That doesn't address a product that arrives sporadically in small batches. If the product is simply sold out on launch day, but then completely in stock shortly thereafter, that works just fine. But if it comes in small batches here and there, then two per person per purchase still has a deleterious effect.
Semantics. Coercion is a form of control and losing my warranty is frankly disincentive enough for me not to jailbreak my phone. As for the governent deciding what cars may be legally driven on roads how could this not be a form of control? The gov't is quite capable of closing a road and preventing me from driving on if they felt the need. Please tell me what you mean by control.
It's not so much what *I* mean by control, but what the people who keep going on about Apple controlling everything mean.
You're right that it's a type of control, but no one rails on about how the government controls the roads (well, maybe some Libertarians, but that sort of makes my point). When people talk about control, they generally mean more than that.
In terms of apps, the developers are in control of what their apps do. There are limitations imposed by Apple (and sometimes the carriers, mainly AT&T), and you're right that that's a form of control, but it's mostly incidental. Apple doesn't control Skype's app (for example), they just say, "you can't do VOIP over the 3G connection". Just as the government doesn't control where I can drive, but they sometimes close roads or whatever.
Nobody rails against malls for controlling what you can wear. Nobody rails against grocery stores for controlling the products they carry. Nobody rails against restaurants for controlling what you can smoke (pre-smoking ban laws). Because these don't get into levels of control that are onerous. It's only in the tech realm where we exaggerate everything, where even a little bit of something is treated the same as the absolute maximum. Where words like "evil" and "control" and "slave", etc., get bandied about in casual conversation over the smallest of matters.
So when you say this is semantics, you are correct. Although I'm not the one playing games with the definitions to make a point. I'm pointing out that these words do not apply, outside of semantically strained applications.
No, I'm saying that Apple doesn't control the apps, nor what you can do with them. I thought that was fairly clear. Let me pull up a quote, just a sec...
Apple does not control all the apps for the iPhone, nor to they control what you can do with it.
Apple wants to get the iPad into people's hands as quickly as possible.
What are the 'scalpers' going to do with the iPads, except resell them? Do they make good wall paneling or something?
One thing they aren't going to do is get iPads into consumers hands faster than if they bought them directly from Apple.
How is two any more or less fair to the last guy in line than twenty would have been? Limited quantities are limited. Someone isn't going to get one on the first day.
It's not, but it is unfair to the 19 before him.
It seems the answer here would be to increase production
All that takes is for Apple to turn the production dial up a notch, right? It's amazing that they didn't think of this themselves!
or buy from a vendor that doesn't contribute to artificial supply problems.
Apple has multiple suppliers for many of their parts, and other parts are only available from one source. None of which are being artificially constrained. It's absurd to believe Apple is deliberately underproducing the iPad.
Further, this would all be the fault of the retailer, and should have nothing whatsoever to do with the manufacturer.
Apple is the retailer. Or did you completely miss the fact that this story is about the Apple Store?
Apple does nothing to prevent this.
If they're not doing anything, why the restriction?
The "this" is "selling your iPad". The restriction isn't to stop you from selling your iPad, it's to stop you from buying so many iPads that others can't buy them.
Are we to assume that scalpers don't/can't hire people to stand in line with pre-paid debit cards?
Are we to assume that there's no difference in being able to just directly buy out the entire stock and having to pay people to stand in line for only two iPads apiece?
Because they can't. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of false.
and if they are it doesn't hurt Apple.
Yes, it does. It keeps the iPad out of the hands of consumers, and keeps consumers out of Apple's stores.
This was a marketing move to try to propagate the artificial scarcity ploy Apple is using with the iPad.
How does this propagate scarcity? It does the opposite, it helps alleviate it! And the iPad's scarcity is not artificial. You can only build things so fast. One million in less than a month is by no means Apple deliberately under-producing. There are only so many factories, and they are already building other things. If Apple were to attempt to increase supply, they'd have to pay to have more factories built (or pay to have other factories break their current commitments and retool) and have more employees trained. They'd also have to be able to acquire the components faster.
The notion that Apple is deliberately keeping supply low is utterly moronic. People already very much want the iPad, and Apple loses much more by having a limited supply than they gain by any increase in perceived demand.
So I'll use multiple credit cards then. I've got 6 or 7 of them, so I could get 12 or 14 iPads.
And 6 or 7 names and addresses? And even so, it doesn't matter if a few people get around the limits. What matters is the overall effect, and there can be no doubt that this has helped keep iPad scalping down to a minimum.
Again their reasoning makes little sense when closely examined.
No, it's your reasoning which has failed you. Apple doesn't have to completely stamp out scalping to be effective.
you're correct. Apple doesn't want anyone reselling for profit other than themselves, and neither do the ticket sellers (and their distributors).
So really, both situations are damn straight that this was a horrible call by apple.
In what universe is adding more middle-men better for the consumer? Scalpers raise ticket prices without adding anything of value, except being able to buy tickets after an event has sold out. This isn't terribly bad so long as scalping is kept down to a minimum. But what if there were no rules in place to limit scalping? What's to stop someone from buying every single ticket, then selling them at double the price? How is that good for anyone?
You absolutely cannot stop people from reselling crap they buy, whether with licenses, contracts, or agreements.
That's not true, although that's also irrelevant, as Apple doesn't stop anyone from selling their iPad.
Linking to an ID thing just meant that you'd have to have multiple people buy the products for you.
Only if you're an opportunistic slime who wants to take an iPad out of the hands of honest people to later sell to them at a large mark-up. It makes your job harder (you'll get no sympathy from me), but it also limits you by your ability to gather up people to buy iPads and pay them to do so, increasing both effort and cost which will certainly diminish the amount of iPad scalping going on.
In either case, Apple's current two iPad limit overall helps the consumer.
BUT their reasoning makes zero sense. Forcing me to use a credit card instead of cash won't stop me from buying multiple iPads and then selling them to other people. I've got a $20,000 credit limit and could buy tons of them.
No, you can't. Apple uses your credit card to keep track of how many iPads you've bought.
Well, it's just the never-ending story of Apple wanting to control everything.
Never-ending myth, you mean.
Not only controlling all the applications
Apple doesn't control "all the applications".
and what you can do with the device
Nor do they control what you can do with the device.
In both cases, they only mark certain things as "off limits". This is no more controlling than saying the government controls what you can drive and where you can go, since they outlaw certain vehicles and some roads are toll roads, closed roads, or one-way streets.
but controlling if you are allowed sell your device too?
Apple controls this in no way whatsoever. You are 100% free to sell your iPad to whomever for for whatever price you wish.
Everyone always says Apple is not a monopoly
Because they are not.
but exactly how is this good for the market or people?
Since it's not true, it doesn't matter one way or the other.
You don't need to be a monopoly to abuse customers.
This is true, although irrelevant, as Apple aren't abusing their customers.
The policy was mean to discourage people from purchasing a lot of iPads and then reselling them for profit
What's wrong with that? Shouldn't a person be allowed to sell his device at the price he wants to?
Reading comprehension failure. aristotle-dude said "lots of iPads", not "his device". There's a difference.
Apple wants to get the iPad into people's hands as quickly as possible. By limiting the number of purchases to two, this helps prevent people from walking in and buying out the store (remember that bitch who bought the #1 spot in line in order to buy out the entire stock so she could resell them? How is that fair to the people behind her who waited hours?).
Honest people who want an iPad, who sign up on a waiting list don't deserve to be fucked over by opportunists. What's worse, they stand to be fucked over twice. Once by not being able to buy an iPad from Apple, and once again by having to resort to an iPad "scalper" with inflated prices.
But to answer your straw man, yes, a person is allowed to sell their device at any price they can get. Apple does nothing to prevent this. You are absolutely free to buy two iPads and sell them both.
Ermmm.. you don't know much about the Amiga technically then. The hack you're referring to is HAM mode [wikipedia.org] which was one of numerous graphics modes that the Amiga supported.
Yes, I know. I had one. Two, actually.
When I brought that up, I was referring to this:
Who cares about the PC - the Amiga had colour done right, right from the start.
(the clue here is that I quoted that right before I wrote what I did)
Natively on the 1985 Amiga 1000 was a 16 color true 640x400 mode (interlaced; half the 'Y' non-interlaced). This is from a palette of 4096 colors. This was no hack and didn't work at all like HAM.
Isn't "color done right".
So I'm not sure how Apple did it any more right than the Amiga here other than the video being upgradable with a card, but then again, we're talking two completely different architectures.
By not having a hack like HAM mode in the first place. Interestingly, this is a side effect of one of the things the Amiga did get right with regards to graphics, which is having the dedicated coppers.
Another thing the Amiga got right with regards to graphics, although in a more limited sense, is the direct compatibility with NTSC and PAL. This made the Amiga the PC for broadcast work.
What makes you think I get paid (that would be nice, although I have better things to do for paycheck), but the people who hate on Apple here don't? Or that I'm insecure about my purchases (on the contrary, I'm quite happy with my Apple products, you'd think that would be apparent), but those that go out of their way to put my choices down are not insecure about theirs (or perhaps just overly concerned about mine)?
Who cares about the PC - the Amiga had colour done right, right from the start.
No it didn't. It had this hack mode (that was really clever, but most definitely not "done right") where it would change the color pallate on every scan line to simulate higher color depth.
Similarly, I see that today you pretend the only mobile platforms are Apple and Android:
I don't pretend anything. I'm just using it as an example because it's Slashdot's new Linux.
How did Apple get these things "right", such that it was wrong on all other platforms?
I know you deliberately misunderstand the English language to put down Macs (and oddly play up the dead Amiga), but somehow I keep thinking that one day you'll come to your senses. I guess not.
"Done right" doesn't mean everything else is "done wrong". It means the same thing as "now that's how you do it!".
Their market is still miniscule. If the Islate or whatever it is sells better, I think the wall to wall constant media coverage and free advertising it's had for months, whilst other tablets were ignored, may have something to do with it.
People don't buy $499+ items just because they saw it on the news. That might get them into the stores to look at them, though. So, in a way you may be right. The media got people into the stores, but once there, the iPad sells itself.
Besides, it's not like media covered the iPad without reason, they know that people love Apple products, and that Apple has a way of making products that are head and shoulders above the competition, so they cover what's hot. They also cover things like he JooJoo tablet, but when it fizzles, there's no reason to continue coverage. If Apple weren't able to follow through on their products, the media would stop covering them as well.
Funny thing was, Macs had crappy resolution too. Eventually, Macs got color and then it was claimed they invented it. They also invented multi-monitor support even though PCs had that from day one. If there's anything Apple apologists are good at, it's revisionist history.
This is the thing that always throws PC weenies in a tizzy. The PC gets some feature first, but it's buggy, broadly incompatible, and just overall poor quality. PCs had "color", as in CGA. PCs had multiple monitor support, as in, if your program supported it, you could output something to a second monitor. When Macs got color, and when they got multiple monitor support, it was done extremely well. On a Mac, you want multi monitor support? Just plug in a second card and monitor. Done. It just works. On a PC, up until very recently, you want multi monitor support, you had to be wary of different cards and drivers, some of which worked with multiple cards, some which didn't. And before XP (where multi monitor was actually reasonably workable)? It was a headache, and that's even when it worked at its best.
So it's always like this, and always will be. Now it's cut and paste on the iPhone, or multitasking. Android gets it first, but Apple gets it right. Nobody ever really says Apple "invented" these things, just say Apple is the first (sometimes only) company to get it working for the non-geek.
Same thing with the iPad. There were touchscreen netbooks, and Windows stylus-based tablets. But their impact on the consumer market was minuscule because these things all sucked.
Hey Microsoft doesn't/didn't have monopoly either if you don't like how they do things get Linux hell that's even free or if your one of the people that compare value with cost get something made by Apple.
Linux has never been a viable alternative consumer OS (it has, and continues to be, a very viable alternative techie OS, and if Apple ever gets even 1% as "evil" as the insane among us here seem to think they are, I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat). In the 90s, MS did have a monopoly. You don't have to control 100% of something to be a monopoly.
No they don't. Most home users do not need their home computers to run the few things which Windows is better at for work, which are mainly CAD, Exchange, Active Directory, and CRM. Most home users today primarily need Internet support, and Mac OS X is a first class citizen of the Internet.
In other words, you want to read Apple stories with nothing but negative comments towards Apple. I like Apple's products, and the direction they are taking the state of the art in computing. If you think the fact that my words have annoyed you is going to change what I do with my spare time, you're in for a disappointment.
Slashdot Mirror
That doesn't address a product that arrives sporadically in small batches. If the product is simply sold out on launch day, but then completely in stock shortly thereafter, that works just fine. But if it comes in small batches here and there, then two per person per purchase still has a deleterious effect.
Your questions are straw men. I'm not going to defend things I didn't say.
Semantics. Coercion is a form of control and losing my warranty is frankly disincentive enough for me not to jailbreak my phone. As for the governent deciding what cars may be legally driven on roads how could this not be a form of control? The gov't is quite capable of closing a road and preventing me from driving on if they felt the need. Please tell me what you mean by control.
It's not so much what *I* mean by control, but what the people who keep going on about Apple controlling everything mean.
You're right that it's a type of control, but no one rails on about how the government controls the roads (well, maybe some Libertarians, but that sort of makes my point). When people talk about control, they generally mean more than that.
In terms of apps, the developers are in control of what their apps do. There are limitations imposed by Apple (and sometimes the carriers, mainly AT&T), and you're right that that's a form of control, but it's mostly incidental. Apple doesn't control Skype's app (for example), they just say, "you can't do VOIP over the 3G connection". Just as the government doesn't control where I can drive, but they sometimes close roads or whatever.
Nobody rails against malls for controlling what you can wear. Nobody rails against grocery stores for controlling the products they carry. Nobody rails against restaurants for controlling what you can smoke (pre-smoking ban laws). Because these don't get into levels of control that are onerous. It's only in the tech realm where we exaggerate everything, where even a little bit of something is treated the same as the absolute maximum. Where words like "evil" and "control" and "slave", etc., get bandied about in casual conversation over the smallest of matters.
So when you say this is semantics, you are correct. Although I'm not the one playing games with the definitions to make a point. I'm pointing out that these words do not apply, outside of semantically strained applications.
No, I'm saying that Apple doesn't control the apps, nor what you can do with them. I thought that was fairly clear. Let me pull up a quote, just a sec...
Apple does not control all the apps for the iPhone, nor to they control what you can do with it.
Yup, looks right.
here goes nothing
You got that right.
Apple wants to get the iPad into people's hands as quickly as possible.
What are the 'scalpers' going to do with the iPads, except resell them? Do they make good wall paneling or something?
One thing they aren't going to do is get iPads into consumers hands faster than if they bought them directly from Apple.
How is two any more or less fair to the last guy in line than twenty would have been? Limited quantities are limited. Someone isn't going to get one on the first day.
It's not, but it is unfair to the 19 before him.
It seems the answer here would be to increase production
All that takes is for Apple to turn the production dial up a notch, right? It's amazing that they didn't think of this themselves!
or buy from a vendor that doesn't contribute to artificial supply problems.
Apple has multiple suppliers for many of their parts, and other parts are only available from one source. None of which are being artificially constrained. It's absurd to believe Apple is deliberately underproducing the iPad.
Further, this would all be the fault of the retailer, and should have nothing whatsoever to do with the manufacturer.
Apple is the retailer. Or did you completely miss the fact that this story is about the Apple Store?
Apple does nothing to prevent this.
If they're not doing anything, why the restriction?
The "this" is "selling your iPad". The restriction isn't to stop you from selling your iPad, it's to stop you from buying so many iPads that others can't buy them.
Are we to assume that scalpers don't/can't hire people to stand in line with pre-paid debit cards?
Are we to assume that there's no difference in being able to just directly buy out the entire stock and having to pay people to stand in line for only two iPads apiece?
So Apple is no more controlling than the government. THIS is your well-thought-out rebuttal?
Droll, but doesn't address the point. Apple does not control all the apps for the iPhone, nor to they control what you can do with it.
False. Nobody's doing that
Because they can't. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of false.
and if they are it doesn't hurt Apple.
Yes, it does. It keeps the iPad out of the hands of consumers, and keeps consumers out of Apple's stores.
This was a marketing move to try to propagate the artificial scarcity ploy Apple is using with the iPad.
How does this propagate scarcity? It does the opposite, it helps alleviate it! And the iPad's scarcity is not artificial. You can only build things so fast. One million in less than a month is by no means Apple deliberately under-producing. There are only so many factories, and they are already building other things. If Apple were to attempt to increase supply, they'd have to pay to have more factories built (or pay to have other factories break their current commitments and retool) and have more employees trained. They'd also have to be able to acquire the components faster.
The notion that Apple is deliberately keeping supply low is utterly moronic. People already very much want the iPad, and Apple loses much more by having a limited supply than they gain by any increase in perceived demand.
>>>They limit sales to two per customer,
So I'll use multiple credit cards then. I've got 6 or 7 of them, so I could get 12 or 14 iPads.
And 6 or 7 names and addresses? And even so, it doesn't matter if a few people get around the limits. What matters is the overall effect, and there can be no doubt that this has helped keep iPad scalping down to a minimum.
Again their reasoning makes little sense when closely examined.
No, it's your reasoning which has failed you. Apple doesn't have to completely stamp out scalping to be effective.
you're correct. Apple doesn't want anyone reselling for profit other than themselves, and neither do the ticket sellers (and their distributors).
So really, both situations are damn straight that this was a horrible call by apple.
In what universe is adding more middle-men better for the consumer? Scalpers raise ticket prices without adding anything of value, except being able to buy tickets after an event has sold out. This isn't terribly bad so long as scalping is kept down to a minimum. But what if there were no rules in place to limit scalping? What's to stop someone from buying every single ticket, then selling them at double the price? How is that good for anyone?
You absolutely cannot stop people from reselling crap they buy, whether with licenses, contracts, or agreements.
That's not true, although that's also irrelevant, as Apple doesn't stop anyone from selling their iPad.
Linking to an ID thing just meant that you'd have to have multiple people buy the products for you.
Only if you're an opportunistic slime who wants to take an iPad out of the hands of honest people to later sell to them at a large mark-up. It makes your job harder (you'll get no sympathy from me), but it also limits you by your ability to gather up people to buy iPads and pay them to do so, increasing both effort and cost which will certainly diminish the amount of iPad scalping going on.
In either case, Apple's current two iPad limit overall helps the consumer.
BUT their reasoning makes zero sense. Forcing me to use a credit card instead of cash won't stop me from buying multiple iPads and then selling them to other people. I've got a $20,000 credit limit and could buy tons of them.
No, you can't. Apple uses your credit card to keep track of how many iPads you've bought.
Well, it's just the never-ending story of Apple wanting to control everything.
Never-ending myth, you mean.
Not only controlling all the applications
Apple doesn't control "all the applications".
and what you can do with the device
Nor do they control what you can do with the device.
In both cases, they only mark certain things as "off limits". This is no more controlling than saying the government controls what you can drive and where you can go, since they outlaw certain vehicles and some roads are toll roads, closed roads, or one-way streets.
but controlling if you are allowed sell your device too?
Apple controls this in no way whatsoever. You are 100% free to sell your iPad to whomever for for whatever price you wish.
Everyone always says Apple is not a monopoly
Because they are not.
but exactly how is this good for the market or people?
Since it's not true, it doesn't matter one way or the other.
You don't need to be a monopoly to abuse customers.
This is true, although irrelevant, as Apple aren't abusing their customers.
The policy was mean to discourage people from purchasing a lot of iPads and then reselling them for profit
What's wrong with that? Shouldn't a person be allowed to sell his device at the price he wants to?
Reading comprehension failure. aristotle-dude said "lots of iPads", not "his device". There's a difference.
Apple wants to get the iPad into people's hands as quickly as possible. By limiting the number of purchases to two, this helps prevent people from walking in and buying out the store (remember that bitch who bought the #1 spot in line in order to buy out the entire stock so she could resell them? How is that fair to the people behind her who waited hours?).
Honest people who want an iPad, who sign up on a waiting list don't deserve to be fucked over by opportunists. What's worse, they stand to be fucked over twice. Once by not being able to buy an iPad from Apple, and once again by having to resort to an iPad "scalper" with inflated prices.
But to answer your straw man, yes, a person is allowed to sell their device at any price they can get. Apple does nothing to prevent this. You are absolutely free to buy two iPads and sell them both.
Ermmm.. you don't know much about the Amiga technically then. The hack you're referring to is HAM mode [wikipedia.org] which was one of numerous graphics modes that the Amiga supported.
Yes, I know. I had one. Two, actually.
When I brought that up, I was referring to this:
Who cares about the PC - the Amiga had colour done right, right from the start.
(the clue here is that I quoted that right before I wrote what I did)
Natively on the 1985 Amiga 1000 was a 16 color true 640x400 mode (interlaced; half the 'Y' non-interlaced). This is from a palette of 4096 colors. This was no hack and didn't work at all like HAM.
Isn't "color done right".
So I'm not sure how Apple did it any more right than the Amiga here other than the video being upgradable with a card, but then again, we're talking two completely different architectures.
By not having a hack like HAM mode in the first place. Interestingly, this is a side effect of one of the things the Amiga did get right with regards to graphics, which is having the dedicated coppers.
Another thing the Amiga got right with regards to graphics, although in a more limited sense, is the direct compatibility with NTSC and PAL. This made the Amiga the PC for broadcast work.
What makes you think I get paid (that would be nice, although I have better things to do for paycheck), but the people who hate on Apple here don't? Or that I'm insecure about my purchases (on the contrary, I'm quite happy with my Apple products, you'd think that would be apparent), but those that go out of their way to put my choices down are not insecure about theirs (or perhaps just overly concerned about mine)?
Who cares about the PC - the Amiga had colour done right, right from the start.
No it didn't. It had this hack mode (that was really clever, but most definitely not "done right") where it would change the color pallate on every scan line to simulate higher color depth.
Similarly, I see that today you pretend the only mobile platforms are Apple and Android:
I don't pretend anything. I'm just using it as an example because it's Slashdot's new Linux.
How did Apple get these things "right", such that it was wrong on all other platforms?
I know you deliberately misunderstand the English language to put down Macs (and oddly play up the dead Amiga), but somehow I keep thinking that one day you'll come to your senses. I guess not.
"Done right" doesn't mean everything else is "done wrong". It means the same thing as "now that's how you do it!".
Their market is still miniscule. If the Islate or whatever it is sells better, I think the wall to wall constant media coverage and free advertising it's had for months, whilst other tablets were ignored, may have something to do with it.
People don't buy $499+ items just because they saw it on the news. That might get them into the stores to look at them, though. So, in a way you may be right. The media got people into the stores, but once there, the iPad sells itself.
Besides, it's not like media covered the iPad without reason, they know that people love Apple products, and that Apple has a way of making products that are head and shoulders above the competition, so they cover what's hot. They also cover things like he JooJoo tablet, but when it fizzles, there's no reason to continue coverage. If Apple weren't able to follow through on their products, the media would stop covering them as well.
Funny thing was, Macs had crappy resolution too. Eventually, Macs got color and then it was claimed they invented it. They also invented multi-monitor support even though PCs had that from day one. If there's anything Apple apologists are good at, it's revisionist history.
This is the thing that always throws PC weenies in a tizzy. The PC gets some feature first, but it's buggy, broadly incompatible, and just overall poor quality. PCs had "color", as in CGA. PCs had multiple monitor support, as in, if your program supported it, you could output something to a second monitor. When Macs got color, and when they got multiple monitor support, it was done extremely well. On a Mac, you want multi monitor support? Just plug in a second card and monitor. Done. It just works. On a PC, up until very recently, you want multi monitor support, you had to be wary of different cards and drivers, some of which worked with multiple cards, some which didn't. And before XP (where multi monitor was actually reasonably workable)? It was a headache, and that's even when it worked at its best.
So it's always like this, and always will be. Now it's cut and paste on the iPhone, or multitasking. Android gets it first, but Apple gets it right. Nobody ever really says Apple "invented" these things, just say Apple is the first (sometimes only) company to get it working for the non-geek.
Same thing with the iPad. There were touchscreen netbooks, and Windows stylus-based tablets. But their impact on the consumer market was minuscule because these things all sucked.
Hey Microsoft doesn't/didn't have monopoly either if you don't like how they do things get Linux hell that's even free or if your one of the people that compare value with cost get something made by Apple.
Linux has never been a viable alternative consumer OS (it has, and continues to be, a very viable alternative techie OS, and if Apple ever gets even 1% as "evil" as the insane among us here seem to think they are, I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat). In the 90s, MS did have a monopoly. You don't have to control 100% of something to be a monopoly.
I swear every time my wife and i get it on, the computer wakes up, brightly lighting the room
Well, maybe you'll think twice next time before stealing a Pennsylvanian school kid's MacBook!
You may not but most people do.
No they don't. Most home users do not need their home computers to run the few things which Windows is better at for work, which are mainly CAD, Exchange, Active Directory, and CRM. Most home users today primarily need Internet support, and Mac OS X is a first class citizen of the Internet.
iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, to name a few.
In other words, you want to read Apple stories with nothing but negative comments towards Apple. I like Apple's products, and the direction they are taking the state of the art in computing. If you think the fact that my words have annoyed you is going to change what I do with my spare time, you're in for a disappointment.
Wake me up when the corporate world abandons regular computers in favor of Apple's toys. But not before.
Why would I want a computer that the corporate world is enamored with? I'm a human, not a corporation.
I am free from programs that steal my private data on my PC if I choose to be.
Only if you're both capable and vigilant. Most people aren't able to really be safe from spyware.
I am free from programs that trash my battery on my PC if I choose to be.
Only by forgoing things like YouTube. Apple actually provides an alternative. Your "freedom" is based on abstinence.
I am free from porn on my PC, if I choose to be.
But your kids aren't.
Seriously, there is one fantastic quote here from Steve Jobs that he replied to someone who *dared* to criticize him:
what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?
What a complete asshole who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.
His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.
Of course this is Slashdot, the very definition of all talk and no action, so...
Well, it's from a person who said porn and sex is a bad thing.
Where did he ever say sex was bad?