Watching Apple win

It's articles like this that basically sum up perfectly why I refuse to discuss anything Apple with people.<p>Don't get me wrong, I like many of the products that Apple make (I'm currently typing this up with a MBP), however the personal connection that people have with Apple is not something I share.<p>For many people there exists a strange bond with Apple where they take any negative comment about one of their products or services as a personal affront against themselves.<p>It's a corporation folks, a wildly successful one, but that's it. It's not your buddy, your soulmate, nor your friend.

When Microsoft was dominant, it was eviscerated for the "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to protecting its monopoly.<p>Apple shows every indication of being a much worse monopolist than Microsoft ever was. Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform. They are also quite adept at "capturing the consumer surplus" using tiered pricing, etc., to maximize their profit.<p>The overreaching terms in developer agreements, very aggressive (and overreaching) patent lawsuits, and restrictive shrink-wrap licensing are all efforts to protect and extend their control.<p>TL;DR: Apple is not your friend.

Sometimes I see programmers, or people in the tech world in general, bash people who go crazy over sports teams. There will probably be more than a few condescending comments about the SuperBowl hype over the next two weeks. I see a post like this as no different. It's someone cheering for their favorite team.<p>I don't really care if people love a certain software/hardware product (even though its annoying when they bash other products to show that love). I just hate that this same community will bash sports fans for the same kind of devotion. For the most part both are harmless even though the devotion may be a little nutty.

&#62; <i>"When you hear regular people talk about how much they love their iPhone or iPad, it really hammers home what Apple has done not just for themselves but for anyone trying to create better products and hoping to win markets because of them."</i><p>As an app developer this rings true to me. Apple certainly has raised the bar, and public expectation, of end-user software. I think back to the late 90s (or even early 00s) and the shite software we'd all put up with, compared to great Android and iOS apps now...<p>It's gratifying for reality to finally match your values as a developer. I get a sick glee when I see WebView-wrapped apps on the App Store get absolutely eviscerated in its reviews and stumble out with a 1.5 star rating. I love that people not only appreciate beautiful design, now, but they practically <i>demand</i> it.<p>It's glorious.

A posting like this is (for me) absolutely a reason not to use any of the 37sig-products.<p>Seldom I have seen such a quasi-religious, non-critical hailing of an international cooperation.<p>Working-conditions in china? Who cares? Steve jobs takes over and kills the till then legitimately produced Mac-Clones, because they were technically superior (killing companies is not so good for US-jobs)? Who cares? Ripping of ideas from developers of Apps? Who cares? Well maybe fellow-developers should care.<p>It seems, that as long, as apple is able to whitewash itself in front of its fanboys the will sing in tune as one big choir and hail their spiritual leader Steve, come what may.

The thing is: Apple is not your friend. OK, maybe it is dhh's friend, but not Joe Average's friend. As such I just can't see any rational explanation for fawning over Apple. To me it is the equivalent to fawning over the billionaire who buys the playground I used to play in, tears it down and builds apartment buildings in it's place.<p>Yeah, it's cool that they are so successful, but the bottom line is that my playground is gone. Why should I consider that cool? It is their success, not my success. Or maybe they build a theme park in place of the playground and admit me to play there for a regular fee, if I stick to their rules.<p>Also, somehow I still don't believe that Apple will continue to be successful without Steve Jobs. Already I heard rumors that the iPad 3 will be thicker again, presumably because they need more LEDs to light the high resolution display. iBook Author doesn't seem to have made many friends, either.

To me watching Apple rake in so much cash just points to how disgusting their pettiness is. A company with almost $100 billion in the bank should not be crushing small publishers by demanding 30% of all their revenues which will add .001% to their bottom line, or suing all other phone manufacturers for some stupid UI element. The bigger their profit the more they come across as grossly petty and greedy.

"I’m just so proud of Apple that I’m willing to look foolish saying so."<p>Mission accomplished.

This is starting to feel like Microsoft in the 90s or IBM in the 80s. IBM brought a computer in every business. Microsoft took it from the server-room and put it on your desk. Apple took it from your desk and put it in your pocket. They are winning for now, but what goes up must come down.

As someone who used Windows all their life I can appreciate the unified hardware/software/simplicity model that Apple is offering and can easily see how why the average user would prefer it. After reading Steve Jobs biography I am baffled as to why Apple didn't succeed earlier (at the magnitude they are succeeding now). Were their earlier products really just "not there yet" or was it a marketing problem that got solved by the ipod introducing the Apple way to the masses?

The most heartwarming part is knowing how much wonderful charity work the most valuable and successful corporation in the world must be engaging in.<p>I mean, sure the old school giants like Exxon, Walmart, Microsoft, et al. give incredible sums of money to charities. Hell, even Goldman Sachs gave over $300 million in 2010. But just imagine how much money the Apple corporation must be contributing...

It's true, Apple computers are better than almost all of the competition in so many ways. However, as they become the dominant consumer computer manufacturer, I hope they continue to make smart and daring choices to stay ahead. I really like Apple's products, but I'm scared that their ingenuity was a product of being an underdog for so long; hopefully their newfound uber-success won't halt innovation.

More important is a battle of open vs closed, DRM and control encumbered vs free. Both MS and Apple are on the dark side of this, so watching the Apple win isn't something that society will benefit from.

Bad case of fan-boyism. Go see a doctor.<p>JFTR: I like many Apple products, but come on.

I've learned not to trust big corporate IT companies. Apple is one.<p>I've been through the IBM/Sun/Oracle era, the Microsoft era and am now living in the Apple era. It's like a perpetual screwing ground extracting cash however they can. The products look good but aren't and are primarily fad based. It's the same tactics but different medium.<p>The only constant good, trouble free, ground levelling force has been Linux so far which solves problems and gets out of the way.

Its interesting that he wrote this post praising Apple, but seems to have missed completely what Apple's guiding principle is.<p>In fact, Apple's guiding principle is almost a secret to hear the way many people talk about them, but it shouldn't be.<p>Apple's guiding principle is to do right by the customer. That's it.<p>For instance: "Apple seeks to control the whole stack and eliminate competition at every layer - from controlling the apps that can be installed, to restricting expansion and peripherals, to controlling the tools used to develop for the platform."<p>If you want to see Apple as evil, its very easy to interpret them doing right by the customer as somehow having nefarious intent.<p>They want to control what apps can be installed simply to keep out malware and porn, so that they can do right by their customers who don't want malware and the parents who don't want porn apps. (They leave Safari open and give it effectively native app capabilities, for people who want to deliver porn. They even do right by that customer, though its a shame that so few people make use of this completely open and unregulated way to install apps on iOS devices. In fact, many people don't seem to know that you can have apps written in javascript, download them from the web, save them on the device and run them offline.)<p>Apple doesn't want to restrict expansion and peripherals. Far from it. For iOS devices they've created an API and a completely reasonable licensing agreement so that you can make your peripherals for iOS to do just about anything you want-- except harm the device. Again, they do right by the customer by having a very vibrant and active peripheral and accessory market-- which they do, and its quite massive-- and they do right by the customer by ensuring these devices work together. Its the same as WiFi or any other branded protocol with a licensing scheme that requires interoperability.<p>As for "controlling the tools used to develop for their platform", that one simply isn't true. Unity Technologies makes a development tool to build 3D games for the platform. Coronoa makes a flash like platform to develop apps for iOS. In both cases, these third party products simply use Xcode for the code signing or compilation steps. I don't see Apple stopping anyone from making tools to develop for their platform, and I certainly can't fault Apple for providing free tools to develop for their platform.<p>Of course, when you're large and successful, you'll naturally attract people who don't like you for whatever reason.<p>But, by definition, doing right by your customer means putting the customer first. That doesn't mean compromising that principle in order to comply with the beliefs of non-customers. This is why Apple doesn't ship Windows as their core operating system, for instance. Apple chose to ship an operating system that is better for their customers, to the continued derision of non-customers who claim that Windows is the industry standard (not, notably, that it is actually better.)<p>It is gratifying to see a company win in the marketplace by sticking to a principle like this.