Mango Cheesecake
It occurred to me last night that Apple was the purveyor of the world's best mango cheesecake. Bar none. Sure it's pricey but there is no beating Captain Job's Insanely Great Mango Cheesecake. You can ask anyone who's ever tried it, it's the best damned mango cheesecake in the whole freakin' universe! Creamy, tangy, sweet with the perfect buttery graham cracker crust. Why oh why would anyone ever want anything else as dessert, this stuff is the BEST!
...
... but... I don't like cheese cake. At all. My particular palate finds the stuff to be a revolting, gag-inducing, get-it-out-of-my-mouth experience. So sure, it's the best mango cheesecake, but I'll go have some baklava tossed together by some amateur bakers from Sao Paulo instead. See... I like baklava and even imperfect baklava tastes better to me than any possible mango cheesecake.
This is sort of the distillation of my thoughts on an offhand comment I overheard a few months ago, basically stating that the big reason to use Apple stuff is 'consistency of user experience'. Consistent. Hmmm. It's like putting hollandaise sauce all over every dish you serve at a restaurant. It's like mango cheesecake being the only dessert. It allows you to focus on one thing, to make that one thing as close to perfect as you can; but some of us like a little variety, or aren't fond of what they are serving.
Now... my favorite place isn't perfect either. For starters the menu presents such a dazzling and mind boggling list of choices that you can easily find the forty pages of small type overwhelming. There are no less than twenty different options relating to what kind of silverware (or chopsticks, or a spork...) you want to use. There is often no clear way to determine what a dish is from the name. The service is a little spotty, but at least nobody minds if you wander back into the kitchen and help yourself. Plus, sometimes you get a burned dish and have to wait while they cook another batch. On the plus side, with such a vast selection the odds are good they have exactly what you want and if you don't know your way around the menu yet, the folks at the next table will make suggestions. And you can't beat the prices.
The food analogy seems to work for me. The desire for 'consistency' is the driving force behind most of the American food mainstream. You can rest assured that the Campbell's Soup you buy in Sandusky tastes just like the stuff you pick up in Tuscon. It seems to work for Apple too.
Now, my philosophical issues with Apple's vertical lock-in tactics are another matter, this just addresses why I'm not fond of their products.
...
... but... I don't like cheese cake. At all. My particular palate finds the stuff to be a revolting, gag-inducing, get-it-out-of-my-mouth experience. So sure, it's the best mango cheesecake, but I'll go have some baklava tossed together by some amateur bakers from Sao Paulo instead. See... I like baklava and even imperfect baklava tastes better to me than any possible mango cheesecake.
This is sort of the distillation of my thoughts on an offhand comment I overheard a few months ago, basically stating that the big reason to use Apple stuff is 'consistency of user experience'. Consistent. Hmmm. It's like putting hollandaise sauce all over every dish you serve at a restaurant. It's like mango cheesecake being the only dessert. It allows you to focus on one thing, to make that one thing as close to perfect as you can; but some of us like a little variety, or aren't fond of what they are serving.
Now... my favorite place isn't perfect either. For starters the menu presents such a dazzling and mind boggling list of choices that you can easily find the forty pages of small type overwhelming. There are no less than twenty different options relating to what kind of silverware (or chopsticks, or a spork...) you want to use. There is often no clear way to determine what a dish is from the name. The service is a little spotty, but at least nobody minds if you wander back into the kitchen and help yourself. Plus, sometimes you get a burned dish and have to wait while they cook another batch. On the plus side, with such a vast selection the odds are good they have exactly what you want and if you don't know your way around the menu yet, the folks at the next table will make suggestions. And you can't beat the prices.
The food analogy seems to work for me. The desire for 'consistency' is the driving force behind most of the American food mainstream. You can rest assured that the Campbell's Soup you buy in Sandusky tastes just like the stuff you pick up in Tuscon. It seems to work for Apple too.
Now, my philosophical issues with Apple's vertical lock-in tactics are another matter, this just addresses why I'm not fond of their products.