Why I refuse to use Apple products

I have always wondered about those Apple fanatics. The ones who have everything. iBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod, iShirt, iCup, iHouse, iWife, iCar etc. etc. etc. There are several things that put me off buying their products. But since I want to give a reasoning and not just bash Apple, I shall start with the merits of their products.

Firstly, the big, huge plus, that Apple has is, that their products are always innovative, easily usable and they always look spiffy. Noone can say anything against that. Once it comes to design, Apple rules the dumpster. There is a reason, the graphics designers tend to use Apple products for their work. They are just good at what they do, it is that easy and I want to make it clear that I have no doubt about the quality of Apple products. In fact, I admire it.

Now my reasoning, why I will probably never buy an Apple product. Let's start with the most decisive one. The price. To be honest, they are just plain to expensive for me. At the time of writing, an Apple MacBook costs €1,139.00 at amazon.de. As I may have mentioned in a different post, this is waaaay too much for me. I always have the feeling with Apple that I pay an extra 200-300 Euro just to a have a half-eaten fruit on my computer.

Moving swiftly on. Mac OS X. I like playing Computer games and I like programming. However much, Apple may want to change it, the OS with the most compatible games is Windows-based. Fullstop. Most games cater for that and I ain't gonna argue. Especially, since I can save money in building my own desktop PC and then install Windows. Programming, I also prefer to use Windows or Linux (also POSIX but for free), simply because Windows is the main platform so anything that I code has more potential to be distributed.

The next point, I would like to make is a bit of a tender subject with the Apple fanbase (and also addresses the fanbase a bit). I don't like it, how Apple always tries to create exclusivity. Y'know, look at how they only have the same suppliers for their MacBook. There is hardly any variation (if any) to their latest products. You cannot choose if you want to have Blu-Ray player or not with a certain setup, it is either that setup or none. Some people may like this, I don't. This coupled with their very aggressive stance in non-compatibility (only iTunes with iPod. If you attach iPod to a PC, no guarantee etc etc yadiyada).

This, followed by a rather annoying fanbase, who does not even want to listen to other people's arguments with regards to other opinions, makes it even more of a turn off to me. Some very good friends of mine belong to said group and it is just plain tedious talking with them about this topic. So I don't and also block it off when they want to tell me something amazing about Apple.

Anyhow, I felt this had to be said ;) Whenever someone now feels the need to try and convince me of Apple's amazingness, I shall direct him/her to this article :)