2 ms·

upvoted because you're right, but still apple is evil and i don't like them, i don't know if their awesomeness comes from their evilness or despite it.

nickd 18y ago
Apple makes products, and runs their company like a company trying to maximize their profits. You either buy their products, or you don't. Until they start clubbing seals with iPhones or something, I don't see them as "evil", just a company with shareholders in mind. The word evil is starting to get thrown around a little to much these days. Maybe we should save it for when it truly applies.
- litewulf 18y ago
  To be fair though, Microsoft is pretty much the company people think of when you mention an evil corporation (in the tech world), and I think they are criticized for largely the same thing. Cohesive, all inclusive environments that provide everything they think you want. I think evil is bandied about as a proxy for "this corporation operates in a way detrimental to a world I would like to see", or something like that. In which case, I think the label is well deserved for both.
  - jonknee 18y ago
    They aren't considered evil for providing everything they think you want, they are considered evil for [formally] exploiting a monopoly.
    - unalone 18y ago
      I actually call them evil entirely because they seem not to understand what makes products good and consistent and usable, and yet they spend billions trying to improve their products. Their solutions are thoroughly unintuitive, I've found.
unalone 18y ago
It's not evil so much as it is closed-mindedness. And yes, that's what makes Apple so awesome. You can't be uncompromising in your feature set and design if you don't hold control over every small aspect of your software and hardware. Apple has decided that they know what's best for their operating system, and that other people aren't allowed to undermine them. It means that programmers have to conform and that hardware designers can't use Apple at all. The result is that users don't have many options, but that all their options are good ones; Apple employees are much better-suited to fixing computer problems than retail employees for other companies; and designers get to focus less on overall design and more on their features. It's a win-win-win. Say you get to install Apple on a virtual box on your computer. You lose the multitouch capacity, if you're using a laptop, because multitouch pads are rare outside of Apple notebooks. That means you're operating at a loss already, that Apple's system isn't working exactly how Apple wants it to. You also lose the preset keyboard controls for stopping and starting music, you lose keyboards that light up in the dark, you lose buttons for Expose and Dashboard and ejecting CDs. You lose the Command key. In other words, you're suddenly using an operating system that isn't operating at its full capacity. Apple doesn't want that: Steve Jobs is famously quoted as saying that he could make his computers cheaper, but only at the cost of quality and reputation, and that in his mind quality ought to be the top concern for getting a computer. Is that evil? Because I think it's highly principled. The loss is openness, and that's where you're getting "evil" from. (I'd assume.) The problem with open is that it's unfocused. You can't demand the same level of quality with open that you can with a closed, rigid system. And in my eyes, that's the evil route. The people who say they wish Microsoft and Apple would crumble and fall away because they charge money for their systems are people who're saying that they'd do away with an incredibly efficient system for the sake of something that's buggy and unstable, which is pretty smug and stupid in my opinion.
- litewulf 18y ago
  Translation: I like it when I am mistreated by Apple because I can believe it is part of some greater purpose. (I think this is a very meaningless argument. Some people care about one thing, other people care about other things. Products may be judged by different criteria by different people.)

nickd 18y ago

Apple makes products, and runs their company like a company trying to maximize their profits. You either buy their products, or you don't. Until they start clubbing seals with iPhones or something, I don't see them as "evil", just a company with shareholders in mind. The word evil is starting to get thrown around a little to much these days. Maybe we should save it for when it truly applies.

litewulf 18y ago
To be fair though, Microsoft is pretty much the company people think of when you mention an evil corporation (in the tech world), and I think they are criticized for largely the same thing. Cohesive, all inclusive environments that provide everything they think you want. I think evil is bandied about as a proxy for "this corporation operates in a way detrimental to a world I would like to see", or something like that. In which case, I think the label is well deserved for both.
- jonknee 18y ago
  They aren't considered evil for providing everything they think you want, they are considered evil for [formally] exploiting a monopoly.
  - unalone 18y ago
    I actually call them evil entirely because they seem not to understand what makes products good and consistent and usable, and yet they spend billions trying to improve their products. Their solutions are thoroughly unintuitive, I've found.

unalone 18y ago

It's not evil so much as it is closed-mindedness. And yes, that's what makes Apple so awesome. You can't be uncompromising in your feature set and design if you don't hold control over every small aspect of your software and hardware. Apple has decided that they know what's best for their operating system, and that other people aren't allowed to undermine them. It means that programmers have to conform and that hardware designers can't use Apple at all. The result is that users don't have many options, but that all their options are good ones; Apple employees are much better-suited to fixing computer problems than retail employees for other companies; and designers get to focus less on overall design and more on their features. It's a win-win-win. Say you get to install Apple on a virtual box on your computer. You lose the multitouch capacity, if you're using a laptop, because multitouch pads are rare outside of Apple notebooks. That means you're operating at a loss already, that Apple's system isn't working exactly how Apple wants it to. You also lose the preset keyboard controls for stopping and starting music, you lose keyboards that light up in the dark, you lose buttons for Expose and Dashboard and ejecting CDs. You lose the Command key. In other words, you're suddenly using an operating system that isn't operating at its full capacity. Apple doesn't want that: Steve Jobs is famously quoted as saying that he could make his computers cheaper, but only at the cost of quality and reputation, and that in his mind quality ought to be the top concern for getting a computer. Is that evil? Because I think it's highly principled. The loss is openness, and that's where you're getting "evil" from. (I'd assume.) The problem with open is that it's unfocused. You can't demand the same level of quality with open that you can with a closed, rigid system. And in my eyes, that's the evil route. The people who say they wish Microsoft and Apple would crumble and fall away because they charge money for their systems are people who're saying that they'd do away with an incredibly efficient system for the sake of something that's buggy and unstable, which is pretty smug and stupid in my opinion.

litewulf 18y ago
Translation: I like it when I am mistreated by Apple because I can believe it is part of some greater purpose. (I think this is a very meaningless argument. Some people care about one thing, other people care about other things. Products may be judged by different criteria by different people.)