I totally agree. Very often when a post seems overly critical or exaggerated I’ll look over to see who posted it. Then I’ll realize it’s “that person” again or an account on Newbie status.
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Macrumors , an Apple fan site has become the most toxic Apple community I have seen and almost anti Apple
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Well said! My best friend and I often have discussions about Apple products. We both love them and are immersed in the ecosystem. We are often very critical of Apple too. My friend and I both have technical backgrounds so we applaud Apple on technical achievements because we have an appreciation for what it takes to create such a product. What we mostly complain about are the unresolved bugs or the seemingly simple features that never get implemented. We often joke about the desire for a simple sort option or the often-requested disable that feature option. Ultimately we remind ourselves that Apple has a billion customers and we likely don’t represent the majority.
I know that "software quality" is a divisive issue and it means different things to different people. But the current agenda seems to be one can't say much of anything positive about Apple, it's management, products, project trajectory etc. In other words, there is not a lot of room for dissenting opinions.
I think we might not be on the same pages then. You've got as much people being critical of Apple as you do those that are supportive of them. But the latter camp always feels louder (and often times more toxic) to me.
Any time folks want a refreshing antidote to whatever bugs you on these forums, I strongly recommended the Photo of the Day thread or the many similar photography-related posts. A few other “sections” of this site are quite good too, but that’s the one that comes to mind most, after skimming these 5 pages of posts. Yes there’s less-than-great posts and post-ers on MR but there’s plenty of useful ones too, and honestly the Photo pages / threads like Photo of the Day are spectacular!
Link for reference:
Link for reference:
I don't believe that Macrumors is an "Apple Fan site". It is a site to read and discuss Apple News and Apple products. If you want an Apple fan site, the domain maccheerleaders.com is available.
Probably your best strategy is to simply ignore posts that you feel lack valid criticisms. If you see a particular user is frequently posting such things, you can ignore the user as well.
-kp
I agree with your assessment of the relative "volumes" of the factions
There is a negative slant to everything on this site. Its easy to see. That being said, its also just as easy to ignore.
I'm not a "fan boy" nor a "hater." I don't care. I come here for information and entertaining/educational discussions about stuff I'm interested in.
I occasionally take long breaks from the site when things become less entertaining and informative. I suggest you do the same if you have an issue. Vote with your feet and dollars. Just like you should with Apple Products.
I'm not a "fan boy" nor a "hater." I don't care. I come here for information and entertaining/educational discussions about stuff I'm interested in.
I occasionally take long breaks from the site when things become less entertaining and informative. I suggest you do the same if you have an issue. Vote with your feet and dollars. Just like you should with Apple Products.
There is easily as much rampant praise of anything and everything Apple does as there is negativity or criticism.
Frequently paired with a profound ignorance of the world outside.
Many left Windows one or two decades ago at a point where Apple was clearly leading in usabilty and never looked back.
Amen to that
Using Win11 as my "only" the last two weeks has really updated and changed my opinions on the Mac/Win comparison
It seems this “rampant praise of anything and everything apple” contributes to the overall toxicity?
Most of the “pepper and salt” here is uninformed garbage trolling. That doesn’t make the forum more interesting for anyone, just less useful and more toxic. It’s not anyone’s duty here to automatically trash every product just to be contrary and anti everything.
They’ll temp ban me again for saying so, but this entire site has become garbage content written for (mostly) garbage people to rage click on and then pile on some more. It’s what keeps the money flowing into the site.
Did you say "uninformed"?
Mostly it's Apples cheerios who have no clue what's going on outside, mostly by calling that information "garbage".
As someone who has switched daily between Macs and PCs for many many years, I think the gap in 'operability' of the two platforms has steadily closed year-on-year. One can argue how and why this has happened, though the growth in complexity of the Systems Settings app in macOS over recent iterations tends to suggest much may be related to Apple adding new features to keep up with MS, but nevertheless, the clear lead that Apple once had in 'it just works' fit and finish is no longer there in my every-day experience.
For me, I still prefer a Mac and macOS, but there are very good reasons to boot up the Windows 10 box I have too. And I do find it just a tiny bit ironic that my Windows system actually emulates a classic Mac much more smoothly and seamlessly than my M1 MacBook does, using the exact same HD image.
However, that's just me and my oddball use case. What matters is that in practical day-to-day use for most of what I do, macOS and Windows don't look much different, feel much different, or work much different from each other, and the narrowness of the gap doesn't begin to justify the toxic responses I've had and seen others accrue when being even mildly critical of Apple's design or functionality decisions.
Mac vs. Windows has always been tribal though. Macrumors just gives the tribes more latitude by what is sometimes really poor moderation, which encourages the escalation of disagreement into conflict, and empowers 'trolling'.
Going back to the original post, I’ll say I sadly agree. I backed off on reading the forums for many months because of this.
I came back a couple of weeks ago when I was debating buying Vision Pro. I was hoping to find others who were also debating like me and to learn from others about what they liked and didn’t like.
I did find some useful threads and posts, but it will come as no surprise that there were a lot of posts to wade through that were disheartening. I can easily discount the account created just yesterday that posts doom and failure. The tough ones for me are the senior members who criticize not the product, but anyone who would buy it.
Anyone who posted about a problem they were having received replies about how their problem signifies the downward spiral of Apple. People who posted about why they like the product were greeted with replies about fanboys and having too much money.
Just my take, this isn’t anything that can be moderated away. People have to think about the tone they’re setting with their post. They need to ask themselves who they’re helping with their post. Maybe more generally, people need to ask themselves why they’re here.
Anyone running website forms knows it’s a pain in the butt. I ran website forms for a while years ago. Monitors are always on alert for problems or future problems etc. The trick is knowing when and knowing how to address problem users. Some do a good some don’t. But it’s a job I would not want to have again. People will say whatever they wanna believe and try to convince others that they’re right because that’s just nature of the web.
Thank you very much for bringing up this problem. I agree with what you said here, people are entitled to their opinions but then some people try to force others to think if it’s not their way there’s no way. These days I ignore half of these posts and don’t bother with them because I pay for the products that I buy regardless of what people say. Nine out of 10 times those people are completely wrong if I believe everything these naysayers said I would not buy any products.
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Oh, I wish!!
There's another issue too, though it's not 'fan-site' related so much, though visible here a lot. For some contributors, a hot button topic comes up, and basically, they jump in a respond to just about everything, pushing their opinion and contradicting anyone who disagrees. Their frequent posts in a thread do nothing but suppress other points of view and users from expressing them.
I do think it's a moderation issue though, because moderators are the people who set the tone, can and ideally should steer discussion away from conflict or back on topic when it drifts or is dragged away, and help the community chill those users who think their opinion counts more than any others. At the end of the day, when 'people' don't think about the tone, moderators are the ones who should be helping ensure it.
It’s not only “apples cheerios” it’s also the aspersers that contribute the same, as well.
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This is true. It has to be said though that since it's a Mac/Apple-centric site, it's quite likely there would be a Mac/Apple-centric response vector which could lead to an impression the post you were responding to was correct.
I'm willing to bet a year's pay that 99.99% of the people here don't know the first thing about what's going on inside Apple. And the most ill-informed, cynical ones always seem to be the loudest about what they think they know. When someone is ill informed but driven to be "right" all the time, they just make things up and squeak the loudest so that everyone thinks they know what they're talking about. It doesn't mean they do.
Someone else mentioned they wish people would think about why they're here before they posted. I'll add more to the list:
1. I'd love if people would stop complaining about the price at EVERY launch. Apple products are more expensive than their competitors' products. That's been a given since the 70s and it's probably never going to change. We all know what the rough prices of Apple products are at this point. Let's all stop feigning sticker shock--the theatrics over this are so unnecessary.
2. I wish people would let Steve Jobs rest. He died a long time ago. There is absolutely no way to know what he would do in 2024. I can't even imagine someone of his temperament running a company in modern times. The further out we get from his tenure at Apple, the more I realize his greatest creation was actually Apple itself. I still love watching his old keynotes and digging up dirt about his product vision, but he's gone. There are others running the company now.
3. I wish there was something better where logical, normal people could talk about this stuff, but that's a pipe dream.
Did they ever pretend to?
Obviously Apple insiders don't post here and those who post do not have insider knowledge.
I don't see much messages that could match your claim.
There are definitely posts where poster makes claims about apple. One would have to be an insider to make such a claim. And have it be the truth.
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