4 ms·

It looks like every day that passes, Apple is trying to really demonstrate they're the new Microsoft.

CoryMathews 17y ago
And every day that passes I hate apple more and more..
el_dot 17y ago
"We're the largest mobile device company in the world. Larger than Sony, bigger than Samsung. And by revenue... even bigger than Nokia." - Steve Jobs when introducing the iPad. It looks like they are satisfied with what they've done, now they're just counting their chips. They are one of the big boys, the fat cats. Apple, as we used to know it, is dead.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Essentially they can no longer really grow by just innovation and competing better in other people's space, so they've gone 180 and are now trying to block everyone else from innovating and competing better than them.
  - elai 17y ago
    apple is still a small part of the smartphone market.
GHFigs 17y ago
Could you relate that claim to the submission at hand?
- johns 17y ago
  Leveraging a dominant market position to stifle competitors perhaps?
  - tvon 17y ago
    Or to give an example, lets say Sears has been given a week of exclusivity for new Lego products and in exchange Sears will feature that product in a prominent display in stores (or online, whatever). In response, Walmart, the biggest distributor of Lego products in this scenario, threatens to stop selling Lego products if Lego doesn't break off the deal with Sears. Or something along those lines...
3dFlatLander 17y ago
Tech companies pushing to the top in an economy filled with unscrupulous companies, only to end up becoming what they were fighting. It seems so cyclical from this simplified view.
sern 17y ago
Steve Jobs is just going senile
tvon 17y ago
Maybe I just remember it differently because at the time I was using Linux and always looking for ways to deal with everyone else who used Office and/or Exchange, but IMO the "New Apple == Old Microsoft" comparison is way off base. Apple is easy to avoid, trivial even, you can buy one of many other music players, buy other phones and use other media managers. You don't need to use any Apple product unless you opt-in to their system (buying a device) and even if you do opt-in, if you buy DRM-free tracks (which Apple pushed for, btw) you can leave iTunes any time you want if you buy a non-Apple device (the only exception being video which is still DRM-laden AFAIK). Old Microsoft was impossible to avoid because government and businesses opted you in, and you couldn't opt-out no matter how hard you tried if you wanted to interact with those systems. Word documents were difficult or impossible to reverse engineer and MS did what it could to prevent any advancement in that area, and Exchange was nearly impossible to interface with (it's still problematic) if you weren't using Outlook. I mean, it's not like government and businesses are using iTunes and thereby forcing people to buy Apple products to interact with the corporate iTunes system (as was the case with old Microsoft, Exchange and Office). Besides, Apple is certainly behaving badly, granted, but in this case they aren't even pressuring the labels to stop doing business with Amazon, they're pressuring them to stop giving Amazon a day of exclusivity. The Old Microsoft way was to threaten to cut off vendors just for competing, not for giving a competitor an advantage.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  they're pressuring them to stop giving Amazon a day of exclusivity Moreover they aren't even threatening to stop selling their product (as Amazon did with Macmillan's books), but to "[withdraw] marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals". i.e. "If you use their promotion, you won't get ours." The idea that the labels don't like this is not surprising, because the labels love getting favors from everybody. What is surprising is that so many comments here seem to be in favor of the labels' interests.
- JamieEi 17y ago
  > The Old Microsoft way was to threaten to cut off vendors just for competing, not for giving a competitor an advantage. What specific incident(s) are you referring to? The closest thing I can think of is threatening to witholding volume discounts based on vendor behavior. As I understand it this practice is only illegal because the dominant market position of Windows and Office makes MS (retroactively) a monopoly. If a small startup did the same thing that would be fine both legally and (IMO) morally. I don't know of any cases where a vendor was threatened with not being able to sell Windows or Office (i.e., "cut off"), however.

And every day that passes I hate apple more and more..

"We're the largest mobile device company in the world. Larger than Sony, bigger than Samsung. And by revenue... even bigger than Nokia." - Steve Jobs when introducing the iPad. It looks like they are satisfied with what they've done, now they're just counting their chips. They are one of the big boys, the fat cats. Apple, as we used to know it, is dead.

electromagnetic 17y ago
Essentially they can no longer really grow by just innovation and competing better in other people's space, so they've gone 180 and are now trying to block everyone else from innovating and competing better than them.
- elai 17y ago
  apple is still a small part of the smartphone market.

GHFigs 17y ago

Could you relate that claim to the submission at hand?

johns 17y ago
Leveraging a dominant market position to stifle competitors perhaps?
- tvon 17y ago
  Or to give an example, lets say Sears has been given a week of exclusivity for new Lego products and in exchange Sears will feature that product in a prominent display in stores (or online, whatever). In response, Walmart, the biggest distributor of Lego products in this scenario, threatens to stop selling Lego products if Lego doesn't break off the deal with Sears. Or something along those lines...

3dFlatLander 17y ago

Tech companies pushing to the top in an economy filled with unscrupulous companies, only to end up becoming what they were fighting. It seems so cyclical from this simplified view.

sern 17y ago

Steve Jobs is just going senile

tvon 17y ago

Maybe I just remember it differently because at the time I was using Linux and always looking for ways to deal with everyone else who used Office and/or Exchange, but IMO the "New Apple == Old Microsoft" comparison is way off base. Apple is easy to avoid, trivial even, you can buy one of many other music players, buy other phones and use other media managers. You don't need to use any Apple product unless you opt-in to their system (buying a device) and even if you do opt-in, if you buy DRM-free tracks (which Apple pushed for, btw) you can leave iTunes any time you want if you buy a non-Apple device (the only exception being video which is still DRM-laden AFAIK). Old Microsoft was impossible to avoid because government and businesses opted you in, and you couldn't opt-out no matter how hard you tried if you wanted to interact with those systems. Word documents were difficult or impossible to reverse engineer and MS did what it could to prevent any advancement in that area, and Exchange was nearly impossible to interface with (it's still problematic) if you weren't using Outlook. I mean, it's not like government and businesses are using iTunes and thereby forcing people to buy Apple products to interact with the corporate iTunes system (as was the case with old Microsoft, Exchange and Office). Besides, Apple is certainly behaving badly, granted, but in this case they aren't even pressuring the labels to stop doing business with Amazon, they're pressuring them to stop giving Amazon a day of exclusivity. The Old Microsoft way was to threaten to cut off vendors just for competing, not for giving a competitor an advantage.

GHFigs 17y ago
they're pressuring them to stop giving Amazon a day of exclusivity Moreover they aren't even threatening to stop selling their product (as Amazon did with Macmillan's books), but to "[withdraw] marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals". i.e. "If you use their promotion, you won't get ours." The idea that the labels don't like this is not surprising, because the labels love getting favors from everybody. What is surprising is that so many comments here seem to be in favor of the labels' interests.
JamieEi 17y ago
> The Old Microsoft way was to threaten to cut off vendors just for competing, not for giving a competitor an advantage. What specific incident(s) are you referring to? The closest thing I can think of is threatening to witholding volume discounts based on vendor behavior. As I understand it this practice is only illegal because the dominant market position of Windows and Office makes MS (retroactively) a monopoly. If a small startup did the same thing that would be fine both legally and (IMO) morally. I don't know of any cases where a vendor was threatened with not being able to sell Windows or Office (i.e., "cut off"), however.