Citizens of Appleverse. This. Is. An. Invasion. I am here to unmask the iMasks you all proudly adorn and to make you question your loyalty to the rulers of this land. No, seriously, I am quite an outsider who is sometimes intrigued, mostly confused with Apple products, seeing as it hasn’t been too long since I got my own. So, I will rant out a bit with the hopes that someone out there in your universe will help me quieten my bewildered thoughts and tell me — why do people like Apple products so much?
Trigger warning:
If you are dealing with a condition of Obsessive Love Disorder, I would ask you not to go forward with this article. It wouldn’t be as intense as the iPhone 11 Pro triggering trypophobia, but yeah, hardcore Apple fans might want to sit this one out.
Let’s begin, shall we?
Why so blue?
I’ll be honest; I am not a tech-savvy person. I don’t even pay attention to new upgrades on my devices as long as it’s working fine. But I do care about the basics. So, I will rewind and go to where it all began for me, how Apple products succeeded in baffling me in the first place, and why I choose not to buy an Apple product.
AirDrop.
When I discovered that Bluetooth file transfers are not possible with iPhones, I paused for a second and thought — that’s quite something. Apple sure does things differently. But then, wait a second, isn’t that essentially the same thing? Also, how am I supposed to send files from Android to my best friend who’s moved to iPhone? Get an iPhone, you say? Sure. Tell me how I would exchange files with the other 73% of the people in my life who are android users! Get them to get iPhones? What am I? An unofficial sales executive for Apple?
The little mindless (wireless, I mean) things.
Ah, here’s the next big thing, innovation at its best. That is why people like Apple products! Except it wasn’t Apple who came up with the technology. Anyway, I will park that thought for another day. What I am getting at is all the wireless devices that boast of functionality.
Pick your AirPods, for example. Oh no! Did you already lose another pair? No problem, I’m sure you have attached an AirTag to help you detect its location. But where’s your phone? C’mon, don’t tell me you have to get up from the couch and pick it up from the wireless charger connected to the power port with a wire! If only Siri could fetch it for you, no? (Did I just drop in an idea here?)
And back to AirPods: Do you really need a transparency mode on earphones? Why would you put on the pair if you want to hear all the noise outside? Or why get one with ANC at all? Or maybe it serves as a camouflage when you want to eavesdrop on someone? Honestly.
Break it until you make it.
One of the greatest tricks up Apple’s sleeve is creating a problem that never should have existed and then serving you solutions on a big fancy platter. I admire their understanding of consumer psychology. But I don’t get why people would like some of these Apple products at all!
Case in point: Apple Pencil.
So, first, they take away the keyboard from a laptop — sorry, MacBook — to make it an iPad, then introduce a “magic” keypad to make things easier for iPad users. Wasn’t that supposed to be the laptop in the first place? And then comes the almighty stylus and its fancy utilities – one step forward, two steps backwards really. If I were in your place, I think this would have been one of those Apple products I would be a tiny bit embarrassed about owning. But let me tell you what amuses me the most about Apple Pencils.
Humour me this, Apple. What’s unique about it exactly? Say I am an artist. Would I paint, sketch, or doodle on a regular piece of paper? At the very least, I will do that on a sheet of Bristol paper, which, of course, will have compatibility issues while tracing with the Apple Pencil. I’ve had many iPad users tell me how easy it is to trace physical drawings to their iPad… My question to their kind is: Is it so hard to import images to your fancy device that you need to painstakingly trace them out instead? Wouldn’t people like me like Apple products more if you could just keep simple things simple?
Don’t even get me started with taking notes on the lock screen. Good old pen and paper, remember?
An ecosystem? Er…
The Apple world is an intertwined ecosystem, I hear. You drop data on your phone — apologies, iPhone — conveniently pick it up on another Apple device, and life goes on smoothly. You’ve got an Apple Watch, an iPhone, an iPad, and a Macbook and just one charging wire works for all four. And you don’t have to carry a bulk of charging wires, don’t have to worry if one charger malfunctions, because you have three extras lying around, and life couldn’t have been any easier. Right? Wait, no?
I won’t even get into the carbon footprint that usage of multiple chargers leaves on the actual ecosystem. But while you are busy uploading the mirror selfie you took from your newest iPhone 13, I will leave here with a thought to ponder. Aren’t you bending over backwards to accommodate your toxic relationship with Apple products? Aren’t you stuck in a loop of hype and snob, refusing to look outside because the multi-billionaire enterprise is so good at its marketing strategies (a.k.a. digging a hole in your pocket)? Isn’t it blinkered affection that forces people to like Apple products more than you actually should?