The Case Against Apple

By Matt Hale

Who are the real drones?

Somewhere in my parents house is a videotape of a 5-year-old me explaining the finer points of Xtree Pro to a Paddington the Bear. The video was recorded for a Kindergarten school project in which my classmates spent a day with Paddington before explaining what fun stuff we did. The video is a telling glimpse at what would become a life of geekery. I didn’t show Paddington my favorite game or how to print pictures (this was 1991, afterall). No, I showed him how to navigate the MS-DOS file system to manage your 40 MB hard drive.



Although I have always admired and appreciated Apple for their contributions to technology, there is an exclusivity around their products that comes from their prices and a marketing-induced aura. To be fair, though, technology and geekdom is better off from Apple’s robust participation in the marketplace and it continues to play a critical role in tech history.

And I don’t want Apple to change a bit of what they’re doing (except maybe the patent warfare), because Apple is helping to make technology better. The company has demonstrated that it’s possible to make beautiful and functional devices, rendering obsolete the need to sacrifice form for function. I’ve often asked myself, Why keep resisting? The answer dates back to the launch of the first Macintosh.

In 1984, Apple debuted its now famous Ridley Scott-directed Super Bowl commercial announcing the Macintosh. The ad depicted a tank-topped revolutionary hurling a sledgehammer through the massive image of a propagandist on a screen. The ad was based not-too-loosely off of George Orwell’s 1984 and the automatons watching the projection were the corporate drones stuck using the boring old IBM-PC.¹



Apple, the startup from a Silicon Valley garage, had just declared war against one of the world’s largest companies and geeks around the world would take sides. With the ubiquity of cross-platform internet-based services, the platform war is pretty much over now, but the lasting implications of this conflict are social and cultural.

The target of Apple’s ad may have been conventionalism in computing, but the millions of IBM PC users depicted as mindless, brainwashed automatons, were people building, supporting and maintaining an increasingly important computing infrastructure and who were part of a counterculture of their own. The Mac launch became a controversial lightning rod within a tech community composed of people generally supportive of each others’ work. Here was upstart Apple saying, “You’re all doing it wrong.”

Was that genius? Hubris? It turned out to be both as the Mac was way ahead of its time, but not so incredible that it managed to dominate the computer marketplace. Windows, not Mac OS, is still used on 95% of all computers sold. So much for the revolution.

Apple clearly has struck a nerve with consumers who just want their devices to work. For this group, computers are an appliance, designed to perform some functions and then lay there and look nice when it’s not in use. Apple is brilliant at implementing incredibly complicated technology with an interface that makes it easy for grandma to use. There’s a button for every feature.

Where is the fun in that?

Most everything I know about technology, I learned from fixing it. Windows and its bugs, quirks and often painfully bad user interface meant that I had to think creatively to fix problems, learn, really learn how the internet works and how software and hardware interact with each other. That doesn’t mean that I can solve every problem or know technology well enough to invent something, but I know a lot more than my Mac-user brethren.

Apple devices show you a picture where PCs give you the pieces of a puzzle. Apple prides itself on how complete and whole its devices are where PCs embrace their chaotic, disjointed, egalitarian nature.

Apple makes the computers anyone can use, but PCs are way more democratic. Just go to the PC section at Fry’s in Burbank to look at all the different choices you have for designing a computer. There are literally hundreds of different PC designs and thousands of components to choose from. From a basic corporate desktop, to a high-end gaming rig, there are infinite choices to design and construct a computer to your exact desires. Buy any copy of Windows and install it, and suddenly it’s compatible with every Windows program and millions of peripheral devices.

You can still buy off the shelf too, but that choice is exactly the point. If you want a box that looks like everyone else’s, great, get one. If you want to build a creative, artistic, custom chopper of a PC, inspired by your favorite book or movie, you have the freedom to do that too. If you buy a copy of Mac OS X, it can only, ever be installed on an Apple product with a silver patina, glossy screen and lots of brushed aluminum. Twenty-eight years later, who are the automatons marching in lockstep with Dear Leader?

I’ve used Apple products before. I had an iPod mini and used iTunes for awhile. I’ve used Quicktime extensively and have attempted to use an iPhone. I’ve even sat down at length with a Mac and put OS X through its paces. It is impressive to use an Apple product. They are smooth, fast, slick machines that make you feel like you’re touching the future. But after the wow-factor wears off, I always feel like there should be... more.

The perfect way to sum up my anti-Apple bias is to explain my beef with the iPhone. I think the iPhone is great. It’s beautiful, the app marketplace is superb and you know that Apple is going to be supporting it for years. The only problem with every iPhone I’ve ever used is the keyboard. I can’t stand it; the buttons are too small and they’re in the wrong places. Could I get used to it if I spent enough time with it? Probably, but it’s critical to the use and enjoyment of the device and I just don’t like it. I would consider getting an iPhone, but you can’t replace the keyboard like you can on Android.

And that is just it: genius and hubris. The iPhone is a genius device with thousands of app developers ready to fill my needs and replace that keyboard, but because of the design of the iOS, it’s just not possible. Apple, in its hubris, has deemed its devices “perfect,” so anyone who would suggest otherwise, or has different needs or desires, should look elsewhere. So, I do.

I know that I’m approaching this subject from a unique perspective. Not everyone is going to want to poke around inside their computer case, take it apart, see what makes it tick and put it all back together again. For most, Apple products work just fine and that’s great. For me, it’s just not enough.

^{1. Lost to history is the fact that the battle in 1984 was not between Microsoft and Apple, but between the IBM PC architecture and the Apple architecture. Microsoft was a small player in a crowded marketplace at the time, not the ubiquitous behemoth we all know (and love?) today.↩}

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