1. Snobbishness is cool - The first word that comes to my mind when I think about Apple is snobbish. Sorry to disappoint Apple fans, snobbishness is not cool. Being snobbish would be justified if Apple were Chopard or Bentley. But Apple is a company which aims to sell millions of their products worldwide and such an attitude is not very endearing. When I think of Apple, I can almost hear Mr. Jobs telling me to take it or leave it - 'you want to copy-paste text? Too bad, sucker! Now get the hell out.'
2. You can get away with just looking cool and trendy - By now everybody knows just about everything there is to know about what the iPhone can't do. Any half-decent company would be running helter-skelter to add those features - after all, most of your customers are demanding it - but Apple is one company which doesn't look like it's in a hurry to fix things. You are expected to ignore its drawbacks just because it (a) is stylish, (b) is what everybody is talking about now and (c) has made your wallet lighter by a few kilos. Don't even bother to wonder whether some Bluetooth capability in the iPod would have make things a little easier.
3. Apple is the only innovative company around and the others are just crap - Sorry to disappoint the deluded souls at Apple, but developing low-cost technologies and providing affordable solutions to customers calls for innovation too, maybe more than what Apple is doing. Steve Jobs picked Dell as an example of a innovation-less company which just survives on reducing cost. But I can't imagine how Jobs could ignore the fact that Dell uses some of the most innovative logistics and supply chain management strategies to cut cost. I think Jobs confuses innovation with what happens in a styling studio. A product is about something much more - choice of materials, product design, selection of features, manufacturing, supply chain management, each of which calls for innovation. Different companies choose to innovate in different areas.
Having mentioned these 3 points, let me also tell you that I have no problem in accepting the iPhone as a gift from generous friends. My birthday is still a few months away and if you all start saving up from now and pool in money...
[Forrest Gump referring to Apple Computer]
Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, that's good! One less thing.