6 ms·

They sure are getting harder and harder to defend in this whole debacle.

• dfranke 18y ago
  No kidding. In the past ~1 year, between Microsoft and Apple, Microsoft has been on significantly better behavior.
  • mattmaroon 18y ago
    It's been a lot more than 1 year. It began with the iPod DRM. It's just been smacking everyone in the face for that long.
    • unalone 18y ago
      Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies. And they've been slowly reducing the DRM thanks to iTunes Plus. A few more of my albums converted themselves today, and they sound a bit better too. This behavior is inexplicable, though. I can't recall Apple doing something so bullheaded in quite a little while.
      • natrius 18y ago
        "Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies." True and false. Apple needed some sort of DRM. However, they didn't have to refuse to license their DRM. They had a competitive advantage and they leveraged it in a consumer-unfriendly manner. It's what they do now.
        • unalone 18y ago
          What did their refusing to license their DRM have to do with impacting the customers? I'm not being sarcastic: I don't quite understand what effect that had on users.
          • dfranke 18y ago
            It makes it impossible to legally play Fairplay-encrypted files on non-Apple devices.
            • orib 18y ago
              It also makes it impossible to DRM non-Apple provided files on Apple devices. As much as I'd like to see DRM go away, if it has to exist, there had better be one spec that lets me buy from any store to play on any device.
            • axod 18y ago
              Until you've burnt it to a cd and ripped it again :/
        • axod 18y ago
          How many people actually use DRM on the iPod/iPhone? I'd say a negligible amount.
          • mattmaroon 18y ago
            What percentage of people buy songs from iTunes? Probably more than half. Certainly not a negligible amount.
            • axod 18y ago
              I think we're both taking this to extremes now :) Maybe 10-20% I'll give you that.
              • mattmaroon 18y ago
                You think that only 10-20% of all iPod users buy tracks from iTunes? I don't think that would be enough to make it the #1 music store. I have no actual data to back that up though.
                • axod 18y ago
                  Just anecdotal evidence - I know a lot of people with iPods, but not many who buy any music from iTunes. Also, being the #1 music store is still not saying an awful lot compared with other sources of getting music. Do you think more people use the store than already own CDs? or download music from p2p?
    • abl 18y ago
      It seems like it was such from the very start. Apple had many restrictions on third party apps for the early Mac, meanwhile Microsoft embraced developers, and with the likes of AmiPro, Windows 3.1 flourished. I believe this is one of the major reasons why the Mac lost market share. Although probably better positioned than before, Apple may be making the same mistake.
  • SCVirus 18y ago
    All companies begin to act evil after they have a certain amount of control. No exceptions, some are just slower or have greater thresholds then others (google).
• mechanical_fish 18y ago
  If I were a soulless lawyer, I might point out that this position is entirely consistent with Apple's strategy of disallowing apps that are similar to Apple's own apps. Inevitably, some of Apple's apps have been written but aren't yet released to the public. If Apple is planning to release, say, an official accounting app for the phone, they not only have an incentive to stifle your accounting app for the phone, but they also have an incentive to avoid tipping off the market too early by publicly rejecting your accounting app for the phone. Fortunately, I'm not a soulless lawyer, so I'm also free to point out that this argument isn't so much a defense as an explanation, to opine that this sucks, and to observe that Apple's control-freak nature has now officially gone overboard. Of course, Microsoft acted like this for years, and it didn't hurt them much, so I guess it's not surprising that a company would try it again...
  • mattmaroon 18y ago
    Microsoft didn't act like this at all. If they had, Windows would never have reached the market share it has today. You don't have to ask Microsoft for permission to develop an app for Windows. You don't have to pay them to do so or sign an NDA. They don't have a kill switch to remove it. They may include a free competitor in the next OS, and you can argue that that is an unfair abuse of a monopoly, but they at least allowed you to try. And Firefox's immense success shows that if your product provides enough value, you can still compete.
    • mechanical_fish 18y ago
      Not only has Microsoft acted like this, they're doing it right now. From the Wikipedia page for "XBox Development Kit": Only developers that are licensed by Microsoft may compile code and release binaries (.XBEs)of their software with the XDK, any software released using the XDK by developers that aren't licensed is illegal. Nintendo and Sony do this as well, yes? There's nothing particularly unusual about this model, alas. Yeah, Microsoft never did this for Windows. I believe that much is true. Perhaps it's a testimony to the enduring influence of the early PC hackers, like Wozniak and the Homebrew Computer Club guys, that I don't think anybody ever really tried this trick in the PC industry. Though I'm probably forgetting several examples because they're, um, so forgettable. I'm pretty sure that old mainframe hands would recognize this game, though.
• orib 18y ago
  They haven't been very easy to defend for about 4 or so years now. I've been saying that although Apple's products are technically nicer than Microsoft's at the moment, I'd rather see MS in a position of dominance than Apple, just based on the way that the companies have been behaving in relatively recent history.