I want to address 2 quotes primarily, which is my proof that whoever wrote this article has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about and should probably have been fired for writing a story that is barely National Enquirer quality.
(and because I believe in integrity and ethics, as a graduate of engineering, here are my biases: I own a Macbook Pro, iPhone 4, and iPad Mini. I have also extensively used Windows OS over the years)
Remember, this is not something that consumers are being forced to pay. They are dipping willingly into their own pockets, because they’re essentially slaves to the devices.
“With my MacBook, iPad and iPhone, everything is linked,” says Martorana, who laments that Apple products are so popular that they never seem to go on sale. “All of my music and photos are in their iCloud. So I don’t know if I’d even be able to switch to another product, even if I wanted to. Apple definitely has its hooks in me.”
What a pile of FUD.
Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. For the last quote, it seems that they went up to the most technologically naive person they could find and asked them to respond. If you want to upgrade your computer or phone or whatever, you can buy whatever you like. You know why?:
- all iTunes music since 2009 is DRM-free AAC, which means it plays on any computer or device that plays AAC music. If that doesn’t work, you are free to convert it to mp3 within iTunes itself
- you can sync your photos with your computer and import them into any Photo Album program you want. It’s that little button on iPhoto called “Share”
- Mail and Calendars and Contacts? Google offers similar services to iCloud for that store that also allows for Push access, and it’s not that hard to set up. You can export your mail/calendar/contacts from within each application even!
Here’s what people are really complaining about: When it comes time to upgrade they may look at other products and find that they simply don’t like any of them. Mac OSX operates on a different paradigm, as do the iPhone and iPad. If people are looking for the exact same thing when they upgrade, then of course all they’re going to find is Apple products. If you want Apple products, then you have to be prepared to pay the Apple price; if you want to pay less then you can and buy a Windows/Android product and they will have all the basic features (all of them I outlined above at least).
Here’s where people are going to complain: “What about all the Apps I bought thought!” This isn’t some new problem. For any of us that have ever moved from Windows to Mac in the first decade of the 2000s, that inevitably meant leaving behind
all your old software and buying new ones of what little was available as an alternative (Office for Mac instead of Windows for example).
Here’s the other one: “It’s not what I’m used to!”. This must be all people who have never bought a car (more then one). If your car dies and you have to get a new one, do you go to the Ford dealership and go “none of your cars look or feel like Toyotas”? Of course not, because that would be asinine. Nor do you go and complain that your old tripped out hub caps don’t fit your new car. We have to stop treating computers like “computer” is some monolithic object. “Computer” (and “phone” for that matter) is like “car”, there are different types and manufacturers and thus different products.
