Steve Jobs is an idiot

Yes, I said "Steve Jobs is an Idiot" or he at least gets his advice from idiots. Although he might have a passion for creating good products, he doesn't know squat about what is really going on out in the world.

I feel I can say this now because I'm a Mac user. I work as a developer and I do all my work on a Mac (along with all the other hardcore developers I know, I switched to a Mac when Vista came out).

He keeps doing and saying things that indicate he is not in touch with reality. 

One of the things that bothered me was how much the iPhone was crippled on purpose, however I can sort of understand because some of it has business value for Apple (they want you to use their services over others).

However other things are not only a pain, but just plain wrong. For instance, this quote:

Java’s not worth building in [to the phone]. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.

Ref: Ultimate iPhone FAQs List, Part 2

Now that's just plain ignorant. A quick search for data shows that in 2005, 70% of wireless applications used it and it is estimated to drive about $100 Billion worth of business annually. 4.5 million developers were working with java in 2005 and there are over 4 billion devices using it all over the planet [1][2].

Now I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like "Nobody uses Java anymore" to me. just about any other phone you buy has it included.

What makes this even worse is that the iPhone actually uses a cool ARM processor with Java built right into the hardware!  [3]

Lets not forget the one button mouse that Jobs insists makes everyone life easier. Not a single Mac user I know uses a One Button Mouse from Apple... I say again, Not. A. Single. One. (not that you don't exist, I just don't know who you are). In fact, Apple's mouse actually does have two buttons[4] but it's a terrible design and is hardly worth the money (yes, I've used one)... but it does look nice I suppose.

I could extend this article on and on -- get into the fact that my Macbook has a new PCMCIA port that nobody uses and no SD Card reader for use with every other device on the planet.

So, why this rant? Why does Jobs (or his advisors) attitude bother me so much?

Because I really do like the hardware, and they do include some very useful innovations. The touch pad alone on my Macbook Pro was worth the switch.

I want to use Apple hardware and even software but I want them not to tell me how to use it, and make choices about what they think I should be doing.

Their attitude is worse than Microsoft's and unlike Microsoft, they don't seem to care what their consumers think.

Grump...