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Apple, the New Microsoft?
VE3OGG writes "Apple, the ultimate source of cool. The marketers of slick. The next 'evil empire'? While it might sound goofy at first, Rolling Stone magazine is running an article that summarizes some very interesting points that detail how Apple could become the next technology bad guy. Among the reasons given: Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes); Apple's perceived arrogance when they warned consumers not to upgrade to Vista, while not rushing to fix the problem themselves; and Apple's seemingly unstoppable market dominance in the form of the iPod. The iPhone featured heavily as well, a product that is months from release but steals the press from more competitive products. What do you think, could Apple eventually take the place of Microsoft?"
But competition is good... since Lord knows, MS needs it.
-M
Someone had to say it
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Just like IBM.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
AT&T used to be the big evil empire. Then it was IBM. Microsoft took over for IBM. Sure why not have Apple take over for Microsoft as most hated company? So who came before AT&T? Standard Oil?
No. Apple lost in the 80s out of arrogance, cost and lack of a critical app (Lotus 1-2-3?). Why do people think they won't do it again?
If it weren't for Microsoft, Apple would be Microsoft.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Apple products don't suck, and Microsoft ones do.
Exactly. I've found Microsoft's products to suck ever since using Windows 3.0 (MS-DOS versions were not bad, although nothing particularly great either). Every Windows version after that sucked, though it got slightly better with Win2k.
Apple's products may be a bit overrated and a little too restrictive, but their actual quality doesn't suck like Microsoft's software does.
#!/
Um...any company that gains an overwhelmingly dominant market position can be Microsoft in that area. Once a company has totally squashed the competition, there's nothing left to do but play defense against potential rivals. That is a disincentive for innovation, good customer service, good value for money, etc.
Competition is good, all else being equal.
"Apple, the penultimate source of cool"
So Apple is second to last in coolness?
Focusing just on Apple's pipeline they are going to be in for some hard times ahead. Apple's iPhone is far to restricted to be adopted.
No kidding. While it may have wireless, it has less space than a Nomad. Lame.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...NOT a freakin non-profit agency. (although a few of those suck too)
;-)
Apple's sole purpose, if you boiled everything down, is to make money. Never forget that. And to address the question at hand, sure, apple can be the next M$. Google can be the next M$. M$ can be deregulated, broken-up, then reformed into the NEW M$ and be the "next M$."
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's only a matter of time (and regulation).
(although apple's stuff is purdy, i suppose
Some examples off the top of my head - legal action against bloggers, iPhone trade mark, stock options, treatment of Woz.
If anything, they are able to get away with actions which would be considered unforgivable were they committed by Microsoft. The only reason they are not considered as evil is due to their size - except in the case of music downloads, they are not in a monopoly position.
Apple are a very big company (albeit smaller than Microsoft) and have been for many years. To pretend they are otherwise is naive to say the least.
If Apple is the penultimate source of cool, who is the ultimate?
Miles Davis?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Microsoft didn't always suck ... ...
...
Neither did Sony
There are two problems that large companies tend to face which make them evil, the grow too big and one hand of the company doesn't know what the other hand is doing, and they get success too quickly which leads to hubris. The interesting thing is that the companies that survive the eventual fall (Nintendo, IBM) tend to recover and don't make the same mistakes again
I noticed that they called Apple the largest purveyor of DRM technology. I thought that far more DVD's had been sold than songs from iTunes. Is there something I'm missing that makes DVD's free of DRM or is this just a case of Apple having DRM that's not broken too badly? I know that here in the USA it's just as illegal (thanks DMCA) to get around one as the other.
Google already is the next Microsoft. We just don't all know it yet.
Apple has always been super proprietary in everything they do. These guys are the ultimate control freaks and always have been. They could have beat Microsoft the first time around if they weren't locking hardware and sofware developers out of their platform. Want to tweak your os/x gui? Apple keeps breaking the interface with each update _on purpose_ in order to freeze out customization apps. Backward compatibility through the Apple line is less than stellar, and explains some of their past troubles with regard to market share. MS on the other hand have had some rational people in their midst who have always seen to it that backwards compatability rules. They almost never break backward compatability for any reason, and when they do it is because it is nearly technically impossible to keep. I can still run my DOS apps in XP.
As long as they follow their business model they've always had - tying software to hardware - they'll never achieve enough market penetration to be Microsoft. For consumer level stuff, if iTunes becomes too cumbersome, people will move on. It's yet to face any serious competition, when it does, it won't seem like such an unstoppable force.
They could have very microsoft-ish market share if they'd sell OS/X for commodity hardware. I'd install it tomorrow if I could (i mean could in a supported way, not a hacky-half-assed way). But they won't, so they're pretty much irrelevant to me as a company. They've never factored into any buying decisions I've been a part of in the business world - I'm sure some businesses love Macs and are all Apple this and Apple that, but that's the exception that proves the rule.
They'll always remain as a sort of a curiosity. A proprietary platform in a world where hardware and the OS is a commodity. As people move towards internet based productivity apps, and towards cheaper purposed appliances for other things (gaming, media), the whole Mac vs PC thing will become less and less relevant. We already talked about this in the "future of OS's" story today - with virtualization, and other technologies, we'll be able to focus on the applications, and less attention to the chunk of code between the hardware and the application.
Bottom line; they just don't have the clout, and never will - short of a total remake of their company from the ground up.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Microsoft didn't always suck ...
Back in the day, using Microsoft BASIC on a C-64, I was pretty happy. Since then it's been downhill.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I'm not sure how the statement "Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes)..." fits in with this theme. Sure, the motives for Steve suddenly deciding that DRM is bad may be suspect, but at least Apple is moving in the right direction. Right now, they couldn't drop DRM if they wanted to for the vast majority of their catalog - they are bound by their contracts with the record labels. It would be nice to see them drop DRM from bands who would like to release DRM free music (e.g. BNL).
/K
So, Apple is bad because they continue to use DRM on the iTunes store. Brilliant. It can't be because, oh, I don't know, that the media companies would absolutely freak out if Apple unilaterally dropped DRM. They can't -- they would end up in court I suspect.
Warning their customers that their software doesn't run on Vista is a nice thing to do for their customers. As we've seen in other stories, lots of other software won't run on Vista either. Heck, some of Micosoft's own software won't run on Vista from what I've heard.
And, from the last point in the summary, it is entirely possible that people like the iPod because it's a good product, and the iTunes software makes it easy to use. The iTunes music store is also nice, because it was quite literally, the first legal place to buy digital music. DRM or not.
It is possible that at some point in the future Apple could become a big evil company. But, none of the things to suggest that in the article summary are anything more than FUD and sensationalism.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My understanding is that they are still using it because their deal with the record companies, who actually own the rights to the music, won't let them sell it without DRM. If some of the labels don't require DRM, then Apple should definitely not require it either, though.
/. article yesterday, there are an assload of indie artists who would love to sell their music DRM-less on iTunes right now. Apple could allow this right now, and have it be completely transparent. Right now it's Apple that requires DRM on everything in iTunes, they just turn around and blame it on the media companies.
As DVD Jon pointed out in a
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If Microsoft never made anything people wanted to buy, well... no one would have bought it.
What was the last boxed retail Microsoft software you bought? For me I think it was MS-DOS 6.22. Everything since has come pre-installed on a new computer when I purchased it. It's not so much that I chose to buy it, as I didn't choose not to buy it.
Not a bad distribution channel to have, if you can get it.
Lets look at these one at a time:
Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes);
Apple is selling music players and needs a way to get music to users easily so they will buy said music players. The providers of said music are a cartel convicted of abuse multiple times. The cartel required DRM and Apple pushed back on how restrictive it is and prices. Does anyone think it would be better if Apple refused to do business with them and let Microsoft dominate the DRM market? Apple needed to be there to stop MS from using the incompatibility of DRM'd songs against their OS offering. There is nothing hypocritical about saying it would be better for everyone (except the RIAA) if DRM was no more, either voluntarily or by law. Does anyone complain that OpenOffice reads and writes .doc files, all while they talk about how bad it is people are locked in that format?
Apple's perceived arrogance when they warned consumers not to upgrade to Vista, while not rushing to fix the problem themselves;
Perceived arrogance? Some people think Apple was arrogant when they apologized for their software not working and recommended people hold off upgrades? Can you tell me the name of a software vendor that isn't cautioning customers to wait until things stabilize, because I'll happily stop doing business with the irresponsible twits.
They have about 70% which is the minimum share where some governments start investigating possible antitrust issues due to dominance. Compare this to MS's 90% and multiple convictions for abuse. Some of Apple's actions are antitrust abuse if they have enough market share, but all in markets where MS already is abusing their monopoly and the governments have declined to stop them. Two wrongs don't make a right, but two monopolies battling one another is a lot better than one screwing consumers as hard as possible.
The iPhone featured heavily as well, aproduct[sic] that is months from release but steals the press from more competitive products.
Ummm... umm... what? Apple released pictures and discussed a cool upcoming new device and people paid attention and this is somehow indicative of Apple becoming an evil empire? I like it when companies come out with cool toys. I hate it when they come out with crap that no one likes but everyone has to use anyway.
Could Apple suddenly gain a dominant position in the market and then abuse that position? Well, it is vaguely possible, but the items listed are no reason to think it might be likely. If they do that, and we all suffer as a result I'll complain my head off, but one nice thing Apple has done to date is avoided any lock-in that keeps me from migrating all my hardware and files to another platform like Linux. Until they do that, I'm not about to lose any sleep over the danger of Apple, when the danger of MS has never been stopped and shows no signs of slowing.
I can't understand how everyone else can't despise how ubiquitous the ipod has become.
Totally. Hating something because it's popular makes perfect sense.
It irks me when people use penultimate in place of ultimate thinking it's some intelligent way of saying "super-ultimate."
No, they are the closest thing to the ultimate in coolness as you can get.
It doesn't mean what you think it does either.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My understanding is that they are still using it because their deal with the record companies, who actually own the rights to the music, won't let them sell it without DRM. If some of the labels don't require DRM, then Apple should definitely not require it either, though.
Only the Big 4, and EMI is wavering. Apple sells other music from publishers who not only don't require DRM, but actually sell plain MP3s on other sites.
For example, Loreena McKennitt is available thru iTunes, in FairPlay wrapped evilness. However, head on over to her website and you can purchase her music direct, in MP3, AAC and even FLAC.
From the site: "What is the difference between these Loreena McKennitt downloads and those offered by other digital download companies such as iTunes?
A: Our files are Digital Rights Management free and are therefore compatible with most digital devices, playable on most audio programs and can be burned to CD."
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Did you just say "largely irrelevant" in regards to IBM and Nintendo?
IBM makes the chips that powers all of these new consoles and is still a big name in computing.
Nintendo has created a frenzy around another handheld machine and the Wii, which is killing Sony thus far, and has really revolutionized the way people play video games.
"...largely irrelevant"? Not a chance.
My MythTV HowTo
I'm glad you mentioned Sony, since I believe that if anyone is poised to take over the "most hated" title, it's them.
Sony, like Microsoft, acts in such a way that it's tough to believe they even like their customers. They are quick to adopt restrictions, slow to correct their mistakes, and want to be in all markets, even when it puts the company at odds with itself.
Apple, on the other hand, is very careful not to enter new markets unless it feels it genuinely has something to contribute. More importantly, they dislike restrictions, as evidenced by their reasonable DRM in iTunes and lack of CD key for OS X. They assume that their customers are good, honest people. Sony and Microsoft like to assume that their customers are criminals.
Interestingly, where other companies try to give their customers what they ask for, Apple instead tries to give them what they really want. Some people hate this, but it's working very well for Apple.
Also, Apple has already made their huge, almost company-ending mistakes. They've bounced back better than anyone could have thought. I'd say they've earned the success and attention they're getting.
You also forgot to mention that Nintendo is the largest videogame publisher in the World, and has remained in the #1 spot for handheld videogame market for over 15 years (Gameboy, Gameboy Color, GBA, Nintendo DS).
I realize Apple traditionally plays to the musical and artistic types (among others), but where did the long haired, dope smoking, rock and roll types at Rolling Stone get the idea that this was a two-way street on which they could be competent journalists of matters of IT and the tech industry? Apparently the drugs are affecting their grasp of reality more than they realized. What's next: VIBE giving a breakdown of Windows Vista's security and performance issues, or Cat Fanciers magazine explaining why Ruby on Rails will eclipse Java, PHP, Perl, and ASP.NET as the web platform for the next fifty years?
Actually, scratch that last one -- there isn't enough drugs or catnip in the world to come to a conclusion like that...
IBM is not big in the consumer market anymore. And that was even before they sold out their PC-division to Lenovo. But they are huge in the business sector. And they thrive at what they do. The fact that you don't see them doesn't make them irrelevant. It just makes you look a bit naive.
In fact this is what I hope will happen to Microsoft. I hope they fall deep, like IBM, then remove all garbage, and come out much smaller, but lean, quick, with good products, and grow on that.
Rolling Stone doesn't know music. Why do they know the technology industry?
Windows Vista Penultimate: Just before you finish whatever it is you were doing, it crashes.
No more rhymes and I mean it!
It's funny that at one time the same was said about the Ford Motor Co. In 1927 they built the 15 millionth Model T, a record that would stand until 1972, when Volkswagen built the 15 millionth VW beetle. Today, it's only their own PR people who think Ford is increasing their market share. Actually, their stock price has gone consistently down for the last three years.
As you see, there's no such thing as a company that will "always dominate". Considering that the software industry evolves much faster than the automotive segment, I don't think we will need to wait 45 years to see another company assume the predominance Microsoft has today.
Anybody want a peanut?
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Does that make sense?
And who modded you up anyway?
Sony, like Microsoft, acts in such a way that it's tough to believe they even like their customers. They are quick to adopt restrictions, slow to correct their mistakes, and want to be in all markets, even when it puts the company at odds with itself.
Part of the reason for the last "negative" is the internet. They missed the early wave and if not for their "no honor, controlling the OS doesn't give us a competitive advantage" competitive advantage, IE could be a minor to non-existent player right now.
Apple, on the other hand, is very careful not to enter new markets unless it feels it genuinely has something to contribute.
Bull, unless by "contribute" you mean they have enough business sense not to get into a market that they can't A) make high margins from and B) do A by leveraging very good design ethic and brand recognition. Don't confuse market savvy with altruism.
More importantly, they dislike restrictions, as evidenced by their reasonable DRM in iTunes and lack of CD key for OS X. They assume that their customers are good, honest people. Sony and Microsoft like to assume that their customers are criminals.
Again, a load of hooey. Apple understands the significant importance of market share. They never had it with the Mac, so they HAVE to differentiate themselves there. If they were more heavy handed with how they treated their customers, then they would cease to exist (well the Mac as a platform anyway). Again, don't confuse understanding your market with superiour morals.
Interestingly, where other companies try to give their customers what they ask for, Apple instead tries to give them what they really want.
No, Jobs and Apple are good at understanding function, not necessarily "what customers want" or "really want". From the articles I've read on Jobs and Ivey on how they design, they focus on what a product should do, not what their interpretation of what customers want products to do. Huge distinction, and what truly makes Apple/Jobs special, they understand how things should function.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big a Jobs fanboy as you're likely to run across. I own more Mac's than entire third world nations. But I'm not blind to the kind of company Apple is (and they are just that, a company, whose primary focus it is to make money). They just happen to take a tact that benefits many/most consumers.
They are the next monopoly....
While I agree that they are not 'irrelevant' in the bull sense, both IBM and Nintendo wield a pale shadow of the power they once had.
Both utterly dominated thier respective industries during there high point in ways that Microsoft still doesn't.
In a way, both companies have gone from Dictator to Council Member. They play in the industry, but they no longer control it. And in that way they have have become kinda irrelevent.
"Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!" - Steve Jobs
Talk about spin:
Forgetting that Steve Jobs explained the decision to announce now rather than later. His explanation was that Apple was about to file applications with the FCC. Jobs wanted to quell any rumors and address everything up front once Apple did that.
I guess this is compared to Cairo and Longhorn where some features promised have not been released in Vista even though they were promised 10 years ago. These announcements by MS had the effect of stifling adoption of other OS like OS/2, NextOS, etc. Maybe Apple will do the same thing, but I would wait til summer before I would accuse Apple of MS tricks.
Did he happen to read the rest of the article where Jobs explains that Apple has to include DRM or the content providers would not license the content to Apple. Also Apple is not alone in this situation. Sony, MS, Best Buy, hmmm. It seems that most online music distributors use DRM.
I don't know where this information comes from, but Apple's statement is thus:
Considering that some MS applications don't work with Vista, most companies are waiting until SP1 to install Vista, and other third party vendors like McAfee, Intuit, etc, are also having issues with Vista, I don't see how Apple's stance is unique.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
OS X already doesn't require a key to activate. You put it in and go.
Steve never says that we should do away with intellectual property; his essay boils down to saying DRM is counter-productive and doesn't actually do anything other than piss people off. You can buy unDRMed music if you want, but for online distribution, we're needlessly hindered, and he's right.
That a big leap to implying that he's a hypocrite because he won't give away the company.
Also, I rather think that whoever writes this sort of thing should use the products, or research the company at least a little. I've NEVER used a key to activate OS X, all the way back to 10.0. Don't criticize the company for things they already do right.
The nice thing about the English language is that words can be used in context to mean what we want them to, as long as others understand it. If the phrase were "the ultimate source of cool", we would understand it to mean the best source of cool. Not the last. In the same sense, penultimate, in context, would mean second to best source of cool. Not the second to last.
--Edward Dassmesser
Apple makes most of its money from hardware. That is the biggest insurance of all, do they really care if someone has a pirated copy of OS X as long as they buy a mac to run it on? Obviously not.
As for cdkeys, the server version of OSX needs a cdkey. Now consider something as small as Quicktime. To get all the features you do indeed need to buy a license which gives you an authorization key. I have not installed Final Cut Pro or any of their major applications they they sell, but I assume you need to have some sort of authorization key to run those as well.
OS X is not all what Apple makes.And making a blanket statement such saying they don't need CDKeys is blatantly false. I pointed 2 applications which require such keys.
If apple were to release OS X for all intel based machines tomorrow, you can be damned sure they will have a similar mechanism such as Microsoft's to make sure noone 'pirates' their software.
The people who bought a playstation 2 this holiday season are a completely different market than people who bought any of the new consoles. You cannot reasonably compare them.
All the new consoles are over $250. What is they playstation? $120?
I agree that the winner has yet to be decided, but the notion that PS2 sales somehow says something about how Sony is doing doesn't hold up.
Sorry, but Microsoft has always sucked. It's just that at one time a) they were too small to have a significant impact, and later b) there were compatible alternatives (PC-DOS, DR-DOS, etc.) they had to compete against.
Evidence? Maybe you're too young to remember Bill Gates' 1976 open letter to computer hobbiests, where he stated, and I quote:
Of course, I think the Open Source Software movement, and products like Linux and Firefox in particular, have caused him to have to eat these words from the letter:
Microsoft has long had a sucky mentality. It's a cancer that breeds from the top on down. At one time the effect of this was more minimal (and admittedly I think it was way worse in the early 1990's than it is today), but the suckiness was always there.
Yaz.
I couldn't agree more. I worked in a call center serving Apple when they came out with OS 7.1 (I think it was 7.1). This was a time when the os was horrible and parts of the computer would break because of the way that they packaged it in the box. People wanted to kill us for representing Apple during those dark days. Apple also is much more likely to make major revisions to their OS that leave all their clients with old hardware completely out of the water. One of the ways that they have been able to produce the OSs that they have is by not supporting backward compatibility, something that MS has strived to do. MS is an evil empire. Apple has been evil as well and has historically been one of the most xenophobic of companies and almost died because of it. I'm tired of Mac bigots and I hate MS-centric fools as well. Lets face it, there are evil and good aspects of both companies. I hate it but Visual Studio is a great product and it was not long ago (2 or 3 yrs ago) that I went to an Apple WWDC and they were just talking about thier first XML libraries for COCO. I wouldnt trade VS for COCO any day. Rant Rant Rant.....I hate them all and hope both companies are strife with herpies. Where is my martini? Glurb. I also hate Steve Jobs. Total sensationalist. At least you can look at Bill Gates and say, "That little prick is a geek. A manipulative, territorial, competative little prick but he is a geek." Jobs is just a light bulb in a room full of moths. He represents the marking shit heads that I came to utterly hate in the 80s. Where is my gin and tonic? Oh and one more thing, I utterly hate Steve Ballmer and would pay good money to see him duke it out with Dick Cheney, pastey face to pastey face. Where is my rig?
I hate being told by my computer what I need to do, especially when I know its advice is wrong so I prefer not to use a system that does that.
You must be using the Strawman OS. Windows is the only OS that comes close to telling the user what they need to do "Your desktop is cluttered...plug your device in to a faster USB port...turn on a firewall")
The Mac gets out of your way. It doesn't pop up balloons every time a peripheral is connected, like it's shocked that it worked. It's also not a cut rate UNIX with a GUI mimicking a cut rate Windows...spend some money and get a mature OS.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I personally prefer Ubuntu Linux, however, I have been a professional programmer for MS Windows for more than a decade now, I have two PC systems. One with Ubuntu Linux and one with MS Windows XP pro. I also have an Intel Macbook and an Intel iMac. I triple boot my Intel iMac with Linux, Mac OS X and MS WinXP. I cannot do that with the other PC hardware.
I have found no restrictions on my two Intel Macs that even comes _close_ to the "activation" crap from MS. My WinXP system wants me to "authorize" with MS when I change my hardware. Apple doesnt'. The core of OS X is open source. The core of MS Windows _is not_. OS X uses a shite load of open source software. MS windows does not. In fact, MS windows goes out of its way to pervert standards to lock me in to an MS-Only system. OS X does not.
Stop being a shill for MS. When it comes to lock-down and restrictions, no OS software compares to MS Windows.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
This doesn't sound that bad to me:
3. Don't pirate our software.
You can permanently sell it to or transfer it to someone else if you want. (record companies have already come out against this)
If someone gave you a "Not for resale" copy (which are free), don't give it or sell it to someone.
1. Don't copy our boot ROM, or our documentation as they are not yours.
2. This is a 1 seat license (we offer family licenses at a steep discount)... don't install it on more than 1 machine (although we really would never know as it doesn't have some draconian activation scheme built in). Feel free to make a backup -- just make sure you keep the license and copyright notices on the disc.
Since we designed this software to be used by our customers on Apple computers, and we give you a "free" copy with said Apple computer, and we obviously spent a lot of resources in developing it, - we don't give you permission run it on your TigerDirect POS.
Compared to the other paid OS'es out there, I again don't really think that their license is especially restrictive. But that's just my opinion.. I could be wrong.
I'm not sure what your point is. Why not dig up what the Microsoft terms of license are. OS X isn't Linux and they don't give it away for free, but the fact of the matter is that they still don't assume that you're a criminal out to steal everything in sight, and ask politely that you follow the rules of their unenforceable agreement. Nothing prevents me from installing that software on 25 machines instead of 1 other than my conscience. All things considered these days, that's pretty nice of them.
What? Are you trying to refer to Linux? I'm a HUGE Mac fan, I own four of them, but I'm also very familiar with linux as I admin a bunch of servers with custom software and your characterization is more than a little unfair. Linux as an OS is no more "cut rate" than the Mac's underpinnings; as for the GUI, personally, I hate the fact that linux doesn't have a standard graphics layer that developers can count on, and its got some inherent security problems (like not being able to set a dir to forbid execution without making it a NOEXEC partition) but aside from the issue of many sources and licenses, what it has works pretty darned well. It's just not the same as OSX's underpinnings. And you can't overlook the free nature of linux, either; Apple simply does not address the cost-conscious market. Many people get one heck of a lot more bang for their buck by going with linux, and Apple offers them nothing so it isn't fair at all to say "get a mature OS."
Now windows... application lock-in is the only reason I can think of to stay with that (and even then, you can run parallels if you're not live graphics-intensive.) Now that Vista is out, breaking this and that, maybe more people will move on that basis. OSX and Vista are really attacking the same space, financially speaking. IMHO.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Only in the same sense that being part of a solution to a problem is less relevant than being the actual problem.
2. am i to understand apple is the only company without compatible vista software ready to go on launch day?
Nobody except Apple is allowed to make any money from anything Apple related: you can only buy Apple stuff at the Apple Store or at Apple.com, businesses can only purchase hardware or software for Apples through Apple, and Apple makes sure it's stuff only works with Apple stuff:
I call BS! I know of a number of places, stores, I can legally buy Apple merchandize from. I know of two stores that legally sell Apple stuff, computers and iPods, peripherals, software for Macs, and accessories for iPod exclusively. They not only sell these but also offer Apple authorized repairs and services, one is not more than 10 minutes walk for me. Though I wouldn't buy one there, peolle can even buy Macbooks; iMacs, Mac Minis, and Mac Pros; Apple Cinema displays; or iPods from Best Buy. I can think of other national retailers that also sell Apple stuff. Simply, saying users can only buy Macs, iPods, and other Apple stuff from Apple is pure BS!
FalconShould there be a Law?
Almost,
But now you have the option to forgo the land line and choose from several cell phone providers (available from several providers other than AT&T).
Or maybe even VOIP through your cable modem. (though in some places, you could be stuck with AT&T for cable too)
Still, the trend of re-combining is not good.
This was also before I learned how Apple ganked it from Xerox
Apple didn't steal the GUI from Xerox PARC. In return for an investment in Apple Xerox invited Steve Jobs to Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, in 1979. There he saw some of the technology Xerox was working on there. Seeing the gui Xerox came up with he took the idea back to Apple where the Woz, Steve Wozniak, had a team work on the Lisa which became the Macintosh.
Now here I am 12 years later, typing on an AMD based computer running Windows XP, with my semi-new Mac Book Pro getting more and more use each day; I'm trying to "switch"(back). Much of this desire to switch is fueled by Microsoft's political moves, and not their technology. 2 examples...
For the past 10 years I've used Windows PCs 99%+ of the tyme however I too am switching because of Microsoft. Because of MS's policy of requiring Activation as well as WGA/WPA a few months ago I got a desktop PC with Linux preinstalled and hopefully rsn I'll be getting a Macbook Pro as my laptop.
In my perfect world, Microsoft, Apple, and a major Linux distribution each get 1/3 of the market share, with plenty of room for new up-and-coming OS's.
I'd add interoperability.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I came to this conclusion while reading an article on "back-to-school" computers a while back in which a Windows system was recommended for graphic design students with no mention of a Mac. Without getting into the whole Mac -v- Windows debate, I know from experience working in the pre-press business that it's very Mac-centric and anyone sending files created on a Windows machine for output to a Post Script image setter is at a huge disadvantage. Any tech writer who isn't aware of this is either incompetent or biased
This ain't rocket surgery.
Long before Apple existed? Apple was incorporated on 1 April 1976. Microsoft was incorporated (just) less than a year prior.
"Brown University? We have one of those in Providence!" -- Outside Providence
I've never seen the documentation that came with any version of OS X.
I've spent many a nights burning the candle with my friend while we hunted all over Google for fuckin' Linux documentation.
When we found some it was either inapplicable or hopelessly out of date.
OS X just works, and THAT'S worth $130.
(I buy the 'five install' family pack and I share the install CDs with another friend who's also got 2 Macs.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It's not popular to point out that Steve Jobs is quite possibly a bigger asshole than Bill Gates, and that the company he runs is quite possibly even more arrogant than Microsoft. Jobs has admitted in videotaped interviews that he went to PARC in the '70s and was shown more things than he could even absorb at the time. He understood (and copied for his own benefit) the GUI and the mouse. He didn't quite get the networking and the object-oriented programming techniques. Fine. Everybody "borrows" ideas--to admit it out loud is just a more cynical way of mouthing the old "standing on the shoulders of giants" cliche. But why now the endless smug self-congratulations? Why all the putting down of a company that has crushed you in market share and profitability for two decades? Because they used marketing and bullying to overcome the shortcomings of their products? Please. This is pretty rich coming from an outfit that used another company's ideas for their breakthrough product, then failed to advance that product for almost 20 years before they hit on the idea of building their next generation of software on a somebody else's freely-available OS.
I don't defend Microsoft's business practices (or their business acumen for that matter; they've had a lot of good luck along the way). I do on occassion defend their software, because most Slashdotters have no idea how useful and stable it is these days. I laugh like everybody else when they start talking about innovation. But none of that makes me like Apple any better, any more than hating the Republicans makes me want to shill for the Dems.
I see it going both ways
A lot of us already know MS has been trying to be more like Apple for quite a while (as eveidenced by articles stating them trying to match Mac/iPod feature by feature.)
But Apple has taken a thing or two from MS's strategies
We use Macs at work and compared to Windows they are a breeze to work with, nary a problem, and I would not want to switch to Windows. But as much as I like them I've seen Apple streching themselves out sacrificing a bit of the business computer market for the consumer electronics market.
The only group that is serious about business needs now seems to be Linux (and those that have adopted it Oracle, Novell, etc.).
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
According to Fred von Lohmann of the EFF, Apple would not drop iTunes Music Store DRM even if they could. As I understand it (I don't recall exactly where, but I think it was from one of DVD Jon's recent blog posts on the topic), Apple employs DRM on tracks from labels that don't want DRM. von Lohmann concludes, quite rightly:
Incredible is the reaction on tech discussion sites like /. and digg where Lexmark and Chamberlain get almost universally razzed but people believe the line that Apple only reluctantly employs digital restrictions.
von Lohmann's post is quite informative and shows the real purpose of Apple's iTMS DRM—to lock in iTMS customers. DVD Jon builds on this in his recent blog posts.
Then there's Steve Jobs' recent lie about not "gum[ming] up" networks with third-party software, which the FSF debunked handily.
One doesn't need to delve too far into history to see how proprietors, no matter how slick their ads or how popular their consumer electronics, are not working in your best interests.
Digital Citizen
It's almost not worth reply to, but if any one has dealt with Apple extensively, they'll know this already. It's a big corporate Microsoft hidden behind some slick marketing.
www.itjerk.com
No
even if Apple became evil, the allpervading smell of mediocrity in any Microsoft product is competely absent at Apple.
Bye
Bart
P.S. the only exception I can think of is Excel.
Some mod kid not being able to move his .mp3 files to a new player doesn't stack up against Fortune 500 companies being completely tied to 3rd party crap software written in VB. Or to tens of thousands of government documents tied up in a proprietary format that only Microsoft can properly support. Or legions of people who know nothing but IE and Outlook. Or all of the businesses that run themselves off of highly customized crap Access databases. The list goes on. Reality whould have to turn inside out and doughnuts would have to rain from the sky before Apple even got in the same ballpark as Microsoft.
Apple products don't usually suck.
Something folks might forget these days is, that Apple needed to have some sort of DRM built into the iTunes store at the time in order to get the record labels on board. Otherwise, they wouldn't have supported it. Fairplay is much less restrictive than other DRM systems. E.g. You can burn your songs onto a CD and the copy protection is gone.
Apple's dominance of the iPod isn't nearly as threatening as MS's dominance over the desktop. There isn't as interesting a set of apps that someone could build on top of an iPod-like device as there are on the desktop. The iPhone is being rolled out into an existing market with very strong competitors. In Apple's wildest dreams they might end up with a similar share in phones to the one they have in computers. That'd be good for competition, not a threat to it.