I don't hate Apple per say, but I do strongly disagree with their business practices and do not entirely enjoy their products.
What do I disagree with, their greed. Apple chooses to price everything through the roof turning a massive profit off of every device sold, more so then any other technology company I know. Apple charges two to three times the manufacturing cost to the consumer making a 100% profit or higher on many devices. Up until a few years ago Apple was also one of the cheaper computer manufacturers. I bought a MacBook laptop for school a few years ago when I was in high school, the school had a contract with Apple that all students in the school used Apple laptops in all our classes. My laptop broke on four occasions and I was very careful with it, the tech guy who was in contact with our school said that the aluminum frame kept bending causing problems with the computer. As President of the Schools computer comity and Vice President of the student Government when the contract run out with Apple I was given the authority to choose between the new Acer Tablet Laptop or remain with Apple's laptop. I tested out Acers knew computer and our schools principle and faculty were undecided on which would be better. They left the decision to the Student Government, since I was head of the computer comity and Vice President of the Government I pretty much chose. I went with Acer.
I left the school shortly after however in the year I had Acer it never broke down once. The computer was cheaper offered a touch screen and had far more capabilities compared to the Apple Laptops we had. I decided after that point that I did not want to buy over priced cheaply made hardware, rather go with the cheaper more durable and better designed hardware from Acer or another PC company.
Apple's privatization policies and protectionist policies stifle competition and prevent products from reaching their true potential. A perfect example is not offering Flash on their iOS devices to protect their software sales and film sales and so fourth. Making i-Tunes pretty much the only way to purchase content prevents competitors like Napster and such from being able to sell to Apple users. It also means that Apple can make demands of artists and content providers preventing those content providers from supporting competitors products. Though this doesn't happen all the time it has happened.
Then Apple's expansionist policies, Apple doesn't stick to just the computer market they go out and create other technology related products. However they do not work with competitors or retailers to encourage competition their goal in entering every market is to dominate and take over. I mean its great to want success but to personally aspire to crush all your competitors as your soul goal is just wrong.
A major blow I remember is Apple suing Microsoft because they had a PC monopoly and wouldn't allow Microsoft software to be released on Apple hardware. The courts agreed it was a monopoly and granted Apple Microsoft software. Today Mac computers can even run Windows, but Apple doesn't create a fair competitive environment in its markets. I don't see the Apple OS or iOS on competitor devices like Windows is, I don't see I-Tunes integrated into competitors MP3 players or smart phones. Apple's internal software is almost entirely exclusive for Apple products even the few products available for PC are intended soully to sell Apple products. Apple stifles competition just as much as Microsoft ever did the only difference is while Apple is a bigger company (revenue wise) it doesn't have the market share dominance in the PC, laptop or Phone markets. Meaning that the competitors products are still able to survive due to their leading market shares.
The problem is Apple is gaining momentum and market share, eventually they will pose a threat to every one of their competitors existences. When that happens their anti-competitive stance will kill off the competitors one by one. Look at what I-Phone has done to BlackBerry and RIM, they caused smart phone companies to all band together and form a united front with Android in order to compete with Apple. The only way for competitors to fight off Apple is to unite and join forces against Apple, it happened with the PC industry where all the companies died off or adopted Windows leaving Apple as the only major hardware manufacturer with their own OS. Now in the phone industry the industry is once again uniting and going with the Android OS to fight off Apple. Though I must agree with PC it was more of Microsoft uniting competitors to kill off competitors products, however they still encouraged competition between PC manufacturers. Apple is not promoting competition in any way shape or form.
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Now that I have said my dislikes, Apple does one thing good. Software and marketing, Steve Jobs was a master mind at marketing and creating an environment where Apple exclusive software could thrive. i-Movie and such were so enjoyable back when I had my Apple Laptop switching to PC was a major turn off as for schooling and business purposes the software was just so inferior. The hardware was of course better bang for your buck and more reliable with Acer, but the software wasn't as good.
In the end I like the Mac OS's on their laptops and computers. I like both the internal and exclusive software that comes to Mac. The hardware while ridiculously over priced and often inferior is not complete trash it does perform its purpose and in the I-Phones case it does so on par with the leading competing Android phones.
Apple's protectionist anti-competition policy while I hate it and think its immoral and bad for the industry. Is a very smart business idea, while Apple turns a huge profit on their hardware other companies who create superior hardware are unable to sell them for nearly the profits Apple does. HP for example barely turns a profit on hardware so much so that they are selling off their PC hardware division. According to the manager at my local Future Shop competitors sell Future Shop the hardware for say a 5-10% mark up. He said Apple's mark up can be up to 50% - 100% from their actual manufacturing cost. He said Apple makes a killing on their hardware.
Any company that can charge such outrageous amounts for their hardware and has the fan base and users to support it. Obviously deserves respect. As despicable as I find the business practice it is very smart and what will keep them in business for a long time to come!
