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Why does Apple have to be so mean and greedy?

Do you think Apple is greedy?

  • Yes

    Votes: 39 81.3%
  • No

    Votes: 5 10.4%
  • Don't know

    Votes: 2 4.2%
  • Other (post)

    Votes: 2 4.2%

  • Total voters
    48

notme123

Member
Dec 19, 2011
96
37
US
It seems to me that Apple is always doing things just for money, not caring about what's good for the consumer, yet so many people don't realize and fall into the trap.
They create an inferior product, charge outrageously high prices, and convince people that it's really better.
On the other hand, Google will develop a much better product and make it free, but many people still just assume Apple's is better.
Why does Apple have to be so selfish and greedy?

What are your thoughts on this?
 
Apple is a corporation and like other corporations their main reason for existing is to make money. Their products being inferior to others on the market is a matter of opinion. There are plenty of people in the world that find the iPhone and the iPad to be far superior to anything else offered, this is also an opinion.

As far as Google giving away their products that is true to a certain extent. Google isn't completely altruistic though. Their main source of revenue is through their search network. The reason that they are able to "give" away the things they create is because they are already paid for by advertisers. There are companies that spend millions of dollars each year advertising on Google. The ads you see in in every Google product pay for the services you use.

If you think Apple is greedy, just imagine how much all of this stuff would cost if it wasn't subsidized by others.
 
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They're certainly inferior for their price range. Even if they are as good as their opposition, they're so over priced you'd expect more for your money. I'd say if everything was the same price, it would indeed be subjective. But if we're talking relatively then you can defenestrate any ideas of it being an opinion ;)

That said, we'd need to define "inferior" first
 
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It seems to me that Apple is always doing things just for money, not caring about what's good for the consumer, yet so many people don't realize and fall into the trap.
They create an inferior product, charge outrageously high prices, and convince people that it's really better.
On the other hand, Google will develop a much better product and make it free, but many people still just assume Apple's is better.
Why does Apple have to be so selfish and greedy?

What are your thoughts on this?

OK, lets explore your rant.

Inferior products you say. OK, provide a few examples. I know a little something about product build quality and I can tell you Apple builds high-quality products.

You say they charge outrageously high prices. What do you mean? Are you forced at gun point to purchase an Apple product? Many things are expensive and those things have cheaper alternatives. Like a Ford Fiesta Vs. a Lamborghini Gallardo LP570 4 Super Trofeo Stradale. Or a Harley Davidson Vs. a Honda (or the huge prices those Vincent/Brough-Superior sellers charge for their motorcycles) or a handmade kit fountain pen Vs. a Conway Stewart Elite Centenary 18ct Gold Fountain Pen, setting you back $24000.00.

Cheaper is always available and costly is always available and until they force you to buy, it is not your business. Vote with your wallet, that'll shut 'em up. What the hell does it matter to you how much Apple charges for their products? You are obviously not an Apple customer; you have no dog in the fight, there sport.

I'll bet there are other phones out there just as costly as the iPhone. If not, perhaps the higher cost comes from superior materials, high build quality, and demanding manufacturing criteria that Apple demands their contractors meet. I just Googled it, and apparently, a Prada from LG is around 800.00. Perhaps you should go to the The GoldVish Le Million web forums and complain about the $1.45 million they charge for a phone.

Not good for the consumer? Please tell us more and please cite a few examples. Millions of customers made Apple the most valuable company on the planet. So apparently, they do a few things that please their customers. At every point, Apple build quality is high. Try dropping your iPad and see what generally happens: you get a new one, in many cases.

If you think Google making Android free means as much as you think it does, let me suggest this: if Apple made iOS open and free, you would have fewer Android Phones and more iOS devices not built by Apple. And how exactly is Android better than Apple? Examples please. I use Apple and Android and basically, there is no real difference to speak of. All you can do is argue the minutia.

So rather than bleat like a lost goat, please post a few examples. I'll listen. Otherwise, you are yet one more Android Fanboy using a forum to berate a company and its products.

I would suggest rather than say things us smart people will take issue with, the next time, post a few concrete examples to support your ideas.
 
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They're certainly inferior for their price range. Even if they are as good as their opposition, they're so over priced you'd expect more for your money. I'd say if everything was the same price, it would indeed be subjective. But if we're talking relatively then you can defenestrate any ideas of it being an opinion ;)

That said, we'd need to define "inferior" first

A very tricky word, inferior. To me, inferior is that GD press board many manufacturers use to fabricate cheap furniture. So I go with better materials and pay a higher cost for superior materials. In the garage, it works well so it is not really inferior, it is workable and utilitarian.

In my home, not gonna happen. I'll take solid Cherry or Oak.

One can define a strict set of particular standards and say everything else is inferior, but one requires a baseline. That is to say, inferior compared to what?

In this case, Apple is not inferior. Their CS is not inferior. The apps developers create are not inferior. (usually) Apple products are more costly in some cases, but people need to get it through their heads that more expensive compared to brand X does not mean that Apple is cheating you. Their products are well made from high-quality materials.

The other day, I was at Best Buy. I picked up a tablet that was falling apart. I tried to see it in action, but the sales wonk did not have another device in stock. I judged the product (and BB) to be inferior.
 
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Found this in my inbox; it will drive a few of you nutty:

From: TinyURL.com - shorten that long URL into a tiny URL

Apple Wins Partial Victory on Smartphone Patent Claim

"A federal agency ruled on Monday that a set of important features commonly found in smartphones are protected by an Apple patent, a decision that could force changes in how Google’s Android phones function."
 
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the main thing i don't like about them is their intentionally misleading commercials. other phones have much faster data connections, other phones have voice commands, other phones have just as many apps, other phones let you sync to the cloud, etc. they put so many qualifiers into their statements that they are technically true, but they are clearly trying to "trick" consumers into believing that their devices are the ONLY ones that do these things. FWIW, i place as much blame for the commercials on AT&T as i do on Apple, but it is that is the reason i won't be giving any of my money to either of them.
 
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Corporations that can keep customers, employees and shareholders happy at the same time are extremely rare. You have to take a hit somewhere. Some companies do it better than others and Apple is probably in the middle.

That is because they have different objectives:

1 - Employees want more benefits and higher wages and job security

2 - Customers want great products at reasonable prices combined with some ideal version of customer service many corporations cannot meet. I remember the old saw, "The customer is always right." We once lived by that golden rule but in a time when customers were more reasonable.

3 - Shareholders want share prices to go up and up and up. Well, unless you short sell then you want share cost to drop, drop, drop.

Finding a balance is what corporations strive for and it is not easy, as you suggest. Never has been easy.

As far as how well Apple does can be debated. Apple sits at the top of many lists, so it really depends on who you trust.
 
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the main thing i don't like about them is their intentionally misleading commercials. other phones have much faster data connections, other phones have voice commands, other phones have just as many apps, other phones let you sync to the cloud, etc. they put so many qualifiers into their statements that they are technically true, but they are clearly trying to "trick" consumers into believing that their devices are the ONLY ones that do these things. FWIW, i place as much blame for the commercials on AT&T as i do on Apple, but it is that is the reason i won't be giving any of my money to either of them.

I completely agree with you. Take this one, for example:
"It doesn't get PC viruses." ( Apple - Why You?ll Love a Mac - A Mac is the ultimate upgrade. ) But it does get Mac viruses! It tries to trick you into believing that it doesn't get any viruses, which unfortunately many people believe.
 
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the main thing i don't like about them is their intentionally misleading commercials. other phones have much faster data connections, other phones have voice commands, other phones have just as many apps, other phones let you sync to the cloud, etc. they put so many qualifiers into their statements that they are technically true, but they are clearly trying to "trick" consumers into believing that their devices are the ONLY ones that do these things. FWIW, i place as much blame for the commercials on AT&T as i do on Apple, but it is that is the reason i won't be giving any of my money to either of them.

Not sure what Apple said about Siri much past what they say in their commercials. I do know that those VC apps in the Android Market are (apparently) not so hot. My theory is Siri will become more important to Apple and therefore, it will become something quite cool.

Are you saying Apple is misleading? Lots of people claim Apple says they invented the new features that arrived with iOS 5, but that is not what Apple actually said. Not sure what they actually said about connection speed.

Care to provide a few links to legitimate resources?

Not at all sure Android manufacturers are guilt free when it comes what they say about their phones. I think some ads are misleading. As for speed, I had faster service with my Criket Zio than friends had with high-end and more costly phones.

Look at those bloody Droid ads. They want you to think it is a special phone with magical powers built by sentient robots. It is just a phone that will be replaced next year with a faster and cheaper phone.

I am not sure about the number of apps Apple has Vs. Android. You might be right. All I know is there are vast numbers of apps for Apple and that includes iPad and iPod Touch apps. But so what? If Apple only has 250,000 apps, you will never see them all (ditto Android) and many of these apps are not likely to be of any interest to you or I.
 
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I completely agree with you. Take this one, for example:
"It doesn't get PC viruses." ( Apple - Why You?ll Love a Mac - A Mac is the ultimate upgrade. ) But it does get Mac viruses! It tries to trick you into believing that it doesn't get any viruses, which unfortunately many people believe.

A Mac does not get PC viruses, 'tis true. It can suffer from viruses written for Apple computers, and that is also true. But there vastly fewer Mac viruses than PC viruses

If you know anything about the innards of iOS, you will know that iDevices do not suffer these problems. Apple's sandbox prevents many issues that bother PC/Mac users. Everything is protected for the most part and it is virtually impossible for my iDevice to become infected.

Very few PC users can say that with authority.

I will give you this: I agree, their web site is misleading and most users will take their "no PC Viruses" statement to mean "No Viruses to worry about."
 
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Very few PC users can say that with authority.
A *properly* configured and updated Linux PC set up as a server (probably without XWindows and all the crap that goes with it) is as close to invulnerable as you can get. If you were referring to windows PC's then I agree. Having to run everything in admin mode to get anything done makes security on Windows 7 or XP a lost cause.
 
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But there vastly fewer Mac viruses than PC viruses
That's because they only have about 8% market share compared to Windows' 90% (the remaining 2% is Linux). The same statement applies to apps and games as well. It's just not worth making products for such a small platform. I know; I'm a Windows developer myself. If Mac had 40% market share, I'd make my Windows apps cross-platform. I'm sure virus developers say the same thing.

I will give you this: I agree, their web site is misleading and most users will take their "no PC Viruses" statement to mean "No Viruses to worry ."
Thank you. I've encountered too many people who trust Apple and take their word for that.
 
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Do you think ( insert company name here ) is greedy?

A *properly* configured and updated Linux PC set up as a server (probably without XWindows and all the crap that goes with it) is as close to invulnerable as you can get.

True it's not the Linux OS itself, it's the stuff that runs on these servers that can have security issues. PHP, MySQL, Wordpress, etc. Sure we've probably all seen those big red browser warnings "Something is not right here..." and similar about infected and malicious websites.
 
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Not sure what Apple said about Siri much past what they say in their commercials. I do know that those VC apps in the Android Market are (apparently) not so hot. My theory is Siri will become more important to Apple and therefore, it will become something quite cool.

Are you saying Apple is misleading? Lots of people claim Apple says they invented the new features that arrived with iOS 5, but that is not what Apple actually said. Not sure what they actually said about connection speed.

Care to provide a few links to legitimate resources?

Not at all sure Android manufacturers are guilt free when it comes what they say about their phones. I think some ads are misleading. As for speed, I had faster service with my Criket Zio than friends had with high-end and more costly phones.

Look at those bloody Droid ads. They want you to think it is a special phone with magical powers built by sentient robots. It is just a phone that will be replaced next year with a faster and cheaper phone.

I am not sure about the number of apps Apple has Vs. Android. You might be right. All I know is there are vast numbers of apps for Apple and that includes iPad and iPod Touch apps. But so what? If Apple only has 250,000 apps, you will never see them all (ditto Android) and many of these apps are not likely to be of any interest to you or I.

here is a quick commercial illustrating my point:

(OFFICIAL)Apple - iPhone 4 Commercial - YouTube

"if you don't have the iphone, you don't have the app store, so you don't have the worlds largest selection of apps, that are this easy to find, and this easy to download right to your phone."

the only part of that sentence that is true is "you don't have the worlds largest selection of apps". we certainly do have an app store, and apps are exactly as easy to find and download.

following that misleading statement by again saying "if you don't have an iphone, you don't have an iphone" is implying that other phones cannot find, download, or use the apps featured in the ad, which is simply not true. the point of the commercial is clearly to convince a non-informed consumer that the iphone is the only phone with those capabilities, whether they are saying it outright or not.
 
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Interesting. Apple definitely keeps its shareholders happy, but it's not very nice to consumers.

Of course Apple has to keep its shareholders happy, it's a corporation NOT a charity.

TBH I think Apple are very nice to their customers. My almost 4 year old Macbook Pro crapped out a couple of weeks ago. Apple are going to repair it free of charge, even though I originally bought it in the UK and I'm now in China. The only thing I have to do is ship or take it to Beijing. Sure no PC manufacturer would do that.
 
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Corporations are corporations. I work for a rather large engineering corp. thats multi national. This company doesn't give a crap about me once I stop providing billable hours to the leaches on overhead. The corp is there to sustain its self. This one word has been the hottest buzz word where I work over the last few years: Sustainability.
Same holds true for both apple and android corps. They are in it to make money.
I own both products. Ipod touch and an android phone. I love em both, granted I'll stick with android phones. I'll never use my phone as an mp3 player tho, my ipod just works.
If it makes you happy.... :D

My .02
 
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Is apple greedy? Yes. Why? Because they are a business that needs to make money. Along with what Bob said, I have always found apple quality to be very high - though I didn't like the fact that at one point they wanted me to buy a software update for my ipod.... jailbroken now ;)

And I find it awesome that
TBH I think Apple are very nice to their customers. My almost 4 year old Macbook Pro crapped out a couple of weeks ago. Apple are going to repair it free of charge, even though I originally bought it in the UK and I'm now in China. The only thing I have to do is ship or take it to Beijing. Sure no PC manufacturer would do that.
Way to go apple.

Asus (maker of my netbook) sent me a free charger when mine started acting up. No cost to me (they said they were going to charge us - but they didn't ;) ).

All corporations are bad, but some seem worse. I don't know if I would say with *100% conviction* that apple is a 'worse' company.

EDIT:large quote
"if you don't have the iphone, you don't have the app store, so you don't have the worlds largest selection of apps, that are this easy to find, and this easy to download right to your phone."

the only part of that sentence that is true is "you don't have the worlds largest selection of apps". we certainly do have an app store, and apps are exactly as easy to find and download.

following that misleading statement by again saying "if you don't have an iphone, you don't have an iphone" is implying that other phones cannot find, download, or use the apps featured in the ad, which is simply not true. the point of the commercial is clearly to convince a non-informed consumer that the iphone is the only phone with those capabilities, whether they are saying it outright or not.
Also I don't know if I would take it that way.. I think they are implying that if you don't have an iphone, you won't get the 'iphone' experience. And, if we split hairs, the quote is "you don't have *the* app store", not "an" app store. We have the market and amazon's thing (I haven't ever gotten anything with it myself...), they have their things. Live and let live right?
 
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