The eternal question-PC or Mac?

[Charlie Foxtrot]

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Thanks SirBrass!  I now know much more than I'll ever be able to assimilate -- or use.      You're obliviously a superuser, while I'm a just a chimp turning the channel selector of a TV.  When I get my Android tablet, I'll look you up, okay?   

[Charlie Foxtrot]

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Got the iTouch, and was feeling myself slipping into the Cult of Apple.

Fortunately, Steve Job's arrogance has prevented that.  

I went to pair my beloved Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset with the iTouch: noworkee. Off to the Apple Store's Genius Bar. They couldn't get it to pair with their own iTouch. But, it paired immediately with their iPhone. Hmmm. The tattooed and pierced Gen Zero searched the knowledge base and reported that the 510 and a lot of other popular headsets are not supported on the iTouch. Seems that Steve Jobs would prefer you make your calls from the more expensive iPhone. Oh?

Gotta admit, the Apple Experience is wonderful -- until you depart from the Shining Path chosen by the Dear Leader.

Freedom!  FREEEEEDOM!!!

'cuse me, I've got to go paint my face blue and white.  Oh, it's Halloween, really?  

[SirBrass]

I love apple products, but I'm beginning to really dislike Steve Jobs.  The man's arrogance is fine as long as he is RIGHT, but recently he's not just been arrogant and right, but instead arrogant and WRONG, especially in the area of mobile devices.  And that pisses me off.

Love the iPod, love the Mac, love OSX, love iTunes, can't stand Jobs' arrogance.  I hope getting soundly thumped in the cell phone market by open source devs (and not a corporation) finally does it.  It's one thing to call foul on MS back when they played dirty pool with apple property.  It's another thing to get thumped after making grandiose predictions and be beaten by self-proclaimed amateurs who do this stuff as a dedicated hobby (but who have enough professionalism to do solid work).

[Eric R Shelton]

I love apple products, but I'm beginning to really dislike Steve Jobs.  The man's arrogance is fine as long as he is RIGHT, but recently he's not just been arrogant and right, but instead arrogant and WRONG, especially in the area of mobile devices. 

Wrong on what?  Just curious, I'm not defending him or anything.  I will say that what little I've used a Droid phone was god-awful compared to the iPhone.  The user experience simply blows, and it's the furthest from intuitive I've ever seen a device that was supposed to "improve" on an Apple product.  It's got some awesome features and I'm grateful as heck it exists to prevent Apple from laurel-resting, but in my opinion it's really only good for super users.  I had some lady try and convince me her Droid was better than my iPhone 4 based solely on the fact it was "open".  I asked her if she was a developer or had rooted her phone, and when she said no I asked why she cared about it being being "open" then?  All that means for her is it's open for her carrier to f*** it up.

I'm actually really curious to see what Windows Phone 7 does, and I think watching this mobile technology arms race is fascinating and all the devices are bewildering, no matter what one's preference is.  Ain't this cool stuff?!?!

[SirBrass]

He's been wrong on just about anything related to Android, including the "All cellphones experience the same problem to varying degrees that our iPhone4 has" garbage.  It was such an aggregious accusation that instead of ignoring him, the different makers of the accused phones: Samsung, HTC, Motorola, RIMM all responded slamming Apple (more directly, Jobs) for those claims.

Also, Jobs was stating some "facts" about Android vs. his iOS that were not true or at least misleading.

Basically, he has stated before that what he offers (and keeps locked down and restrictive) is what you want and he won't allow you to tweak it.

See, with OSX, you still can tweak and customize to your hearts content, including messing with the kernel because you have access to it.  Apple may not want you to, but they can't stop you, nor have they really tried to stop end users from doing so (except under certain circumstances claiming warranty violation).  But with the iOS, they have locked it down securely, such that even jailbreaking it doesn't allow you to do much with it.  It's forced conformity, and Jobs is unrepentant of it.  It's not a tight system for those who don't want to screw things up, it's designed to keep the persistant hacker out of his own phone.  Sure that's apple's right to do so, but it also belies a high level of arrogance that steve knows best how you should have your phone set up and won't allow you to make the mistake of thinking you should customize it.

You're essentially made to walk in lock-step with how Steve thinks you should have a phone set up and that you're not allowed to modify it is what is so arrogant about the whole thing.

It's one thing to make a smart phone for the average user who doesn't want much fuss but wants functionality.  It's another thing to take that, and force it down the throat of those who want your product's functionality but want to tweak it some for their own use and tastes by refusing to even allow them to do so.