3 tales of how a bit of success has made Apple evil–you be the judge
via MacMerc
Actually, in all honesty, Apple has never blindsided people when it comes to their technology. They release stuff with people fully aware what the limitations are (save for the iTunes part). The real issue for me is how Apple is losing its dedication to the people – which is one of the major reasons why they are still afloat despite a measly overall market-share.
As one article pointed out before – Apple supporters are loyal supporters. They may be a cultish lot, but hey, it works! This entails that [Apple] gaining market share is probably close to minimal (over time), but they sure aren’t losing any customers once they’ve gained them.
So the people aren’t going anywhere… despite what Apple has been doing. While true that Apple is “honest” with its customers most of the time, they tend to take advantage of the customers’ ignorance. They don’t read the fine print anyways, so might as well do this and that… charge em a hefty bill, and still come out looking good, and remaining honest”
The best part is that most customers still swallow everything Apple dishes out… hook, line, and sinker. But that’s not really my problem is it? It’s their money after all. If they want to spend hundreds (or even thousands) of pesos on a single sock, then so be it. I wont even attempt to discuss the Shuffle.
But back to the topic: … success has made Apple evil
The article mentions 3 issues, but I’d like to add some just for fun: the legal issues with those students, the legal issues with ThinkSecret et all. Ah yes, to sue your own avid supporters surely takes the cake!
How bout throwing in some Microsoft-esque parallelisms; does having a dismal market share compared to M$ exempt Apple from acting the same way? All this mention about The Applications Barrier to Entry aside, the whole monopoly issue, I believe, boiled down to new entrants not being able to compete on a keen level. iTunes seems to be closed as closed-technology can get. They also don’t seem to be licensing their DRM technology for other hardware players to join in on the scene. And when RealMedia started reverse-engineering their code, they got angry and shut them out. Mind you, the whole RealMedia thing was just so Harmony files can be played on iPods (and iTunes?) – in no way we’re they trying to destroy Apple’s precious DRM technology. After reading the Audion story, I’m inclined to believe that they don’t even provide technical information about the iPods so that 3rd party software developers can support them easily – not sure if that’s still the case though.
These are examples that Apple is clearly becoming the heartless money-making monster. I may not be getting the whole story right, but at first glance, I see no difference in Apple’s tactics as any other corporation (including M$) would be doing. And I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be acting this way. I’m just wondering why M$ was slapped with a court order when it was doing what any other business could possibly do to protect its “position.” Yes, it may have been unethical, but these things happen. And Apple’s doing it too, they have the right to do so after all… the thing is they were supposed to be different from the rest. Hell, their tagline says it all doesn’t it? Think Different was it? Sure, whatever.