h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Apart from his writing, Douglas Adams was quite well known for three things. His love of Apple Macs and his non-love of bureaucracy and organised religion.

Douglas died in May 2001. The first iPhone was launched in 2007. At the time Douglas was still with us the iPod didn't even exist. That came in October 2001.

So back when he was with us Apple were a completely different company. They designed things that looked good and worked well and that was their business. And they were good at it.

But in the intervening 10 years Apple has changed. As a developer, to create an app for an iPhone, you have to own a Mac. Not just an iPhone, but the Mac too. And they're not cheap. You have to agree to design your app so that it follows Apple's design guidelines, there's quite a lot of those. You then can only sell it through the iTunes store, with Apple taking their cut. You can't sell it anywhere else. Apple still make some beautiful products, but they're not the only ones. They no longer innovate. Their innovation has been stifled by the layers and layers of bureaucracy that has grown around their business. There's no room for innovation anymore, only immitation.

And what of the people that do still devotedly buy Apple products? Those that roll out time and again the argument that "Douglas Adams would own one, he loved Macs" Maybe he did, but would he now? I don't know. But I don't think he'd be keen on the almost cultish behaviour of the must have gadget that's the next big thing and changes everything, again, simply because they've fixed the bugs and put the missing features in.

So I don't think Douglas Adams would own an iPhone, and possibly not even a modern Mac. I'm not even convinced he'd use an iPad, because when you get down to it, they're pretty useless really. Yeah, it's a nice gadget, and for that he'd probably own one, but after a few months I see it gathering dust.

Possibly not a Mac - but he'd own something else shiny.

I use my iPad daily, several times most days. That said, I know that most iPad owners say they don't use them more than once a week.

My views on Macs are well documented so I won't go into them here.

Mr Vip uses his more than his PC - a lot more (that's pretty much been relegated to playing Skyrim, in honesty, the iPad is used for pretty much everything). But then, he doesn't have a smartphone, and has said he'd only have one or the other [iPad or smartphone], never both because what would be the point.

I have no smartphone and no iPad or any other i.

generally people think I'm not a fan of Apple products, which isn't actually the case. They're nice, they're shiney, but there are better, cheaper things out there.

I think for me it's the whole fake image that sits over it. You're not buying the product, you're buying the lifestyle.

I used to really like Macs as well - about 10 years ago, which makes me feel old. But the only real step forward was to get rid of the proprietary hardware (well, peripherals, anyway) and let you use your own monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Not that many people do; doesn't fit the image.

Apple is aspirational, artificially-expensive and average. But it's a example of brilliant marketing.

A large percentage of those who own an Apple product turn into vocal brand ambassadors, dedicated to spreading the word about their shiny aspirational gadgets.

It's something h2g2 needs to learn to do, to be honest

As for DNA - it's a tragedy that we never got to see him on Twitter. That'd have been cracking.

But Mr. 603, if people were spreading the word about h2g2 they wouldn't be able to moan about how few people there are here...

I hadn't considered that...

I totally agree Pastey.

>>I think for me it's the whole fake image that sits over it. You're not buying the product, you're buying the lifestyle.<<

iMarketing and floods of peripherals/accessories 'designed for iJunk' makes it a must have gadget, not for its quality or usefulness, but pretty much as a 'fashion statement'. I've felt for a very long time that there are better products out there (my Creative mp3 player, for instance) but they don't have the mass popularity created by excess promotion and saturation marketing. Therefore, buying accessories (eg. cases, chargers, docking stations) is more difficult for other brands and tends to be limited to manufacturer's own, rather than walking into any high street store to grab one of a hundred different optional extras. iTunes is horrible to use and to be compelled to use, and even the iPod/Phone users I have spoken to dislike it. I certainly wouldn't buy one of these products (much as I'd appreciate the peripheral freedom) whilst compelled to use such awful software.

I think part of the old appeal of Apple was its niche position, which is certainly warped thse days, so it is hard to imagine Douglas feeling quite as enthusiastic as he used to. On the other hand, he might have been the one shouting loudest.

I think I am the only person in the world who has never had a serious problem with iTunes...

I think you must never have used anything else then Mr.D to realise how deities awful it is

Windows Media probably doesn't count...

But I have really had none of the issues people describe with iTunes. I even found it pretty intuitive to use!

I found it too like RealPlayer

I haven't used Real Player since 1998.

I despise RealPlayer...

Oh by Bob, Windows Media Player. The only programme I've come across where I find the basic funtion - you know, playing music? - to be incredibly difficult to work out. Ripping, burning, playlists... OK, that's fine but I just want to find some music and play it!

>>
I think for me it's the whole fake image that sits over it. You're not buying the product, you're buying the lifestyle.
<<

The only things I've owned made by Apple have been three laptops over the past 12 years. I like them because the user interface matches my intuition better than windows. (although have to admit the aesthetics match me better too).

Apple does do some pretty daft stuff with its sw, but from what I can tell so do other companies

I think the point about product and lifestyle is good though. When I phone applecare now the queuing system says:

press 1 for iphone

press 2 for ipod

press 3 for ipad

press 4 for all other products

(apple still makes computers! )