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What I really meant by Freedom is the ability to do whatever I want with the products I use but especially those I have to pay money for. If I buy a product, wh

What I really meant by Freedom is the ability to do whatever I want with the products I use but especially those I have to pay money for. If I buy a product, what right does the company that built the product have to dictate how I can use it? So included in that is the ability to mix and match devices. Now I'm not saying that Apple, or anyone else for that matter, has an obligation to support every possible combination in the universe, but by using well-documented, open standards for connecting devices and what naught, they make their device much more attractive. By inventing their own and keeping it closed, they force reverse-engineering and, as a result, cause frustration when they make breaking changes. While a company is, as I said, under no obligation to play nice in this way, I'm also under no obligation to buy their products. In theory "market forces" would solve this problem as the closed products would die. Eventually this may happen but, unfortunately, Openness and Freedom aren't valued by most people.

philwelch 17y ago
You have the freedom to do whatever you wish with Apple's products, of course--but Apple has the freedom to design them however they wish. When you say "freedom", you mean "compelling Apple to make the design decisions you want". What I want as a creator is the freedom to design and build things the way I want to, and what I want as a customer is the freedom to buy and use products that are built from any number of design philosophies. If your design philosophy is so much better, let's see a combination of products built by that philosophy by as many vendors as you'd like that I'd prefer to my MacBook and iPhone. As it stands, Apple's design philosophy has made available to me a better product than I'd be able to buy otherwise. I'm not going to complain. They seem to know what they're doing better than their competitors, and I'm not fucking with that based on some damned ideology. Whether you brand that ideology with the name "Freedom" or "Puppies and Rainbows" or even "Eternal Bliss", it's just demagoguery.

philwelch 17y ago

You have the freedom to do whatever you wish with Apple's products, of course--but Apple has the freedom to design them however they wish. When you say "freedom", you mean "compelling Apple to make the design decisions you want". What I want as a creator is the freedom to design and build things the way I want to, and what I want as a customer is the freedom to buy and use products that are built from any number of design philosophies. If your design philosophy is so much better, let's see a combination of products built by that philosophy by as many vendors as you'd like that I'd prefer to my MacBook and iPhone. As it stands, Apple's design philosophy has made available to me a better product than I'd be able to buy otherwise. I'm not going to complain. They seem to know what they're doing better than their competitors, and I'm not fucking with that based on some damned ideology. Whether you brand that ideology with the name "Freedom" or "Puppies and Rainbows" or even "Eternal Bliss", it's just demagoguery.