L. M. Lloyd

This is a silly post that I want to put up just because I have already been through this with USB. About a week ago, news broke all over the Internet that Apple had played a pivotal role in designing the new Light Peak standard by Intel. Now it turns out that this was in no way true. Now I don't really expect anyone to care all that much about this. The only reason I'm posting is because I know good and damned well that years from now, when it is a standard in all computers, the crazy Macheads will use the false reports of it all being Apple's idea, as another example of how innovative Apple is, and how they invented everything. They do it with USB (which Apple had no involvement with, and which only appeared on Macs years after it was standard equipment on PCs), they do it with FireWire (which was developed by Adaptec, Sony and SGI, and in which Apple's only involvement was to come up with the snazzy name and say they wanted something like a GameBoy connector, then let other people actually do the development), and they will no doubt do it again with Light Peak. I just point this all out, because in 2015, when I am sure some Machead will be trying to argue that Light Peak was developed by Apple, I want some sort of proof of that not being the case, before the technology even launched.

Someone sent me a link to an article recently. I am not a fan of the site, nor do I care that much about the content of the article, but in the comments I found something I have been wanting to address for a while. Actually, I addressed it a while back, but since that article, the new Apple tactic is to say that rather than being the first smartphone, the iPhone is just the first smartphone to matter. Now I went over this particular tactic of Apple's, as well as several other slimy rhetorical tricks Macheads use, in great length some time ago, but I would like to address it in particular in this case, as exemplified by this very real comment to the previously mentioned article.

Now normally, I would just whistle and say "ok nutjob" to this guy. However, I have seen this argument all over the Internet, to the point that is clearly the newest but of spin coming out of the head office. So, I guess I will go ahead and break it down, since no one else seems to be so inclined.

For someone who absolutely hates the company Apple, and has no use at all for any of their products, I have spent an annoyingly large portion of my life working in either all Mac studios, or heavily Mac studios. As such, I have noticed the most inexplicable and curious phenomenon. Even though I would be lectured at length, day in and day out, about how much more stable and 'crashproof' Macs were than those awful buggy PCs, I would see constant Mac crashes, sometime seeing one machine go down multiple times in a single day. Of course the user of the machine would always assure me that this was a total fluke, and that this was the first time in a decade of working with Macs that his computer had ever crashed, because normally it "just works."

For years this seeming contradiction drove me nuts, until I came to what is the only reasonable conclusion. PCs crash, and Macs only crash when a PC user is present, so obviously the 90% of the population who use PCs, all emit some sort of electromagnetic field which crashes computers. After all, Macheads have no reason to lie about their Macs not crashing when there isn't a PC user around, right? So the only possible rational conclusion is that PC users must directly cause Macs to crash by their very presence. Since it would be silly to think that the Mac is consciously acting up just to make the Machead look like a fool, the only sane remaining alternative is that there must be some special heretofore undiscovered electromagnetic force which causes Macs to crash when a PC user is in line of sight. No doubt this is why Mac users have to take their computers into the Genius Bar so often. It isn't that there is any real problem with them, it is just that the need to spend some time in an environment where they are sure not to pick up any PC user background radiation, so that they can decontaminate, and get back to their natural flawless state. Maybe deep inside a lab in Microsoft, someone has isolated this field, and is somehow compensating for it, explaining how PCs get more stable as the years go by. This might even explain why Macheads seem, from their recounting of their experiences of using Windows when no PC user is around, to get a Blue Screen of Death every five seconds when they try to do anything on a PC, since they lack the field the to which the PC is trying to compensate.

After all, to think otherwise would be to impugn an entire group of people as dishonest, and perhaps even delusional, almost religious zealots, who lie so habitually about the supposed stability and performance of their chosen system, than only when caught sitting in front of an undeniably crashed computer would they ever admit to the crash having happened. That would be intollerant, bigoted and offensive of me, and I would never want to be seen that way. So clearly, the only answer has to be a failing in modern physics to detect this exotic radiation emanating from the 90% of the population who regularly use PCs.

When the iPhone came out, there were a great many people (like every living soul in Hollywood) hoping it would "do for smartphones what the iPod did for digital audio players." Actually, even that is putting it mildly. There were a great number of companies who devoted a great amount of resources, literally betting the iPhone would become the dominant phone in the world, and radically changing their development efforts to put the iPhone at the top of their priority list. To this day, there are many who still jump through all sorts of mental gymnastics to maintain that it is far and away the most important mobile platform ever to be seen. I hate to break it to you, but it just isn't the case, and it is time to accept that and move on.

Now, I have had my fair share of criticisms of Apple and its fans, which is why I have a whole section of my sight just for that purpose. However, as I have detailed before, my main complaint isn't really with Apple, nor their products, nor their fans, but the blatant dishonesty and illogic that is the central pillar of the Apple myth. The iPhone hype is just another example of this. In this particular instance the most offensive deceit is the redefinition of success. When the iPhone was launched, everyone from excited bloggers to serious financial analysts predicted that every phone company on Earth was now in trouble, because the iPhone was going to completely change everything, and Apple was going to dominate the phone market, like they dominate the dedicated MP3 player market. Not only has that not happened, but I would maintain that all things considered, the iPhone is a fabulous flop.

For years some of my more Mac infected designer friends have extolled the infinite wisdom of Apple's all white aesthetic. Personally, I found it horribly boring, and completely unimaginative. It was exactly what I would expect from someone who used to design toilets. It is however just a matter of personal taste though. Oh no, they would say: