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I didn't vote you down, but I'll comment on the issue. First: > Why? Why do all companies have to operate the way you want them to and why do you have to buy

by cryptoz 16y ago

I didn't vote you down, but I'll comment on the issue. First: > Why? Why do all companies have to operate the way you want them to and why do you have to buy their things? klochner never said companies "have" to operate a certain way. He just said that a company annoys him. That's all. He said nothing about how the company "should" or "must" operate. Just that the current model was annoying. Second: > I don't understand why people who don't buy Apple products complain about Apple. For the same reason that people who don't run Windows complain about Microsoft. Apple and Microsoft are defining forces in their industries. Even people who don't buy their products are massively affected by the actions of those companies. Examples: I don't own Windows or Office, so for years I could not reliably open .doc files. [1] Microsoft's proprietary file formats affect those who don't have enough money / don't wish to purchase their products. I don't own any iOS devices, but I am a software developer. If the future of computing moves to iPad-like devices (say, tablets, phones, whatever the future brings), Apple's closed model affects me greatly. I would be less capable of selling my own software due to their practices. Microsoft doesn't demand money from you if you want to develop for Windows. Apple does demand money from you if you want to develop for iOS (and seeing as iOS will soon - or already has - gained more users that OS X, I believe this is a fair comparison). This is not a good model for the future of computing, but it is the model Apple is using and they are a powerful force. So even though I do not own any Apple products, they are a dominating force in the industry and what they do matters to me. Edit: [1] I think that .doc is now an "open" standard, right? LibreOffice will probably eventually be fully compatible, but it's not ready yet.

bphogan 16y ago
Microsoft doesn't charge you to develop for their PCs and neither does Apple. However, if you'd like to develop for the XBox or the Windows 7 phone, you are under almost the same terms as Apple. This is something Apple pioneered, and you can bet other companies are going to want a slice of that sweet sweet revenue pie.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  > Microsoft doesn't charge you to develop for their PCs and neither does Apple. Yes I know, I tried to address that in my comment. I postulated that there are more iOS users than OS X users, just as there are more Windows users than XBox or WP7 users. For the purposes of my example, I picked the OS from each company with the greatest number of users. I definitely think my example is valid here, despite the differences between "PCs" and tablets, phones, whatever.
- micampe 16y ago
  > This is something Apple pioneered Not at all, ask any console game developer.
andolanra 16y ago
I think you're getting at the real objection a lot of people have to Apple, which is that they're such a big and powerful force in the market that their practices can make a particular strategy seem normal. While the reasoning behind keeping software ecosystems and physical hardware closed is actually good—keeping out the well-meaning but poorly-trained developers and amateur tinkerers who want to "repair" or "upgrade" your hardware, not to mention enforcing the consistent user experience as mentioned in the article—those practices also have other effects which are troubling in the long-term, which is what a lot of "techies" object to. I am not in Apple's market, so their practices don't affect me directly as a user. However, their practices do affect me in that having one of the largest, most successful companies in the world engage in what I see as problematic practices tells other companies that it's a good, or at least tenable, idea. In the future, a fledgling company could see a choice between the Pro-Consumer But Difficult path and the Closed Everything But Simple path, and think, "Well, Apple did it, so I guess if we do it, it's okay." And that's why I find Apple troubling.

by cryptoz 16y ago

bphogan 16y ago

Microsoft doesn't charge you to develop for their PCs and neither does Apple. However, if you'd like to develop for the XBox or the Windows 7 phone, you are under almost the same terms as Apple. This is something Apple pioneered, and you can bet other companies are going to want a slice of that sweet sweet revenue pie.

cryptoz 16y ago
> Microsoft doesn't charge you to develop for their PCs and neither does Apple. Yes I know, I tried to address that in my comment. I postulated that there are more iOS users than OS X users, just as there are more Windows users than XBox or WP7 users. For the purposes of my example, I picked the OS from each company with the greatest number of users. I definitely think my example is valid here, despite the differences between "PCs" and tablets, phones, whatever.
micampe 16y ago
> This is something Apple pioneered Not at all, ask any console game developer.

andolanra 16y ago

I think you're getting at the real objection a lot of people have to Apple, which is that they're such a big and powerful force in the market that their practices can make a particular strategy seem normal. While the reasoning behind keeping software ecosystems and physical hardware closed is actually good—keeping out the well-meaning but poorly-trained developers and amateur tinkerers who want to "repair" or "upgrade" your hardware, not to mention enforcing the consistent user experience as mentioned in the article—those practices also have other effects which are troubling in the long-term, which is what a lot of "techies" object to. I am not in Apple's market, so their practices don't affect me directly as a user. However, their practices do affect me in that having one of the largest, most successful companies in the world engage in what I see as problematic practices tells other companies that it's a good, or at least tenable, idea. In the future, a fledgling company could see a choice between the Pro-Consumer But Difficult path and the Closed Everything But Simple path, and think, "Well, Apple did it, so I guess if we do it, it's okay." And that's why I find Apple troubling.