Mark Pilgrim has written a now-dugg post on the iphone, and how people should learn to stop buying products from Apple in the hopes that they will get a clue and truly open them up.
Although the blog post is nice, I prefer the simplicity of his delicious comment:
“Doctor, it hurts when I buy Apple products.”
The punchline, for those that don’t recognize the joke: “Then don’t do that.”
Or take the digg comments when Steve Jobs took X+200$ from people for an iphone, then gave them 100$ back so they can spend it at the Apple store. Commenters were falling over themselves praising Apple for doing the right thing, even though customers have still spent X+200$ at Apple, and the only thing Apple loses is the equivalent of a few months iphone subscription revenue. My response: “Thank you sir may I have another!”
Similarly, I often describe buying a Mac as a deal with the devil. You get the best-available computing experience money can buy, but you’ll have to put up with Steven P. Jobs’ odd whims — some of which cost money1, others of which just make you mad2, some of which screw you over3.
But I think the most apt analogy for Apple and its users is the abusive relationship. Apple will slap you around and beat you up, but it’ll always come back with a bouquet of flowers and promise that this time things’ll be different.
Update:
Now apparently Apple is saying “I’ll buy you a bouquet of flowers, and you can choose the flowers, but only if I think they go with the drapes.”