Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I appreciate it, and sorry you had trouble with the login forms. Believe that should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out.

Suppose we can agree to disagree on Mike’s post. I see a big difference between the statements “Apple is Failing”, and “Apple is Failing Me.” Now what exactly does fail mean, and I think it means, in relation to a company, the products it creates are not living up to a set of standards, be it in terms of customer satisfaction, gross profit, product sold, or any number of criteria.

When Apple fails Mike it’s not living up to his standards. They have failed him on a personal level, but could be that Apple fails Mike and it is succeeding as a company. Maybe profits are high, they’re selling a ton of product, etc.

Could be I read Mike’s post the wrong way, and I can go back a re-read it again, but I think when you say a company is failing you need to offer more proof than simply extrapolating your personal experience.

But one thing we do agree on is just wanting stuff to work. No matter if it’s Apple, or a juice box I just want the things I use and buy to work in the manner I’ve been assured they would.

Again, thanks for the comment Jeremy. Always nice when folks take the time to write a long, thoughtful comment.

That Apple’s products so significantly failed Mike *does* mean they’re failing. Not universally. Not every product/person/day. But more than ever *for mike* and, thus, they are failing.

I agree with your underlying point, but since Apple never set out to fail, that they have failed (and failed more than *just* mike, so we all know this isn’t an isolated incident), and admittedly have failed in recent years more than in the last decade… Yeah, the company is failing. But they’re also succeeding.

Where’s the balance? I’ll let history be the judge. Personally I’m a Windows guy, but all I really care about is stuff working. As long as my Apple products worked I was happy. Now that the few I have continue running into issues (and everyone I know who uses Apple products is having issues as well), I have a harder time giving them the benefit of the doubt.

And maybe that’s where the real failure is: that, more and more, Apple is falling under the “why are we giving them the benefit of the doubt again?” question. And that is a larger failure than individual product failures. If the cult of the mac/apple/steve jobs dies, Apple effectively dies.