The Jason Karuza Today.com Blog

Let’s stir it up a little bit.  I’m sure things are going great for you and your company, but I have some issues with you, buddy.  I recognize and respect many of the innovations that you have provided for the tech industry in general:

• The GUI (Graphical User Interface that was first used on the Macintosh) lead to the use of GUIs by all other operating system developers.
• Some of the form factors you created for your computer products helped bring sexy design into the industry.
• The iPod brought simplicity and good looks to the mp3 player realm.
• The iPhone made a nice merge between standard cell phones and smart phones for the general public.

But here’s the thing, Steve.  You are robbing people.  It’s not officially robbery because people are willingly throwing away money on all of your products, but anyone with a sense of reason can see that they are getting had by Apple.

When it comes down to it, your products are built around the software that you create.  For those who don’t know what software is, it’s basically the code, programs, operating system, firmware, etc. that run on the actual hardware of a given electronic device.  For example, OS X is Apple’s custom operating system.  But the huge premiums that are being charged to own a computer with OS X on it doesn’t justify the software costs at all.

Believe me, as a software developer, I know how hard it is to develop quality applications (let alone an operating system), but once you have developed it, the cost for reproduction is basically the cost of burning a DVD or CD for distribution.  A Mac Pro, Macbook, or Macbook Pro is just a computer with parts that can be attained from anywhere and pieced together (though the Mac formula is generally pretty good for performance).  For a while, Macs ran on IBM chips, but now they run on Intel chips.  They use hard drives like all other computers, graphics cards, RAM, etc. and yet they charge a lot more than the equivalent hardware in a Dell machine.  The only justifyable reason is because of the software and possible the motherboard, but they aren’t worth that much extra (not to mention their laptops and mice still only have ONE BUTTON).

Now, the iPod is an amazing device in its simplicity and interface, but for the longest time it was a complete rip off.  I remember when I got my first mp3 player in 2003 or so it was retailing for $329 for a 20GB device.  The iPod at the time was going for $400.  My device had an FM tuner, could voice record, could record line in, had a better audio output quality, could support tons of audio formats, came with a remote, and was roughly the same size as an iPod (I got the iRiver H120. You can verify that it was a little thicker for yourself, but otherwise around the same size).  Was the software interface of my device as sleek and sexy?  No, probably not.  BUT, I didn’t have to tag all of my files with iTunes and then convert all of the files over to the propietary format supported by the iPod when loaded onto the device.  I could just put my songs in directories like I am used to with the standard file system structure of any computer (including Macs).  Can you see how it is pretty strange that iPods were more expensive for less functionality  It’s also amazing that a new generation of the iPod would come out every 6 months or so and people would go out and buy them even though they had a perfectly functioning device already.

Touching on the iPhone, I feel bad for the early adopters.  First you had to pay $600 only to find out that there was a rebate placed on the same phone a couple months later.  Then about a year into the life of the phone they finally put in the high speed internet network capabilities that should have been there in the first place and drop the price to $200.  It sucks for you guys cuz you are falling into the iPod generation stream where new ones will come our regularly with slight additions that are already available in other phones.  The other sad part is that to really get all of the functionality out of your phone you have to Jailbreak it.  The Apple proprietary system is just sticking it to the consumers.

In the end you have to expect all of that when buying Apple products and be willing to shell out needless amounts of cash just to be “cool” and “trendy.”  Do their devices work well?  Yes.  Are they worth the cost?  It’s relative, but in terms of pure hardware and software comparisons, No.  Enjoy your iPoo, kids.

-Jason

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