Apple Product Evolution Memorandum Please stop complaining and submit to our system. We designed it, we built it, so there can’t possibly be anything wrong with it. If there are some features that have gone missing, you’re better off without them. If the system isn't as effective as you think it could be, you’re dreaming. If interfaces have become awkward to use, you’re not considering the importance of consistent look and feel across wholly different devices. Keep using it and soon you’ll understand. If not, see figure 1. *-------------------------------* | _ | | { } | | | | | | | | | | .-.| |.-. | | .-| | | |.-. | | | | | ; | | \ ; | | \ ; | | | : | | | | | | | | | | | *-------------------------------* Figure 1. Forget about your silly concerns, let's take a look at the features of Apple technology. * Unix AT&T invented it, Berkeley reinvented it, we built a GUI on top of it and made it easy to use. We wooed so many geeks and power users with it that we decided to build a phone out of it. The phone interface we invented is so great and perfect that we’re now trying to make everything work like the phone, from phones to tablets to computers. Perhaps that means we have to change things, simplify behaviors to match the simplest device, but that’s okay because phones are selling like hotcakes! If the simplified phone-like interface makes your computer seem less useful, reconsider after reflecting on the simplicity and elegance of Figure 1. * Applications Software We created iWork, an office suite that was a nice change from MS Office. But it turns out that was difficult to implement on a phone, so we rewrote it. While we were at it, we got rid of all those pesky features that were hard to use on the phone, but that’s okay because if you need them you can always use Office. The new Pages may mangle your documents, but once they’re saved you won’t be able to open them with the old edition anymore; there’s no way back. But that’s okay, you wouldn’t want to use the old edition since it’s outdated. The new one works on your phone, so you can do your word processing anywhere on a touchscreen without a bulky, tactile keyboard. And while we were at it, we made Pages more like MS Word. If you don’t like Word, follow the Final Cut Pro users who we told to see Figure 1 several years ago. * Diagnostics We have two diagnostic tools; one we give to customers and one we use. The one we provide is good enough for you, who are not of Apple and know nothing. Don’t ask for the better diagnostic tool, that’s only for those indoctrinated to Apple Inc., so we won’t give it to you. If your system isn’t in perfect working order, what more do you need to know than it’s time to buy a new one. And besides, we made your system… * Unmaintainable Our systems used to be built with a bitch screw in a hidden location, but recently we’ve come up with our own screw drives to make sure you won’t have the tools to get your system open. Even if you do, you’ll find the RAM soldered to the motherboard and a propriety SSD interface. If you want to upgrade your system, see Figure 1, then buy a new system. If your system is under warranty, contact… * Support We call ’em Geniuses. If your computer breaks, use our website to schedule an appointment with one—but it’ll probably be a couple days off, since even though we have thousands of them in our stores, most of them are very busy. A Genius can take a look at it in a few days though. If you had work to do in the meantime, revisit Figure 1. The other important thing Geniuses do is identify the correct… * Dongles We've got lots of them. In video dongles alone, we have mini VGA, mini-DVI, mini displayport, mini HDMI, and Thunderbolt adapters. Dongles mean a sleek, elegant form factor without all those clunky ports cluttering machines up. In our most recent laptops, we got rid of those pesky, commonplace Ethernet ports too, so now we offer dongles for those—both USB and Thunderbolt varieties. Perhaps you need a sack to carry all those dongles around—but doesn’t the Mac look great? If you’re not sure, compare it to Figure 1. * Bugs These are the one thing we don’t have, because our software is perfect. We built on a proven UNIX foundation using well-established open-source. If the clock is skewing in the latest release, that’s not a result of customizations we made to ntpd, it’s because our software is lightspeed ahead of other OSes. Kernel panics? Irrelevant since our applications save their state, which is restored on login. And look how beautiful the layouts and buttons are; it’s like using a piece of art. In conclusion, we don’t care about your complaints. Love your Apple Mac or iOS device, but don't complain to us. We have plenty of fanboys buying the shit off the shelf as fast as we release it. If it’s dumbed down and awkward to use, TOUGH! You’re not the market we care about anyway. The fanboys worship and throw cash at us way more than you do anyway. See Figure 1 and go back to Linux, you bunch of cheap geeks.—
Written with love, from a concerned long-time Apple fangirl geek1 .
Related Reading
- VMS 4.1: An Official DEC Memo (http://neil.franklin.ch/Jokes_and_Fun/VMS_Attitude)
- See figure 1.
- AT&T Customer Service Memorandum (http://www.textfiles.com/humor/figure_1.txt)
- See figure 1. Again.
Footnotes:
- 1. Subsequently, these were a number of the reasons I migrated back to Linux.