Before you get into reading this, I want everyone to understand that this is a thread for arguing and ranting. If you want to see our forum as a happy place with rainbows, this is the dark corner. Run while you still can.
If you are a person who is strictly devoted to a side of the fight and don’t see yourself ever changing your opinions toward something, please leave now. If we have any dogmatic arguments here, it will probably evolve to a big fight, and steve or geoffers will probably have to come and put out the fire.
I created this thread for a couple of reasons:
- There was no thread like it.
- I (And all the other ranter’s) need somewhere to duel it out.
- It is a common argument, with no definite answer to be found.
- To prevent off-topic battles on other threads.
- Fun.
To be more specific, the argument can include opinions and thoughts toward any product or OS related to Windows(Microsoft)Macintosh(Apple)/Linux.
So to get the ball rolling, I shall produce the longest rant I have ever typed, addressing a number of my concerns. These concerns include but are not limited to:
- Unjustified hatred of Windows 8.
- My primary issues with Apple, and apple customers/users.
We will go in chronological order, so I will start with:
Unjustified Hatred of Windows 8.
I have had windows 8 since it came out. I picked up the deal that was offered till January 2013, that dropped the price of a Windows 7-8 upgrade to $40.00. Since I got the OS, I have had a grand total of 0 crashes, or incompatibility issues that were the fault of the OS. The OS never freezes, was fairly cheap (And still is considering the amount of work that went into it), and has excellent driver support. To make things simpler, I will compile a list of things I love about Windows 8.
- It turns on/off in about 4 seconds. Need to look something up real quick? I can search something on google or PM someone on skype and shut the PC down in one minute flat.
- Excellent driver support. Whenever I build a desktop and install Windows 8 on it, everything is compatable. With Windows 7 and below, I would occasionally have a bit of hardware that didn’t work with it.
- Improved security. The new built in windows defender software has saved me on multiple occasions from forced encryption that wouldn’t have been caught on windows 7. (My job puts forced encrypting software on any of their devices to protect data).
- The merge. I feel that on the desktop side of things, windows 8 does a nice job of merging a mobile OS with a stationary one. However, on a tablet, I haven’t heard the same thing, but that is Windows 8 RT, not Windows 8.
- Picture passwords, you can make any photo that you can get ahold of into your password.
- It’s Windows 7. At the end of the day, Windows 8 is just Windows 7 with some new bells and whistles, and a mobile OS slapped on top. The original OS that everyone loves is still there.
If you are one of the people who think that Windows 8 is the new Windows Vista. You are horribly mistaken. Vista was an OS that flat down didn’t work. I still have a Dell laptop with Vista on it collecting dust in my basement. It was poorly optimized, crashed often, had terrible compatibility issues, and had an endless list of errors. Windows 8 has none of these issues. If you want to hate on Windows 8 RT, then go ahead. We can hate on it together, but as for Windows 8 / Windows 8 Pro, I am going to need to hear some new arguments.
Now that I have blown off all my steam on that front, lets move onto the next issue.
My primary issues with Apple, and apple customers/users.
My first Apple product ever was the iPod touch 2nd Generation. I had known about Apple products previously, but never had any interest in them. The OS made me feel limited when put into comparison against a Windows platform, and generally was not cheap. But for some reason, the iPod made me kind of excited. It was one of the first things of it’s type, and had a sort of luster to it that made me unable to resist. Once I got the thing, I loved it. I spent countless hours playing apps like Modern Combat 2, and watching fun videos on iTunes and Youtube. It also served to be a great MP4 player for me. I dropped it plenty of times without a case, and it never cracked (it’s screen is still crack free to this date). It also had great battery life. But then one day, the iPod 3rd and 4th generation was born, and my feelings for apple were forever changed.
To start, everyone started buying them. When I had my 2nd gen, most people would ask me what the heck the thing in my hand was. But then I found myself at concerts where I could look up and see hundreds of the Apple devices being held up. It didn’t stop there though. At school, apple desktops where everywhere. You may argue that they were donated to most schools because Apple cares about american education. But anyone with a large enough brain can see that it is a marketing ploy. Kids will compare the top of the line Apple desktops to the cheap rented windows computers, and get the idea that anything running a Microsoft OS is the same as a cardboard box with lights and a case badge.
So, no big deal right? How is that any reason to grow incredibly filled with rage toward a company? It isn’t, but here is. First off, let me explain something about an old computer of mine. Back in the far away time of 1999, I purchased my first desktop with Windows 98. I had some good times with that thing, playing games like Runescape, Redneck Rampage, Sim City 2000, NHL 2000, etc. I could walk down to my basement right now, pick the old thing up, plug it in, and turn it on. Everything would work just as well as it did 14 years ago, and if I begged enough, I could get Microsoft to give me customer support for the thing if I needed it.
Now lets look at my iPod 2nd gen today. To start, if I try to watch videos on iTunes like I used to, it doesn’t work. I contacted Apple tech support on the issue to learn that “My product was discontinued, and the only way I could be helped is if I purchased a newer generation”. I spent 200 bucks on that thing, for a years use? I got no discount and was hung-up on twice before I finally contacted a manager. This guy told me the same thing I was told before, but was nice enough not to hang up, and no I was not raging or crying on the phone. I was just in shock.
Later on down the road, other things stopped working. Obviously apps no longer worked, the youtube app eventually broke too. Then my music player kept crashing, and the speakers were shot too. The battery life also fell off the cliff. So what was left? A piece of plastic. 200 bucks well wasted. You might say that the hardware had a limited lifespan, as practically all hardware does. But then, I tried something new. I swapped my iOS with an android OS. It was not easy to do, but I did it. Here is the interesting part. Everything started working again.
When I booted the thing up and saw that I could watch videos again, use apps, play music THROUGH THE SPEAKER, and keep the battery alive on a full charge for it’s previous life span, I was blown away. There is no way to explain how satisfied I was. But then came the realization that there was nothing wrong with Apples product. The problem was Apple. They had intentionally put some sort of update into my iPod that made the thing deteriorate. It is the only explanation I can think of, and so my hatred was born.
Further investigations found that Apple had been caught using not only slave labor, but child slave labor. Chinese children were found at multiple Apple manufacturing plants. These facilities often have come with armed guards, fences with chicken wire, and suicide nets to prevent workers from killing themselves. Now, do other companies have this stuff to? Probably. But with apple, we have proof. To continue supporting them after you know what they are doing, is extremely immoral in my opinion. But, not everyone knows about it. One of my favorite quotes ever is from the matrix, and states “Ignorance is bliss”.
Now my issues with their users and customers. The usual apple user is numb minded in my opinion. A few years ago, you could say that “There is no alternative product to an iPhone/Pad/Pod”. But now? There are tons of products that are cheaper, faster, stronger, more efficient, and just all around better than a lot of apple devices. Yet, despite all of these options, people will walk into a store. Pick up a 1000 dollar tablet, and buy it without giving a second glance at the other items on the shelf. As I have previously stated, I am big on saving money, and whenever I see someone I know with an iPad in their hand, I wince a little in pain.
As for the Apple OS on desktops and laptops, I have a big problem. That problem being the control that apple has over a computer running OSX. If apple decides one day that they don’t want you to be able to use google anymore, well looks like you are out of luck buddy, no more google for you. Disagree? They have done it before with Java, what is preventing them for doing it with anything else? Now if Microsoft decided that they didn’t want us to use google anymore, we can work around it. On a apple OS though? Good luck with that, you are going to need it. If you did somehow manage to do it, they would definitely take you to court.
So, that concludes the beginning of my argument. Make of it what you will, it shall always remain close to my heart. Especially now that I can just link people to it, and don’t need to verbally reproduce it time after time.
If you actually read the whole thing, kudos to you. You either just got a lot smarter, or a lot dumber. I say that because I didn’t proofread or spell-check anything I just typed.
Please give feedback or bring up your rant. Thats what the point of this is.
), but that’s about as far as you can go. The newer models are - like 
). These changes along with some polishing on performance (4 second shut-down? WOW!) are apart of (what I believe) is the most awesome OS on the market at this point in time. I’ve grown up with windows, I’m used to it and probably more biased towards it, but I have a good amount of evidence. This new generation of Windows are all built hand-in-hand to work with each other. They are also faster, provide more security, and are getting new apps everyday. If I watch people like the Verge or C-net do a review of an MS product - they almost completely trash the item - with no good evidence. I recently saw them compare the new Surface 2 with a computer - and was OUTRAGED 
- You’re comparing a TABLET to a COMPUTER… HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS!?, but then I watched them review an iPad (with pretty much no difference from the one that came out last year), and they treated that heap of junk like baby. They praised the downsides of the item as well. But this time - they didn’t compare the cheap thing to a computer… why is that? Probably cause Apple is paying them something (<- Speculation), or they are just some one-way minded fanboys who don’t realize how bad they are getting played. I’m tired of all the Apple “religion” where anything made by Apple is so “holy” and epic. When they are barely upgrading anything from the last one - and locking the devices up even more… and some people have the nerve to be outraged at a quite reasonable DRM attempt with the Xbox One, but don’t realize how much Apple is conning them as well. I do have to admit not everything Microsoft has done has been so “awesome”, but Microsoft takes the time to listen to consumer complaints and fix the problems. For example Windows Vista to Windows 7, Xbox DRM, to no DRM, Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 (which fixed most of the consumer complaints). And I can think back to the time Windows 8 came out, and people were downloading all of this software that had not even been optimized for the new OS yet, and complaining that it didn’t work, and I could only imagine the idocity that were in those people’s heads.