apple & the curse of high expectations

sometimes a product comes with the baggage of too high expectations.  earlier tthis evening i *struggled* with my imac/itunes/iphone/app/airtunes set up for a good thirty minutes.  why?  so that i could listen to the Into The Wild soundtrack in my living room.  problem... the mac is not in the living room.  what to do?

plug the iphone into the living room stereo?  well... that would have been one way to skin this cat.

but noooooo... i have to try to do it the kewl way.  i install the remote app on my iphone and set about flinging the album from the iMac in the back of the house to my ears in the front of the house via airtunes, our wifi network and the handy powered speakers (just over there).  i buy into the myth that apple is all plug 'n play... that The Holy Jobs has wrestled the compatibility demons to the mat, and that those demons have tapped out beneath a Jobsian sleeper hold.  now I should note that I am handy with a computer but am not that handy.  in any event after several error messages and dropped wifi connections and static (static?)  I was eventually rewarded with the sweet, strained sounds of Eddie Vedder in my living room.  but i was maddeningly and irrationally frustrated throughout the whole process.

aren't apple products supposed to 'just work'?  isn't that the story i bought hook, line and sinker?

but then why does safari crash so much on my iphone, let alone the nyt app?  why can't it seem to hold a 3G signal? and why can't i attach a photo via gmail or actually get iMovie to automagically recognize my camcorder?

isn't apple perfect?

well.  no.  it isn't.  duh.

all that shine apple marketing puts on the forbidden fruit tries to make you think it is.  and frankly i'm not sure it's the best strategy going forward.  sure, for a niche computing company mainly serving graphic designers and hard core fans it doesn't hurt to claim perfection, but will that hold as its products continue to penetrate the mainstream?  i wonder.  i wonder if more 'regular folk' will enter their relationship with apple with overinflated expectations (as I have) and come away disappointed.

disappointed that apple is imperfect.

Comments

[Nathan D]

Hate to sound all fanboy and whatnot, but I think if you had tried to do what you're proposing on Windows it would have been painful rather than just a nuisance.

I'm with you on iMovie, though -- how could they release a product inferior to the prior version?

[roz]

This actually works for me. I have an iMac running iTunes, an Airport Express connected to stereo in another room and cant control from anywhere with Remote. Suspect the issue is in your wifi configuration. Its got to work from the iMac to start and be on the same local network.

[roz]

oops meant *can* control from anywhere....

[Jeff]

Nathan - that's my point *exactly* Apple has me thinking it's all easy peasy, plug-n-play so they've raised my expectations irrationally.

Thanks, Roz! Yeah, I can get it to work but its patchy at best... it's most likely the wifi so off I go to the Apple store to buy a better router ;) Ka-ching goes the register!