20070312,00 — Seriously, Apple

Get It Try It

This is a red letter day. It's already marked on the calendar. For next year and the year after. 12 March. A day to remember. A day to come to one's senses. To pinch oneself. And remember what one mustn't forget.

It took over one month to get it here. The first of what were to be several Apple Intel boxes. Over one month. First the money had to be transferred to England and from there to the US. Then arrangements had to be made to deliver the hardware to a naval base. And from there have it transported to us.

It took over one month and nearly $200 in telephone calls and other incidental expenses. And then of course the cost of the computer itself: another $2000.

$2200 flushed down the head. For naught. A brand new 64-bit Core 2 Duo MAC BOOK PRO. And it looks good all right. And it boots fast too. And the gadgets on screen look better than ever.

But it just keeps shutting down.

In the two hours we struggled with it before we gave up we had fourteen random shutdowns. This on a new box where the issues were to have been resolved long ago. Yeah right. Fourteen random shutdowns in two hours. A brand new box.

People make fun of Windows users losing data? Is this any better? No - it's a thousand times worse. Random shutdowns means the computer just reboots. You see it freezing and that cold shiver goes up your spine and then the screen goes black and in a few seconds you see that ugly Finder all over again. What fun.

If we had nothing better to do and this was only a waste of time it would still be a waste of time. But we spent over $2000 on this piece of shit.

And the fourteen random shutdowns don't include the near two dozen application crashes and THREE KERNEL PANICS.

In our five years using Apple hardware we've had one kernel panic - probably due to a sensitive system file being zapped - and nigh on no application crashes whatsoever.

But that was PPC hardware and that was back when the name Apple meant something. That was before Steve Jobs got his knickers in a wedgie and had to squirm out of the corner he'd got boxed into.

Before he started implementing his notorious 'fuckem' customer policy for real.

Hear this and hear this good: Apple have hardware issues they either can't or won't resolve. You might be lucky but odds are too good you won't be. Apple have the highest return rate in the industry right now. A good third of all Apple computers that ship - especially laptops - are faulty and have to be returned.

And it's not enough getting crap for your hard earned money: you have to get dicked over by Apple support. Who will do all in their power to ignore your issues and basically encourage you to toss your piece of shit Apple computer on the heap and go out and buy a new one.

Seriously, Apple: you suck. The only reason anyone can be interested in you unproductive turds is you once had NeXTSTEP. But you're such clumsy oafs you ruined even that. As you ruined 'your' Unix. Which by the way is an industry first: Microsoft may have a crappy operating system but they never had the head start you had - and if they'd had it they wouldn't have made such a mess of it.

No, you take the cake: you took a great operating system and a great GUI and screwed up both. As only you could do. Proving once and for all that when it comes to total asses in the IT industry, you're all alone at the top.

And now even your famed 'Apple quality' hardware is shit. Manufactured in China. To nonexistent quality control standards. As if someone from Cupertino is out there watching what they're doing. Oh yeah. You don't care because the head honcho whose haircut you copy told you so.

It's far better to buy a cheap ass PC and load it with Ubuntu and run Windows if you have to through VMWare. Then you can address a big market demographic instead of these twerps with their 2%.

Seriously, Apple: you suck. For years we've been hearing stories about Steve Jobs. How he's such an ASSHOLE. People telling us they run into him in town and the way he behaves - that he's such an ASSHOLE.

And we've always said 'we don't know that'. That we'd reserve our opinion because we don't know and we're not about to take anyone's word for it. We hear what people say but that's it - we wouldn't claim the same ourselves.

But that was then and this is now. And now we know enough. Steve Jobs is an ASSHOLE. Anyone who can lead a company down such a self destructive path and totally screw customers left and right - think about it.

When hardware issues surface Apple delete all mention of them from their message boards. What kind of company is that? If people have issues with the junk Apple are selling them and mention it - their posts get deleted?

And Apple do nothing about it? Maybe Fatso Schiller comes out and insults the consumers again? That's good company policy? THAT'S A COMPANY YOU WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH?

If ordinary people knew what we know: if they knew what's really going on at Apple - then those iPod owners so eager to get a crappy 'consumer grade' MacBook or any other Apple piece of shit computer wouldn't do it. They'd know better.

But they just don't see. The Steve Jobs Hype Machine is running on all cylinders. They'll get screwed too. Steve Jobs will make more money and all these people will lose their money and not have computers to use for it either.

The best customer is a repeat customer. But Apple don't believe that anymore. They believe they can go on marketing, and screwing consumers, and doing more marketing - and public memory will be on an MTV level and next year they'll screw everybody again.

Some people say Apple used to be a quality company. But not now. Now they're the biggest purveyors of junk in the Universe™ because they HYPE their stuff as quality - even as it can't really measure up to the PC.

And there's a rumour: that Apple would really love it if more third party showed an interest in their platform. But that's only a rumour - and a silly rumour at that. For how can any serious software house invest in Apple when Apple don't invest in themselves? They have less market share than before the Windows revolution. They have absolutely no interest in the big business and government sectors as before. They make crappy products as even Nagel would vomit over.

And they lock the platform in and keep trying to push third party out of the market, not in. And without sensible reliable hardware there is no way anyone will ever take Apple seriously.

We certainly won't: not ever again. We've learned our lesson.

Six years ago we began talking about a migration: a migration off of Windows and to a better world. Initially thought to be Red Hat Linux. Thus the name of these diaries. But somewhere along the way we got waylaid.

How did we get waylaid? Bad PC hardware quality. In contrast to which Apple shone. Back then at any rate. But today that's all changed. Odds are better than ever you'll get a piece of crap for a computer no matter the brand.

But at least the other OEMs aren't pretending they're selling BMWs and charging you an arm and a leg for them.

And after all: it's only a computer™.

Seriously, Apple: you had your chance. Tenfold over. You blew it. As anyone with an ounce of brains suspected you would. You're unique in the world of IT, Apple: no one comes close to screwing up as bad as you. No one.

So the journey's just begun. The journey that began back in the summer of Code Red. The journey away from Microsoft Windows. For Windows it's not - but at this impasse almost anything is better than what Apple have to offer.

And so we journey on.