I can tell you with relative certainty that I will not be the only pundit to rip apart PC World’s “10 Things We Hate About Apple” article. You know, the one that generated all that buzz around the ousted of that guy. Ok, so I’m not into fact checking today. I do, however, have the list printed out in front of me and ready to dissemble. Here’s goes:

1. Free Speech, Anyone?

Their big gripe over Apple is that they litigate everyone. Sure, I hate it when I hear the latest about Apple running around and trying to scare the crap out of some little site monkey who had the gaul to post details on Apple’s latest power supply designs, but they are doing what is their legal right. Apple has the right to protect its intellectual property. I don’t always agree with how it goes about it, but hey… they law is the law. Deal.

2. More Secretive Than Homeland Security

The lads complain about how Apple doesn’t reveal details about what it’s doing or what its working on. Fact: Apple has way less than 10% of the market. Fact: Apple has 70%+ marketshare in the DAP space. Fact: Just about everyone copies Apple when they know what Apple is doing. Fact: LG released that stupid iPhone clone a few weeks after Apple announced theirs. If I were Apple, damn! I’d keep everything close, too!

PC clone makers work on tight margins. Any edge they can get they will take. They’d also rather go to court for a few million to protect the possibility of making 100 million in a market they don’t have to spend millions getting into. If you think that Apple would be around if they revealed everything they were working on, you’ve got another thing coming. Vista, anyone?

3. Ain’t Too Proud To Blame

Ok. I didn’t know about this one. That was plain bad. Score 1 for the hate listers.

4. iHate iEverything

I personally find it funny when people bring this up when the conversation turns to how annoying Apple can be. The i in iMac is iConic. ThiS iS why Apple chose iT. iT means that anythiNg that starts wiTh a lowercase i wiLl very liKely be an Apple speciFic product. ThiS iS sheer marketiNg geniUs. WhiLe iT can be annoyiNg every once in a whiLe, iT remaiNs iConic to the core.

5. Where’s The Blu-ray?

I don’t recall the numbers, but I heard last week that the latest 007 movie is the biggest selling Blu-ray disc on the market… with 15,000 copies. Oooh! We need to hurry! If we don’t hurry and get Blu-ray support into Macs we might be missing out on the massive exodus from DVD which we’re experiencing! Lord no! The next biggest selling Blu-ray disc (I don’t recall the title) came in at a market stomping, eating, and digesting 6,000 units sold. OMG, WTF!!

6. Nobody’s Perfect

This one is titled Nobody’s Perfect, but it goes on to complain that Apple makes mistakes. Duh! It cites the puck-ass mouse, the original iBook, and the Shuffle. Yes, the stupid puck mouse was bad. Sure, the original iBook did look like a portable toilet seat with handle. Absolutely, I would never own a Shuffle because I like displays. Of course, none of this stopped or stops people from loving them and buying tonnes of them (yes, I’m referencing the British metric tonne).

Its almost like they’re saying that nobody else makes mistakes! God forbid if PC makers made mistakes (Bob, Dell moving support to India, IBM continuing to develop Lotus Notes/Domino, the federal government not policing Microsoft’s antitrust conviction) they might never survive!

7. Give Me a Sign

I’m a little sick of people saying that the Mac is secure because its obscure. Please. This is like saying UNIX is secure because its rarely used. The Dorknamic Duo is peeved because Apple doesn’t announce its security flaws. Hello! You might as well send out invitations to hackers saying that all 6+ million users will be vulnerable in this way until said date. Have at it, blokes! Not like they could do any real damage anyway. Jeez!

8. No Good For Gaming

Here they have it on the nose. Apple doesn’t do games. And its a shame, too. I’ve played Doom 4, the new Quake, and some other games from Aspyr that simply rock, kids. Oh, and I played them on a Mac. Wait a minute! I thought the guys said that Mac didn’t do good games? Oh, now I see. They’re claiming that only some good games come out for the Mac, and generally only two or more years after they’ve been on Windows.

Well then, I must not have been playing those games then. Oh well.

9. Limited Selection

The gripe here is that Apple simply doesn’t provide enough variety. I suggest, then, that you boys head on over and pick yourselves up some PCs with Windows Vista and enjoy away. This is just lame. Apple offers what its buyers want. They have a range of products with workable price ranges that suit a range of users. Just because Dell and HP feel the need to offers hundreds of SKUs doesn’t mean Apple does.

Besides, how does Apple stay up near the top of the computer maker list (up there next to Dell and HP) if they’re not doing something right (sorry about that fact checking there. I know I read it somewhere).

10. Doesn’t Play Well With Others

Ahem… Okay, this entire gripe is about Apple’s iPod only supporting two codecs, AAC and MP3. They even have the gaul to complain that the iPod won’t play WMA files, “…used by much of the rest of the world.” Egads! People who use WMA are forced into it because of their ignorance and Microsoft’s unwillingness to educate users on their options. I dare say few people will argue with me when I say that MP3 is about as standard as you can get in digital audio.

The second complain in their is about how AAC files cannot be played on other devices, which is simply not true. They even cite one such player in their article, the rightly maligned Microsoft Zune (what a turd). If you don’t like it, buy the CDs. Yes, you can still buy CDs. You can also wait a tad longer when Apple releases all EMI music with a DRM-free option. I’m sure the other labels will follow suit soon.

11. Conclusion

Just wanted to add this little part at the end so you’d know where to stop. In the end (pun intended) we see that the Lethargic Laddies win one of ten with the fact that Apple chose to blame Microsoft because a worm (like a virus) got onto some of their new iPod before shipment. Shame, Apple. Shame.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: Opinion