Drinking Apple kool-aid ...

As you can cleary read in some of my previous blog posts, I have a hate/love relationship with Apple products. I HATE that I'm dependant on having a PC with iTunes to activate new Apple devices. I hate that I have to use iTunes to put pictures on my iPod. In short, I hate iTunes. It bricks my devices all the time on my XP box (yeah, I'm still using XP on my work notebook, sue me!). I've bricked my iPhone a few times -- usually going the whole day without a work phone, only to restore it on my home PC (Windows 7). I just want to smash Steve Jobs in the face sometimes.

Not only that, I can't stand how many people drink Apple Kool-Aid. It's annoying to hear them talk about Apple devices, similar to this:

iPhone4 vs HTC Evo

I just purchased a iPad for my wife. I pulled it out of the box. Hooked it up to my notebok (XP!), and bricked it while trying to update the OS. I love that icon that says I should plug it into iTunes, even though it's plugged into iTunes. I guess (I hope!) I will have to restore it on my Vista box when I get home. Love wasting my time! Thanks Steve! (I don't blame Bill -- we all know he builds crap, but Steve should know how to create a work around for this somehow ... it's annoying).

So why do I continue to buy Apple products (at least, sometimes)? They're over-priced, under tech'ed (no camera at all, not least a forward looking camera on the iPad ... I guess nobody uses Skype but me? Hell, can't even iChat on it!), and closed systems. Why do I bother? Simple. Because once you get through all of that crap (and it's crap!), they're sexy devices that work really well, and even idiots can use them. And because idiots can use them, there is actually a selection of apps out there to choose from.

Not only that, Apple does do a good job with integrating their other products (Airport Express controlled by iPhone, AppleTV controlled by iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, etc...). Other companies just churn out things that seemingly are different worlds from each other. In other words, Apple has created a platform that works. Of course, I'm still on a iPhone 3G ... and thanks to OS 4.X, it's as slow as snails f--king! I am refusing to upgrade to iPhone 4. I think it's too expensive when compared to the Samsung Galaxy S or the HTC Desire HD. Those phones do more for less. But I just can't buy one of them either. They seem real cheap (especially the HTC). Plus, they won't integrate with my AppleTV nor is there anything like an AirPort Express that I can control with it (is there?) I am just gonna stretch out the iPhone 3G as long as I can.

On a side note, since I am not an integration freak when it comes to hardware for my wife, she is getting a new Nokia C7-00 for her birthday from me (she doesn't read my blog, so I can tell you now :P). It has a 8mpix camera and does HD video. It has awesome integrated FB (social media) functionality. Wi-Fi, BT, cool navigation, etc... Far superior to the iPhone, and it costs 3-4 times less. Nokia Symbian phones have ALWAYS been bad ass technically (far ahead of iPhones), but Nokia's marketing team had alwasy been more interested in having models holding their phones, than actually showing what the phones could do (sytle over substance didn't work for them for some reason). This approach failed for Nokia, but is working for Apple. I guess Hollywood isn't the only influence on the rest of the world. You can add Apple to that list too, even if they're at least a half-decade behind others in actual functionality.