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The Apple Paradox, Closed Culture & Free-Thinking Fans
waderoush writes "The secrecy surrounding the expected Apple tablet computer is only the latest example of the company's famously closed and controlling culture. Yet millions of designers, musicians, and other creative professionals love their Apple products, and the Apple brand is almost synonymous with free-thinking creativity. How can a company whose philosophy of information sharing is so at odds with that of most of its customers be so successful? This Xconomy essay explores three possible explanations. 1) Closed innovation, overseen by a guiding genius like Steve Jobs, may be the only way to build such coherent, compelling products. 2) Apple's hardware turns out to be more 'open' than the company intended — Jobs originally wanted to keep third-party apps off the iPhone, for example. 3) Related to #1: customers are pragmatic about quality, and the open source and free software movements haven't produced anything remotely as useful as Mac OS X and the iPhone."
I switched to a Powerbook because it meant I'd never have to do work on it. I used it for contacts, music, photos, lifestyle things, sometimes writing.
I like the way the Mac just works, when I open it I can get straight onto my task without wasting time fiddling with updating a driver or all the other crap I do on the PC.
I'm a programmer.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
powerbook?! those things have been out of production for how long now?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm