Top 10 irritating things about Apple

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Posted on 17 Jun 2010 at 17:37

Apple makes superb products that have obviously had a lot more time and effort put into making them easy to use than other companies. You only have to look at an iPhone and compare it to a Windows Phone-based handset to see this in action. That said, Apple isn't the perfect company that many fanbois think it is. Here are 10 irritating traits that have annoyed us:

10. The dock connector

The fact that every iPod, iPhone and iPad all share the same dock connector should be a good thing. It should mean that all of these devices can share docks, cables and other devices. Wrong. In fact, the dock connector is about as far from a standard that you can get and made worse by the fact that Apple sees fit to change it at times.

Since its inception we've had to suffer from some devices working in older iPods but not new ones, such as in-line remotes with screens. Then, Apple decided to remove the connectors for FireWire charging, so new iPods and the iPhone can't be charged in many speaker docks.

Hell, we've even had problems trying to sync an iPod Touch using a USB cable from a 3rd gen iPod nano. It's infuriating and frustrating. Come on Apple, sort it out.

9. Apple didn't invent a lot of stuff it's credited with

Apple is very good at taking existing technology and making people want it, but it's also very good at making people believe that it came up with the idea in the first place. This is rarely true.

Apple didn't invent the graphical user interface. This was pioneered at Xerox PARC; Apple merely refined what it saw and made it successful. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player; Saehan Information Systems made the first one with its MPMan in 1998. In the case of the iPod, Apple actually paid $100m to Creative for a license to use elements of the user interface, after the latter launched a lawsuit against the former.

A lot of Apple's success is built on the App Store and everyone's really excited that Apple has invented such an amazing concept. Wrong. Palm had apps available for its PDAs years ago; Apple has just made the system a whole lot easier to use.

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User comments

Ian Woodrow

I have had several Apple computers, they are all still working, and it is this reliability thats keeps me with them.

The author obviously hates Apple with the same passion that I hate Windows. Surely Windows Vista was the worse piece of crap ever to be put on a computer?

By Woody9117 on 21 Jun 2010

10. The iPod dock connector has been remarkably consistent, with only a few changes throughout it's lifetime.
9. Apple never claimed it invented the GUI.
8. Macs run OS X, not something you can (legally) do with a PC.
7. Apple were upset when Palm hacked the USB connection to pretend to be an iPod.
6. I agree with you about having no screws, but it seems to be popular.
5. There are some very good reasons for not running Flash, for example battery life.
4. I think they should have memory cards, but it does not seem to have held them back.
3. Apple do follow a lot of standards, like HTML 5 and MPEG AAC.
2. People love thin, elegant machines.
1. I love iTunes, but then again I have an old version.

By the way, my e-mail said things that people love about apple!

By juleslush on 29 Jun 2010