Fanboys: The New Apartheid

By Aaron Ting

Loyal readers know that I like to follow the gadget scene pretty closely. The response I got to my recent piece on the smartphone OS race was more interesting than the article itself. I'm always grateful to discover new readers of our site, but I was surprised to see that a number of the people commenting and sending me emails were disagreeing with my assessment of their own smartphone OS, despite also admitting that they had not yet tried most of the alternatives. That's a shame, because these readers missed the point of the article - it was a piece comparing the strengths and weaknesses of each phone platform. What was this irrational insecurity that compelled Android users to immediately disagree with my purely-aesthetic criticism of Google's Android when they hadn't actually spent a lot of time playing with Palm's WebOS, Apple's iOS, or Windows Mobile?

Answer: Consumer bigotry.

We're all guilty of it. You spend your hard-earned money on something, and you need to validate that purchase. In a consumer market with countless brands and product choices, you need to convince yourself that the choice you made was the right one - that you rightfully determined the best product for you. Often times, the only way we can convince ourselves of this is to believe, however irrationally, that our consumer choices are superior over all other possible choices. That Ford Fiesta you bought MUST be better than the Honda Fit you looked at, or else you wouldn't have bought it. Either way, you're being laughed at by SUV owners.

This type of intolerance takes on many forms. The easy target is Apple fans, a cult-like group of consumers whose love and dedication for the Apple brand and its armada of aluminum-clad devices often extends well beyond rationality and fiscal responsibility. So elevated is the satisfaction they have in their devices that they carry an unjustified prejudice against Windows PCs and Blackberries. A prejudice that manifests not in hatred, but in pity - an unspoken belief that every non-Apple user is simply unenlightened.

But consumers that avoid Apple products are just as guilty of consumer bigotry. In fact, most dedicated Windows users are not so much united in their love of Microsoft products, but in their irrational hatred of Apple products. They often point to the aggressive pricing of Windows machines. A keen Windows consumer could purchase a desktop PC, a laptop, and a netbook - all for the price of one MacBook Pro. This is how a Windows consumer might rationalize his prejudice against Apple products.

Computers aren't the only playground for consumer bigotry. I can easily admit my own irrational love for Nintendo consoles. I cradled my Pokemon-equipped Gameboy with pride and smirked arrogantly at my idiot classmates who had bet on the vitality of Sega's Game Gear. Without even trying the Playstation 3, I wanted to dismiss it as a mere 'evolution' of antiquated gaming, as opposed to the 'revolution' that the Wii was supposed to bring.

The issue isn't whether each of us is right or wrong in our particular consumer choices; it's whether each of us is willing to accept that we could be wrong. Likewise, consumer bigotry can often be avoided if you're willing to accept that the brands and companies that you rely on to help make your consumer choices are capable of making inferior products.

No company is infallible. Nintendo had Virtual Boy and the Gamecube. Apple had everything they made in the '90s. Windows Vista. Google Buzz. Sony Betamax. The Ford Edsel. Life Savers Soda. The 1976 Olympics. Everyone screws up.

Regardless of whether these companies are succeeding or failing at a given time, one conclusion remains constant: they don't care about you. Yes, not even the technological sainthood of Apple and Google care about you. They're businesses. They're not held accountable by loyal fans like you, but by boards and stockholders who value profit margins more than your dwindling credit score. Sony doesn't care whether you really need high-definition Blu-Ray. They care about swimming in massive piles of cash as you convince yourself you need a 3D-capable Sony TV to fully experience that Sony-produced Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Blu-Ray on your Sony PS3. If they actually cared about your feelings, Cloudy would have been a better movie.

Stop thinking you have to be a cheerleader for your products. The reason that product innovation slows down and the markets fill up with mediocre products is because you keep buying them. You vote with your dollar. iPods have non-removable deteriorating batteries and Michael Bay is still directing movies because both are so profitable that no one feels the need to change them. You want better Wii games? Stop buying Carnival Games and Mario Party sequels.

We shouldn't ever settle for what our favorite brands are making, because they can always be doing more. It shouldn't matter to you whether we're all using iPhones or Android phones five years from now - either way, what you want is the best phone you can have. That's what you want your hard-earned money to get you. At best, the Apple logo on the back of your phone is just a crutch for your self-esteem.

So accept your purchase for what it is - embrace the good and the bad. Android users: stock Android has been ugly compared to what's going on in WebOS, iOS, and Windows Phone 7. Get over it, because even Google knows it. If they thought it was as perfect as you did, they wouldn't have hired Matias Duarte and his interface design team from Palm to spruce up Android's user interface. Be content in the knowledge that your Android phone has the most open, extensible phone operating system on the market, and that you've invested in an OS that has more hardware diversity than any other mobile OS out there.

Apple haters, accept the reality that Apple is probably putting out the highest-quality computer hardware, but be happy knowing that your HP or Dell probably cost half as much as the Macbook sitting next to it. Don't hate Apple for raising the bar on premium materials - get on HP and Dell's back for not adequately responding to things like the MacBook's unibody aluminum chassis. Get on Microsoft's back for dropping the ball on music players, phones, and (especially) tablets. You're giving your money to these companies, and you should be expecting more from them.

Don't hate devout Apple fanboys for simply being Apple consumers - hate them because they're smug jerks who think less of you for not 'understanding' the value of an iPad. And recognize that you're probably both bigots in a broad spectrum of consumer intolerance.