I’m on my third Apple computer, my second iPhone and I have a couple of iPods lying around. My husband thinks everything Apple is an enormous waste of money.
“No, but I would consider it”; I’ve never happened to have owned anything by them, but not out of any particular dislike.
I didn’t read the rest of the posts, but this is almost exactly my situation. I’ve never owned an iPod/iPhone/iPad or any other Apple product…except for that Apple][e back in the mid 80’s and I don’t count that. I wouldn’t totally write off owning an Apple product, but for whatever reason, they’re just not on my radar. When I’m looking at computers or phones etc, I just don’t really give them much thought. Something about the OS or the form factor or something just doesn’t really work for me. I’ve owned Apple stock, but that’s it.
I have an iPod Mini (that I still use), an iPod Touch (that I use a lot) and an iMac Mini (I think that’s what their called?) I got the iMac for my business so we could test Web sites on Macs.
I do find them to be tools. I didn’t buy them because I needed an Apple product. I think if I got a smart phone I would get an iPhone, because when it comes to phones I value the “walled garden” aspect - I don’t want to mess around with how it works.
I do think Apple makes good products, and to me they fit certain roles. But I do not go ga-ga over it as a brand.
Ditto, although my fiancee has a MacBook and an iPod.
I have an old iPod around here somewhere. I’ve never owned any other Apple product, but that’s not out of any aversion to Apple. I simply got started on the PC track back in the '80s and stuck with what I was used to. I’d be happy to use an iPad or an iPhone if somebody gave me one (hint hint ;)), but I have very little cash and would be more likely to purchase a cheaper model if available.
I’ve only owned Apple products for about 6 months. Now have an iPad an iPod an Apple TV, and their little “mini” computer.
So far everything is working fine, but time will tell. I do everything I used to do on a desktop on the iPad. It is fast and reliable.
Finally gave up on PC’s after owning three of them. All would work fine for a year or two and then get antsier and antsier. Always had virus protection and did updates but didn’t seem to help much in the long run. A 3 or 4 year old PC is a royal pain in the ass.
Not much of a techie. Just want a computer that is reliable and lasts a long time.
Apple so far seems fine for my purposes and is very intuitive.
After 3 or 4 years I may end up hating Apple as much as I hated PCs. Will find out.
I think you would like an ipad in the cockpit. It literally can replace every instrument and possibly wash your socks. Not sure if there is an app for that.
I got a third generation iPod Touch as a gift and I really like it. I wouldn’t have bought one for myself, but I would definitely replace it if it was lost or broken.
No, and I never will. They’re one of the very few companies I’d never consider buying from.
I have never owned anything by Apple and I doubt that I ever will. I don’t see anything superior about their products and I don’t like the proprietary nature of most of their stuff.
I have a linux box for surfing the net. It has all of the security benefits of an Apple (it’s biggest security benefit being that it’s not a Windows machine) at a fraction of the cost. It has more free software available and has pretty much an equivalent level of incompatibility with PCs (maybe a bit less, actually).
I have an old MP3 player that was a fraction of the cost of an equivalent iPod at the time. Rather than being submitted to the horrors of iTunes (which my son had to deal with) I was able to just plug it into the computer and have it act as a disk drive, which made it much more flexible and easier to transfer music files back and forth.
I don’t have a smart phone of any sort. I have a computer on my desk at work and a computer on my desk at home. I don’t see any reason to access the net on some tiny screen with horrible controls. If I did get one though it wouldn’t be an iPhone. There are phones out there with similar features that don’t have the proprietary crap on them and cost a lot less as well.
Same with a tablet. Both Microsoft and Apple act like they invented the tablet when in reality it was around for the PC market ages ago. I don’t want some Windows 8 piece of crap and I don’t want an overpriced Apple piece of crap either. There’s plenty better out there to choose from.
The only time when I felt Apple had a superior product was back in the days when IBM was making the XT and AT. PC graphics at that time were horrid (seriously, most of the 8 bit computers of the previous generation had better graphics capabilities). If you were doing desktop publishing types of things, Apple was by far the better choice. PCs eventually did catch up, and ever since then I haven’t seen anything that an Apple does better than anything else.
I’ve never personally owned an Apple product; however, we did recently buy our son an Ipod nano. He wanted a music player. Not a phone or other device that also plays MP3s, but a dedicated music player. There are basically only three of four choices out there these days, and they all start with “Ipod”. Other than that, I doubt we’ll be purchasing any Apple products in the foreseeable future.
I have nothing against Apple; it’s just that in my opinion the competition’s products generally give equal or nearly equal value and performance for significantly less cost. In any case, I’ve never found functionality in Apple’s products that I was missing enough to justify the cost (MP3 players excepted).
I have an apple corer in my kitchen—does that count as ownership of an apple product?
How about my Beatles albums?
I answered “I never will,” though actually I’m somewhere between that and “I would consider it.” Apple is just a brand, one among several, and it’s not the best value for any particular thing as far as I can tell. They may even make the best of some product, but not enough better than the almost-as-good rival to make it worth paying extra, since part of what you’re paying for is style and status and marketing as opposed to substance. Plus, I’ve been happy doing things the non-Apple way, and I don’t really want to get involved in a whole new restrictive ecosystem (iTunes).
To the OP: if you have the impression that “most if not all people have owned or regularly used an Apple product of one type or another,” this may be true of the kind of people you hang around with. Or it may be because Apple’s marketing department wants you to think that. I often see that Apple logo prominently displayed on computers used by people in movies and TV shows.
You can have my iPod when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Beyond that, I doubt that I’ll own any more Apple products. I’ll stick with my goofy old laptop over an iPad or a wafer-thin MacBook, thanks. I’m not very cool.
We went to the Apple store downtown on Tuesday to see if I could get a new case my my ancient iPod. When we were wandering around an Apple employee came up and asked if he could help us out. He explained that they still made the cases for my iPod but that they don’t keep them in the store any longer. As he was telling us this, the phone in his pocket rang and he pulled out some old cordless phone that looked like kids had been playing street hockey with it and took the call. After he hung up I asked him why the hell I would buy an Apple phone if the Apple store didn’t see fit to use them and he mumbled something about how they needed a landline phone for the store in case of emergencies. I couldn’t believe that Apple allowed them to have a cordless phone from 1992 as a store phone! Steve Jobs must be spinning in his grave.
Back when they were new (and outrageously expensive) I bought an AppleIIc computer.
I liked it then and it was cutting edge in design and technology…but I paid over $1000 for that thing, and it was at a special educator’s discount!!!
I still like the design of Apple products, but find them too expensive when they are brand new, and by the time I am interested in getting something, another company has an equally good if not better version for far less money.
I guess you could call me a cheap bastard who wants the bells and whistles, but ain’t gonna pay Apple a ton of money to be first.
I voted “no, but I’d consider it,” although I can’t imagine what Apple could do that was incredible enough to convince me. I’m not usually an adopter of brand new technology - I let others buy it first and I see how they like it, and then decide from there. That’s how I ended up with a Linux desktop, an HP touchpad, an Android phone, and a regular mp3 player (not of the “i” variety).
I just felt that picking “never!” seemed a little dramatic.
Should be, yes, and I love it! But there are occasionally some annoyances.
Been an Apple guy since 1984, started on the original Mac 128k, still have one in the attic
Went through my Rabid Mac Fanatic phase where I wouldn’t even touch a Microsoft product and would have spat in the face of bill gates if I ever met him, then finally mellowed out to my current phase of “meh, yeah I own Apple stuff, it just works for me, your experience may be different, lets just let each other be”
I’m not sure which Yes option to choose. The one Apple item I’ve owned is the older style iPod, and I would definitely not buy that again. Not because of my experience, but just because there are so many cheaper options now. At the time, if you wanted an MP3 player with 15 GB of capacity, it was iPod or nothing.
But I would be willing to maybe get a different Apple product in the future–but it all depends on cost. Right now there are cheaper alternatives for almost everything, so I’ll probably go with them. But if they became cheaper, I’d probably be willing to get them. But there is a bit of value lost on non-Mac devices, due to my need to jailbreak them, so simply being cheaper than the equivalent other product is not enough.
As I type this, my inclination is that this makes me neutral by your choices. Even though I’d be slightly less inclined to buy an apple product, It’s not because of my previous ownership.