Emails from Steve Jobs

[Lucky Lucario]

So, I admit, I am somewhat of an Apple fanboy. I have an iMac, Macbook, and iPod Touch, (no iPhone...damn AT&T) but I never really liked Steve Jobs that much. I recently came across this website that showcases some of the emails that he sends to customers with questions. Whether or not they're actual questions or just some guy saying he hates the new iTunes logo, his responses are always short and kind of ignorant as if he doesn't care about the opinions or questions of the public. While I know he's (I'm assuming) busy and he cant reply with a dissertation to every email, I'd think he could at least be a little considerate of people.

So, what do you think of this site, and what do you think of Steve Jobs or Apple in general? I like their products, but like I said before, I never cared much for Steve Jobs.

 

[Morm]

Apple is great if you like paying 2-3X more for a system that isn't always compatible with everything else. It's basically what hipsters buy to look trendy.

Honestly, people are SUCH idiots about apple. TWO TIMES in the last 7 days I've seen HUGE lineups waiting up to 48 hours for iPhone 4 shipments. The truly stupid thing is that I saw dozens of iPhone 3's in the crowd waiting! IMO apple is kind of like a horrible movie that's labelled as a 'cult classic': yeah it may have been the first to do many things but now it certainly isn't the best at those things (save for the iPod).

 

[Mikazukinoyaiba]

The fact that he is answering his e-mails is more than any other CEO of a company, so if he shows you snark or indifference at least he is doing it directly.

Honestly, if you had people send you e-mails everyday and assume they know you just because they've read articles or bought your product I'm sure you would do worse in turn.

 

[Fatecrashers]

I'm pretty indifferent to Apple in general, but you gotta appreciate what Steve Jobs has done. Before he took Apple's helm again the company was a joke. Now it's leading the market for MP3 players and smartphones, and has the cult of personality that other companies could only dream of. If Steve Jobs is curt to you then so be it, just be glad he is replying at all.

 

[Firestorm]

If you know about Steve Jobs at all you know he's an asshole. A genius, but an asshole. He's arrogant to a fault. It's either his way or the high way and that has (fortunately for him) worked since he rejoined the company. He doesn't sound like he cares about the opinions of other people because he doesn't. As far as the public goes though, he shouldn't. The masses are pretty stupid.

Being a "fanboy" of a company is ridiculous in any case.

Apple is great if you like paying 2-3X more for a system that isn't always compatible with everything else. It's basically what hipsters buy to look trendy.

I'm anything but an Apple fan but this is pretty stupid.

 

[Mike B]

I hate the fanaticism and sensationalism that Apple spews (A magical product, at an unbelievable price). Also their hardware is made from lowtier manufacturing plants so they can make things as cheap as possible. Foxconn is a horrible sourcing point for how much Apple charges for their products.


The lowest end laptop, which is as expensive as a quadcore equivalent and with a superior video card, makes me want to throw up

 

[Firestorm]

I just bought a MacBook Pro. I'm still within the return period so if you can find me a laptop that has these features for less I'd really love it. Bonus points if they ship to Canada.

- 13" screen
- 10 hour battery life
- IPS screen-like viewing angles / colours
- the video power to play Source (TF2 / L4D2) engine games and Audiosurf
- the RAM and CPU to run Photoshop, Dreamweaver or other IDE, Flash, and Illustrator at once

I prefer it to have around the build quality of Apple's laptops (so something like an Asus, Toshiba, Sony, not HP). Thank you! Should be less than $1000 before taxes as that's about what I paid after the student discount / promotions. And by less, I mean it. I don't see the point of only being able to boot Windows rather than both OSes like on here.

 

[Morm]

I'm anything but an Apple fan but this is pretty stupid.

Demonstrate why, please. I'd like to know why their laptops cost like 3 grand when a computer that, to me, seems similar with windows 7 costs 1000.

edit: did you seriously just ninja me as I was writing that? Wow.


I have nothing but great things to say about Toshiba, I'd be hard pressed to select a computer of different make for a laptop.

 

[Firestorm]

Demonstrate why, please.

Their computers are for a different market.

The Mac Pros use $1000+ processors which you shouldn't even be looking at if you're just looking for a desktop. They are not for you nor are they for me. As a student, I just built a hackintosh with a much cheaper processor that still got the work I needed done. I can run Final Cut Pro by switching to OSX and I can stay on Windows 7 for the majority of the time as that's what I prefer.

Their iMac line I haven't looked at too closely. I did remember their last refurbished sale had a pretty good deal. $1549 + tax for a 27" iMac. The monitor alone is worth $1000 if you buy a comparable model from Dell or any other provider of 27" IPS screens. For $550, you get the computer too which iirc was an i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and HD 4850 in a very small form factor.

IMO the MacBooks aren't worth it when their superior Pro line is so similar in price. I already listed why I went with the MacBook Pro in my last post. It was about $120 more than the Asus UL30VT when all was said and done. Well, if I compared the Canadian MacBook Pro to the American UL30VT anyway. It got me a better processor, much better screen, better keyboard, and easier service due to not having to ship it. Not to mention the ability to dual boot in case I need to work on a Final Cut project.

Edit: Yeah, my last laptop was Toshiba. Had it from January 2007 - now (and it was a display model before that!). However, it only gets 30 mins of battery on a full charge and I'd like to give it to my parents and move to a new smaller, lighter laptop with much longer battery life.

 

[Mikazukinoyaiba]

Okay, there is no denying that there is an Apple tax when you compare it to other PCs with similar specs.

However, Apple products do deserve their reputation as they are pretty high quality. Also Apple definitely does have a good sense in design and fashion, pay attention to the PCs out there and you will see how they (like HP) are imitating Apple.

The reason why newer laptop models aren't coming with cheap plastic and instead magnesium-alloy or aluminum-alloy is largely in credit to them.

A Macbook Pro is a damn good laptop, no doubt. Of course criticisms about their proprietary hardware and price is totally on par.

Maybe a lot of people are buying Apple because they are hipsters or because it is "cool" that may be true, but not everyone has an Apple product solely for that reason.

 

[Morm]

Toshiba does have battery issues, but I seldom go unplugged.

Thanks for the info Firestorm!

Mika: you're right. However I'm right too- the lineups at the malls in my city demonstrate that elegantly, as at least 50% of them were hipsters!

 

[Firestorm]

Apple products do command a bit of a premium, I agree. It's just they're not as exaggerated as many make them out to be. This is coming from someone who loves taking the chance to troll Apple whenever possible amongst some very pro-Apple peers!

Well, the laptop lasted this long and it was a "gaming laptop" in a sense, so it makes sense. There has been a lot of advancement in batteries for laptops in the past 3 years though so I want to move on. I used to not need to be plugged in but the past year has had me at more and more places where I either hand no access to an outlet or I just didn't want to have to plug in my laptop.

As for the iPhone 4 lines, they're as ridiculous as the Wii lineups were. Moreso in this case because you can order one online and have it at your house in about two weeks. I don't know where these people get the time to line up.

 

[Morm]

Hipsters need not sleep nor job, they feed on trend, apparently.

Though I do know people who took the day off to wait for the last WoW expansion to come out, then the following two days to play it non stop (literally), then the next two days to recover/play a more modest 12 hours...

Honestly some people use vacation time for this shit. It's outrageous.

 

[TEA_DEMON]

I can't stand Apple and their shitty gimmicks. The only reason I have ever considered buying an iPod (which I haven't done yet) is because it's easier than looking around desperately for another brand which has 16GB+ capacity.

 

[Not Scicky]

Eh, my dad has a bunch of mac's that he uses for his business, you can also run a windows emulator on a mac, meaning you can use .exe's and stuff. It's got some cool features too but I don't think it would be as good as a personal computer. But I admit I wouldn't mind getting one if I already had a PC, it's just... not my first choice, and I'm no rich motherfucker.

 

[Alan]

To: Apple Development Labs (appldevlabs@apple.com)
From: Steve Jobs (jobss@apple.com)
Subject: Re: Idea

Dear Mr. Jobs,

We will begin working on this right away.

Regards,

Apple Development Labs

||
||
||
||

Dear Apple Development Labs,

What if we just took the iPod we already have, made it exactly the same but added a couple of new features and hype it up to claim to revolutionize the industry and go around the country giving conferences about how great it is and how you need to have it? Profits could be high, risk/reward seems to be in order, thoughts?

Regards,

Steve Jobs

CEO, Apple Corporation.

 

[Morm]

Alan just also described the new iphone, hence the lines?

How about those obnoxious adds of apple vs PC? UGH, funny as they were.

 

[Thorns]

am i the only one who thinks steve jobs is kind of a badass in his responses

 

[Mike B]

I just bought a MacBook Pro. I'm still within the return period so if you can find me a laptop that has these features for less I'd really love it. Bonus points if they ship to Canada.

- 13" screen
- 10 hour battery life
- IPS screen-like viewing angles / colours
- the video power to play Source (TF2 / L4D2) engine games and Audiosurf
- the RAM and CPU to run Photoshop, Dreamweaver or other IDE, Flash, and Illustrator at once

I prefer it to have around the build quality of Apple's laptops (so something like an Asus, Toshiba, Sony, not HP). Thank you! Should be less than $1000 before taxes as that's about what I paid after the student discount / promotions. And by less, I mean it. I don't see the point of only being able to boot Windows rather than both OSes like on here.

13in screen = haha at screen real estate
10 hour battery life = yeah, because the screen is small and the video card isn't so great.
Video power to play TF2/L4D = Both of them should run on nearly any dedicated card

Ram and CPU to run all of Adobe at once = so do all the other laptops have 4gb of RAM nowadays, and Macbooks are dualcore while a lot are quadcore around $1000

Well, chalk it up to me for not having a deep wallet; I am incredibly biased because of the premiums.

 

[Son of Disaster]

I just bought a MacBook Pro. I'm still within the return period so if you can find me a laptop that has these features for less I'd really love it. Bonus points if they ship to Canada.

- 13" screen
- 10 hour battery life
- IPS screen-like viewing angles / colours
- the video power to play Source (TF2 / L4D2) engine games and Audiosurf
- the RAM and CPU to run Photoshop, Dreamweaver or other IDE, Flash, and Illustrator at once

I prefer it to have around the build quality of Apple's laptops (so something like an Asus, Toshiba, Sony, not HP). Thank you! Should be less than $1000 before taxes as that's about what I paid after the student discount / promotions. And by less, I mean it. I don't see the point of only being able to boot Windows rather than both OSes like on here.

here is one

and another

and one more

Those aren't even really good deals. You can get ridiculous good refurbs from dell outlet with discounts on top of that. I had a buddy just get one for 380 shipped to his door. i3 4gb ram all that jizz. If you really want ten hours of battery you can customize them wherever you want. Although i never see a practical use for it.

Apples are incredibly overrated and overpriced.

 

[JimBob]

am i the only one who thinks steve jobs is kind of a badass in his responses

I agree, I really don't ever plan on buying any apple product if I can help it, but those emails are hilarious.

"We disagree"

 

[cantab]

Apple is all about style over substance. It's about image, fashion, as mentioned being trendy. Go to a uni and the majority of Mac users will be arts students.

Also, their ease of use is a load of bull. I mock iPhones whenever their users have any trouble, because the Apple marketing makes out problems with iStuff never happen.

Heck, it was when I was helping a work colleague with their iPhone that I discovered that in Apple's world, you cannot use you phone until you connect it to the hive a computer running iTunes. I'm sorry, but FUCK OFF APPLE, IT'S A FUCKING PHONE, I EXPECT IT TO WORK OUT OF THE BOX LIKE EVERY OTHER DAMN PHONE I'VE USED!

I have never wanted to buy anything by Apple, and I doubt I ever will. I'd rather spend my money on technical capability, not glossy looks.

 

[Mike B]

$999 Macbook:

• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 13in screen
• 2GB DDR3 memory
• 250GB hard drive1
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M

$750 Acer:

• 2GHz Phenom 2 Quad
• 17in screen
• 4GB DDR3 memory
• 500GB hard drive1
• Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (a lot faster than Geforce 320M

performance is shot when it's not plugged in, so let's not include battery life as an issue.


Double cores, RAM, hard drive space and video card performance, 4in more screen space.

 

[YoshiX]

here is one

and another

and one more

Those aren't even really good deals. You can get ridiculous good refurbs from dell outlet with discounts on top of that. I had a buddy just get one for 380 shipped to his door. i3 4gb ram all that jizz. If you really want ten hours of battery you can customize them wherever you want. Although i never see a practical use for it.

Apples are incredibly overrated and overpriced.

While good laptops, those have either too large of a screen/short battery life/just as pricey as apple.

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/asus-u30jc-a1/4505-3121_7-34043767.html

That would be your best choice Firestorm.

 

[Mike B]

What do you justify as being "too large" or "short battery life"? And keep in mind that a laptop at the same price as Apple will undoubtedly have more hardware oomph, so nothing can really be as pricey. The laptop you mentioned has a bigger HD and twice the ram, for example.



I also HATE Cnet reviews; they said a 5lb computer is heavy.