Three Reasons Why Apple Sucks But iStill Use Their Products

Apple has had their time in the sun, making multiple industries their bee-yotch. They've brainwashed us with their form over function marketing, siphoning benjamin after benjamin from our pockets. As an Apple user (and manipulated consumer), it's about I get this off my chest. Here are three simple reasons why Apple sucks. This is not to say that I don't use their products. Because I do. But I'm still saying they suck.


1. Their stuff breaks all the time

The first Apple product I had was an iBook. Let me interject here another thing that sucks about Apple, reason 1a, if you will...They put "i" in front of everything. What does the "i" even mean? Perhaps a sly testament to the culture of iSolation and loneliness they are promoting with their products? iJust don't know. Anyway, like I was saying, the first Apple product I got was an iBook, almost seven years ago. I was young and pathetically helpless against the Apple marketing machine. Want some proof of the dangerous extent of my devotion to the newly burgeoning cult of Mac? I bought an iCurve for my iBook; I got special speakers that matched my iBook; I bought an iSight camera; and I bought a separate keyboard and mouse. I paid the asinine prices for comparatively basic items just because they were licensed by Apple. How much was the iCurve, $40? I don't even remember, but still...$40 for, literally, a piece of PLASTIC! I went on to amass all sorts of media files, and then one day the computer started freezing. Then the next day it got worse, and the computer wasn't under warranty any longer (and I didn't pay for their stupid "Applecare" B.S., so I was essentially screwed). It got worse and worse until it wouldn't even turn on.

I've also had three (3) iPods. Why three? Because two of them broke. Inexplicably broke. They would make that sad face on the screen -- the face of death for any Apple user, because it means "bye bye." My second iPod, an iPod video I received as a birthday gift, stopped working after about a year. One day I turned on the iPod, all ready for some good jams, but the sad face popped up, accompanied with a high-pitched whine, like the machinery inside it was on overdrive for no reason.

Keyboards, too. Until about three months ago, I was using the new, very attractive and sleek, wireless Apple keyboard. I paid a bunch of money for it, 80 bucks I think, and less than a year later the "qwertyuiop" keys all stopped working.

And finally there's the iMac I currently own. Two summers ago it started doing this thing where horizontal lines would take over the screen. It was always totally random, sporadic, unpredictable, not to mention very unsightly. "Whatever," I would think to myself, "I can handle some horizontal lines." But then it started freezing, especially when I watched a video online. Then it would freeze and I'd lose everything I was working on in Garageband, MS Word, or something online. And nothing is more aggravating than losing your work. An incredible, sudden rush of hot and pressured anger fills your whole body, making it absolutely necessary that you punch something. In many of those instances I would punch the screen of my iMac. Eventually, my computer was freezing between 10 and 30 times a day, and by one morning at the end of the summer it was kaput. The boot-up process came to a halt, showing a symbol that apparently meant my hard drive was fried. I lost everything on that hard drive. The second time it happened to me with Apple computers. Nothing was recoverable. I had to get a new hard drive installed. (When I took it to the computer repair shop, there was still blood on the screen from me punching it.) It still freezes all the time, even with the new hard drive. I know it's inevitable that the new hard drive is destined to the same fate of its forebears. I should probably start backing up my stuff now, but I'm too lazy.

Is it too much to ask to expect an iPod or an Apple computer to remain functional and even upgradeable? Apple hardware costs way more than other hardware with comparable specifications. And what do you get for the money? A lesser product in a prettier package, that's what. Sure, Microsoft products don't work, but Apple's just break altogether.


2. Apple has become so popular that it's not cool anymore

Go to any college campus, watch the students walking from one class to another, and bear witness to the domination Apple has over our youth. Be party to the sheer ridiculousness that is American consumer culture, one where our youth are increasingly disconnected from the world around them and walking around like zombies. Every kid the same with a white cable dangling from their ears. It's like standing in line behind a bunch of people in a cafeteria, with a tray in your hands, like an animal at the trough. Something about Apple's ubiquity strips people of their identity.

Quick experiment: It's almost 1PM in my small college town. I'll go outside and walk around and count how many people I see with headphones on. The number will be probably be lower than usual since many students don't have classes on Fridays, but I'm gonna check anyway. I'll be wearing headphones myself so that's one. Alright. Here I go. I'll be back soon. I am just going to pick up some food from State Street, and I'll be counting...

Wow that was disappointing. I was out for 20 minutes on this mid-day errand, and... Okay, well I probably walked by at least 100-200 people, and only four did I see wearing headphones (counting me). And two of the four were big fat nondescript black headphones. The only person I saw with Apple earbuds was a guy sitting at the window bar at Qdoba, eating a burrito by himself and staring out at the street with a blank face.

I have to admit, I was originally thinking that at least 20 percent of the people I'd see would have headphones on. That's what it's usually like. Yesterday when I was walking around downtown almost everyone had earbuds in. It was enough to make me sheepishly take mine out and stow them in my pocket. In that instance I felt reduced to a zombie, roaming around, disconnected to everything except Apple's domination.


3. Steve Jobs is annoying

We've all heard about this guy and the way he runs things. You could consider his products to be metaphors for his managing style. Pretty exterior with a crappy interior. Good advertising and presentation, but behind the scenes is a corporation ruled by a ruthless tyrant. Like a true A-hole, he's known to park in the handicap space at the office. Maybe they should create a cancer space so he's not confused. He treats his employees like poop. And he obviously doesn't value his customers very much beyond how they provide him footing in his insatiable quest to dominate all media and technology. If he liked us, he wouldn't sell music that only plays on his products. And I'm tired of his jeans and black turtleneck. It looks stupid, and it reeks of some sick ploy to make him iconic. The fanfare and hooha over every single Apple product unveiling is getting old. Always just minor upgrades in products that we don't need, but he calls them revolutionary and world-changing while we sit there live-blogging and live-drooling. Come on! We all already have portable music players, and cell phones, and digital cameras, and some of us have all three in one! Why do we need MORE? Oh, I know: because the "old" one that's only a few months old will break tomorrow, or we'll deem it out of fashion in light of how hopelessly addicted we are to his non-mutating strain of his iCrack.