okay....I feel better now. Really I do like their products. Love my little Nano. The I-Mac may be the greatest computer of all time. If we could have afforded it, we would have bought a MacBook Pro, but we couldn't justify it. That's fine. All I ask is for Steve Jobs to be respectful for us common folks, those of us who have drank the kool-aid. We really like your products...really we do...we just don't want to have to re-start from scratch every time we get a new one.

The video that started it all: Thanks You Tube