--- source: https://jimeh.me/blog/2010/fan-boys-haters-seriously/ date: 2010-06-15 archive: jimeh.me tags: - technology - apple - opinion --- # Fan Boys & Haters, Seriously? Fan Boys and Haters have been equally annoying me as of late. ![Fan Boys & Haters, Seriously?](https://jimeh.me/_astro/anthony-delanoix-hzgs56Ze49s-unsplash.BXuSmW-G.jpg) Fan Boys and Haters have been equally annoying me as of late. The most common claim is that their favorite company is good, while all others are evil. This is simply bullshit. Companies are not good or evil. They are simply companies. They are here to make a profit at the end of the day, and to that means, they'll do things their customers, rivals, and the rest of world likes, and things they don't like. Apple has gotten a lot of media attention the past two years thanks to their app approval process for the App Store. Most recently, they're getting a lot of attention for locking out all advertising platforms aside from their own iAds platform from the App Store. Microsoft was working with IBM in late 80s to develop IBM's PS/2 operating system as the OS of the future. After it had shifted it's internal focus to Windows, it kept face with IBM, and kept pushing 3rd party developers to port their existing DOS applications to PS/2. Windows became a huge hit, PS/2 was abandoned, and a whole industry of software development houses had spent months to years porting their applications to PS/2. The result was, that nobody had anything ready for Windows, except Microsoft, who's office package displaced all 3rd party products with their own for Windows, making it an industry standard, as there simply was no other package available. In more recent years, Microsoft created it's Windows Media-based PlaysForSure™ standard for portable music players, and got the whole industry (except Apple) to adopt the standard. Little than a year later, Microsoft releases it's own portable music player — the Zune — which is not compatible with PlaysForSure™ devices, but uses a new Zune-specific DRM standard. In the midst of this, all the PlaysForSure™ partners were left hanging with a standard abandoned by the company that created it and owned the rights to it. Even Google, with their _"Don't be evil"_ corporate motto don't get away without stains. It was recently revealed that Google's Street View cars have accidentally been collecting payload data from all open wifi networks they drive by, all over the world. On an unencrypted network all your emails, webpages you visit, chats, and more are transmitted over the air in plain text. This plain text data is what Google has been collecting and storing for the past three years, accidentally. This is one of biggest and worst invasions of privacy I've seen in a long time at least. Companies do bad, and even evil things, but they also do good things. Neither of this makes a company good or evil in my opinion though. They are just companies, so stop treating them as people, religions, or any kind of entity that has the ability to be good or evil. I tend to get labeled as an Apple fan boy, and a Microsoft/Google hater a lot. The reasons for it are mainly valid all things considered, but they're still wrong. The reasons being that I'm a Mac and an iPhone user. And I love both devices/platforms. In all honesty, I do hate Windows, as it's only ever really been a major pain in my ass, specially back when I was a Windows user and still to this day as I'm always the one everybody comes to when their PC breaks for any reason. That said, I actually do like Windows 7, but could it replace Mac OS X for me? No way. Could an Android phone completely replace my iPhone? No way. It's close, it's the 2nd best thing next to the iPhone, but still no. I don't care what companies do, what their policies are, or even how stupid or intelligent their CEO is. What I care about is the product, the experience it offers, and how well it fits what I want, need and like. I use a Mac, cause it's the perfect world between the commercial application availability of Windows, and the open source UNIX sub-system of Linux/UNIX systems. I use an iPhone cause of it's easy of use, it's wide selection of apps, it's unix sub-system available after Jailbreaking, and cause of how well it integrates with everything from my music library, photos, contacts, password managers and more. To summarize what I'm saying: I don't give a shit about the companies and their policies. I only care about my own personal experience with the products. To point out how serious I am about this, in the spring of 2004 when I bought my first Mac, and I **seriously** hated Microsoft and Windows after having more problems with my PC thanks to Windows than I can count. Guess what mouse I bought for my brand new €2800 PowerBook G4. A Microsoft Optical Notebook Mouse. It was simply the nicest, and best mouse for what I needed and wanted. In the autumn of the same year, I bought an Xbox as well, and I loved it. I hated Microsoft for all the problems and headaches I'd gotten thanks to Windows, but at the very same time I'd bought a cheap and an expensive Microsoft product, and I loved them both. The same goes for the more recent "war" between iPhone and Android users. I actually own an HTC Magic, and I use it quite a lot — in fact, it's the phone I have in my pocket right now — but not as much as my 2G iPhone. Despite my iPhone's wifi being broken, I still generally prefer the iPhone cause of the experience and integration it offers me compared to the Android phone. Do I care about Apple's policies regarding iAds? Do I care about Google collecting payload data from open wifi networks? No and no. If the product is superior than all others for my needs, I'll use it. So please, next time you come and tell me that you refuse to use \_\_\_\_\_\_ company's products cause they're evil, or you think their policies suck, or you think I'm a blind stupid fool cause I use \_\_\_\_\_\_ company's products, just shut the fuck up. I'm not interested, and I don't care. Thanks for reading my quick little rant. _{insert picture of a unicorn caring for a cute little kitten here}_