Apple - Just Another Computer

USA Today released an article recently on an Apple engineer losing a '4G' prototype of the iPhone in China.  This wouldn't be that newsworthy accept that the engineer committed suicide.  Not only that, but apparently his suicide was because he suffered:

"unbearable interrogation techniques" for having lost one of 16 "4G" prototypes. - USA Today

On top of that the article later mentions poor working standards for Mac employees where overtime was denied and in some cases workers were paid below CHINA's minimum wage.

People wonder why I get upset about Mac fan boys chiding on and on about how great their machine is over a PC and my hatred in general for the Mac cult.  This of course all began with the Mac switch ads in the days of OS 7-9.  Not only were Macs as bad as PC's at the time, but a lot of the errors were caused by VERY mundane actions.  I remember my first error when I was in a communications class working with Photoshop on an iMac.  If you wanted to be a dick in this class, all you had to do was reach over while your neighbor was working and hit ANY of the f-keys while Photoshop was in focus.  This would cause the computer to freeze up to the point where you would have to unplug it just to get it to start up again.  PC's broke down when system things failed which also happened with Macs; Macs would sometimes fail just because you pressed the wrong KEY!

But Mac's past that and now they have OSX which is honestly a nice operating system.  However, a good deal of their internal design was taken from BSD; BSD is a form of Unix with a very friendly license which basically states you can use it for anything without mentioning you took it from BSD.  When I first heard about this I thought to myself, Great! Mac's will finally be cheap and I can get a nice looking UNIX computer!  WRONG!  Even though switching to a BSD base likely made their development a lot cheaper, Macs were still selling for nearly twice what a comparable PC would cost.

However, this started to bite Apple in the ass.  As multi-core architecture came into play and 'Moore's Law' started to break due to physical limitations of CPU design.  Computers started getting dirt cheap on the PC end (and are still getting cheaper) and Macs stayed around the 2K mark.  Recently they dropped their prices to compete better with PC's, but they're still several hundred dollars more expensive. 

Example:

Dell Inspiron 13"    
2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
500 GB HD
Built-In Cam, 6-Cell Battery
Vista Premium
Software - Works 9
Warranty - Standard Year Free
Price?    $974

MacBook 13”
2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
500 GB HD
Built-In Cam, 6-Cell Battery
OSX
Software - NONE!  THAT'S RIGHT!  SOFTWARE'S EXTRA!
Warranty - $249 Extra 'Auto Enroll?'
Price?    $1,548

So for a BASIC computer by today's standards you end up shelling out $574 extra with a warranty and $325 without for the same hardware set.  The only real differences are the software and operating systems.  Add to this the recent news that Apple sent a request to Microsoft asking them to STOP their recent 'Laptop Hunter' ad campaign where they offer to front the money to a shopper to buy any laptop they want [article].  Inevitably, even if they had enough money to pay for a Mac, they would always pick a PC because they could get more for their money.  Apple argued that they had recently reduced their prices but as I have shown, even at reduced prices, Macs are still WAY overpriced.  Needless to say Microsoft isn't heeding Apples request and is instead airing an ad where a consumer looks at the MacBook's new price and still chooses a MUCH cheaper and comparable PC.

Now I will rant about the pricing system Mac has when I built the above model.  First and foremost, Apple CHARGES YOU EXTRA for every piece of software that comes pre-installed with it.  This is contrary to a merit that was touted to me again and again that Macs come with all the software you need pre-installed and that doing so makes Macs better.  Admittedly the software pricing was reasonable, but buying any set of basic software can easily get you into the 2K range for a very basic laptop.  Also, with the advent of cloud computing and the powerful open-source movement, most applications you use will be free or online anyway, so why waste your money buying photo editing software and office software?  All a consumer will need in the NEAR future will be a computer with a browser and a graphics chipset which can handle flash.  That then begs the question, why pay $325 more for the same thing?  For this reason I didn't include any software purchases on either configuration.

Also, one might argue the warranty is better for Macs than Dells.  This would be true if I could discern anything about the actual price for 3 year coverage of a Mac computer from their website.  The description of Apple Care said 'up to 3 year' and included the word 'auto enroll' next to the price.  This usually means it's a recurring charge of 249 dollars which you have to pay annually just to keep your existing warranty coverage.  This could put the price into the 750 range for a 3 year warranty where Dell offers a 3 year in-home service option for 260 bucks FLAT and you can add accidental damage insurance for only 70 bucks more.  This means that for less than half of the Mac's warranty service you can get in-home service and have accidental damage repaired at no extra cost.

Some may also say that you're paying for some engineering because Macs are so sturdy.  However, I take serious issue with this claim when news like the Chinese engineer's death comes out.  It's now known that they're underpaying their workers by CHINESE standards and that their management practices sometimes lead engineers to KILL THEMSELVES!  On top of that most of their operating system was taken from another free operating system and the cost of a comparable system is way overpriced.  All that Macs have really engineered is a better aesthetic and maybe some sturdiness.  However the internal company pressure to engineer what Jobs and other higher-ups believes is ‘the best’ is notoriously bad.  I can also admit that some of this bullshit is repeated by other computer companies.  Microsoft takes code from BSD as well and other PC manufacturers also have some shady Asian business practices, but that just makes them more and more on par with Mac and not necessarily worse.

What I'm trying to say in this article is that Mac's for all their hype are just another FUCKING computer with a bigger price tag.  All you're effectively paying for is branding and maybe a little extra engineering.  However, this price discrepancy amounted to around $325 dollars when warranties weren't considered and you have to ask yourself if Mac's are $325 better engineered than a PC.

If you're a Mac fan boy and you're foaming at the mouth reading this article.  Take a breather, head on down to Best Buy and check out the line of PC's and Laptops that don't have the glowing apple on them.  There are still crappy, poorly made laptops but Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony make great computers and other brands are as good or better; not to mention the custom manufacturers and specialty computer markets (like car-puters and rugged PCs).  You often pay much less and get much more out of your computer with a PC and if you hate Windows, Ubuntu and other free UNIX systems are gaining in popularity for the average user.

PC's aren't NEARLY as bad as Mac ads sell them out to be.  Give a try and maybe one day you'll be "a PC" too.