4 ms·

The problem is that they had a huge share of the market, and they abused that to keep other players out. With respect to computer manufacturers they had a vari

The problem is that they had a huge share of the market, and they abused that to keep other players out. With respect to computer manufacturers they had a variety of illegal practices which meant that it was difficult or impossible for them to sell other OSes. Since Apple doesn't sell its OS for generic PCs, the main player this hurt was Linux. From memory an example of this was that the OEMs had a huge discount on the 'face' price of Windows, but if they sold anything except Windows they couldn't get this special price, even for the Windows computers they did sell. Similarly they drove Netscape out of business by bundling Internet Explorer with their OS, and then later retrofitting the OS so that IE was baked into a bunch of things that it hadn't been baked into previously (such as Explorer), such that removing IE and replacing it with Netscape or $other_browser would actually break Windows. They didn't have to do that, and it didn't make any sense to do that, except for the express purpose of breaking Netscape. As for OS/2, allegedly Microsoft stole all the good technology to use in their own products, and then played silly buggers to the point where it was massively delayed. BeOS died an unnatural death, which is odd. Neal Stephenson has this interesting article about that. I'll link to the cliff notes in case you're in a hurry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Com... The thing that gets me about BeOS is everyone I personally know who used it raves about it... but when I go looking for old pictures of it, it is butt ugly. I mean truly hideous. Dos pre-windows 3.1 hideous. It is worse than 90s Linux is how bad it is. :D But hey, apparently it was the superior technology, and yet nobody would sell any PCs with it installed ... FOR SOME STRANGE REASON (cf above discussion on Microsoft's 'intimate' relationship with PC manufacturers)

halo 16y ago
Don't you think that the iPhone/iTunes/iTunes Store is engineered to keep other phone synchronisation software out?
- pohl 16y ago
  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=using+iphone+without+itunes http://lmgtfy.com/?q=using+iphone+without+itunes
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  Not especially. Syncing was a major pain in the butt for most devices back in the old days. I don't think that Apple were trying to establish a monopoly on synchronization software, I think they were just trying to make it easy and painless to use. Whether they succeeded or not is an exercise left to the reader. I think that some people just have this image of Steve Jobs as some bond style villain stroking his white cat and holding the world to ransom for one meeelion dollars /pinky in corner of mouth/ However, if you asked me whether their proprietary dock connectors were an abominable crime against humanity, you might get a different answer. :D
sudont 16y ago
Stephenson himself said that Mac OS X is the spiritual successor to BeOS, and would be described as such in any future revisions of the essay.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  Somebody did do a ten(?) year update to it with Stephenson's blessing, but from recollection I think they didn't really grok why OS X was so good. They also didn't write as well as Neal, but hey, that's not an especially exclusive group. http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html It is good and original, but the bits that are good are not original, and the bits that are original are not good. I recall reading it and thinking "he got that wrong, and that's wrong, and that's wrong, and all of that is wrong" all the way through. I think he was one of those pundits that fundamentally just doesn't understand why people like working with an OS like OS X, they think it is because of some superficial silly reason. Like "consumers like it because it is white and shiny" or "because the UI is pretty". No no no. A thousand times no. I and everyone I have talked to who uses both, prefer the Mac because Windows is like the death of a thousand papercuts. There is in general no one thing you can point to that is especially horrible (obvious exceptions: Win ME and early Vista and Win CE), but there are a million different things that all add up to an unpleasant experience. Disclaimer: I used Windows 7 on a decent spec machine recently and it was actually pretty good. But see the above quote about good and original. If Windows is going to end up just copying all the good bits from some other OS, why not switch to that OS now and get the benefits straight away rather than waiting 5-7 years?

halo 16y ago

Don't you think that the iPhone/iTunes/iTunes Store is engineered to keep other phone synchronisation software out?

pohl 16y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=using+iphone+without+itunes http://lmgtfy.com/?q=using+iphone+without+itunes
Stormbringer 16y ago
Not especially. Syncing was a major pain in the butt for most devices back in the old days. I don't think that Apple were trying to establish a monopoly on synchronization software, I think they were just trying to make it easy and painless to use. Whether they succeeded or not is an exercise left to the reader. I think that some people just have this image of Steve Jobs as some bond style villain stroking his white cat and holding the world to ransom for one meeelion dollars /pinky in corner of mouth/ However, if you asked me whether their proprietary dock connectors were an abominable crime against humanity, you might get a different answer. :D

sudont 16y ago

Stephenson himself said that Mac OS X is the spiritual successor to BeOS, and would be described as such in any future revisions of the essay.

Stormbringer 16y ago
Somebody did do a ten(?) year update to it with Stephenson's blessing, but from recollection I think they didn't really grok why OS X was so good. They also didn't write as well as Neal, but hey, that's not an especially exclusive group. http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html It is good and original, but the bits that are good are not original, and the bits that are original are not good. I recall reading it and thinking "he got that wrong, and that's wrong, and that's wrong, and all of that is wrong" all the way through. I think he was one of those pundits that fundamentally just doesn't understand why people like working with an OS like OS X, they think it is because of some superficial silly reason. Like "consumers like it because it is white and shiny" or "because the UI is pretty". No no no. A thousand times no. I and everyone I have talked to who uses both, prefer the Mac because Windows is like the death of a thousand papercuts. There is in general no one thing you can point to that is especially horrible (obvious exceptions: Win ME and early Vista and Win CE), but there are a million different things that all add up to an unpleasant experience. Disclaimer: I used Windows 7 on a decent spec machine recently and it was actually pretty good. But see the above quote about good and original. If Windows is going to end up just copying all the good bits from some other OS, why not switch to that OS now and get the benefits straight away rather than waiting 5-7 years?