Stop Deifying Apple, Okay? Apple Has Plenty of Skeleton in Its Closet, Okay?

Every day I see people deifying Apple. Sure, Apple is genuinely impressive right now. But when you elevate Apple to prophet status, when you claim every product it launches is guaranteed to be a hit — that’s where I can’t stay quiet. So let me talk about the skeletons in its closet that I know of, just rambling off the top of my head, read it however you like. The tone is venting, it’s not calm, feel free to treat it as nonsense. Don’t take it seriously. I can’t be bothered to chase down every detail and source — this is all from memory.

Early on, Apple put out the iPod, and it was so up-itself that it didn’t support USB — you had to use FireWire 1394 to transfer, and there was no Windows iTunes. I remember Jobs saying at the time that Windows or PCs didn’t deserve to use the iPod or iTunes; PC users could only use Jukebox and rig up their own 1394 ports to sync music.

Later? Heh. It slapped itself in the face, added USB and Windows iTunes, and that’s when the iPod actually took off.

At first, Apple’s computers only used IBM CPUs, and it was so up-itself that it trashed Intel daily, calling Intel CPUs garbage, saying they were completely inferior to its mighty Power G5. Every so often Jobs would fire off a rant that Intel CPUs were totally crushed by the Power G5 in multimedia performance by default.

Later? Heh. It joined the Intel camp, of course, and we even got Hackintosh — which, in a way, pushed Mac OS X forward.

When Apple first launched the iPhone, it was so up-itself that it didn’t open the SDK, swaggering that the iPhone only supported Apple’s own software, so everyone else could forget about developing for it. No Discord or anything — you could only jailbreak and use LumaQQ. The media’s attitude toward the first-gen iPhone at the time was: this thing looks good but is useless, there’s no software.

Later? Heh. It finally opened the SDK, of course, and that’s how the App Store came to be. And the rules were absurdly numerous — this doesn’t get approved, that doesn’t get approved — yet developers still lined up to get in. When an app rejected their software, they blamed themselves. When Play removed their app because others reported it for too many ads, they called Play trash.

Honestly, early Apple wasn’t anything special — just an ordinary commercial company. Its early attempts at acting tough failed, and it obediently changed course. There’s nothing magical about OSX/iOS either. The so-called smoothness and stability are the result of a bunch of masochistic developers willing to grovel before Apple. The so-called ease of use is the result of near-brutal demands placed on software developers. Try that under Windows — tell people that to develop software they have to follow a massive list of requirements or they won’t be allowed to develop, and most developers would say “I ain’t serving you anymore.” But face to face with Apple, they grovel obediently. That’s Apple’s ability, sure.

Why don’t more manufacturers copy Apple? Because aside from the looks, there’s nothing to copy. Copy Apple by building your own hardware and your own software and integrating them deeply? Look at Xiaomi — it’s doing exactly that, and even it doesn’t dare go with a fully independent software system; it still has to lean on Android, and inherits all of Android’s flaws. If you build your own independent OS, lock everything inside it down to the letter, restrict hardware support, and impose 30 commandments on every developer who wants to make software for your OS, then sure, you can absolutely guarantee the so-called user experience — assuming you can survive and make money doing it. Then you’re the next Apple.

Apple basically makes products with the attitude of penning users in like livestock. When more and more people say they like Apple’s “no fuss” approach, I think that’s not a good thing for the future.