Why I Hate Apple,

h1. Why I Switched Back

I recently read a a blog entry
that was pushing the Mac again as most of the Apple religious fanatics do
constantly. My problem with this entry was it came from a dude I generally
respect for his programming work, but he just had to say, “I would have a hard
time imagining hiring a programmer who was still on Windows for 37signals. If
you don’t care enough about your tools to get the best, your burden of proof
just got a lot heavier.” This inspired me to tell everyone why I hate Apple’s
products and how picking an Apple shows that you are more interested in flashy
graphics and slick primary color ads than you are in the total quality of the
tools you use.

Why? Because, while the OS X software is great, Apple’s hardware is some of the
worst I’ve used in the whole 18 years I’ve been using computers. I purchased an
iBook that ground to a halt after months of Apple denying it was broken. (Other
people have Power Books with AC adapters catching on fire.) On top of that, I
ended up blowing an extra $1000 easily on repairs and upgrades just to keep up
with Apple’s obnoxious secretive upgrade policies.

That’s the short version of why I switched back to a really nice eMachines
laptop and Linux. The details are more interesting though.

Time To Upgrade The Vaio

I first started looking around for a new laptop when I started graduate school.
My previous laptop was this fantastic Sony VAIO that was indestructible. It was
only 300mhz, but the damn thing survived for literally 5 years before I really
felt I had to replace it. I kept it for a total of 8 years and used it for
testing NetBSD (about the only thing that’d run on it). That thing was a rock.
I dropped it, took it on plane trips, just about everything and it never broke
down. I even upgraded the battery and found that I got 8-9 hours of usage out
of it simply because I had an older model using a newer model’s battery.

DefCon and continually frustrating build times for my software finally
convinced me to buy a iBook. I went to a DefCon one year, and everyone had
Linux laptops like mine. I went the next year and everyone had Apple iBooks and
Powerbooks. This said a lot for how good OS X was and after some research I
went out and bought one. Sure, it had a lower power processor, shitty battery,
and was made of cheap plastic, but it was calling me.

OS X was finally a decent operating system, unlike OS 9 which was a painful
piece of shit. I was a system administrator at a university, and had to deal
with people’s OS 9 machines. I decided OS 9 was a steaming pile of rusty junk
after finding out that the memory fragmentation was so bad that people
restarted their computers every 4 hours. There were lots of other problems that
Mac fans just overlooked, but this was the big one. I needed a platform that
ran all day and night without a restart, and Linux or FreeBSD fit the bill for
me just fine.

The Worm In The Apple

Trouble with Apple started almost immediately. Three weeks after I bought my
iBook they came out with another version of OS X, dropped the price on the
iBooks by 500 bucks or more, jacked up the processor 100mhz, increased memory
by at least 256M, threw in 20G more disk, and just generally screwed me over. I
already had bought an overpriced set of hardware just to get to OSX, and now
Apple made my OS X worthless making what I bought even more expensive by
comparison.

I tried to avoid upgrading, as in the Windows or Linux world you can do for as
long as you feel (I still know people happily writing professional software
for Windows 95 and running Linux 2.0 for big crunching). Apple couldn’t have
this, and decided that they would instantly upgrade all of their developer
tools and binary formats so that programmers needed the latest OS X. Since I
was writing Objective-C code for some folks I was forced to upgrade the OS.
This then meant a memory upgrade, and I had to backup my stuff so figured I’d
better get a external drive. I ended up having to spend another 500 bucks on
the already 500 dollar difference between my model and the new models. By my
calculations, I must have lost about 1000 dollars or more on Apple’s “sudden
and complete upgrade paths”.

As these 2 months go on I begin to get more and more pissed off at Apple. I was
writing software for their platform. I was reporting bugs for software they
released. I advocated their damn platform to others, ignoring the fact that I
had basically lost $1000 to these hucksters. But damn that OS X was sweet. It
was all worth the sexy UI and sweet programming model. All the power of Linux
or FreeBSD and none of the lame sound support. Hell, OS X had a working
backspace key that didn’t put “^H” all over the damn terminal at random points.
That’s worth it’s weight in gold.

The Dreaded Lid of Black

At least until my screen started going completely black. Completely black.
Like, gouged my eyes out and cut my ears off black. It was weird. I’d be using
my iBook, and suddenly the screen would go black. I’d adjust pull the lid down
a bit, wiggle it back up and get my screen back. Each week I’d have to wiggle
the screen even more. Once I got to where I had to open and close the screen 5
times before I could work, and was forced to leave my iBook at home (which
makes it useless for a consultant paid to have his own laptop) I decided to
research the problem.

What I found about the hasp lock pissed me off. Apparently the iBook had a
known design flaw in my model where a bundle of very fragile cables was passed
over the high-pressure hinge that kept the lid open. This was a known flaw, and
Apple was refusing to fix it. The only way to fix it was to buy a new logic
board from one of a couple of companies who hadn’t been sued into oblivion yet
by Apple. There were class action suits. There were message boards with huge
angry rants.

Add to this the problems with all the hardware made during this time.
Powerbooks had adapters that would literally catch on fire. Apparently eMacs
had numerous faulty components. The remarks I was hearing through the grape-
vine were just amazing. How the hell could a company keep screwing customers
over with such crap ass hardware and still have a following?

I’ll give you a contrast between Apple and Dell for a second. I had a friend
Chris who wanted to buy a laptop, and he called me to find out what I thought
of Dell. I told him that they were crap; that I managed several of them at my
university and they all were broken; that they were made of junk plastic. He
bought one anyway, and sure enough it was broken within about a day. It was
crap like I told him.

Now this is where Dell and Apple differ and why Dell kicks Apple’s ass. Chris
called them up, and they took the laptop back right away without any questions,
paid for his shipping, and even were polite about it. He only had to whine for
a little while. Dell also promptly fixed the junk plastic in their laptops and
now you can get a decent nice looking Dell for fairly little money.

Apple Confesses and Screws Me

The interesting thing is that Chris later bought a Powerbook, and he’s had to
return it 6 times that I know of in two years. I’m not kidding. His Powerbooks
(yes, that’s Powerbooks, plural) had glue coming out of the screen, drives
failing, wireless not working, hinges coming loose. You name it, but he stuck
with it and kept returning the thing over and over again.

I was not that lucky. My laptop was completely screwed, and I needed something
the next day to replace it. I called Apple and they said that it was my
problem. I must have dropped it or done something to it. Then, they announced a
recall on my exact model and we could turn them in for repair. Right then my
iBook just stopped working. It was too late. The drive was shot, it barely
started, and I had already moved on in total disgust and a company I once
admired.

I had it for maybe a year or so. I spent tons of money on it, used as light as
possible since it was real flimsy feeling, and eventually got nothing out of
it. Apple left me in the dust and I had no choice to buy another computer. In
the end, I was screwed out of thousands of dollars by Apple.

DHH And The Right Tools

My experience with Apple means I will never buy anything Apple produces. No
matter how great OS X is (and it’s great), they’ve demonstrated that their
hardware quality is the worst in the industry. No other piece of hardware I
have used or built has been as poorly designed and constructed as all of the
Apple hardware I’ve seen or used. It wouldn’t be so bad, but then they lie
about the quality, force software upgrades, bring out “surprise” hardware
upgrades, and bring lawsuits against anyone trying to report on their
operations. How much you want to bet those assholes will try to do something to
me?

So what does Apple lose? Nothing other than a professional software developer
with many years experience willing to actually write software for their
platform. Oh yeah, that’s not too big of a deal. They also lost my sales, and
the sales of everyone I talk with from this day on.

Which leads me to DHH’s quote:
“I would have a hard time imagining hiring a programmer who was still on
Windows for 37signals. If you don’t care enough about your tools to get the
best, your burden of proof just got a lot heavier.” Well, what do you say
about someone who insists on only hiring people who use faulty hardware from a
company that has shown it would rather deny and cover-up it’s flaws than fix
them? I’d say that anyone who uses Apple hardware does not care enough about
their tools, but unlike DHH I wouldn’t discriminate against people based on
their choice of tools. I’m a results type of person, and if someone produces
good work then I don’t care if they’re coding on a damn toilet seat at
midnight. It’s the quality of the work, not the tools used to create it.

Where’s The iBook Now?

Well, I still have that iBook. It sits on my desk as a constant reminder for
why I should never buy Apple products. It kind of still works as I can boot it
and ssh into it if I really really need, but it doesn’t stay up for long and
the harddisk is almost dead. If I need to port some software I might do it, but
not because I like Apple. I appreciate the users who like my software, and want
to give them software they can use. That’s the only reason why I still have
this iBook.

If you’re thinking of buying an Apple, then think very hard. I’m not the only
person with these experiences, and Apple’s hardware is horrible junk. I still
hear of people with problems, so don’t hope for a recent improvement.
Especially considering you can buy a faster, longer lasting, 64-bit based
laptop or desktop computer for half the price with longer batter life and
built-in goodies from any other vendor. Put NetBSD or FreeBSD on it if you
really want to ditch Windows, but don’t put up with bad—even dangerous—
hardware just to get a snappy dock.