In Steve Jobs's introduction of the new Apple TV a while back, he presented a list of consumer likes and dislikes – things he said had been worked into the concept of the Apple TV unit: lots of content, mostly HD, portable, simple -
Ah, but wait for this. Apple TV lets you watch YouTube, but it doesn't let you watch video on Facebook, or Vimeo, or several others. And guess what Jobs had to say about that?
“People want Hollywood movies and TV shows. They don't want amateur hour.”
Where do I even start?
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This thing won't give you access to content, and then it coolly informs you that you didn't want that particular content anyway.
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This thing gives you YouTube – which is mostly “amateur hour” content, to use Jobs's nasty putdown comment – but doesn't give you other similar sites. Why not? Why, just because, that's all.
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Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, is telling the assembled masses that people don't want to watch TV on a computer. Now, I don't get out much, but I know a whole boatload of people out there watch programming on their computers, and laptops, and mobile devices. Including the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, I do believe.
This leads me to believe that Steve Jobs is wrong.
Steve Jobs. You know: Him. The hipster doofus in the black t-shirt who looks like a jazz musician wannabe. I keep thinking of that whole debacle a few months ago, when people discovered the antenna problem in the iPhone, and he got all nasty and stupid about it and basically told people they were holding their phones wrong.
Evidently you've got to learn to use your iGrip when you use your iPhone.
Frankly, I don't care if Steve Jobs says his mommy came from the planet Neptune, so long as his products are well-made and appropriately priced. But now he's doing a Pee-Wee Herman - making a nice gadget with an odd flaw in it, selling it to you, and then swaggering up to you and saying: "I meant to do that."
The technology is attractive. Very attractive. But the whole Apple mystique turns me off in a big way. Especially when it's presented in such a snarky and arrogant way by such an arrogant loser.
I used to live in AppleWorld myself, but my citizenship has sort of lapsed. Twenty years ago, I loved everything Apple, and my world revolved around my little Mac, which was roughly the size and shape of a tabletop ice maker. Then I began to get tired to shopping for new software in the little Mac ghetto at the back of the store, and I began to get envious of all of the neat stuff available for PC. I made the transition to PC in 2000, and frankly I haven't looked back.
I managed to break out, like a North Korean who finally made it across the river into China.
Freedom, kids. It's wonderful.
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