You have hit the proverbial nail on the head, and answered the OP's question. What seems to be perceived as "Apple Hate" is the incredulity expressed by relatively objective observers as to why Apple's customers tolerate this patronizing corporate attitude. Very few companies enjoy the brand loyalty that Apple has managed to develop over the years through intensive marketing and, quite frankly, excellent albeit expensive products for the most part.
It's their marketing which portrays arrogance and derision of competitors that fosters a level of resentment among many people who have chosen to ... and if you'll pardon the colloquialism ... "not drink the Koolaid."
The "Apple Hate" is not directed at all Apple customers or all iPhone users. A great many of then are up in arms about the dismissive explanations and misrepresentations by the company. It is those people who ardently defend Apple and its practices, even in light of significant evidence to the contrary.
Let's examine patterns of behavior for a moment in reference to the iPhone. The original iPhone was not 3G capable, even though 3G was already well established in many areas at the time. It was a business decision at launch time and one that I don't disagree with because had they gone 3G from the beginning, they would have limited the market to only major metropolitan areas where AT&T had 3G coverage at the time. (you'll recall that they had also been negotiating with Verizon, but Verizon turned them down.) However, the Apple response was less than forthcoming. When it became apparent that the original handset was limited by the 2G network, they produced a 3G version when the initial market penetration had reached a specific threshold. This handset, however had a few problems of its own, most notably the inability to send or receive MMS messages -- something that most competing phones had been able to do for years, including the lowliest models on AT&Ts network. Other issues like the persistence of dropped calls and the lack of cut-and-paste functionality were all dismissed as unnecessary.
When it became apparent that their customers saw this lack of features as a deficiency, the company response changed to a claim that rushing those features to market would have hindered the overall user experience and when they arrived they would be "magical" even though they had been successfully implemented on virtually every other smartphone platform at the time. When Apple issued the update for the iPhone OS for the 3G that made MMS messaging possible, they immediately put the onus on AT&T who continued to prevent the messaging protocol.
There was much speculation about the reason behind AT&T's decision at the time, with many suggesting that their network simply couldn't provide the bandwidth to accommodate the deluge of MMS traffic from all the iPhones at the time, even though every other phone on their network could. Knowing a little about contracts and exclusive agreements between corporations, I think the reasoning was more monetarily motivated. When the initial agreement was struck between Apple and AT&T, the iPhone did not support MMS messaging so it was probably not included in the agreement. When the 3G iPhone was released without MMScapability and Apple realized they would need to enable it, they must have demanded AT&T to include MMS. If I were AT&T I wouldn't do it for free so they reentered negotiations. In typical Apple Machiavellian fashion, they released the update prior to finalizing with AT&T and started pointing fingers. This is all supposition on my part, but it makes the most sense to me given Apple's proclivity to leverage PR to their advantage.
Now, when these "unnecessary" features were enabled, they immediately were touted as innovative and productive. Even though these things had been around for years, the Apple corporate line has always been to dismiss the criticism with claims that it was their implementation that was innovative and not the feature itself. Just look at the hype surrounding FaceTime.
Apple is a very persuasive company and with their increasing financial clout have been exhibiting the same monopolistic tendencies that got Microsoft and Intel into trouble. It really is an indefensible position of power and greed, although completely understandable from a human nature standpoint.
Now, to many people, Apple's customers included, it makes no sense to forgive and defend this behavior blindly, simply because you happen to enjoy the product they produce. The vocal minority of folks who do are the source of the derisive terms bandied about like "sheeple" and "victims of Apple marketing."
The anonymity of the internet have given a good deal of people the freedom to rant nonsense that they wouldn't dare say to someone face to face, hence the need for moderation in public forums. If you look beyond the extreme vocal minority of any group proponent, be it sports rivalry, religion or technology, you'll find the vast majority of folks are pretty reasonable people and in regards to this thread, "Apple Hate" doesn't exist in significant numbers.
I hope I have answered the OP's question and satisified Alieno's feigned puzzlement.
