Apple still makes exceptionally good and cool products, many of which may be the best in their classes. That’s not the issue. Apple’s antenna problems with the iPhone 4 are negligible even seen on their own, and piffling when compared to the quality of the iPhone 4, which is an astoundingly good smartphone. That’s also not the issue. The issue is that Apple is becoming an increasingly obnoxious company that it’s almost impossible to like.

The iPhone 4 “Antennagate” fuss is a perfect example of Apple’s dysfunctional public persona. A couple of years ago leading CNET podcaster Molly Wood summed up the same observation in her classic Apple is my bad boyfriend rant, and things have been getting worse rather than better since then. You just can’t help getting the impression that this is a company that is being prevaricating, arrogant, slippery and disingenuous to and frequently beyond the point of dishonesty in almost everything they do.

Just as I used to hesitate to buy anything from Microsoft because of their rabid behavior, my response to Apple products is now increasingly: Wow, cool…but do you really want to buy something from that company? It didn’t used to be like that – Apple used to be a company that it was easy to love and feel good about. Now they’re more like Bobby Fischer – amazingly brilliant, but you really wouldn’t want your son or daughter to date them.

The iPhone 4 antenna design has problems, and Apple knew about them at launch, otherwise they would never have released the Bumper case together with the product. So what? If they had owned up to it honestly and clearly as soon as the shitstorm started there would never have been a real problem. But instead they made dishonest smokescreen excuses showing that they see their customers as naive idiots who will believe anything. They then went on to make this worse at the Antennagate press conference, combining oh-so-reluctant apologies with more smoke and some at least highly questionable and possibly even dishonest comparisons with other products .

There are many more examples of this kind of thing, it’s not the details that matter it’s the overall impression, which is just getting worse all the time. Apple are behaving like snake oil salesmen and that’s sad because it’s so unnecessary. Quacks have to dupe you because their products are junk. Apple’s products are the best in the industry, they have no need to hide their mistakes, because all of the mistakes they have ever made are trifles compared to the overall quality of what they do.

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