Apple fandom

I’ve been using Apple products all my life. I’ve always found them to be of terrific quality, and I’ve always been better treated by the company in sale and support terms. I’ve also spent years as an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician. I camped out for an iPhone 3G and spent a long time arguing AT&T into giving me a subsidized 3G S after the 3G was stolen. I have just about as much loyalty to the Apple brand as anyone.

But I know which way the wind is blowing. If Apple keeps going down the road of intense user control, doesn’t give up the exclusivity contract with AT&T, and continues to break with Google, I’m not going to stick with them. Google Android, Chrome, and Chrome OS once it exists (not to mention more well-established software like Ubuntu, which I already consider second only OS X), are all completely viable alternatives. I already have all of my email addresses (including MobileMe, which I get for free as a certified Apple Sales Professional) redirecting to Gmail, and it provides all the services MobileMe does, except for Find My iPhone, and for free. See my general rule for computing. It still applies.

So, while I think that Apple is still a generally moral company, one that is providing terrific services to its users, I hope they realize that down the road they are only going to be able to restrict us so far. Google has done an incredible job of making it really easy to switch to their services, and as we offload more and more of our data storage and processing power to the cloud, that ease of transition and context-switching is a big advantage. Either it will keep Apple honest, or I’ll switch. I’m definitely not enough of a fanboy to stick with Apple when there’s a better alternative. Until that point, I’ll continue to defend them as the best hardware and software provider, but I’m not blind to reality.

Thus, I publicly declare Apple not to be the infallible god that its fanpersons so often claim it is. And I call on its directors and customers to take it in a direction that continues to provide good products and services, rather than one that treats its customers, as so many other tech companies have, as endlessly ignorant moneybags. I, for one, will not put up with that. We’re used to getting good value from Apple, and if we stop getting it, we’ll move on.