Apple, Incorporated
As of 8/25/2010, Apple is one of Getem's Red Paw winners. Keep in mind that red paws usually cost you a lot of time and/or money. as of March 26, 2010 by Michael Patrick Murphy
Apple is one of the BIG computer companies allied against you AND your wallet. Like its sister company, Microsoft, there are so many things wrong at Apple, it warrants its own very full page and probably should become a book. (As a matter of fact, I think it already has.) They don't seem to care about your time wasted. Only their time is of value. The reason support is so expensive is that the products are tremendously flawed requiring a lot of support.
You have to understand that it is in these companies best interest for things to break so that you have to go out and buy new hardware and software. This becomes even more true in a bad economy.The software flaws, corrupted data and program faults and crashes warrant no less. The machines are pretty and cutting edge, as is the operating system and most programs. However, what's under the hood, were it an automobile would leave you unconfident, stranded and somewhat surprised. You certainly wouldn't consider it safe! Not even backing up your data and managing viruses can save you. Perhaps prayer will work. Apple is one of many big computer companies allied against you, your wallet and your sanity. They could care less if their products failing causes you or your company to go bankrupt. A sucker is born everyday and they will spend millions to market around their bad publicity.
Example: Apple creates a "MobileMe" beta. You try it. You find out that you can share events and contacts with your older computers and must therefore buy newer computers that handle a newer operating system so you can continue to share events and contacts with your friends, family or co-workers. This is what we referred to as "planned obsolescence" in the automotive industry. Then Toyota came in and made cars cheaper than lasted longer. Then the life cycle of profit continued where Toyotas were no longer cheaper and in fact, more expensive than their American counterparts. Then, they too started to fall apart in the new millennium so they could gouge you for exorbitant prices on the same faulty replacement parts. Now American car companies are going back towards cheaper and more reliable to restart the cycle. You need a car, so you feel trapped. Don't think these companies don't understand the cycle. Too many are Harvard grads fully compatible with corporate greed and corruption techniques. Apple is no exception (though Steve Jobs didn't graduate from Harvard, but he did give a commencement speech there in 2005. Since that time, Harvard Business School has given Steve an "F".)
Like the OS itself, most bells and whistles will over promise and under deliver. Of course they are intended to get you to buy new product. Sometimes, the "bells and whistles" like Apples unsupported MobileMe accounts, are so flawed that they can cost you a forty hour week just to make them passable or usable. This happened to me on 8/25/2010. MobileMe is unsupported and no longer syncs with my new iPhone4. Apple pretends not to know the problem exists even though it is well documented on the Internet. This strikes to the heart of integrity and the fact that the private and government communities have become so enamored with technology that they forget how all their data can be lost at any moment and that they may either go out of business or pass the cost onto taxpayers and customers for the calamity, which I would bank on is inevitable and more disastrous than Y2K was supposed to be. There are deep, deep flaws in the systems created at Apple and elsewhere.
Remember, crooks have the best lawyers. They write the most bullet proof contracts. Read Apples iPhone and MobileMe contracts for example. They are designed to protect Apple's negligence and inefficiency and over promising. Actually, it seems they never promise anything anymore. Why? Because they would break that promise and possibly, if you can afford a legal team like theirs, you might sue them. Their end user licensing are basically telling you that they can screw up but you can't and because you are an idiot that got yourself trapped by Apple, you are stuck. (Don't feel bad. I'm not a total dummy, but I allowed myself to be trapped by them.)
I typed this paragraph from a Powerbook G4 right after experiencing the Apple Mail disappearing mail and folder syndrome commonly noted all over the Internet. Nothing is safe or secure on an Apple (or a PC, or a Unix box), yet the world relies on them to manage everything from governments and corporations to your bank accounts. It's all about the next quarterly report. If sales are down because people are finally okay with their current systems, they immediately upgrade software to break programs and force you to either upgrade programs, hardware or operating systems. Microsoft's release of the first worldwide virus has been a great ride for them, causing folks to constantly upgrade their operating systems, which coincidentally all seem to get immediately hacked requiring even more upgrades. Apple is just one of many companies taking advantage of a world of sucker fish. Thank God for the Internet and email, causing mainstream planet earth to jump on the constant planning obsolescence train. In economic bad times, where these companies see their bottom line start to dwindle, we can expect to see the upgrade path accelerate.
All hardware and programs are fragile and your life should never be totally dependent on these companies. Nor should your job, health, wealth or anything else. Yet we do depend on these flaky machines, operating systems and programs. And should we back up and follow some simple maintenance that most folks don't follow, we can cut the odds of devastating data loss, somewhat.
On top
of this, these machines have short life expectancies. Worse than cars, they
depreciate the moment they are purchased. Hopefully somebody gives you your computer
or you get to borrow one cheap. Like cocaine addicts,
the public
spirals deeper and deeper into the abyss as they fund and buy from companies
like Apple. Just because Apple is a split hair better than Microsoft does not
make them the good guys. The folks at Apple are very aware of their flaws and
try to at least put some lipstick on the pigs. Most major problems take on
a life of their own causing we customers to imagine that Apple ignores
most of them. After all, Apple doesn't give us a progress report from their
"top secret" facilities. Corporate appears to make decisions to either fix
flaws or to continue
to
pretend
the
flaws don't
exist. Meanwhile, they have been good corporate custodians, bringing Apple from the brink of bankruptcy thanks to sister Microsoft's $100,000,000 payment to jump start them. A stock that was once as low as $14 per share is around $230 now. These pirate corporations are as addictive and bad for the overall economy of planet earth as cocaine and in Apple and Microsoft's case, the drugs are legal and there are a lot more drug addicts. Can you imagine doing business with any company with this many paws if you weren't so addicted?
Here's Why:
Apple Hardware (generally speaking)
1) All Apple OS's crash. 2) They don't always wake from sleep, causing you to hard reboot the system. 3) They are extremely vulnerable to destruction by applications you add to your computer. You can easily lose data.
Apple iPhone
1) Lack of AT&T 3G services 2008-2009 2) Constant dropped calls and weak speaker phone, short battery life. 3) Censorship of applications where a customer pays for and uploads an application like WiFi scanner programs that would show you just how lousy AT&T iPhone service is. Iphone upgrades unload the program and refuse compensation to users that bought it. I assume this was to hide AT&T iPhone weaknesses. 3/26/2010.
Apple Operating Systems (generally speaking)
1) All Apple OS's crash. 2) They don't always wake from sleep, causing you to hard reboot the system. 3) They are vulnerable to destruction by applications you add to your computer. You can easily lose data.
Apple Software
Apple Support
Though Apple support quality has varied over the years, as of 11/17/07, it is very, very poor and if time is money, you will lose a lot of money dealing with their support. 1) Website support is arcane and non-intuitive. An FAQ may address your issue but it probably won't come up in your search, so for all intents and purpose, it doesn't exist.. 2) Though the call center message says you'll be waiting fifteen minutes or longer, plan on an hour or two. 3) Last night, the support center voice recognition software refused to recognize an Apple Mail request and insisted on sending me to iTunes support. Not knowing where it sent me, I waited almost a half hour for the iTunes support guy to hear my problem and inform me that he was iTunes support. He then dished me back into the cue for regular support. After another half hour, I hung up. 4) I called a few nights ago regarding a iDisk Dot Mac problem, waited over an hour, only to have a tech start to answer my problem when the line went dead. He, probably by accident, dropped the call. Though he had my account phone number, he did not bother, by policy or otherwise, to call me back. My Dot Mac membership was up, so, because of Apple abuse, I did not resign up for it at that time. It is now expired. 5) Often, support's English is so bad, you can't understand them and I often have to request another technician. 6) Support is so under trained that they often can't answer many problems, even in their specialty. As an advanced Macintosh user since the 512K days, I find this extremely frustrating.
Apple Company Policies
1) Apple, like many companies, has gone to web based hiring. Not only is the site full of flaws that misplace data and fields that are not named properly, but the site actually causes Apple to lose great potential employees. It is obvious to me that Apple has huge human resource issues that need to be resolved. It certainly doesn't encourage anyone to join the Apple team. 2) However, if you've got the HR algorithm down, you might get hired despite the fact you probably weren't the best person for the job. 3) When one measures Apples inability to meet its obligations to its customers, that alone means poor Human Resources, poor employee training, or both.
Below is a brief story about a typical Apple situation that in all fairness would also be more common in a Wintel (Windows Intel) environment:
One day, my synchronization of my Apple iCal Ca lander was not working. Since I paid a few hundred for an Apple tech support plan, I called them. I spent approximately 8 hours over the next four months trying to fix it. Various techs did not have a clue. Then, a level two tech recommended that I repair permissions by rebooting from my original disk. (a pain when one is using a wireless mouse & keyboard because the drivers are not loaded when you boot from CD so that the mouse and keyboard don't work.) Anyway, during the process, the following screen appeared which symbolized all that is wrong with Apple, Microsoft, Linux, Unix and the bunch. My comments are in italics. I quote:
To use Disk First Aid, select the volume and click a repair button.
*Using Disk First Aid, you can verify or repair any Mac OS Standard, Mac OS Extended, and UFS formatted disk, including hard disks and CD-ROMs. (Most CD-ROMs are read only and can't be altered so why add this item as explained in Apple's next sentence.)
*Disk First Aid cannot verify or repair the startup disk or repair a write-protected disk, a CD-ROM, or a disk with open files. The startup disk was verified, and repaired if necessary, at boot time. (So why are we bothering with this whole process if it was already done at boot time. While running the repair function, it did find broken stuff, so the boot process must not have repaired things after all making the sentence pretty stupid and confusing.) In order to repair or verify the startup disk, please boot from the Mac OS X Install CD and verify the disk using Disk Utility from the Installer Apple Menu. (This last sentence was extremely funny because I could not have gotten to this particular screen had I not already done this step.)
*You may only repair permissions on a Mac OS X boot volume (with no explanation as to what this means or why we might do this.)
*If a disk has severe problems, you may need to use other programs to repair it completely. (In other words things are beyond Apple and you might have to buy third party software to fix a corrupted Apple computer with its supposedly rock solid Apple OS X operating system.)
(Then I could not press an option key needed to reboot to my primary operating system because it could not load the wireless drivers and if I didn't already know to get my wired keyboard, I would have been in an endless loop with the CD loading over and over and over again and again.) On PC's you can at least push the eject button.
Problems like this and Screens like this are found throughout the computer industry showing the fallibility and fragility of it. Our world is now firmly based on quicksand and we are frustrated but supporting it. We actually reward the industry for its bad behavior because on a clear day, when Jupiter is aligned with Mars, computers can do spectacular things.
NOTE: After 4 more hours of work and 10 techs later, all of the Apple people's suggestions have again failed and iSync still doesn't work. If anything, the situation is worse.
22) OS10 consistently refuses to wake from sleep causing a forced reboot. 3/5/07
23) Safari browser is seldom updated making it incompatible with most Web 2.0 sites. This is yet another major weakness in Apple as it designs phones and other toys leaving its customers treading water in the middle of the ocean. Like the other pirates of silicon valley, there is no customer loyalty or love.
24) iCal - won't respond to click and drags in a timely manner when changing calendar events. - 3/9/2008
25) Mail - began sending mail constantly due to corrupted preferences in either or both Mail and iCal since OS Leopard. Fixed in 2 hours with help of Apple Level 2 technician and customer intuition.- 3/9/2008
26) OS Leopard - Loaded new operating system but lost all mail and files of users except primary account. - 3/9/2008
27) DiskUtility - Shows corruptions that it can't fix and that Apple's support said to simply ignore. - 3/9/2008
28) Mail - Crashes while sending saved mail via AT&T U-Verse 29) losing mail in the process.
29) Quicktime
(slow time) - One has to laugh out loud (LOL) about quicktime.
It has never been quick! While presenting it's new 3G iPhone, the video
of Jobs ran choppy and slow in the smallest tiny frame. What a joke - and
this was using its partner AT&T U-Verse service to watch it on its best
computer laptop of 2005 a Powerbook 17! Then another 3G demo wouldn't play
sound at all. I sat and watched the apple rep with my computer volume turned
all the way up, looking like he was trying to say something. Way to go