It’s nothing that I really have against the company or anything, I think Jobs and Wozniak have left behind incredible milestones in the start of home computing, and deserve much of the credit they’ve been given! But there are just some things that Apple has fallen short on, from my technological point of view.

And yeah, maybe part of my conflict is due to the whole ‘elitist’ image those Mac vs PC commercials have been feeding us for years now. Hey Mr. Long, leave PC alone! Have you ever considered that, unlike your slacking ass, John has a high stress, underpaid middle-management job, four kids to feed, and he’s been driving a ’96 Dodge Stratus for the past 8 years! Get a job, hippy, then come and tell me how your iLife helped manage your quarterly budget so you finally get that trivial pay increase, the one that has kept you up near 4AM in crying fits!?

Sorry, I blanked out for a second there. Where were we? Oh yeah, so here is what Apple sucks at:

A (Closed) OS X:

One growing market is the do-it-yourselfers (DIY), or home-built computer users (i.e., Me). It’s true, it’s never been easier to build a computer these days, especially with the all-around efficiency of the latest motherboards: you don’t even need a video card to run a decent system, anymore. It’s great! Heck, some markets even go as far as building a basic setup for you! All you have to do is pop in the processor and you’re good to boot into your favorite operating system!

Oh wait, you can’t! Why? Because if that favorite operating system happens to be Apple OS X, you’ll end up in some legal trouble! You see, Apple is restricting OS X under a very strict license (the End User License Agreement), which states that it may run on only genuine Apple hardware, and nothing else. So people like me, who build systems for themselves and save what can be thousands of $$$ in doing so, are closed off from using what may be the best competitor to Windows systems. Outrageous and unnecessary! Thanks to Apple’s use of Intel processors in Mac hardware, this could’ve been such an easy task in building your own Mac; but, due to that EULA, I’m being held back from exploring the fruits of their labor. I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I’d be feeling pretty incomplete and under-utilized if I wasn’t able to work with every consumer out there, hmm?

So, I guess some people could just tell me to ‘go buy a Mac’ or something, right? Sure, lets head right over to the Mac shop and see what’s up for grabs under $500. Looks like we’ll end up with a cart full of broken hearts, since not even the basic Mac Mini hits that low. Not to mention, I could build a similarly equipped system myself while staying under $350, nearly half of the $599 price tag of Apple’s most basic system. See what I’m saying?

A Pointless Feature:

In an open market, it’s hard for Apple to sell the ‘no-viruses’ feature that it’s proud to wave about in Vista’s face. It’s too bad for them that they can’t boast that in the presence of Linux, because then they’d really have an advantage that would shut this whole argument up! Here’s the thing: yes, Macs have an excellent running history with security features, but Linux has been doing this for years, too; and Linux is F-R-E-E! If you’d also consider the advances that Linux has been racking up, one of them is Ubuntu’s work on bridging the user-experience between Windows and Linux, which makes the transition to Linux more convenient and practical. Linux is becoming an aggressive competitor to systems like OS X and Windows XP / Vista. I use one distribution, PuppyLinux, to run an old, beat up laptop that I had found broken and slow under Windows XP, so I’m an huge fan of Linux, although I’m not a full convert just yet.

Oh, and as far OS X being a ‘virus-free’ system, here is a funny video that jokes with that idea. One techie, Troika, developed this as a prank and it’s not capable of really destroying any files or anything, but I’m sure a surprising experience will be had by anybody ‘infected’: check out the Youtube video of the Newton Virus.