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Techrights Recommends An Apple Boycott
walterbyrd writes with a quote from an article at Techrights: "Given the latest actions from Apple we cannot help recommending that people buy nothing from Apple. Boycott the company for being a threat to the IT landscape and also to common sense."
More from the article: "...Apple has been working hard to embargo — not just sue — the competition. Apple disregards the notion of fair competition..."
I was perhaps your biggest fan. But an Apple boycott is not how you come back to us unless they've done something dire and they haven't.
Come back and let us beat down your trolls. That would be better than this.
If you can't do that, at least make the issue SOPA and PIPA. That we can get behind. Apple's not going to do it because their fans really don't give a darn about what us geeks think.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Could this be any more biased? Why is Slashdot posting this crap?
The article claims that "Apple fan sites celebrate Apple patents," but all he does is link to one site, Patently Apple. That site exists to track Apple patent applications "in search of future features and secrets," as the site puts it. It's not celebrating patents; it's just reporting on them in hopes of predicting upcoming product plans.
It also repeats the old troll meme about PARC, claiming that "Apple disregards the notion of fair competition, which takes a lot of nerve for a company that built itself on knockoffs (e.g. Xerox PARC)." Overlapping windows and pulldown menus did come from PARC, but Apple is the one who invented the File-Edit-View-Window-Help standard menu layout, the phrase "cut-and-paste," and several other common GUI paradigms that are taken for granted today. Not to mention that many of those Xerox PARC employees went on to work on the Macintosh project at Apple!
If we're throwing around knock-off accusations, Android used to look like this until the iPhone came out, and then Android suddenly started looking and behaving a lot more like iOS, right down to the pinch-zoom gestures that originated with the iPhone. For crying out loud, Samsung outright stole Apple's icon artwork and used it in their stores. TechRights, of course, ignores all this. It's no surprise at all that Apple is going to try to hinder competitors' efforts to ride the coattails of its design work. It went through this before with Windows in the 1980s and only lost its court case against Microsoft because of a previous licensing agreement.
Obnoxious Android fanboyism has reached a fever pitch. Android fanboys are now officially more annoying than Apple fanboys. They've adopted this idea that they are freedom fighters and that their tribe is under threat from evil. It's embarrassing and is a resurrection of the worst elements of the desktop Linux movement from 10 years ago.
Exploring the rest of the site, it calls itself "a progressive site which supports software freedom and advocates digital diversity through standardisation." Most of its stories are anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux, and present a one-sided view of tech news that's intended to rile up its readers (not unlike Slashdot, to be honest). It also claims to be against monopolies but says nothing about Google's monopoly in web advertising nor the fact it's using its monopoly revenues to pump a new market with a free product (Android), just like Microsoft did with Windows and Internet Explorer in the 1990s. For some reason, Android advocates
For crying out loud, Techrights' Twitter account is called @boycottnovell. Boycott Novell is associated with Roy Schestowitz, an infamous Usenet troll who spams the advocacy newsgroups with pro-Linux news links and used to astroturf Slashdot with multiple accounts.
If nerds on Tech Rights and Slashdot want to boycott Apple, go ahead. None of them were using Apple products anyway--they are Linux advocacy sites. Apple wouldn't even notice.
Can we get some actual tech news? Or is Slashdot forever lost to its current role of flamboyant baiting for ad views? Ugh.
We thought about boycotting made in China, but they didn't really do anything bad...
Are boycotts ever really effective anymore? There's too much clout huge companies carry with their flashy advertising to reach consumers that are willing to break principle. People are not principled enough to rigourously hold to boycotts. I tell people not to bother with them, and focus on positive buying instead of negative buying. Don't avoid buying what you don't want to support, try to actively spend your available spending money with people and companies who support your vision of the world.
Oh You POS
Yes, it's easy to say "don't buy this product", but then what to buy? Certainly, I wont buy a windows phone. I don't like Android, hated the CarrierIQ story, and think that Google is as evil as Apple. What's remaining? Looks like I'm going to keep using my n900, let's hope it doesn't fail on me.
What about the other patent/IP assholes, such as Microsoft, Sony, and Oracle? Why target just one?
Table-ized A.I.
A "boycott" won't do any good. There are enough fanboys out there together with people who doesn't know any better to keep them afloat indefinitely. People who do know better already go for the better options.
Apple is asserting its patent rights.
This is how the system works. Ask T. Edison.
Ask GoDaddy
Shouldn't people already have their own opinion on that topic anyway?
In my case, I initially started avoiding Apple products in the pre-iPhone days because I wasn't satisfied with their products (MP3 players without an easily accessible repeat function, overpriced tech for glorified shadow copies, bad memories of the whole Mac OS 9 clusterfuck).
After that their business practices just cemented my decision to never buy any Apple products again.
Apple has led the way with its design in the Music Player, OS, Phone, Tablet etc markets. Hardware wise they aren't great money for value but add in the design and ease of use and you have a leading product.
Many of the copiers haven't innovated at all they have just copied Apple's original work and many times missed the point of the Apple Designs.
I am not a great supporter of Patents but Apple has the right to try and protect its IP from cheap knockoffs.
Many of these companies would be much better off trying to work out Apples design DNA and innovate the market (not just copy).
This article is 100% troll.
Apple is as much a producer as anyone, and there are lots of arguments to be made that they are for more producers currently of innovations in hardware and software than many other companies.
I find the patent activities Apple is engaging in absurd and evil also. But the whole industry is doing the same thing all over, Apple's actions just get elevated above others because it brings page views and Apple Haters push an anti-Apple agenda whenever possible.
The solution is not to boycott Apple, for that helps no-one - the solution is to continue to battle absurd software patents however it is possible to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I get it. I see where you are going with this, but lets be honest. Whether it's Google, Microsoft, Apple or whoever...Patents are patents. You think Google, if the sides were switched, wouldn't do the same thing. If you say no, you're ignorant.
If I designed a logo, and someone blatantly copied it, and I called him out on it as plagiarism, would you expect other designers and customers to Boycott me? There is a difference between fair competition and outright plagiarism, and while some of Apples arguments seem really silly, some of their arguments are very valid.
I don't use apple products because I don't believe in their "walled garden" philosophy. I was a big fan of apple back in the old hypercard and basic days when apple wanted to bring their users CLOSER to the computing experience and really make their users more powerful.
But apple has done a complete 180 on that and won't ever come back to it. so for that reason, I won't buy their products. It isn't a boycott.
People need to stop thinking anyone gives a damn what they think about anything. Because the reality is that in the real world people just don't care. Corporations don't care. Politicians don't care. Your next door neighbor doesn't care. And they have every right to not care.
That said, you have the same right. So rather then trying to get some frothy public action thing together with promises to buy again if they change their ways. Just quietly buy what you believe in and let the marketing people figure out why sales dropped. Nothing preachy or pretentious. Just buy what you believe.
Apple products make lots of people happy. Good for them. They're welcome to it. I won't be one of them and wish one and all well.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I used Apple all through the 90's in the 'dark days', had an iMac, then switch to using windows and IBM Thinkpads (when they were still American) for about eight years. Tired of the windows mediocrity, maintenance issues, viruses and Trojans I finally switched back to Apple. Got a Macbook, iPhone, iPod. Life couldn't be better. Apple is ubiquitous and has a store in pretty much any country in the world. Their prices have fallen and are fairly competitive, while also maintaining an edge on competition by offering superior customer service and user experience. As long as Apple offers their superior product designs, user experience, and customer service, I'll be using them for the foreseeable future. Who really cares about competition? All of Apple's so called competitors (Samsung, HTC, others) as) are all non-American Companies anyway have clearly stolen/copied many aspects of Apple's technology. All of this is besides the point as Apple doesn't have a monopoly over anything, if you don't like them don't buy it. Simple as that. We're not talking about Microsoft who used their dominance over operating systems to keep their 90% lead in the world.
I'll think you'll find that this is pretty much the trend with the majority of computer geeks.
And I think if you ever go to any technical conference you'll find the trend still very much favors Apple hardware.
Some of us appreciate a commercial UNIX system with great hardware and great commercial software support.
It was always the technical geeks behind Apple's growth and I don't see that slowing or stopping even if there is a very vocal contingent of irrational Haters that will just not let people use what they find suits them best.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I suppose that's why it's awesome that iOS is open-source
Actually it is (check out Darwin sometime).
and a thriving community has grown up around modifying the sources to leave out bullshit like CarrierIQ
Unlike Andorid the shell of a CarrierIQ system that shipped with iOS was never enabled, and did not contain a key-logger or any of the other items that made CarrierIQ objectionable to start with. The hint that remained was removed in iOS5.
But my all means bring up CarrierIQ again and remind the world that Android is shipping with active key-loggers in many phones.
Let me know how those custom iOS roms are working out.
Actually, pretty well.
iOS is far easier for the technical user to customize and hack than Android thanks to the use of Objective-C in applications.
When you stop and think about it it's pretty dumb to have to install a custom ROM when you can just have system tweaks do whatever sets of modifications to the system you are really after. It means you can much more easily track official OS updates.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are more reasons to boycott apple. For example,
- DRM. Download music from iTunes, and you can only play it on a limited number of computers (try it and you'll find out). Plus, your name gets engraved into the downloaded files so that they or their partners from the music industry can trace a copyright infringement back to you. Apple is downright an extension of the music industry. (Steve Jobs even received a Grammy Trustees Award for his accomplishments for the recording industry, or RIAA).
- Locking hardware to software. Back in the 80s, IBM and Microsoft had a deal that turned out to be very sweet for consumers: software and hardware were no longer tied together. As a result, any manufacturer could make PCs, and the major operating system of that time (if you like it or not) could run on it regardless of the brand of the computer. It even allowed the development open-source operating systems, without jail-breaking. Apple is reversing this. If IBM followed the strategy that Apple is taking now, I bet that Linux would not have even been possible.
- Pushing of proprietary standards. Many apps developed today could just as well be developed using open standards, e.g., HTML and javascript. Instead of aiding the further development of these standards, they are sucking developer power into their own eco-system and make the apps, that would otherwise be available to everyone, only accessible to their own customer-base.
- Being the middle-man. Any content provided by external parties, be it software (apps), music, movies or magazines, gets an Apple tax. Even Microsoft wasn't that evil.
- Being secretive about developer revenues. Developing for iOS isn't as lucrative as Apple makes us believe it is. Only a very small portion of the developer-base makes a lot of money. Those are the ones we hear about in the news. The majority, however, has a hard time to recover their investments, or makes a loss.
And, if you google around, I'm sure you'll find many other reasons to dislike Apple.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
If Apple decides that it is time to stop innovating their products (or successfully copying and integrating other people's designs in them, as some see it) and start suing and doing other dirty tricks instead, they would have already lost more than half the battle. Trying to squash competition has never worked well in the long run, and trying to squash it with dirty tricks has worked even worse.
Apple cannot realistically threaten the rest of the industry long term. They aren't that big, their products aren't that pervasive and they simply cannot afford a wide enough product range to compete with everyone. Even if they could become the new Microsoft, in a decade or so everyone would have been tired enough of them to switch to something else.
Besides, boycott may be counterproductive -- Apple left on its own can well generate more bad will than Apple pestered by boycotts. So, instead of recommending a boycott, inform your readers about the problems Apple is creating and help them make informed and rational decisions about their purchases. And if they decide Apple is good for them, then let them have it -- it is their choice, after all.
Your comment was posted in a rounded rectangle. Please stop that you are violating Apple's patents.
Interestingly, this was one of Steve Jobs' early contributions. There was famously an argument when they were designing the first Macs (having licensed the windowing system from Xerox PARC) - he insisted on including rounded rectangles in the design. His head designer (whose name I forget - Parkhurst?) could not figure why he wanted rounded rectangles. Jobs took him outside, and showed how every rectangular road sign was a rounded rectangle.
Which shows that all things old are new again. It's worth noting that nobody ever patented rounded rectangles on road signs - it was just a useful design, not a 'world-shaking invention' in the world view of that time.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
when that is precisely Apple's strategy
You seem to have forgotten that Apple is only suing Samsung, not other tablet makers.
You can always tell the haters by the way they distort reality in any way possible (or frankly impossible) to make Apple the worst in any given comparison.
Apple is blocking choice for no-one. Haters like you have claimed that for some time now even though Apple was one of the big players heavily pushing HTML-5 and shipped the very first Intel macs with Bootcamp. Foes of choice indeed!
Few companies have done as much for interoperability as Apple has done over the years. Apple is after all the company that broke the music industry of the DRM habit. Yet you would ignore that accomplishment and belittle them for things they have not done.
and the reason the majority of "Haters" exist.
Since Apple Haters have been around long before the Samsung lawsuit your expiation of origin leaves much to be desired.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I already don't own any Crapple products from the manufacturer, and the one Crapple product I do own is a eMac that I pulled out of a dumpster.(I hate it when technology is wasted, so I took it). However, I will never purchase any product from that company. So I guess I've been boycotting Apple for the last 15 years.
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Pretty suspect you can't even point out one thing that is a "lie". Methinks you are just another rabid Apple Hater who cannot stand to see a single positive note posted about them, even when you cannot find a single flaw within...
Note readers he'll now come back with a single item from the story he claims to represent a "lie" but it will be horribly distorted from reality.
Isn't it amazing how I can predict his response before he writes it? Not really, for you see the Apple Haters have not been able to come up with new negative points in about a decade. So as I noted they vomit over any note of positivity claiming they are all lies. It's all they have left at this point...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Joe Average will stop reading that article halfway the summary. It doesn't do a good job explain why an Apple boycott would be called for to a public that is immensely pro-Apple. Targeting non-Apple users with this is pointless since they won't buy Apple anyway, so your core audience is Apple users.
And if an Apple user starts reading this at all (which is not a given - the title alone might scare him away) he will be going into it with "my Apple products all work, are easy to use and look nice; I don't want to use Windows / Android / &c.". The writer has a formidable uphill battle to fight and he doesn't even try. You won't get people to boycott a company they dearly love if you yourself apparently don't even care about the issue.
This article teaches us some important lessons in article writing:
1) Mind your audience.
2) Write clearly.
3) Get your argument in quickly.
4) Hook the reader long enough to get the support for your conclusion in there.
Who run Bartertown?
Seriously though I don't use Apple products anyway so I guess I'm already there.
But unique products?
Before the iPhone there was nothing really like it.
Before the iPad there was nothing really like it.
They are not wholly new inventions but they are a leap beyond what was before them.
Good products? Good quality? Good support?
Sales figures (and Consumer Reports) say yes to all of them. You merely claim they are bad while ignoring that everyone else is far worse (Generally, there are some exceptions).
Anecdotally, good support is 100% YES. Because instead of helping friends/family with technical issues as I had to do in the bad old Windows Days, I can simply have them ask first for an answer at a genius bar in an Apple Store. That works 99% of the time. It has saved me COUNTLESS hours of frustration. So nice to be off that merry-go-round.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the most part the vast majority of the mobile patent wars have been about extracting licensing agreements between vendors.
That was true, but that pact was broken when vendors starting deciding RAND patents in various standards did not apply to Apple and they were allowed to shake down Apple for extra money above the payments the rest of the industry was making.
So if we are truly going to try and nip problems with agreements forming, Apple is not the company to go after (remember in the Samsung suit they even offered to sell a license to Samsung for use of some the patents they had, which Samsung declined).
By boycotting Apple you would send a message that this shit is not on
Boycots against any company are foolish because it's a very poor way to send any message. The signal is lost in a vast sea of noise of purchases. As noted, Apple isn't even the most egregious player here....
The real thing to do is to attack the power that patents have over foolish aspects of computing they should not. Even if you could succeed against Apple other companies would continue to abuse them the same way. It's not even like Apple is a company with pure patent troll play as we are seeing these days.
Attack flaws in the patent system and you wipe out ALL bad abuses of patents across ALL companies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
GoDaddy, SOPA
The ghost of the reality distortion is stronger in this one than any I have seen.
Well all I am doing here is telling you what will actually help the problem.
Talk about reality distortion - your solution to the Hydra is to cheerfully attack only one head while ignoring the others snaking towards your back.
And yet, you would claim I am the one who is blind...
Attack Apple exclusively and ignore the other blatant evils all around, yes I can see why that makes perfect sense... ...to an Apple Hater. With patented Apple Hater Tunnel-Vision (tm)!
The really funny thing is, the Apple Hyrda head will never even notice you are trying to hurt it. I mean, you could have at least had the intelligence to target a head that you could have made an impact.
Sigh. So sad to see such a willful disregard for the industry as a whole! That is the real problem, people like you thinking a single company is an issue instead of a system that practically mandates abuse...
I'll let you have the last response since I doubt any of your reply will make any more sense, and indeed I anticipate the froth level to be quite high.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Typical Mac User
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
If you want to be a fanboi, at least become one about something that matters - maybe people in your life? But devoting energy to things like this article proposes is simply a waste of precious time. A computer is a computer; a phone is a phone. You get one and you use it. It's not like any of them are particularly special. I don't see anyone obsessing over their toaster like this...
That is all.
I have been boycotting Apple for years now, what have you guys been up to?
Download music from iTunes, and you can only play it on a limited number of computers (try it and you'll find out).
Nope, been unencrptyted now for many years (and with iTunes Match Apple will even give you a nice 256kb DRM-free audio file of everything you ever ripped from a CD).
So that was totally wrong.
Locking hardware to software.
This was a particularly amusing error because you almost had a point! If only you had reversed it.
But in fact Apple does not lock hardware to software at all. Apple, for example, shipped bootcamp with the first Intel Mac.
Pushing of proprietary standards.
Like the industry standard HTML5?
Or the industry standard video codec h.264?
Or forcing the music industry to drop DRM?
Apple has not pushed proprietary standards since AppleTalk.
Being the middle-man.
I can download music from anywhere and load it on an iPhone.
Free apps pay nothing to Apple.
I can put any number of PDF's on a iPhone, or read Kindle books with which not one cent went to Apple...
"A" middle man? Sure. THE middle man? Not even close.
Being secretive about developer revenues.
Good good man, Apple is the only company that trumpets loudly how much they are paying developers! There is nothing secret about it whatsoever.
Is it hard to find out how much any one developer makes? Yes, unless they tell you. You are claiming that I should simply be able to ask Apple exactly how much money every app made, and you are claiming that breathtaking invasion of MY privacy as an App developer is LESS EVIL?
How about you tell us how much you make. Or are you being secretive?
And, if you google around, I'm sure you'll find many other reasons to dislike Apple.
Indeed you will, each of them more baseless than the last.
The sad thing is there are perfectly valid reasons to be be upset with Apple, why can't people complain about them more often in a wider forum?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't easily modify the base OS. HUGE difference.
That's exactly what much of Cydia does for you. Many things there are components that modify the base OS. That's what I mean my having the power to easily modify parts of the system instead of needing to replace the whole OS. Code injection is far more powerful since you do not need to replace wholesale. I don't have to choose which mod to download, I can just download system enhancements that I feel would be useful.
If you think about it, it's really dumb to have to root your device to get the software you'd like onto your own computing device
Its' even more stupid to basically ship a rooted device and make it easy for users to install viruses.
Protection against which is the step before you even install apps in this Android Setup guide.
To quote:
Now itâ(TM)s time to load those apps like Angry Birds, right? WRONG!!!!!
It is time to install an anti-virus and anti-malware program.
Oh yeah! That is SO much better for non-technical users.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On the first point, since Android is open source and I can't download all of that source either I see no reason why the partial codebase of iOS does not qualify.
Where can I download Moto-Blur?
the second is at least a questionable claim, given that language preferences vary so much.
That has nothing to do with it. The fact is Objective-C make code injection incredibly easy, which means it's much easier to hook into and modify specific parts of existing applications.
It's not about language preference, it's about a specific side effect of iOS software being written in Objective-C.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There should be legal/criminal sanctions against companies that file nonsense patents the idiot country (where the regime is actually corrupt enough to allow nonsense patents!), and use them to disrupt more ethical, and innovative companies, who actually dare to compete fairly.
Having used Apple products, I personally find them loathsome. They are clearly designed for stupid people, and as such, only stupid people will want to use them. I find their computers very obtuse to use, since you do things the obtuse and slow Apple way, on no way at all. Personally, I want to own my own computer, not to buy a computer from Apple, and still have Apple control it. Apple is truly the company of Totalitarian Computing, run by lawyers.
They are also a maintenance nightmare on a corporate network, being impossible to centrally administer, but I suppose the mid to high end has always been out of Apple's reach, given their technological mediocrity.
Of course, Apple is only one of many big companies with bad behavior. Of course they can sell their restrictive app policy because of more security and easyness for the general costumers. But Apple was once an alternative to dominant monopoly IT companies like Microsoft. Now Apple itself has become dominant and ignorant of their users. Apple abandons now all the fans who helped Apple through difficult times. Instead, Apple serves the big masses now, who are OK with buying and installing only, what Apple wants them to install. Sure, we have to thank Apple for finally getting DRM free music, and cool OS and hardware designs that just works. But I do not want to loose control over my PC. I want to download apps from wherever I prefer, and I want to pay developers directly, not by paying a lot to a 3th party.
Another company which has to be boycotted is ADOBE! Very dominant, destroying competence and market, destroying innovation, sucking customers.
But MS you cant' boycott even when it has been blocking all competition in PC-software and is now spreading the decease to mobile market.
Apple isn't always suing because they want to do so, but because they are forced by the law to sue others.
Even Linus Torvalds has gaved his opinion and explenation about the subject:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/00/01/19/0828245/linus-explains-linux-trademark-issues
- Trademark law requires that the trademark owner police the use of the
trademark (unlike, for example, copyright law, where the copyright
owner is the copyright owner, always is, and always will be unless he
willingly relinquishes ownership, and even THEN he ends up having
rights).
And it isn't just about trademark, it is about design rights and others what you need to defend as well so others would not abuse your rights in the first place.
But some points it is enough.
Personally I would even make it so that if the patent holder does not try to negotiate in 2 weeks when the product have come to same market, and if they dont get agreement in 1 week, they have only 5 days time to sue abuser. If you are too big company with too many patents, then you are already fucking the whole world and customers rights. Big corporations and competition isn't good to anyone.
hate the game.
I never see in so many years a mass attack of Apple fanboys mad and angry like this on Slashdot ... And also I never seen such a catastrophic failure of the moderation system to see so many comments from Apple fanboys having "+5 Insightful" in fact they are complete and total garbage.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
I agree that there anti-competetive tactics are pretty disgusting and it's a shame they are smearing Samsung. Reality check: how many other companies given the same amount of power Apple wields would not use it in the same way? Purchase your phone based on what features are important and forget all the hype.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
If you work in the computer industry or study computer science, buying Apple products is not in your interest: the company creates almost no jobs in the US and it supports almost no CS research. That is in addition to Apple's monopolistic practices and their abuse of the patent system. All Apple ever does is "steal" (Steve Jobs's own words) the best ideas they can find, market the hell out of the products they build around them, and charge a premium for them.
Gold :)
I don't see why people take such a strong stance on the subject of who owns what patent for 35degree rounded corners and all that rubbish. Its not like these multi-billion dollar companies really need your moral support.
Apple recently added a bunch of features to iOS to compete with what android was offering. These features have made the iOS experience better for users, and they arguably wouldn't have been included at all if android wasn't around. This is the way a competitive market works, and seems to benefit the consumer a lot more than a bunch of lawsuits.
I honestly like Apple's hardware, well their laptops anyways. Yey MacBook Air!
I've never liked iOS ever since they introduced it without cut & paste. I'm cool experimenting with Apple's user-interface tweaks, like launchpad or whatever, but damn if dropping cut & paste didn't scream "you are not our target market". Apple has introduced cut & paste but damn if they haven't always lagged behind on critical features.
I'm currently using an N900 because I love the integration of VoIP with GSM and IM with SMS. I'm buying an Android soonish because only Android provides a full range of open source cryptographic options. See the Guardian Project.
Imho, the reprehensible behaviors of our governments over the last decade has made encrypting our communications a moral imperative. I.e. I've nothing important enough to keep secret, but damn if I'm not gonna make their lives harder by making my unimportant information inaccessible to them.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If it were not for Apple, none of these products would even exist. If anyone should be boycotted, it should be all the companies who stole Apple's ideas and copied their technology.
The only Apple product I use/own is iTunes, and guess what, I don't need it for anything. It is uninstalling now.
Silence is a state of mime.
Apple products are bought by fags (well not bikers, but you know) and retards who think they are hipsters only anyway.
Well, "“$100 ICS Tablet” Novo7 is available for pre-order" all over the place. Now we know why they wrote the article.
Let's all pick on THE innovative company who is simply going after others for copying their intellectual property, code, and et al. If someone steals your hard work and is turning a buck - wouldn't you want to (A) get paid for that or (B) stop them from selling stolen property? And yes, I have been in Apple's position. I wrote software, the 'sales agent' became very greedy, took my software to another developer in an effort to not have to pay me for my hard work - I sued, won the case, he filed for bankruptcy but was not allowed to continue to sell any of my software nor any derivative there of. My only token of satisfaction is that his wife kicked him to the curb for which he blames me.
Hurray for those who have the courage to stand up for what is theirs.
And - if you look at the linage of Android you will be able to trace it back to - where? Apple - at least an Apple employee who left Apple to continue their quest of developing Android.
http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/11000-ad-Apple-Samsung-Patents.htm
Apple stole the "slide to unlock", minimalist design and other features from existing devices. Then they had the balls to sue companies like Samsung over these features that Apple didn't even own or create. BAU for the new evil empire.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
No.
The public-private partnership has transcended from trend to religion. Obama/Gingrich/Romney-Care illustrates that. If only Hilary-Care happened.
http://www.aaronrogier.net
I suppose that if you were familiar with the history of the Edison and Westinghouse companies, you would know that Thomas Edison was no stranger to dirty tricks (to be fair, neither was Westinghouse). Edison's company was hired to produce the first electric chair, and they chose to use Westinghouse AC generators for this purpose. Edison went around demonstrating the lethality of AC power by putting on public displays of animal electrocution using AC generators, always sure to mention that Westinghouse was using AC power and he was using DC power. Edison himself was opposed to execution, but accepted to contract to produce the electric chair for the specific purpose of demonstrating that AC power could kill human beings.
Perhaps you want to pick a rich industrialist who was a decent, friendly individual that did not pull underhanded tricks to claw his way to the top? I just cannot seem to think of any...
Palm trees and 8
You can pry my MacBook from my cold dead hands.
Fix the patent system. If you want to boycott companies that 'abuse' it then you'll end up boycotting all technology companies. Good luck with that luddite strategy. Every mobile phone maker is suing every other mobile phone maker. This is a systemic problem, not a localized one. If any of these companies try to take the moral high ground they will be put out of business. We should attack the root of the problem, the patent system, rather than the end result of the problem.
If Apple was nothing but a patent troll then I would understand the argument. But if Apple was nothing but a patent troll they wouldn't have any products to boycott.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I lot of people who used to think that godaddy suited them best, decided to take another look. Could the same thing happen to Apple? I come across people who are frustrated with iTunes, and don't see the point of a $150 Nano, when a $30 Sansa clip seems to do the job just as well.
Everyone is suing everyone else to get the cross licensing revenue. Once one company proves you can make money via lawsuit, It becomes the duty of all other companies to exploit this untapped revenue stream to increase shareholder value. A company is duty bound to use every advantage to the benefit of the shareholders. This includes lawsuits, PR campaigns, injunctions, and broken patent systems.
Personally I find the whole lawsuit, Intellectual property business distasteful, but it is the shape of things to come. If we had all this during the industrial revolution, we would be screwed.
From about 3 days ago? It was enough to get Godaddy to back off their SOPA support.
So yes, it seems that boycotts are still effective.
From that single website, the idea has progressed to slashdot, which still a lot of readers.
If you remember, the Godaddy boycott seemed to take off shortly after Godaddy SOPA's stance was reported on a single tech website.
For example, I'm sure Apple's $150+ iPod Nano is a quality product. But you can get a Sansa Clip, which is better in many respects, for $30; and not have to fight with iTunes.
Let's be honest, sure Apple makes some quality products, but for a lot of people, a lot of the appeal of Apple is a fashion statement. When Apple looks like a scummy IP troll, maybe Apple stuff won't be so fashionable. The high fashion world is finckle.
MLK, Ghandi, and more recently, the Godaddy boycott.
Boycotts can be extremely effective.
Boycots against any company are foolish because it's a very poor way to send any message. The signal is lost in a vast sea of noise of purchases. As noted, Apple isn't even the most egregious player here....
Where do you get your "facts" just make them up as you go? Boycotts have been proven to be extremely effective. And Apple is even worse than Microsoft when it comes to abusing the patent system to restrain free trade.
Anybody can see what is going on here. Apple does not want to compete in a free market, so Apple is trying to rig the system with a load of bullshit patents like rounded corners.
Besides, boycott may be counterproductive -- Apple left on its own can well generate more bad will than Apple pestered by boycotts. So, instead of recommending a boycott, inform your readers about the problems Apple is creating and help them make informed and rational decisions about their purchases. And if they decide Apple is good for them, then let them have it -- it is their choice, after all.
WTF?
The publicity from a boycott would only help generate bad will. And I mean help quite a lot. Consider the recent boycotts of BofA, and Godaddy.
People should understand that buying from is bad for everybody, because it promotes abusing the patent system to restrain free trade.
A boycott will not sway all Apple users, of course, but it might sway enough.
Godaddy only lost about 72K domains. As I understand it, there are about 45 million domains registered at godaddy. Clearly the boycott did not say *all* godaddy users, but it swayed enough.
Apple chose to be a shameful IP scam company. And Apple can chose to stop. I don't see Google file dozens of bullshit patent lawsuits all the time.
Samsung. Reality check: how many other companies given the same amount of power Apple wields would not use it in the same way?
I don't see Google filing bullshit patent lawsuits all over the place.
Samsung is even bigger than Apple, but I don't see that kind of shameful behavior from Samsung. Samsung is only defending itself against an agressive patent scam company.
Google is not abusing the patent system in an attempt to restrain free trade.
Apple just does want to compete. We all know Apple's patents are pure bullshit.
What did Apple "invent" first, that is worthy of a patent?
Let's all pick on THE innovative company who is simply going after others for copying their intellectual property,
Apple is only innovative in it's ways to restrain free trade, because Apple cannot compete otherwise. Apple's patents, and lawsuits, are frivolous bullshit, and we both know it.
Every mobile phone maker is suing every other mobile phone maker.
By that you mean: other phone makers are trying to defend themselves against the Apple, and Microsoft, patent scam blitz.
Apple is 100% to blame for this. It is not fair to blame Samsung for trying to defend itself against Apple's aggressive patent scam.
Why is this a problem all of a sudden? Monopolies do this all the time and it seems to be right in-line with Copyright trolling, Patent lawsuits and the RIAA/MPAA. It's the American way. Why bother with a 15% player when there are much bigger fish to go after?
I'm not an Apple fan, but If you're going to cry foul with Apple on this, then you ought to hold every other egregious bastardization of the legal system to the same principle.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Apple's just as sleazy as lots of other companies who are out there fighting patent wars, but I do agree that in this case Apple is attempting to monopolize the market against what it sees as a serious threat. If it weren't for them actually having bullshit patents to wave around, the government would likely be chewing their asses up for their behavior.
I mean come on, they're suing over the act of making phone numbers and URLs in text messages clickable. This is in no way an original idea from Apple, they just got the patent on it first, since apparently nobody else thought this was worth patenting to begin with. I've even written code which does the exact same kinds of things, just because it's stupid to not add such a convenience for users. So why does performing this task inside a text message make it patent-worthy?
Just flush the entire patent library out already. Obviously 99% of them were passed by people with absolutely no understanding of technology or common sense. I could write some long detailed explanation of a particular way to submit a Slashdot comment, and I bet I'd get the patent for that too.
Meanwhile, it's always funny to see Apple fanboys out in full force claiming Apple is just protecting their company, even though if the opposite had happened and Microsoft or Samsung had forced the iPhone to stop being sold, it would be civil war.
Don't blame Apple, blame the patent system, which is the only way Apple can actually restrict competition. Patents are incompatible with basic propert rights and artificially grant monopolies on non-rivalrous goods (ideas), which would otherwise flow more quickly (innovation, imitation, improvement) and be regulated through voluntary agreements (contracts).
Boycott the companies that stole Apple's IP.
Apple is over, they just haven't figured it out yet.
CUPS was developed long before Apple bought it. Have you ever tried doing something in CUPS on OSX that is easily possible on CUPS in Linux? CUPS on OSX is some kind of franken-CUPS.
Before Apple bought CUPS there was a CUPS aware printer driver available for Windows. That was great, one printer driver for just about everything. Sigh, that hasn't been updated since the purchase and the old driver no longer works with CUPS. Not exactly an advancement.
I have personally boycotted Apple long ago.. just after the first ipod came out I wanted one badly. then they finally released an "affordable" Ipod Shuffle which played well and sounded great. it even looked like a thumb drive. I got one.. I filled it with music. then my PC began to run slow, Itunes and all of its running applications on my PC overwealmed my dated PC. (could be because I also ran STEAM). I reformated multiple times all while keeping my music on a backup. to this day I still have all my music from Itunes but it won't play. I have exceeded the amount of PC's I could have on my account. sence I gave them one more chance with an Ipod touch. Now I have an android Droid X, with linux Kubuntu so I can boot my PC from my phone as an external drive. I have all my music (replacement pirated versions of the locked and paid for itunes versions). and I still get at least 14 hours battery life while I'm at work. Poeple whom have all apple products just don't know what they are missing.... I love the troubleshootiong that comes with a new product to work with my other products. I have a wireless device to play all my music from PC to my TV. (playstation 3). did I over pay? that depends... can I install whatever I want on whatever I want? YES... except for the ps3 now.
Only a geek would propose a boycott of a mass market consumer product the day after Christmas.
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To make a boycott of cabbage and potatoes succeed, you have to reach out to the buyers of cabbage and potatoes.
More than that, you have to be one of them.
Remember that you are trying to persuade these people that the boycott is more important to them than putting a meal on the table at a price they can afford.
If it is all about you and your causes, you will fail.
Download music from iTunes, and you can only play it on a limited number of computers (try it and you'll find out).
Nope, been unencrptyted now for many years (and with iTunes Match Apple will even give you a nice 256kb DRM-free audio file of everything you ever ripped from a CD).
So that was totally wrong.
Of course, iTunes, is NOT proprietary in any way, nor is the format of the information managed by it. Apple freely provides the necessary information for non-Apple programs/devices to do similar functions.
Locking hardware to software.
This was a particularly amusing error because you almost had a point! If only you had reversed it.
But in fact Apple does not lock hardware to software at all. Apple, for example, shipped bootcamp with the first Intel Mac.
So, your iGadget is not locked to software? You can freely connect it to another gadget which contains NO Apple software and actually move things back and forth?
Pushing of proprietary standards.
Like the industry standard HTML5?
Or the industry standard video codec h.264?
Or forcing the music industry to drop DRM?
Apple has not pushed proprietary standards since AppleTalk.
What about the mag-safe connector, the iPod connector, keyboard, etc? These are not proprietary? What about the standard USB?
Being the middle-man.
I can download music from anywhere and load it on an iPhone.
Without software from Apple?
Free apps pay nothing to Apple.
I can put any number of PDF's on a iPhone, or read Kindle books with which not one cent went to Apple...
"A" middle man? Sure. THE middle man? Not even close.
If Apple is not THE middle man, the please explain where you get the apps if it is not via Apple's store. Having only ONE store certainly places Apple in the middle.
With a brand as loved and popular as Apple's, a boycott by a few concerned geeks isn't going to even register as a rounding error on their profits.
If you want change, work to demand patent reform to prevent anti-competitive abuses of the patent system by not only Apple, but all tech companies existing and future. Apple is just the most recent poster child for patent abuse -- the problem is that the patent system is broken, not that Apple is "evil."
Apple is just leveraging the tools they see at their disposal to maximize profits. Any corporation run by an MBA team instead of an idealistic family founder does the same.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Glad to finally see people waking up from the illusion Apples shit smells good when in fact it smells just as bad as everyone elses.
pinch-zoom gestures that originated with the iPhone.
Nope, that was a knock-off too, and Apple knew it. Mutli-touch touchscreens, gesture recognition, and pinch-zoom has been around since the 1980's.
I think there are 3 things going on.
1) Apple really and truly believes their interfaces were copied. I think if you look at interfaces before and after the iPhone, there can be little doubt that there was substantial copying of Apple's way of doing things, slide to unlock being a pretty clear example. For those that argue that all copying is the only way to do things consider how many interfaces were similar to Palm's stylus based interfaces.
2) Patents and restrictions are used to prevent products from being sold. Quite simply the laws are not functioning properly for technology.
3) The suits are going in both directions. For example the things Apple has been sued for by Samsung:
Samsung and Nokia sued apple for using 3G
Smiley faces input
Regulators on wireless speeds
Using Qualcomm chips (though this is dropped).
THe only thing I'd add to this festival of Apple hate is that when the iPhone was first released, it was Samsung who sued first and wanted to ban the sale of the iPhone. I'm not going to pick sides, but if you really believe that Samsung or any Tech company is some open platform and free software angel that only exists to protect your privacy and sense of entitlement and not resort to dirty tricks then you are a very naive person. Yes, the patent system is a mess. Yes, companies abuse the system. Yes, customers suffer because of the actions of these companies. BUT; if you think only the companies you have a personal bias against are guilty of these actions, then you are mistaken and are also a pawn. If you want the system to change than you have to boycott it all. And if you are not prepared to drop all of your commercially sourced tech hardware and software then this talk of "action" is futile.
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
Boycotting Apple would bring nothing, it's the patent office that is fault. Regarding Apple, this image sums it up
http://milosparipovic.com/wp-content/uploads/iPooToilet.jpg
Oracle and Apple are the epitome of whats wrong in the industry atm.
I never have, and never will, give even a single penny to Apple or Oracle.
Everytime I see a person using an apple product, i audibly say... "Apple douche", such that they hear it. They then prove me right by pretending they didnt hear me.
You will not convince Apple customers this. They just as retarded as muslims and other ppl with religious convictions.
Apple people have the same mindset as the ppl who tortured Galileo.
-HasHie
What did Apple "invent" that is worthy of a patent?
How about BofA boycott?
Funny, I thought both of those were fairly popular.
Apple chose to file all of those frivolous patents, and frivolous lawsuits.
Lets stop being pussies. Apple owns innovation and others simply copy.
Why is it that when somebody blatantly steals design, form factor, user interface concepts or just blatantly copies Apple it's "fair competition" when the same practice anywhere else is obviously stealing? Why is it that Apple's innovations are public domain?
CarrierIQ was on iPhones as well. And on Symbian. CarrierIQ is OS independent and installed (mostly) on branded USA devices.
Yes, MeGoo was spared. But that is because MeGoo is
a) not branded
b) still born
And last not least: All Google-Experience Devices (Nexus and XOOM) come without CarrierIQ. So no need to place CarrierIQ and Google in the same sentence.
You Google fanboys obviously enjoy circle-jerking each other into a frenzy but the rest of us find it disgusting.
Replace "Google" from the previous statement with a wildcard and you end up with an accurate description of most if not all of the sides in many Slashdot debates.
Apple has every legal right to pursue litigation against any company that it feels has misappropriated their intellectual property. I will continue to buy the Apple products that I like, and let the courts settle these legal matters.
As soon as I saw the part about Apple "copying" from PARC, I stopped because if he's that stupid he's not worth reading. The Xerox PARC visit was a BUSINESS deal with Xerox, whose shares of Apple stock, if they held onto them, would be worth billions. Xerox got paid plenty and everybody was up front.
Google and Samsung, on the other hand just steal shit wholesale.