OT: Apple Computer fans cult-like?

I was at the grocery store the other day, Whole Foods, up in Fresno after church. I was talking to the ladies behind the cash register and the smart phone topic came up. They were both android fans. I have an android also. I mentioned how some Mac folks get under my skin sometimes, and they both said, "Apple people are like a cult!" We all laughed.

My best friend with whom I work is a MAC FREAK! He doesn't have the $$$ to buy a Mac laptop or desktop, but phone and every other thing is nothing but Mac. His dad, whom I love, is a Mac devotee. He has Apple TV, Mac laptops, I-phone, I-pad, you name it. Hardcore.

Is it just me or are Mac users like religious zealots? Android and PC users don't try to convert people and obsess and preach and try to win your heart like Mac people. Apple fans are just relentless. They love to point out the history of these machines and try to debate you on every single thing. Pixar is Mac, George Lucas is a Mac buff, Mac invented the mouse and all these graphics and this and that and the other. Mac this, Mac that.

Is it just me? Does anyone else notice these people who'll line up for miles and camp out for days to get new I-phones acting like Lord of the Rings fans at a premier? LOL.....

All I hear is how user-friendly and utterly amazing I-phones are an how awful and endlessly difficult android phones are AND YET my android HTC phone is a piece of cake and most others I have messed with are as well?

Anyone else get tired of hearing about Mac and annoyed by the fact these people act like druids? LOL

Steve Jobs was ruthless in business, hard to work for, outsourced stuff up in the ying-yang, and started a secret spying group within Apple to spy on employees and hunt down leaks. They have so much off-shore corruption and high-pressured employee environments, why do they treat Apple like this Xanadu?

My buddy will never get mad at me. He's so easy-going. He's not religious at all. He's one of those "I'm spiritual not religious" wibbly-wobbly guys when it comes to God. He questions the Bible, is super cynical about how it came to be, is totally pro-evolution, and is fine with most modern abortion, gay, and other situations. Live and let live, real kick-back and fancy free.....UNTIL YOU CRITICIZE MAC! He'll bite your face off! If you criticize Mac, he'll call you a dumb, ignorant, toothless Tea Party redneck uninformed idiot! LOL....it's Jeckyl and Hide on steroids! For some people I know, Apple is like a church!

It's fine to be a fan of EITHER android or Apple, but my beef is how the Apple folks try to convert you, remind you of all the pitfalls of android, preach like they're desperately trying to convince you, get all zealous about the technology, and treat it like some kind of cult. It's downright weird. You don't see HTC, Samsung, or Blackberry folks frothing at the mouth and exuding all this passion and energy to convert you to their tech. It's just odd, that's all. People, imho, are welcome to like either one.

rich1540 said:

I am used to OSX and iOS. I have an Android phone at the moment as my only device. I find it frustrating to use in comparison with iOS. I have the same issue with Windows.

My main reason for disliking Android is how Google is embedded in the OS and the amount of bloatware on the phone that can't be removed without rooting it. It seems to me that Android is insecure by design. ie By default a password is not required to buy or install apps.

To a newcomer, a Mac, iPhone or iPad is easier to use than an Android or Windows device and far more secure too.

Why is it OK to be an Android fan and not an Apple fan?

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Maybe in the land down under, but here stateside, with Apple folks it's either Mac or you're an idiot. Those are the two choices! LOL

rich1540 said:

Actually, you do get Android users frothing at the mouth too, but it is generally directed at Apple users.

Samsung is well known for its astroturfers and shills.

Samsung fined $340,000 for faking online comments | The Verge

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What in the world? I don't understand?

Mary of Bethany said:

I have an iPhone 5 and an old iPad, but a PC.

With today's news about Apple and Facebook offering to pay for their female employees to freeze their eggs (so as not to interrupt their work life, ya know), I'm pretty disgusted.

Mary

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My buddy at work swears up and down that Mac is the greatest machine in history, bulletproof, impossible to have problems with it, and it's almost like God's computer. I ask him why he doesn't own a Mac laptop or desktop? His response: "they are far too expensive."

I guess my point is, yeah, the Porsche may be faster, better handling, more refined than the Dodge Challenger, but I can buy a Challenger for $28,000 and get a heap of horsepower and solid handling, or I can fork out $80,000 for the Porsche and become almost homeless because of it! LOL...

Joseph Hazen said:

The funny thing is I buy Apple almost exclusively if I can (I just have an iPhone and macbook, I don't get iPads and doodads or whatever) because I'm so technologically illiterate. Mac products are just so much easier for me to use.

So really, you wouldn't think that the product that, IME, is geared towards the stupid guy who can't figure stuff out, would be the status symbol, but there you go. Last time I bought a computer with Windows on it it frustrated me so much I almost threw it across the room, and that was when I vowed never to buy another Windows product.

My wife's Google computer has been pretty friendly though, so might next time go with that (much cheaper) option.

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I've always heard some strange things about Apple. Not sure how true they all are. I've heard there is a "Worldwide Loyalty Team" they call it who spy on fellow employees, recruiting moles and such who look for leaks and do some strange stuff. Phones are confiscated and checked by security with this paranoia. I remember back in 2011 hearing how some Apple loyalty team impersonated San Francisco police officers to go into this private residence to search a home for this supposedly boosted I-Phone prototype. Not sure how true it was. I don't like how Apple used to be a proudly American company and then they sold out and went to China and have that substandard, pathetic factory setup just like the rest of the companies. If Jobs were truly the magnanimous soulful selfless individual people say he is, why would he have allowed the I-phones, I-pads and other apple tech get built in sweatshops in China. In one factory it read on a huge sign "A harsh environment is a good thing." The rate of suicide in Apple sweatshops under Jobs and since Jobs is alarming. They had 14 kill themselves at one time in recent years.

I also heard that Steve Jobs cut all of Apple's charity sectors to zero when he came back to the company after his hiatus. I always heard that he was stingy, unlike Bill Gates, who has given a small fortune to charity. Apparently that wasn't as true as it was rumored. After he died, his wife came out with the numbers and examples of charity Jobs gave, but it was nowhere near what Gates and others in the tech world have done. I think more sweatshops benefited than the poor and underprivileged.....He was worth $7 billion when he died, but there was not really much of a public record of his donations, so I wonder sometimes.

I also have always understood that Apple hides billions of dollars in offshore accounts and that they avoid paying taxes in the U.S. not only with outsourcing, but the offshore corrupt way to manage their $$$$.

Now the question is, are the androids any better? Probably not. Maybe worse, but I think it's funny how Jobs was elevated to the status of a Gandhi type, a sort of savior of the world for so many. People came close to worshipping the guy. I think, in the end, I credit Steve Wozniak more for Apple's glory than Jobs. Jobs was a managing, marketing, ideas man, Wozniak seemed to be the brains and innovating brainiac who gets FAR less credit than Wolz. I don't hate Jobs. He was plainly brilliant. He was a dynamic, brilliant man with vision. But I just am unwilling to elevate him to sainthood and put him on the pedestal others do. If I had to say something good about Apple, it'd probably be more aimed and Wolzniak!

I hate handwagons. Mac has been the biggest bandwagon trip I've seen in years. The way their users preach, beg, nag, and just relentlessly try to convince you of the superiority of the product, look at you like you're horse manure for buying android of PC, it's odd to me. When I read Consumer Reports, I see no hard data proving the superiority of Apple products by and large. They make good stuff, some not-so-bullet-proof stuff, just like anyone else.

In my line of work, Mac is revered by many because Apple courted education really early on in the 1980's. There was so much education-oriented software and programming that teachers and administrators just went Mac-butt-wild. I think teachers who were around in the late 70's, through the 1980's, and early 90's just remember that courting and still are in love.

I think Macs have some great stuff. I have respect for them, but the level of religiosity about them among so many, that's my beef and head-scratching issue...

Jesus4Madrid said:

What's not to love about Apple?

I am currently reading the biography "Jobs". I find it fascinating.

Steve Jobs felt passionately about making things the normal people actually could use. He focused indefatigably on making things simple yet better than the competition. He repeatedly put design before profitability.

He lived an austere life and showed little interest in material things, which is of course a paradox for an inventer of consumer goods.

He wanted to change the world and he did. Even if you avoid all Apple products, those competitor goods you do buy are better and easier to use because they have to compete with Apple.

Lord have mercy on his troubled, complicated soul. Too bad he wasn't Orthodox.

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