
Apple's Growing Arrogance - nickb
http://reinventedsoftware.com/blog/2007/09/29/apples-growing-arrogance/
======
uuilly
I think apple quality control has gone downhill in the last few years. I've
been an apple customer on and off for a long time. And I've been totally on
the day they went back to OSX.

1) The wireless on my MBP has been an on and off disaster. When I first got
it, wireless transfers from machine to machine were way slower than my old
PBK. When I click the wireless signal button to choose a network it takes a
full second+ for the networks to show up. Used to be instant. Their latest
wireless driver (their 4th version!) dropped me from my network every 15
minutes requiring an archive install to get back to the last version. Wireless
on my PBK was NEVER a problem at all.

2) I got the airport express for my parents a few years ago. It almost never
worked. The music would incessantly drop out and no amount of network settings
tweaking would fix it. Magically in Tiger the problem disappeared.

3) When the latest airport extreme came out I HAD to have the airdisk feature.
I've had an old G4 tower as my file server and itunes repository for a while
and it was annoying to move around. But my recent experience taught me to
wait. I routinely monitored the forums and it turned out that the airdisk
wasn't even close to ready for prime time. Hundreds of messages were posted
about dropouts or their disk not even working at all. It took two firmware
updates for the forum complaining to subside. I now have it and it works
but...

4) If I leave my house w/o dismounting the network drive, the machine hangs
for a full minute before it says the drive was disconnected. 30% of the time I
wait two minutes and have to hard reset. On my PBK it was a consistent 15
second wait w/o ever having to hard reset.

Perhaps there is something rotten with the wireless engineers at apple. But
really a bit of testing should have smoked these problems out. It used to be
unusual for something to come out of apple so rough around the edges.

As for the iPhone, I really love mine. I haven't had time to play with the
hacks and I'm glad I didn't. But I went to the iphone hacks sites yesterday
and saw how prolific the extra apps had become. This phone only came out a few
months ago and they have lots of useful apps with mature package management
systems. It was sad to see such a promising developer community squashed at
the dawn of its life.

~~~
dcurtis
Yeah, you might have those problems, but believe it or not, Apple's quality
control has actually gone up.

I had a 400MHz Titanium Powerbook back in 2001, and by 2003 it was a 1Ghz
PowerBook G4 due to the seventeen times I had to send in various computers
that were replaced. One of them even melted
([http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/another-melted-g4-mac-
lap...](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/another-melted-g4-mac-
laptop-231620.php)). So with my MacBook Pro having only a few minor problems
(the power button has fallen inside the case, and the isight randomly stops
working), I'd say the quality has improved significantly.

The networking systems in the Finder are so bad that when I use Vista, I
actually breathe a sigh of relief that I can "map" network drives and have
automatic discovery. Leopard somewhat fixes this, though.

As far as the iPhone debacle, I'm really amazed at how poorly Apple is
handling the situation. Maliciously destroying their products and punishing
their most geeky customers is retarded. Those geeky customers are the ones the
non-geeky potential customers go to for advice. Hasn't Steve Jobs read The
Tipping Point? When you've pissed off Brian Lam, you're really in trouble.

------
ideas101
iBrick is certainly going to backfire - the arrogance due to brand power is
going to have a negative halo effect and it may be too late for apple to un-
do. I don't understand why apple went for a single vendor (at&t) distribution,
i would have never done that, instead i would have used my strong brand power
to distribute unlocked iphone thru multiple channels like walmart, costco,
bestbuy etc. , this way customer would have got the power to choose their
service provider - giving customer the power is always the biggest business
benefit/wisdom in long and short term - if apple can hold the position against
Hollywood for selling a song for 99c then they can do the same by selling
unlocked iphone ... customer who don't want to use iphone as a phone device
can still buy it to use it for playing music, video, surfing internet etc. I
think this would have been a win-win situation ....

~~~
alaskamiller
Everyone loves to play Apple iCEO; yet, few ever do a good job at it.

1) Apple went with AT&T because running a phone business is pretty tough.
Apple focuses on making hardware and software.

2) That said, concessions have to be made. AT&T wants to sell usage and
service. They paid an exclusive to do that.

3) The Phone business isn't like the music business which also coincidently
isn't like the TV/movies/video business.

4) iPod touch.

~~~
ardit33
Apple just played nice with the carriers, and screwing the customer even more.
You paying FULL price (%200 markup from apple), for a device with a CONTRACT.
At least most other phones come cheap/or free with a two year contract. This
just made more money to apple.

They didn't change anything on the mobile space. The only thing was a pretty
UI, that's pretty lame.

I can't wait for Google Phone. It is said that it will be powerful, but cheap,
and sold open (independent from the carriers), just like most phones in
europe. That would be a game changing phone.

~~~
dcurtis
You mean Steve Jobs didn't pound it into your head by saying it 50 times at
Macworld? The iPhone isn't a phone. It's a "revolutionary phone," an "amazing
ipod," and an "internet communication device."

Also, it's not just a pretty UI. It is a pretty UI, but it represents a
complete change in mobile device interaction. They took touch technology and
they did it right for the first time. That's definitely a shift in the
paradigm, and it will certainly change the mobile space forever.

Also, by introducing the first usable/decent web browser for mobile devices,
they've hopefully inspired other traditionally crappy companies like Nokia and
SonyEricsson and Palm to do the same. Man, I hope so.

~~~
ardit33
Actually the LG Prada was out in Europe before, and it is touch screen device,
similiar screen size, and with a pretty UI. Not as nice as the iPhone, but 80%
close. What iPhone made, is people demanding pretty UIs from all their phones,
which is a step on the right direction. Still, there are plenty of things that
you cannot do with the iPhone.

But as far as businnsess paradigm shift, iPhone has been a disapointment. Look
at the latest update, it bricks your unlocked device, cannot do song to
ringtone convertion, (you can with many european phones), etc. etc. Either ATT
has Apple by the balls, or Apple just doesn't care at all for the user, and
tries to screw them as much as they can.

~~~
dcurtis
Have you ever used a Prada? It's not nearly as cohesive an experience as the
iPhone, and it's not easy to use. The screen is far too touch sensitive. My
point is, the iPhone is the first practical touch device, and it's the phone
that will mark a paradigm shift-- the Prada would never cause a change like
that in the industry. LG is simply not a respectable company, especially in
the US where they sell the crappiest phones on the market.

