What bugs me most about Apple is not holes in it's product line or buggy releases, it's the company's GREED. As a result, one of it's biggest turn-offs is how it's trying to bring it's proprietary mindset from the computer industry to the consumer markets. Locking-down iTunes and the iPhone are both soon-to-be-extinguished attempts to hold on to the exclusivity the Mac enjoys, and it just demonstrates that profit is now the SOLE REASON for Apple to exist. Whatever "mystique" they had is tarnishing fast and will soon be obliterated. In the meantime, the company is believing it's own press about being invincible and Steve Jobs has completely lost touch of the attitudes and priorities that led he and Woz to start Apple in the first place. I saw a comparison of monopolistic businesses recently that progressed from Standard Oil to IBM to Microsoft to WalMart to...APPLE. How strange is it that what was once a company based on innovation and user-friendliness gets to be in that really sucky club?
1. iTunes/iPod/DRM/RIAA/personal information tagging
2. iPhone/AT&T/kick-backs/bricking updates/the rape of early buyers (and you STILL can't pay cash for one even if you want to)
3. the Leopard debacle
Once I held them in great esteem, especially compared to the evil ones in Redmond. Now, unfortunately, it's turned much like politics has, into voting for who sucks the least. For now, Apple does, but at this rate, I don't know how long it will last.
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What bugs me most about Apple is not holes in it's product line or buggy releases, it's the company's GREED. As a result, one of it's biggest turn-offs is how it's trying to bring it's proprietary mindset from the computer industry to the consumer markets. Locking-down iTunes and the iPhone are both soon-to-be-extinguished attempts to hold on to the exclusivity the Mac enjoys, and it just demonstrates that profit is now the SOLE REASON for Apple to exist. Whatever "mystique" they had is tarnishing fast and will soon be obliterated. In the meantime, the company is believing it's own press about being invincible and Steve Jobs has completely lost touch of the attitudes and priorities that led he and Woz to start Apple in the first place. I saw a comparison of monopolistic businesses recently that progressed from Standard Oil to IBM to Microsoft to WalMart to...APPLE. How strange is it that what was once a company based on innovation and user-friendliness gets to be in that really sucky club?
1. iTunes/iPod/DRM/RIAA/personal information tagging
2. iPhone/AT&T/kick-backs/bricking updates/the rape of early buyers (and you STILL can't pay cash for one even if you want to)
3. the Leopard debacle
Once I held them in great esteem, especially compared to the evil ones in Redmond. Now, unfortunately, it's turned much like politics has, into voting for who sucks the least. For now, Apple does, but at this rate, I don't know how long it will last.