Friday, October 21, 2011

Before Brad@Home: Apples

It's my job to sit down with people and train them how to use the technology that our company gives them when they start. I walk though their computer with them, and then we turn to their phone device. Our default device is a Blackberry, but we recently opened up and have started to allow people to attach their personal iPhones to our system. This has been warmly received by our users, but it has increased the potential for me to have to talk about my feeling about Apple, which I am always hesitant to do.

I have very little issue with Apple products from a technology standpoint. I think that, for the most part,  iDevices have their place and serve a decent purpose. At the very least, Apple has been excellent in innovating items that people didn't even know they wanted. I respect that.

My issues come in two places. The first and easier explained is simply price. The price point of Apply products tends to be a bit higher than comparable non-Apple products, which I don't really get. I suppose there is an argument to be made that if people are willing to pay for it, then the company should charge what it can reasonably get. I see some validity to that argument, but I also wonder how far you can go with that mentality before it becomes ridiculous.

The second is a bit trickier. It's the Apple doctrine. There is a subset of Apple users that get a bit laudatory and arrogant about Apple products. They produce this feel of elitism whenever I end up talking to one of them. It is rather disconcerting. I'm glad that they like their product, but it doesn't mean that everything that isn't Apple is completely inferior. I wonder if the price feeds into this, producing a thought that, since Apple products are more expensive then their comparable competitors, they must be better.

I will freely admit that not all Apple users are like this. I know many who are quite normal and conciliatory about their use of iDevices. Unfortunately, the extremists are the loudest voices in the Apple market, so they tend to set the tone of the conversation.

Sort of how the most intense, judgmental, harsh Christians are the ones everyone hears from, making it harder for the rest of us.

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