Apple... you have failed me for the last time

Those of you who discuss technology with me on a regular basis know that this has been brewing for quite some time, but I have officially forsaken Apple software and hardware.  I know I will get a lot of questions from people who I have helped switch over to Apple in the past, so I am writing this now before the word gets out.  Hopefully, I can just refer people to this post when they ask, which will save me from having to repeat myself on a regular basis.


There has been a steady collection of little annoyances that have built up over the past few years, to the point I'm just not willing to deal with them anymore.  I'll summarize these down to the big issues to spare you from an exhausting (yes, I meant to choose that word) list of nitpicks.  I do recognize that the issues are not all important to the average user, so I'm not necessarily recommending that people follow my lead here... this is just to answer the inevitable questions.


Software
Apple apparently has some of the worst programmers in the industry.  How they could have taken something that was so well-built under Avie Tevanian's guard and turned it into the buggiest OS this side of beta Linux builds is beyond me.  I suppose they pulled all the programmers with any real chops off their projects and put them on the iPhone OS, leaving all the interns to work on OS X and the desktop software.  Life was pretty good with OS X 10.3, despite a few bugs here and there.  With 10.4, things got a little worse, but the OS was still mostly tolerable.  With 10.5, I started referring to it as Mac OS X Vista.  Seriously, on this MacBook Pro, it was terrible.  I tried hanging on for a few revisions and finally had to go back to 10.4, only to face the keyboard bugs all over again.  When 10.6 came out, I thought everything would be solved... they did promise, right?  So much for that.  10.6.1 didn't solve a single one of the problems I was facing either.  10.6.2 came out, all the SD card reader problems persisted, the keyboard bugs reappeared, and I finally gave up.  I installed Ubuntu Linux and Windows 7 alongside OS X and have been happy in Linux ever since.  When 10.6.3 came out, I updated, spent a few hours with it to give it one last chance, but after having to do a hard power down within 3 hours, I had seen enough.  I'll keep it around for the occasions when my open source tools aren't getting the same results as Adobe CS3, but I have not missed it much at all.  To think that I am experiencing fewer bugs and daily annoyances on a free, open source operating system that supports hundreds of thousands of hardware configurations says a lot about Apple software quality.  They only have to support a few hundred hardware configurations, which they know inside and out, and they can't even get that much right?!


Security
I have been telling people for years not to run antivirus software on OS X.  I still believe that the problem will never be widespread on OS X to the extent that it is on Windows, even if OS X does get significant market share.  However, in the past few years, there have been so many serious security flaws in Apple software that I fear for the average user.  It is only a matter of time before a major exploit hits the wild that will likely result in Apple users having a significant portion of their private info stolen.  I am now having to recommend that people not use Safari if they care at all about their system security.  This is exactly the kind of thing that led me to flee Windows back in the day before the problem exploded.


Hardware
I never liked the fact that all Apple's hardware solutions were proprietary, even at the time I switched.  I had decided, though, that I would just make that compromise to avoid the other nuisances I was looking forward to with the coming release of Windows XP.  I managed to put all this aside to the point of liking Apple hardware design and just accepting that a complete solution requires compromises.  As the epidemic hardware problems began cropping up, though, the compromise was becoming rather annoying.  Having to waste almost 2 hours tearing apart and rebuilding iBooks for people when the hard drives failed got old fast.  Meanwhile, I could change a hard drive in a Dell in literally 5 minutes.  The first time I had to pull a hard drive out of a dead iMac G5 Rev. 2 was when the frustration grew to anger.  From that point on, each successive computer design became more and more ridiculous to change hard drives in.  Changing the drive in MacBook Pros, trying desperately not to bend the flimsy aluminum top half of the body was where my anger finally grew to hatred.  This has been festering for a few years now.  The cracked glass on my original iPhone, the design of the aluminum iMac where the hard drive is just not worth the effort of getting to, the cheap plastic on the white MacBook that falls apart and stains, the graphics chip problems of many MacBook Pros, and the list goes on.  All little thorns in my sides.  So remind me one more time why we are paying such a high price for Apple hardware?  I thought it was supposed to be for quality?


Servers
Well, I just hit my last straw last week.  We have an XServe at work which has been collecting dust for over a year.  I recommended against buying it originally, but the previous Director of IT before me ignored my pleas.  When I took over, I switched things over to Linux servers, which are better in every way than OS X Server in mixed environments.  In a Mac-only environment, the XServe has a home.  In a mixed environment, it is an albatross.  Well, we had some hardware issues after a really nasty lightning strike, so I decided to try and repurpose the old XServe.  I quickly discovered that the XServe's EFI does not contain BIOS emulation like the other Intel machines... meaning that running Windows or Linux on it is more trouble than it is worth.  I thought about giving OS X Server one last chance... to do a very simple task... basic file-sharing.  I knew better, but I needed another machine, so I tried anyway.  After trying a solid state drive in it, then a new 1TB hard drive, I did some searching to find out why they might not be working... and I discovered that Apple has designed the XServe to ignore drives that do not have Apple's custom firmware on them.  So, if a drive dies, there's no option to run to Best Buy and pick up a replacement in an emergency, and there is no option to pick the brand and model of drive you want to use for performance and reliability.  Instead, you have to pay Apple triple the going rate for a drive and just hope that they are using a good brand and model of drive.  Some people may think I am over-reacting.  "Just buy a spare and keep it around for the day something fails", they'll say.  They just don't get it.  After all that, the file-sharing didn't play as nicely with Windows 7 as the file sharing I am running on our Linux file server.


Lock-in
In the past, the DRM on songs purchased through iTunes didn't bother me... I thought I'd be using iTunes forever.  Then they started releasing DRM-free versions of everything and I thought all would be well.  I sucked it up and paid the extra $.30 per song to get the new versions as they came out.  Somewhere along the line, iTunes stopped telling me when the DRM-free versions of my songs were released.  When I had reached the point where I was ready to move on from Apple's ecosystem, I went looking to see what the deal was with these songs... only to discover that they had, in fact, been updated.  I was never notified, but no problem, I'd just upgrade them now... ummmmmmmm, where is the upgrade buttom in the iTunes Store?  Yes, this little convenience disappeared and now I couldn't just pay $.30 per song to get the "plus" versions of these remaining songs.  I'd have to buy them again... so I spent many hours having to do manual conversions of everything to DRM-free songs.  Sigh.


Slave devices
As a techno-geek, I just got to the point where I could no longer tolerate having devices that were "attached" to a computer, much less a single computer.  If you use an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, you know what I am referring to... "This device is already being synced with another computer. Would you like to delete everything and start syncing it to this computer?"  This one really makes me want to punch someone at Apple.  What year is this?  Did I just have a weird dream?  Are we still in the late 90s?  Or maybe it is actually 1984?  Here's a clue Apple: many people have more than 1 computer.  As nice a device as the iPad may be, I will never even consider one for this very reason.  I don't want devices that are tied to a computer, nor will I recommend them except in very narrow cases where I know the person has a single computer and isn't likely to stop using iTunes.  With the other phones I have had since the iPhone, a Nokia E71x and now an android-based Samsung Moment, I never need to connect them to a computer.  I can go to librivox.org and download the next chapter of whatever audio book I am in the middle of, while on the go, without having to wait until I get home to "sync" it to a computer.  Thanks to Google Listen, I always have the latest episodes of my podcasts and don't have to plan ahead before leaving the house.  It's great.  Yes, I know there are workarounds to get the same end-results on the iPhone, but they are cludgy and frustrating.  I guess this is Apple's desperate attempt to keep people buying computers in a world where they are becoming increasingly less necessary.  It just annoys me to no end.  They may come around at some point, but I'm not waiting.


Conclusions
While these are just a few of the many reasons I have lost my patience with Apple, I think this list makes the point that I'm not just leaving the Apple world on a single issue or because I'm just having a bad day.  This has been growing, and, for the ways I want to use computers and devices, Linux and android are making me happy in all the places Mac OS X and iPhone were driving me crazy.  When I replace the current hardware I am stuck with, rest assured it will be PC hardware and not Apple.  I like my Acer netbook and it is tough as nails, which is more than I can say for the MacBook Pro I am running a triple-boot setup on.  Granted, I'm not not about to replace my full-sized laptop with that little netbook, but at least I know that it is possible to find decent PC hardware that will last as long or longer than Apple's when this thing dies.


Again, I'm not saying everyone else should bail on their Apple products.  I don't expect most of you to whom I have recommended Apple in the past to switch to Linux.  Linux has improved to the point that a lot of you probably could, but I am enough of a pragmatist to admit you're probably better off where you are... for now.  I can safely say that Windows 7 is not any more buggy than OS X at this point from my experience of running both extensively at work.  The only real advantage OS X has over Windows 7 anymore is the lack of constant virus issues.  Microsoft is actually making some progress in this area, and with the 64 bit version of Windows 7, coupled with the free Microsoft Security Essentials, and running as a Standard user, the situation is at least manageable.  Those who switched to Apple to get away from the virus problem, though, may as well stay there... for now.


In the world of technology, nothing is sacred, and nothing is perfect.  Each of us has different levels of tolerance dealing with the annoyances inherent in the solutions we are stuck with.  For me, Apple was stabbing a knife in every pain point I have.  Linux is only cutting in a few areas, so it wins for me.  I am a realist, and will still probably recommend Apple machines to many people, just not to tech-savvy people who care about these issues.  At this point, I am even recommending some Windows users just stay where they are and get a new machine with Windows 7 64 bit.  To those of you who know me well, that should say a lot about how things have changed in the past 5 years in Apple's ecosystem.  We'll see what the next 5 years brings, but I'm seeing a lot of Linux in the forecast.


Todd Russell
May 24, 2010