The eccentricity of Apple fans

There was a story running around the web quite recently about a man who felt that his thumbs were too big to allow him to easily use his iPhone. Thus, he went under the knife so that he could “wittle” (there’s no such surgical operation) his thumbs so that he’d be able to use his iPhone in a more convenient fashion. Despite the seemingly unreal nature of the story, the entire web, Apple fans and non-Apple fans alike, just gobbled it up with major sites such as Engadget reporting the story as well. At least, that was until North Denver News finally confirmed it was merely “satirical social commentary” (ie. it was fake). Thus, why would people be willing to believe such an unreal story?

For one simple reason: Apple fanboys have been known for their eccentricity.

With this story, Apple fans were all the more convinced that the iPhone is the best mobile phone ever, while non-Apple fans just shake their heads at us fans and reaffirm their belief that all of us are just crazy people. Being a Mac user myself, I hate to admit that this fact might be quite true. Over the years Apple fans have been tattooing themselves with Apple logos, folding origami Macs, lusting after the latest Apple products. No matter what the product is, Apple fans will forever be able to delude themselves into thinking it’s one of the best things in the world despite the inevitable flaws that every product will have. For example, the Macbook Pro is too hot, the iPod’s batteries aren’t removable and yet they require new ones after a few years and the iPhone has a ridiculous onscreen keyboard which fans seem to adore. I’m not blaming Apple for making inferior products mind you, any product will have its flaws, it’s just that Mac users  seem to be blind to any inadequacies at all.

Recently, a Japanese Apple fan also proved my point when he built an iPhone from scratch. He probably got too frustrated with the wait for the iPhone to reach Japan, thus he turned to doing another mock up of the iPhone (left). Sure, it’s not exactly the real thing, but this iPhone is no origami model, this Apple fan actually built the entire mock up from scratch using metal and wood. He has included every single feature, from the exact dimensions, to the buttons, and even glass for the camera. He could easily pass it off for the real thing, that is until somebody tries out the “touchscreen” that is. It’s truly amazing to see what Apple fans will do in their spare time.

Of course, one may also attribute such eccentric behaviour of fans to Steve Jobs himself. The co-founder of Apple more has been credited with the ability to create a “reality distortion field” or RDF. Being a confident and effective speaker, Steve has never failed to excite Apple fans at a Macworld keynote even if it were merely a simple or minor update to an already present product. He has this ability to suck you in to his own “field” at any keynotes presentation he’s in and make you believe that his products are practically flawless. The problem is, many fans don’t get out of his RDF.

Then again, it’s possible to understand why Apple fans are so crazy about their products to a certain extent. Being a Mac user for just over a year, I can only say that it’s a breath of fresh air after having used windows for around a decade (back when I was 5 years old the Disney website took several minutes to fully load on my 28.8kbps connection on Windows 3.1). There’s no doubt in my mind that Macs are clearly superior to Windows “boxes”, however they’re still really far away from being perfect. Yet, many Apple fanboys out there will beg to differ and still believe that these products are practically perfect in every way.

Personally, I’d definitely call myself an Apple fan. I’d take their products over Windows anytime, as Microsoft has constantly proved itself to be inept at creating almost any product at all (with the exception of their mice and keyboards I guess). However, the fact that I’m associated with this group of eccentric fans makes me uneasy and yet honoured at the same time. While it’s weird to have people think of you as one of those “weirdos”, I could never imagine not being a part of them as well.

More pictures of the iPhone mock up may be found here (the site is in Japanese): http://web.mac.com/aoshima731/iWeb/aoshima/Special.html
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To show why Apple’s products aren’t necessarily perfect, I’m publishing a post entitled “Why Mac OS X isn’t everything” in the near future (either tomorrow or the day after), so watch out for it.