The Mac critic has been forced to eat crow many times.
John Dvorak, a big time Mac critic, had this to
say about the original iPod: "I suspect that once people figure out
that it's an overpriced toy, they'll come to their senses."
Either he was really bad about predictions, or it was just wishful
thinking at the time. Of course, now that he's seen the light about
Apple and has
bought an iMac for his wife, this shows how open and free thinking
he has become. Dvorak and Rob Enderle, another popularly hated critic,
have eased off the Mac bashing only slight, but they still follow two
simple rules:
- Nice only when wanting to complain about Microsoft. for example,
Dvorak thinks that Microsoft will not be able to beat
Apple on iPod design. No duh - I'm glad we have him ready to alert
us to this breaking news. Here is the example from Enderle,
where he complains that Apple takes its customers for granted, but then
goes on to bash Microsoft for preventing HP, Dell, and Lenovo from
taking advantage of this.
- And it is always a game of twist the knife in any perceived
weakness of Apple, even if it's off topic. (Enderle is nice about the
MacBook Air as
a marketing tool. It is okay for testing the water, but he gives no
credit for its good design or fairly strong specifications for a
lightweight computer.)
These jerks are just waiting for a misstep. E.g., Apple releases the
MacBook Air (MBA) without DVD, and there is ol' Dvorak to complain
about
how disappointing the MBA is. This is like the queue for
a flood of bad reviews complaining about the low specifications .
These opinions are so predictable and centered on their personal wants
that they can't see there is a world out there with different
needs.
Other shining examples of the many big screw up that Apple has made
that somehow didn't stop their products from selling.
- iPods don't have FM radio.
- iPods don't have satellite radio.
- iPod shuffle has no screen.
- Only a glossy screen for the MacBook.
- Limited expandability of MacBooks.
- Limited expandability of Mac mini.
- Don't like video cards in any new Mac product.
- No FireWire 800 connector for MacBook.
- iPhone doesn't support Flash.
-
Too many screws. (I'm not making this up!)
- Don't like Fast User Switching - or a dozen other new features in
any of the OS X releases.
-
Lack of user replaceable battery.
Always complaining that the prices are too high for the specs.
(Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't complain if Apple lowered its prices,
but this is a business choice they make that effects how many they will
sell.) But somehow all of us Mac users don't want to listen to these
geniuses, and we go ahead and buy these machines in huge numbers. It
must be that we are all mindless followers of some cult who can't seem
to calculate the value and benefits for ourselves.
If you can't tell, I'm more than a little sick of hearing this junk.
Worse is that I know these bozos are just waiting for a chance to
shout, "I told you so".
Their recent favorite is Apple's stock price.
forget the fact that the whole economy is going into recession.
forget the fact that Apple just had its biggest quarter ever. Apple is
to blame, not because their products aren't continuing to sell in
record numbers, or that Apple
isn't the number 2 music retailer, or Apple isn't still confident
they can sell 10 million iPhones.
Apple is to blame because being this successful isn't enough.
It's a tough deal, and no one likes to loose money on his or her
investments. Still, I take this latest "I told you so" with a grain of
salt, just like all the other negative reviews. To me Apple looks like
it is still on a roll, and when this recession is over, these
narrow-minded folks are going to look like fools again.
Disclaimer: This individual does own Apple stock as well as Apple
computers. 
