Why I do not understand Apple products

From year to year, sometimes every few years, the world is stunned by the news: Apple has released a new product. And every time he, this very product, causes a lot of controversy. The company has a huge number of adepts and admirers, just as there are a huge number of haters. Someone sits tight on the iPhone and Mac, someone prefers Android. Everyone tastes different, you can not argue with that. But following the concept of a free world, freedom of choice is difficult to deny the fact that Apple is precisely dictating its own rules, taking advantage of the status of a “trendsetter”.

This text is a purely subjective opinion about what is happening, the conclusions of an outside observer who, even at zero, watched with delight the formation of the “Empire of Apple” and now understands that it doesn’t go out as neutral before. Because rave reviews around are becoming more and more, and they begin to admire even very controversial decisions.
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What is a smartphone? Let's not fool ourselves and take it as an axiom that a smartphone is a tool that allows a person to be online, wherever he is, within the cellular network, of course. A smartphone is not a reflection of the essence of a person; it is a crutch that we all, its owners, use daily.

Without smartphones and mobile Internet was difficult. And I'm not talking about Facebook breaking, which currently suffers a couple of hundred million people, but about features such as checking email, connecting with colleagues, and navigating the terrain.

The development of technology has fundamentally changed the life of mankind and Apple has made a huge contribution to these changes. The basis of the idolization of the company's products, it seems to me, lies primarily in ignorance and misunderstanding of the history of mobile devices. For many, Apple has become synonymous with a smartphone, and in this case, it only remains to respectfully take off my hat to the company's marketing specialists.

For all the controversial personality of Steve Jobs, his past and his actions, he was a brilliant marketer: to sell a proprietary product, locked up, limited to the manufacturer from all sides of the product and put his cons as a boon to the user - this happens once in a generation, and, perhaps, in several generations. I remind you, I am not an Apple cheater and I treat the company as neutral and, in some places, respectful.

Why is the new iPhone 7 - the turn of the next stage of slavery for millions around the world?

Yes, for a number of indicators it is good. But the problem is that together with the company's devices, the user gets what he does not need. Closed OS, closed services, closed ecosystem.

By purchasing an iPhone, a person subscribes to digital slavery - he does not have the right to choose for real. Someone will call this the next-level userfriendly concept, but let's face it: once “plunging” into the Apple ecosystem, there is no way out of it. Because your money remains there.

The amount of 700-1000 US dollars is a very significant contribution to our own chains. Of course, there are people who declare that this is their weekly earnings and I will not dispute their words, but for the majority this is a serious sum of savings of several months, and, possibly, a year. Young people take new iPhones on credit altogether and legends about this, as well as about the “diminutive” diet.

But if you look sensibly, then what is the problem of such a decent device as the iPhone? He is really worthy, and you shouldn't argue here. Excellent optimization, materials, assembly, and most importantly - formed a vast ecosystem.

iPhone has become a status product. If you have an Apple device in your hands, then you belong to a certain caste, which clearly creates a stratification of society, from which the progressive part of the world runs so without looking back. Apparatus, subscriptions, peripherals - all this forms a cult, in the center of which stands only one single corporation and its well-being. “Earnings on Ponta Youth” is the company's second slogan in countries where the iPhone costs much more than a monthly salary.

What does the iPhone offer us? Almost nothing.

“But new iPhones are coming out every few years!”, - they will object to me. Yes. Conferences and presentations of Apple have become commonplace for many, but the problem is that the consumer, like Pavlov's dog, after the release of each device with a new figure, rushes for the "new ingenious iPhone."

A piece of plastic, aluminum and silicon can not be brilliant by definition. Behind the oppressive noise of the marketers' voices, we stopped remembering the most important purpose of smartphones, which I mentioned at the beginning of the publication: a smartphone is a tool, but not an end in itself.

Apple managed to turn everything upside down and make a cult product out of a piece of plastic, aluminum and silicon.

The company's competitors produce a dozen different models for every taste and color, based on the specific needs of the user, but only the iPhone is mistaken for a “standard” when it is not at all.

In fact, the company's products are probably one of the most difficult in terms of the long-term operation of the phenomena of modern history. But the consciousness of their owners is so atrophied that any hardware or software problem is taken for granted.

“Macbooks are not buggy and do not break, they just have their own resource,” I heard this mantra more than once.

People are not aware that the fall of the laptop to the “tailbone” from the chair in a heated state can cause the dumping of one of the bridges, simply because the solder was heated by the chip itself and it came off its place. People take for granted the limited SSD rewriting resource on the latest MacBook models and are already mentally prepared to buy a new device. Fallen obsolescence of technology, whose resource may be decades, removal from support and updating of old devices that are still in working condition is already the norm. Consumption rate, which was driven into the heads of buyers. The manufacturer does not want to spend his money on messing around with a product five to seven years old, so the consumer will spend his money. To purchase a new device.

Or, for example, can you imagine that a Samsung smartphone with a memory card slot will cost $ 200 more than without?

Of course not, but for Apple, this is the norm. Recall the iPhone 6. 64 and 128 Gb models were fabulously expensive relative to the 32 Gb version, but this cheat was taken for granted.

iPhone is not unique. Yes, in many positions it is better than devices on Android or, do not be mentioned dead in vain, Windows Phone. But this does not make it so good as to pay two prices. It lacks free will, freedom of choice, and if you read the Apple EULA, you will understand that the legal opportunity to use your own property is just a whim of the manufacturer.

In the age of resistance to jeans, advertising and marketing, we all fell into a trap called the Apple line of devices.

Yes, they beckon. They are comfortable, functional and beautiful. The OS, most often, is licked and ready for full-fledged work, and all the listed advantages cover the fact that new devices come out every two to three years and, more often, have already outdated hardware.

There are flagships from other manufacturers, but they will not be as ready to work out of the box as the iPhone. And the ubiquitous and universal Android also strongly beats optimization - no one “finishes” it for a specific device. This leads to the fact that if you have 5 or more inches screen, then it is better not to go far from the outlet, and even better - to buy a powerbank.

In this regard, there is simply no alternative to the "apple". In current realities, it is generally difficult to choose a smartphone for yourself, because neither iOS nor Android is already causing the admiration that it used to. The first OS is marking time, and the second is already tired with its versatility.

Daily use of a smartphone is like whiskey and coke - the cola sets the tone for everything. And in this situation, the iPhone, and any other product of the company plays the role of whiskey - it gives a taste, a touch. But it doesn't matter what you have in your glass: a twelve-year elite drink for a hundred dollars per bottle, or the usual three-year-old for ten, from a supermarket counter around the corner.

All their sophistication or clumsiness is hidden by cola, and you get drunk from them absolutely the same.