Apple’s device popularity isn’t that simple though. The iPhone didn’t get to be so popular that people were buying it simply because of it’s popularity by magic. When the first iPhone came out in fact it was ridiculed for it’s size, shape, virtual keyboard and necessity of pressing multiple buttons just to access the “phone” part. No one was buying one “just because all their friends did” because no one had one. Before long though people using the old standard “smart” phones like BB and Samsung’s Blackjack realized the iPhone was a far superior design. After a while yes, it reaches a critical mass where for every educated consumer who’s buying on because it does what they know they need it to do there are even more who are buying it because everyone else is. My point is though you can’t get to sales level without something groundbreaking to start with.
Next thing you know everyone is abandoning their physical keyboards and moving to phones with a home button at the bottom, a full screen of icons and full glass front face. Some say “yay, more competition”, some say, “hey, we have the patents for a lot of that shit”. That’s where our broken patent trial system attempts to step and and probably makes an even bigger mess of it.
I love Apple but I agree with you. Their products are aimed to be simple interfaces and they ride on the success of it. There is tons of people what want a Mac Book Pro because they think they need it for their term papers and facebook updates. The high end stuff is pretty awesome and for the dev work I do, they are second to none IMO.
AOL dumbed down what? Do you know the state of the internet when AOL was started? There was no Google, no Facebook, no social anything. The web indexing was still in progress and if you weren’t central on AOL with keywords, you would never be found. There was dial up connections that started popping up after AOL was popular that provided straight dial up networking and most people used it to connect to bulletin boards because that is how people talked back then. A lot of businesses are now taloring their offerings to a one store location so someone can easily find what they want. Apple did a great job with itunes. Someone who is unfamilar with how the internet works can simply load itunes, search for their music, video, or app and then have it paid for and downloaded. Companies are trying to keep up with that business model that connects consumer items to a central store to get applications out now to the users without the know how of searching the web for info.
The entire iPhone experience is overly simplified and for good reason. A good portion of people do not want to mess with their phones. They just want them to work. If you compare iOS to Android, it’s apples and oranges when it comes to the ability to customize their experience out of the box.
I think you are all crazy. This lawsuit is not about who makes a better device or who is the better company. In my opinion Apple is trying to create a smartphone monopoly and limit the choices to everyone. I think its great some people love iPhones and some people love Android/Windows stuff whatever. Too each their own. If VW started a patent war over steering wheels and suddenly no Nissans, Toyotas and the like could be sold in America. How would that make you feel? Less choices = bad.
The android vs iOS debate is like the Chevy vs Ford debate. none of you have even seen a GLIMPSE of how brand loyal people are.
For some people, they have only ever known iOS in the smartphone realm. and because they were already used to it on their ipod, it makes sense that they go for it, and like it.
to be honest I miss my blackberry keyboard like crazy. replying to emails on a touch screen fucking blows.
A lot of the hate, myself included, is based on Apple’s mentality of proprietary, overpriced everything, and their business model of pulling the wool over the eyes of the misinformed and robbing them blind.
So when this comes up here is a prime example ultrabooks I needed a solid work laptop for travel a year or so ago got a 13 Macbook Air $1,299.00
At the time nobody has a comparable model size, weight, build, performance.
Fast forward to today now companies are just going out with comparable models and guess what? same performance similar price points.
Look at the tablets anything comparable to the iPad costs almost the same price…
The only price point issue people ever come up with in arguments are Macbook Pros vs Cheapest Dell you can find with the most upgrades.
They fail to understand Dells build quality is shit
Not even adding the point that my grandmother can use OSX because its simple at the same time some of the best developers and hackers choose to use OSX over Windows based on the underlying architecture.
The only price point issue people come up with is Apple can take the exact same specs as a PC, throw their fggty logo on it, and charge double or more. Build quality? Bullshit. They’re not spending an extra $500 on a millimeter thicker plastic. I got a Nexus 7 for $200. Granted, it’s smaller than an iPad, a plus for me, but how is it 3x less powerful? The iPhone is different because it’s the carriers that get screwed as opposed to the end user, but they basically hold them hostage to their outrageous demands that no other company would think of asking for.
Not to mention, you bought an Apple product? Congratulations, every single other manufacturer in the world has generic accessories, software, add-ons you can use, but we’re going to make you buy our proprietary bullshit because nothing else will work! Worldwide mandate to use MicroUSB? Fuck you, we’re apple! If you’re comparing it to the Chevy vs. Ford argument, that would be like if Fords started only working with Ford gas, Ford oil, Ford tires, all of which wouldn’t work on any other brand of car, and all of them were marked up 300% or more over traditional prices, but you can get everything from the Ford store, it’s so easy, it just works!
Their accessories in general- everything you want to use with it that has that stupid fucking dock connector, is either made by apple, or the company has to pay them a shitload of money to use it. Probably doubles the price at least. Even the little things. Every other phone has had MP3 ringtones since 2005 but an iPhone you have to buy yours from Apple. Battery take a shit? You can’t buy a generic replacement and plug it in, you have to buy a ridiculously overpriced one from Apple and pay for a Genius to do the repair because it’s sealed. Want your iCloud shit to work? Better buy all your media from Apple. Want to watch a movie on your iPad? You guessed it, buy it from Apple. The whole business is geared around sucking you in to force you to overpay for a million things the minute you buy one of their products, and it’s shady. Extremely profitable, as evidenced by their quarterly results, but extremely shady.