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Is Apple Turning Into the Next "Evil Empire"?
jira writes "'You may think you own your iPad or iPhone but in reality an invisible string links it back to Apple HQ' writes John Naughton. He adds: 'Umberto Eco once wrote a memorable essay arguing that the Apple Mac was a Catholic device, while the IBM PC was a Protestant one. His reasoning was that, like the Roman church, Apple offered a guaranteed route to salvation – the Apple Way – provided one stuck to it. PC users, on the other hand, had to take personal responsibility for working out their own routes to heaven.'"
Or perhaps this one.
They have been for a long time, along with many others who would love to get to their position in the market. Apple chases profit like all other companies, they just oft have a better UI. The first thing Jobs did when he came back to Apple was axe all the Mac-clones that were being built. The second thing they did was try their best to put all non-Apple Macintosh repair shops out of business, and then open the Apple Stores once they'd done so. They haven't changed business models, they just now have a dominant market position to leverage. Frankly I think they learned a lot of their current tactics from MS, but they've never had everybody's best interests at heart, any more than MS or anyone else did.
Actually, back in the day Apple was a very NICE company. Their products even came with circuit diagrams and hacking instructions. It was later on that they took on this whole BS "You don't own anything you buy" attitude.
Here you go: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/02/motorola-apple-1984-superbowl/
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
they're not very open source and they fundamentally don't care.
You mean like this, or are you talking about something else?
If they did care they would clutter their designs with backwards compatibility hacks. They don't.
You mean like Classic environment in OS X or Rosetta on Intel macs, or are you talking about something else?
If they did care they would keep, perhaps slavishly, to existing standards, They don't.
Existing standards like, say UNIX, POSIX, CSS3, AAC, h.264, or are you talking about something else?
Why are they even discussed on /.?
I always figured it was because they are the world's biggest vendor of standards-compliant open source UNIX environments, and that stuff is considered pretty important around here. Plus they vertically integrate it with a closed source presentation layer that is the envy of the industry, and a media distribution model that is controlled with an iron fist, which gives us LOTS to talk about.
... or are you talking about something else, cuz it's really hard to tell if you are even on the same planet as the rest of us.
...don't care one little bit about the App Stores being "walled gardens".
They don't care that iPods or Macs do not natively support Ogg Vorbis or FLAC.
They don't care about iTunes not having as many features as some linux open source thing. They don't care about linux, either.
They don't really care about no Flash on iPhone/iPod/iPad. As long as they can watch the latest Maru videos on YouTube, they will continue not to care about no Flash on iPhone/iPod/iPad.
They care that the Mac Pro/MacBook/iMac/iPod/iPad WORKS.
They care about the seamless one click purchase and it's on the harddrive aspect of the iTunes Store.
They care about the seamless no click synching of iPod/iPhone to the computer.
They care about the interface that lets them get on with it. They don't want to hear about Terminal or how much better a CLI is vs. a GUI. Because they DO NOT CARE.
The vast majority of Apple users have never heard of Slashdot, and don't care a fat rat's ass what any of us here think about Apple.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Please carry on with the AppleHate/AppleLove.
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