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> The smartest thing Apple ever did was force you to but Apple kit to run Apple software. Smart? Nah that was just the common practice at the rise of the Mac.

> The smartest thing Apple ever did was force you to but Apple kit to run Apple software. Smart? Nah that was just the common practice at the rise of the Mac. IBM was somewhat insane for making such an open platform for anyone to play in. Yet, had they not done that we would not be having this discussion. DEC, Amiga, Osborne, the Java machine, etc. all were basically just locked up ecosystems based on proprietary software not built for tinkering.

harkinian 3y ago
And early 90s to mid 2000s was an era of especially standardized hardware. Every box was x86+RAM+mobo+HDD slapped together. With single CPU cores not getting much faster, hardware is becoming more specific again, making tight integration more advantageous.
- trelane 3y ago
  It still wasn't that great back then. Even APM was wonky. Even back then, there was a tonne of firmware, and bugs got worked around in (Windows-only) drivers and INF files. The amount of firmware has since exploded, and it's gotten much more complex to boot (pun intended.) I think that's more the problem than specialized hardware.