If You Hate Apple and Macs, Read This

I completly agree and think its fair. i dont like apple products but im not going to take the piss because of it. i choose and buy what i want and what is suitable for me.

To be honest I'm quite embarrassed that things around here have gotten so bad that it's taken the top man to step in and explicitly state to his visitor base "grow the fudge up".

And I heartedly agree.

There is a fine line between calling an author out on bias and just flaming him/her because of a positive Mac article. We've seen both here, but even with some of the more structured and analytical comments pointing out writing style and perceived bias rapidly descends into flaming.

Yes, apples-to-apples (no pun) comparisons are easier to do now that Macs are using Intel hardware and through analysis those of us knowledgeable in such technological matters can cry fowl at Apple's prices or underpowered approach - that's well-informed opinion - but the speed at which flaming and bullshit occurs is just ridiculous.

The only thing I will say is this: there's fanboiism, there's brand dedication, there's Microsoft and then there's Apple. Maybe it comes from the passion we have for technology and computing specifically, but the following that Apple gets is honestly akin to a religious cult, and Jobs is revered, almost deified, and it honestly rubs technophiles up the wrong way to the point in some cases it's insulting or abhorrent.

But again, with powerful views must come restraint, and kicking off about it throwing personal attacks is seriously uncalled for.

I personally am sorry you felt the need to go this far Tuan.

typing this on a mac, use Windows at the office, loving windows 7, loving snow leopard. what's not to like about competition??

And somebody's just -1 my post...

Absolutely. I choose Mac, but that's my choice. I must admit I don't agree with the comment about worshiping Jobs, plenty do the same with Microsoft. It's simply not worth discussing. Make your choice, enjoy the different approaches. Hell argue about them. The moment you catch yourself saying that the other bunch are different from you... you're being rational and they aren't... time to take a break. Neither of you are :-)

My statement about Jobs wasn't intended as a dig, just merely my perception of the position Apple shareholders and Apple consumers put him in - I've never known a stock value of a company to fluctuate so violently because of the status of a single man: it's rumoured he's ill and stock values crash, he announces it's true, stocks crash even more, he says he's better and everything goes back up. Unfairly, and I suggest naively, those with financial interest in Apple pin the entire company around him just because he's a genius marketer and excellent, charismatic speaker.

You don't get that with Gates or Ballmer at Microsoft, you don't get that with Jen-Hsun Huang at NVIDIA, Donald Trump or any other great corporate frontman, and I genuinely fear for the financial security of Apple as a company when the day comes when Jobs steps down - it's unfair and ridiculous that the Apple crowd hinge everything on a guy who doesn't even make anything any more, and after crawling their way back from the brink to being the major influence they are today the company as a whole doesn't deserve it.

Whichever way you cut it, it is reverence and I can see how that rub people up the wrong way. That's all I'm saying.

Obviously you are entitled to you opinion, but right now Apple could buy for cash. For. Cash. At the point Michael Dell made his now infamous comment about the best thing apple could do is give share-holders their money back... he was right. Steve Jobs is a visionary. He's not the only one, hell, he's probably not the only one at Apple right now. However, just a Ballmer is no Bill Gates, Schiller is no Steve Jobs.

The nonsense about his health, you are right, was nonsense. Of course, he created that situation by his behaviour. Right or wrong, it felt unnecessary.

Still. Glad I bought shares at $38 because I believed one man would change the company.

And hindsight is a wonderful thing because I should've bought shares too! I had the option, but I didn't have faith in this weird portable music player concept (already had a walkman and CD player).

Similarly I should've bought shares in AMD last year but never had suitable finances.

LOL, we've all got 20-20 vision looking back!

If Tom's want wo write about Apple and their products that's fine by me, but.
This used to be a page about hardware in it's pure form - meaning: the parts that go into a computer. Macs are not the above mentioned, but a sum of it.
I absolutely hate Apple and Macs and will tell you why:

Macs are cheap hardware, put together and packed like it's top of the line.
Macs are often specced higher on paper than in real life (example: Powerbooks packing specific nVidia or ATI gpus are often clocked down in speed to avoid them from overheating in Apples "neat" little boxes) - Apple fails to mention this when bragging about new systems.
Apple continues to ignore users complaining about their faulty products (example: LCD-panels in Imacs, batteries in Ipods, exploding Iphones etc.)
Apple sneak by in the shadows everytime other hardware/software companies get dragged to court - Microsoft has been ordered to exclude Explorer as the standard browser in Windows by the EU....What happens to Safari? Nothing at all ofc...
Apple buys companies that make up software for both Mac and pc-platforms, to transform them into Mac exclusives (example: Logic music editing) I bet you that Adobe will be owned by Apple within 10 years.

The list is endless and I can go on forever, but to spare you all I won't.

This was written on a homemade, overclocked pc beating the new Powermac in everything: rendering, video-editing, gaming, ripping etc. while costing about 1050 USD. Whilst writing I enjoyed listening to music on my Creative MP3-player packing more than 600 tracks encoded in Windows Media Player 11.

I'm from Denmark, so excuse my spelling

Brand loyalty is for idiots, don't let the marketing guys win. Why would anyone pledge their allegiance to any big corporation who's sole existence on this planet is to make money out of you. Buy the best stuff that you need, want or just like the look of. Are you people the same about everything you own "my toilet paper is sooooo the BEST" etc :-S

Tom's better stop reporting on the Adamo XPS then. Shame I was looking forward to the scoop :-(

This is precisely the comment that's spawned Tuan's article. Yes you're correct about everything you say, but the same can be said equally for Dell, HP, Microsoft, Adobe and others. Perhaps yes Apple are amongst the worst for it, for it doesn't negate the fact they are not alone.

If Google didn't have a such a happy hippy loving image contributing to the community I'm sure you'd think the same about how much THEY buy up all the time.

I'm shutting up now, I feel the very thing this article is about starting to come up...

@ LePhuronn
I'm fully aware that Apple are not alone in their mafia-like business ways but they are among the worst. I personally would never buy anything branded: DELL, HP, Apple etc.

*sigh* mafia like.

Hear, hear! A real pity that this has to be revisited and so much effort spent at defending what you guys do - a great job by the way!
The best tools for the job with an open mind - technology can improve whatever we do, and none of us know it all!
Cheers.

I am a reasonable man, and normally I'd be able to admire macs and the advantages they bring to the computing arena. That is, if Apple weren't the only company in history to personally insult me with the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" adverts, in which it calls me a nerdy no-life. I hate macs, and I hate mac owners - much like one may hate Al-Quieda while also hating the dangerous terrorists it has brainwashed and sent to blow me up/make me feel like a nerd.

if the amiga didnt die, it would give both pc and mac a run for their money, much less money

The differance is People hate Bill Gates on both sides :-) lol

First of all - I would like to thank Mr. Tuan Nguyen for actually talking to us - even it's about such a touchy topic as apple's news on this site.
Points taken:
#1 Ok, I agree that Apple is a technology company and will appear on this site.
#2 You are just doing your job.
#3 I will be more factual in my "commentaries" about your news.
#4 Marketing is a necessary evil.

However... I would like to raise some points as well:
#1 Some readers are simply apple fanboys and as for me - a person who "claims" to be interested in technology as such and writes some nonsense about windows, apple, osx or simply "ooohhh - it's sooo coool" - simply should not appear on this site...
#2 Apple as a company is abusing the marketing department to get a bigger slice of the market share and yes I fully understand this... However from a geek's point of view - the company is more evil than Microsoft... And due to that single fact (I will spare you my list of reasons - as some of you already posted some of them here), I reckon it would actually be quite a good idea if some section of this site, call it "Fact or Fiction" - would try to involve the readers to "straighten up" the ads and try to extract what's really geeky in it - the truth about technology. You say it's marketing - yes it is, but if we - geeks - let the marketing departments drive technology industry forward - by sitting back and laughing - we will all end up with "kids" (fanboys) running around us and shouting: "My Mac is better than yours" - "why?" - "coz, it's aluminium!"... I mean... Apple is really abusing the design side of things... their products really overheat, are not upgradeable and so on... Yeah - I accept it... what really pisses me off - is when in real life people come to me and ask... why is my Mac Pro so sloooow? Or why does it cost soooo much to replace the memory for it? Or why does my iPod looses all its music every 4 weeks? And so on... So basically I'm tired of explaining to all those "I will buy a Mac - coz it looks cool and is advertised nice" - type of people - why they have been fucked up by a company that simply does not care about anything but money... I reckon someone should clearly point out the differences on a regular basis so the "level" of fanboyism would drop a bit. And if big sites like this won't do it - then who will? I can post on my own blog, I can post comments, but if the authors of this site won't take it in their own hands and simply say how it is - then it will always be perceived as "flaming" and "mac-pc war"... it isn't - we are just annoyed by everyone scared of Apple suing them for posting "facts about their products and services".

What do you guys think?

I'm sorry but I see this article as merly whining from the Toms Hardware team, you taken then regular Mac vs. PC flamewar and made it official news. Any member of the team which writes a Mac related article should be prepared for the comments and just shrug them off, why are they now feeling intimidated by them?

People are entitled to there oppinions and even if you want to down play it, many of the Mac hate myths have a grain of truth to them; If you don't like the comments then either stop reading them or disable them in extreme cases.

And for the record, my personal view is to walk into a Apple store and feel great pity for anyone there; if only they new the truth.

a well written article Tuan, and also a shame it needed to be written. I suppose it all comes down to "we earn our money, we therefore have the right to spend it as we see fit." Some people look for ultimate performance, others quality, others value for money, others novelty, etc etc... Some make well informed purchasing choices, others just buy out of impulse, we are all human beings, we all act differently, its what makes this world what it is...

I used to build all of my pc's from scratch when i was younger, i used this site all the time to read reviews of individual hardware components that i would buy to build each new computer system. I enjoyed doing this and always had a pc the did exactly what i wanted and went as fast as hell.

That was then, these days i work in the computer industry (server side database programming and 3d graphics, a weird combination i know but there you go!) and find i can no longer be bothered to research every single component i'm going to buy to build my next set of pc's (you need a few machines when doing 3d rendering). so i'm left with choosing a pc builder and buying a pre-built system. I find apple computers work for me, minimum fuss, minimum complications, and they do what i need without breaking, period.

I still have 5 custom built pc boxes for use as rendering nodes (somebody else built them for me to my specifications) because using apple mac pro's as render nodes would be financial suicide!! but using one 8 core mac pro as the workstation machine where all my 3d work is created makes perfect sense, then allow pc render nodes to do frame rendering.

I consider myself fortunate that in my computing needs i have found a valid use for lots of computer hardware from a very diverse range of manufacturers and can see the benefits / pitfalls inherent in most of it.

People should think about whether they would make the comments they make on these articles if they were actually standing face to face with the person they are debating (or insulting as is often the case) with. I would never walk up to a total stranger and immediately begin insulting him for the things he does / believes in, and yet that seems to be what some people do here.

Please think before we comment, human beings are the most intelligent species roaming this earth, show it!

I think the problems stems from something else, and is far more worrying than a few people disliking or liking Apple products.

Nearly every where you go now on the web you get the so called trolls, doesn't matter what the topic of discussion is, there will be those people who spout acidic, vitriolic and hate filled messages towards others, nearly always unfounded and certainly way over the top.

It does make me worried, we call people in the east for being brainwashed terrorists as so "eloquently" mentioned in an earlier post, but people on the web have just the same mentality, believe what I believe or I will hate you and destroy you. It is pure ignorance and this kind of intolerance that leads us to such a fractured society.

People need to take a big step bag and get a huge dose of reality, you have your opinion and it is important to you, others have their opinion and it is important to them. Screaming and shouting and being so disgustingly hateful does not prove your argument it just proves you are losing your reasoning functional focus.

I personally wouldn't buy an apple product, from a bad experience I had with an ipod, but if others want to do so it is up them. People need to realise that they are just a person no more important than others, the internet does not propel your viewpoint into the stratosphere, it remains just the same as it does in real life, just one other opinion

People need to calm down and wake up

@ Chrisscornell and tinnerdxp

Awsome post guys i completely agree with you! Working as an IT engineer myself i support both pc and macs and i would never own an apple product for the reasons you outlined above.

My girlfriend recently started a course in broadcast tv production and the crap her lecturers have been telling her is ridiculous, stuff like she NEEDS to buy a mac, that once you format a drive on the mac it wont work on the pc etc.

its not that i hate macs, what winds me up is that apple fans talk as if their product is the be all and end all of computers, that they can do things us pc users cant, that their products never crash, that they dont have hardware problems. this is all untrue, as i have had macs crash on me several times, my colleague also had to get a new iPhone as it expired the INSTANT the warranty was up!

My main grip though, is the fact that apple keep purchasing the companies who produce the industry standard software such as Logic and Final Cut which were both initially developed for the PC. As a result the industry uses Mac's and people assume this is because they are better machines when they are not. I will never be a Mac user so I will be using Cubase or premiere Pro for all of my Audio/video editting needs

P.S. @ Bazza

I miss my beloved Amiga 500, the best computer I have ever had!!!

I had the Amiga 1200, it was beautiful...

Firstly all websites now have this thing where people can comment so if you've included it into your websites design stop complaining when people say what they feel, if you don't like it turn it off!

^^^ Very true indeed...

I reckon Apple should have teamed up with Commodore years ago - Commodore had some serious hardware with killer apps; Apple had the capacity to market it as something chic, something seductive.

I think Apple prices are high..absurdly so in some cases. But I don't hate Apple for it. Competition is good, and I think the last thing we need today is to destroy the competition through blind hatred, to the point where we become even more conformist. I see the same kind of comments aimed at AMD including their graphics hardware. The arguments that ensue are seemingly never-ending, and quite vocal as you may be aware.

Funny isn't it bazza..the number of folks here that still fondly remember that machine.

I think that machine also proved how important competition is: the Amiga spawned superior, pre-emptive, multi-tasking..way above what the PC, Atari ST or Apple Mac could offer was co-operative modes. At college they were teaching us about 8088 hardware and DOS - at home we were learning video production and image editing on a machine Commodore marketed as a 'games machine'.

I still can't quite get over how they managed to manufacture something that good..and I wish it was still around. The whole reason I got into computing was because that machine had a different, more open approach not confined to shoddy hardware. A creative tool of sorts.

I'm not so sure if there would be room for the hardware today, however..the software still has a support base. I just think there's too much platform-independent development taking place (especially with virtualisation), for a third player to flourish. Commodore had it's foot in the door and then I think, Commodore unwittingly slammed the door in it's own face through bad marketing and mismanagement. Amiga fans know what I'm talking about and they stood by that machine long after Commodore gave up the ghost. I think using the Amiga was also the reason I started choosing AMD and Cyrix, as well Apple..before them Intel was too big, too selfish and rested on it's laurels producing lacklustre x86 hardware.

p.s. My most treasured 'Apple' image was that advert with the female athlete throwing the hammer at the screen..remember that? Now that was marketing xD

all this Amiga talk is making me moist

Wish i still had my 500, but the keyboard broke and then i dismantled it thinking i could fix it and fudged it up!

Its probably resting in pieces in a landfill site in the sounth of england right this minute, along with a ton of coppied games.

I remember playing full FPS like 'Breathless' and great Beat'em ups like 'Rise of the Robots' when most PC's couldn't handle Lemmings.

You had to load 10 floppy disks to play but it was worth it, still got a A1200 and A500 stored away lol.

Guys, you are just being as bad as before, This article was not about whether Apple is good, bad or indifferent, you just don't get it do you. It was about the way people react with their comments, the hatred people show over someone's opinion, the trolling and often very personal attacks on an article writer

Yes everyone is entitled to an opinion, just tone down the hatred because there really is no need for it.

And who are you to say this site cannot write articles about this or that, only about what you want and what you want to hear? It is Toms Hardware, and obviously some of you do not realise what this is, hardware is not just a GPU or CPU it is any electronic equipment that computer code as opposed to software which is the code that runs within the software.

Some people like Apple products, I don't I personally hate them and wont use them ever, my friends have iphones, I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, but guess what my friends love them, it doesn't make them dumb or stupid or uneducated, just means they have different tastes, there is nothing dumb about spending money on a product and being satisfied with it, it is actually a sensible thing to do, and it is not for me to tell them they shouldn't enjoy that product or up to you for that matter.

I don't see the same hardware complaints when an article comes about Windows 7, that is software not hardware but no one goes on about it, then you just get the Umbuthu or whatever it is called fan boys screaming and such, what is the point, different people like different things, sure post an opinion, give facts but leave the HATE out of it, at the end of the day what difference does it make to you what someone else uses?

And I for one enjoy Toms giving different products and articles some space, if you don't like it then don't read it, and if it upsets you so much then run your own site, spend your own time doing it, but don't presume you have the right to influence what I or others wish to read