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At the ~3 minute mark, Jobs says, "Apple and IBM emerge as the industry's strongest competitors. [...] It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be t

At the ~3 minute mark, Jobs says, "Apple and IBM emerge as the industry's strongest competitors. [...] It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope. Dealers initially welcoming to IBM now fear an IBM-dominated future. They're increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom." It's interesting how the future played out: users have rejected the notion that freedom is valuable. Perhaps something else was meant by "freedom" in those days, but it's hard to imagine something less free than the app store.

ekianjo 13y ago
"Freedom" is just a marketing element for Apple when they were still an underdog in the market. Jobs was never a real proponent of Freedom in computing anyway. The Mac had even its proprietary connectors at the time, and did not use any of the standards available. You were "free" to buy your peripherals only at official Mac resellers.
- sambeau 13y ago
  The Mini-DIN (the main connector on moist early Macs) wasn't proprietary. Isn't it still what PCs use to connect the mouse & keyboard? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DIN_connector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DIN_connector Even the 128k Mac had mostly standards-based connectors. Mouse port, 1 eight-bit keyboard bus, 300 baud, RJ11 connector for the Macintosh Keyboard. Two RS-232/RS-422 serial ports, 230.4K baud maximum, DB-9 connector, and sound port for external audio amplifier or headphones. http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/mac.html http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/mac.html
  - eurleif 13y ago
    The early Macs used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), which uses a 4-pin mini-DIN as its physical connector. PCs use PS/2, which uses a 6-pin mini-DIN. They're not compatible at all.
    - QSIITurbo 13y ago
      True, but DIN is about as standard as it gets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-din http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-din
      - eurleif 13y ago
        But DIN is just the physical connector.
        QSIITurbo 13y ago
        So what? Being a standard connector made it easy to repair the connector. What more would you want? Implement the ADB ASIC? Why on earth would you have done that instead of licensing from Apple?
        gumby 13y ago
        Because that's the whole point of an open protocol -- hackers can design new interfaces not imagined by the original designer. That's what API design is so important, and so difficult. By analogy the DIN connector is simply calling convention and ADB the actual function calls.
        QSIITurbo 13y ago
        I'm not sure I follow you. ADB was ahead of its time, and a precursor to USB, but nobody's claiming it was an open protocol. What was important from an electrical engineer's POV was that the connector could be replaced using off-the-shelf parts. That was because the connector was standard. If you wanted to develop for Apple, you had to own a company and strike a deal with Apple. Not so easy, but certainly possible. Now, if you just wanted to hack peripheral hardware at the time, you would have invested in a lot cheaper (expendable) computer with a standard serial / parallel port, so I don't really understand what you are saying.
  - gumby 13y ago
    > Even the 128k Mac had mostly standards-based connectors...DB-9 connector... By the way it's a DE-9 connector (a DB-9 would be huge with lots of empty space). I know many people say "DB-9" when they mean the smaller connector, but then again many people say "narrowband"as the opposite of "broadband" when they really mean "baseband" -- just trying to make up words to sound sophisticated. Yes, even Apple marketing...
    - Aloha 13y ago
      Because most people use broadband in a place where wideband should be used. In my little social circle - any discussion that becomes overly detail oriented (focusing on details over the core argument) has been dubbed a 'DE-9' discussion.
BadassFractal 13y ago
Pretty sharp remark, thanks for shining light on that.
millstone 13y ago
It's clear Steve meant "freedom" in the sense of freedom of choice. If the industry were dominated by a single vendor, you have no freedom - you have to buy what that vendor is selling. Steve got the story right, but the characters and timeline wrong. It wasn't IBM in the 80s, but Microsoft in the late 90s that threatened to dominate personal computing. I remember these as rather dark times. Microsoft engaged in shady practices like per-processor licensing, which required OEMs to pay Microsoft for every machine sold, even if it didn't have Windows installed. Upstarts like Be couldn't get any traction, even with their technically superior OS. It all culminated in the US vs. Microsoft antitrust trial (which ended up going nowhere). During this period, Apple was very much on the ropes ("beleaguered", they said), but Mac OS nevertheless remained a viable option for the average consumer - the only real alternative to Windows. In this way, Apple provided users with a mote of freedom.
- yuhong 13y ago
  My favorite is the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco, and keep in mind that OS/2 did not depend on DOS at all.
- danieldk 13y ago
  In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then it could be installed by a reasonably technical person. Which was not that much different than Windows 9x, given all the work that was usually required to install device drivers, etc. We also had some desktops with KDE and most students had no trouble doing their usual work (web browsing, text processing, e-mailing, etc.). I wonder if things improved that much. Yes, we now have Android and iOS, which have a limited scope (portable devices). But, on the desktop and laptop it's still Windows. Mac is only an option for the rich contingent of Western countries. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop has splintered into a market where there are no clear market leaders anymore - Red Hat abandoned the desktop, SUSE is not really visible anymore, and Canonical is working hard to get rid of its user community. That, plus a half a dozen desktops (GNOME, Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce). Frankly, it's a mess! However, what's perhaps more damaging is that 'the hope' is gone. There was a time where many people believed that the Linux desktop would eventually take over. Now nobody believes that there will ever be the year of Linux on the desktop and a large number of developers has left to OS X. The only spark of hope are web applications, since they are platform independent and there is usually some competition. However, you never purchase or own an actual license. So, the vendor could go bankrupt, cancel development, remove features that are crucial, etc. You can never make the decision to stick with an older version, since you don't own a license. Moreover, usually you get a backup of your data in any easy way, let alone convert your data to a web app of a competitor. tl;dr: mobile devices are not good computers yet, on general purpose machines one of the best competitors fragmented itself into oblivion, in platform-independent web apps you are dependent on the whims of the vendor and locked-in. To end on a positive note: at least Android is mostly open and captured most of the smartphone market and will do the same on tablets. It's really good to see the work of the Cyanogenmod community, etc. Edit: Downvoters: Is it because you believe that the Linux desktop hasn't fragmented? Do you disagree on the downsides of web applications?
interpol_p 13y ago
While I wouldn't suggest that the App Store is free, a lot of people take issue with it while ignoring many other similar stores. For example, the online shop on the PS3 or any game console is a similar environment, even Steam on the PC is similar. These types of curated software services for specific devices have been around for a long time. No one seemed to take issue with them until the App Store. Why is that?
- snom380 13y ago
  People took issue mainly because the App Store is the only way to get apps on iOS devices. And they took even more issue with the often random and vague rejections.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    My example of the PS3 was the same as iOS — Sony is the only way to get games on the PS3. People don't seem to have an issue with this like they have an issue with the App Store. In fact, the same thing applies to the NES. No one seemed to complain until it was the App Store. Why is the expectation different? I have mostly found the rejections I encountered from Apple to be good things (I've had about 8 - 10 app rejections over the years). They have always led to me improving the app for the customer (e.g., include battery warnings, make text more visible, ensure app complies with child privacy laws, don't include placeholder artwork, and so on). The App Store's curation is one of the things that increases its value. Even though developers hate it (and perhaps feel slightly disrespected by it?). I'd argue that its been a good thing.
- dantheman 13y ago
  Videogame consoles for the longest time have been a closed ecosystem. Steam is merely one way of adding computer games to a pc. For the iphone the appstore is the only way to add applications. No one would care if they allowed competing marketplaces.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Yes, but that was exactly my point. Video game consoles have been around for ages, are closed ecosystems, and no one minds. The App Store decides to do this for phones (which were at the time, pretty closed ecosystems anyway) and everyone gets upset. What is the difference?
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
That's really a definition problem. For most people I know outside of IT, the App Store is the magical wonderland that frees them to do things they previously could not - or even did not know was possible. By the time most people find what I find practically unfree (inability to access sandboxed data) they ignore it as just one of those things or try looking for another app. By the time a mass of people find this ethically unfree I suspect the App Store will simply have vanished in commercial swamps.
sambeau 13y ago
"it's hard to imagine something less free than the app store" I would argue that if you are not safe you are not free. The vast majority of App Store users are non-technical and therefore open to scams, viruses and malware. The walled garden may take some freedoms away from the highly-technical but it pays back freedom in spades to 'normal' people. (plus the highly technical can always choose to leave the walled garden if the want to either by jailbreaking or by buying an open device). We geeks have only ourselves to blame — if we won't police ourselves someone else will have to police us. We gave these freedoms away by using our talents to cheat and scam our customers. We're not the first to need it of course, if it wan't for Victorian scammers using suspect weights & measures and adulterating flour with dust and the like there's be no need for Trading Standards Officers. Trading Standards Officers give us all the freedom to buy food & drink safely and I don't believe anyone would truly see us return to a world without them.
- JackC 13y ago
  > I would argue that if you are not safe you are not free. The vast majority of App Store users are non-technical and therefore open to scams, viruses and malware. That would make great sense, if there was a way for technical users to opt out of the walled garden. But it's the very opposite -- Apple spends a lot of time and money making it harder to jailbreak the phone, in ways that have nothing to do with defending against malware. If they do their best to make it impossible to opt out, then it's not about protecting your safety. It's about protecting the business model. There's an argument for protecting the business model, of course -- making jailbreaking more difficult also makes piracy more difficult. The App Store has funneled a ton of money to developers, which in turn makes for better apps for everyone. But the notion that Apple has gone to absurd lengths to prevent jailbreaking because ... "We [developers] gave these freedoms away by using our talents to cheat and scam our customers"? No. That's not how freedom works. This is about money, plain and simple.
  - avar 13y ago
    To play devil's advocate, do you think in an alternative universe where Apple products have built-in easy to use native support for jailbreaking with the push of a button that some large malware outbreak that only affects those devices jailbroken devices won't be blamed on them anyway? Apple has other motivations to maintain their walled garden, but their goals of controlling the whole experience also extend to things like that. They want there to be no question that any Apple device is "safe", regardless of legitimate user configuration. And as long as users at large aren't demanding general purpose computers who can really blame them?
jsz0 13y ago
> Perhaps something else was meant by "freedom" in those days Yes it did. This 30 year old quote has nothing to do with the App Store policies. IBM had a significant presence in every single piece of information technology in those days. Mainframes, typewriters, satellite communication, telecom equipment, etc. When they failed to move quickly on micro-computers / personal computers there was a lot of hope that at least one other major player could rise up and challenge IBM's ability to totally dominate every part of information technology systems. After they finally released the IBM PC they started to attack companies like Compaq who were making IBM compatible computers. For a period in the early 80s it looked as though IBM was going to totally dominate everything For this quote to apply to Apple we have to invent an alternative reality. A reality where about 85-90% of all information technology in use today has some direct dependency on Apple software/technologies/hardware/services. They don't even have that type of dominance in mobile today much less the entire industry.

ekianjo 13y ago

"Freedom" is just a marketing element for Apple when they were still an underdog in the market. Jobs was never a real proponent of Freedom in computing anyway. The Mac had even its proprietary connectors at the time, and did not use any of the standards available. You were "free" to buy your peripherals only at official Mac resellers.

sambeau 13y ago
The Mini-DIN (the main connector on moist early Macs) wasn't proprietary. Isn't it still what PCs use to connect the mouse & keyboard? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DIN_connector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DIN_connector Even the 128k Mac had mostly standards-based connectors. Mouse port, 1 eight-bit keyboard bus, 300 baud, RJ11 connector for the Macintosh Keyboard. Two RS-232/RS-422 serial ports, 230.4K baud maximum, DB-9 connector, and sound port for external audio amplifier or headphones. http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/mac.html http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/mac.html
- eurleif 13y ago
  The early Macs used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), which uses a 4-pin mini-DIN as its physical connector. PCs use PS/2, which uses a 6-pin mini-DIN. They're not compatible at all.
  - QSIITurbo 13y ago
    True, but DIN is about as standard as it gets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-din http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-din
    - eurleif 13y ago
      But DIN is just the physical connector.
      - QSIITurbo 13y ago
        So what? Being a standard connector made it easy to repair the connector. What more would you want? Implement the ADB ASIC? Why on earth would you have done that instead of licensing from Apple?
        gumby 13y ago
        Because that's the whole point of an open protocol -- hackers can design new interfaces not imagined by the original designer. That's what API design is so important, and so difficult. By analogy the DIN connector is simply calling convention and ADB the actual function calls.
        QSIITurbo 13y ago
        I'm not sure I follow you. ADB was ahead of its time, and a precursor to USB, but nobody's claiming it was an open protocol. What was important from an electrical engineer's POV was that the connector could be replaced using off-the-shelf parts. That was because the connector was standard. If you wanted to develop for Apple, you had to own a company and strike a deal with Apple. Not so easy, but certainly possible. Now, if you just wanted to hack peripheral hardware at the time, you would have invested in a lot cheaper (expendable) computer with a standard serial / parallel port, so I don't really understand what you are saying.
- gumby 13y ago
  > Even the 128k Mac had mostly standards-based connectors...DB-9 connector... By the way it's a DE-9 connector (a DB-9 would be huge with lots of empty space). I know many people say "DB-9" when they mean the smaller connector, but then again many people say "narrowband"as the opposite of "broadband" when they really mean "baseband" -- just trying to make up words to sound sophisticated. Yes, even Apple marketing...
  - Aloha 13y ago
    Because most people use broadband in a place where wideband should be used. In my little social circle - any discussion that becomes overly detail oriented (focusing on details over the core argument) has been dubbed a 'DE-9' discussion.

BadassFractal 13y ago

Pretty sharp remark, thanks for shining light on that.

millstone 13y ago

It's clear Steve meant "freedom" in the sense of freedom of choice. If the industry were dominated by a single vendor, you have no freedom - you have to buy what that vendor is selling. Steve got the story right, but the characters and timeline wrong. It wasn't IBM in the 80s, but Microsoft in the late 90s that threatened to dominate personal computing. I remember these as rather dark times. Microsoft engaged in shady practices like per-processor licensing, which required OEMs to pay Microsoft for every machine sold, even if it didn't have Windows installed. Upstarts like Be couldn't get any traction, even with their technically superior OS. It all culminated in the US vs. Microsoft antitrust trial (which ended up going nowhere). During this period, Apple was very much on the ropes ("beleaguered", they said), but Mac OS nevertheless remained a viable option for the average consumer - the only real alternative to Windows. In this way, Apple provided users with a mote of freedom.

yuhong 13y ago
My favorite is the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco, and keep in mind that OS/2 did not depend on DOS at all.
danieldk 13y ago
In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then it could be installed by a reasonably technical person. Which was not that much different than Windows 9x, given all the work that was usually required to install device drivers, etc. We also had some desktops with KDE and most students had no trouble doing their usual work (web browsing, text processing, e-mailing, etc.). I wonder if things improved that much. Yes, we now have Android and iOS, which have a limited scope (portable devices). But, on the desktop and laptop it's still Windows. Mac is only an option for the rich contingent of Western countries. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop has splintered into a market where there are no clear market leaders anymore - Red Hat abandoned the desktop, SUSE is not really visible anymore, and Canonical is working hard to get rid of its user community. That, plus a half a dozen desktops (GNOME, Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce). Frankly, it's a mess! However, what's perhaps more damaging is that 'the hope' is gone. There was a time where many people believed that the Linux desktop would eventually take over. Now nobody believes that there will ever be the year of Linux on the desktop and a large number of developers has left to OS X. The only spark of hope are web applications, since they are platform independent and there is usually some competition. However, you never purchase or own an actual license. So, the vendor could go bankrupt, cancel development, remove features that are crucial, etc. You can never make the decision to stick with an older version, since you don't own a license. Moreover, usually you get a backup of your data in any easy way, let alone convert your data to a web app of a competitor. tl;dr: mobile devices are not good computers yet, on general purpose machines one of the best competitors fragmented itself into oblivion, in platform-independent web apps you are dependent on the whims of the vendor and locked-in. To end on a positive note: at least Android is mostly open and captured most of the smartphone market and will do the same on tablets. It's really good to see the work of the Cyanogenmod community, etc. Edit: Downvoters: Is it because you believe that the Linux desktop hasn't fragmented? Do you disagree on the downsides of web applications?

interpol_p 13y ago

While I wouldn't suggest that the App Store is free, a lot of people take issue with it while ignoring many other similar stores. For example, the online shop on the PS3 or any game console is a similar environment, even Steam on the PC is similar. These types of curated software services for specific devices have been around for a long time. No one seemed to take issue with them until the App Store. Why is that?

snom380 13y ago
People took issue mainly because the App Store is the only way to get apps on iOS devices. And they took even more issue with the often random and vague rejections.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  My example of the PS3 was the same as iOS — Sony is the only way to get games on the PS3. People don't seem to have an issue with this like they have an issue with the App Store. In fact, the same thing applies to the NES. No one seemed to complain until it was the App Store. Why is the expectation different? I have mostly found the rejections I encountered from Apple to be good things (I've had about 8 - 10 app rejections over the years). They have always led to me improving the app for the customer (e.g., include battery warnings, make text more visible, ensure app complies with child privacy laws, don't include placeholder artwork, and so on). The App Store's curation is one of the things that increases its value. Even though developers hate it (and perhaps feel slightly disrespected by it?). I'd argue that its been a good thing.
dantheman 13y ago
Videogame consoles for the longest time have been a closed ecosystem. Steam is merely one way of adding computer games to a pc. For the iphone the appstore is the only way to add applications. No one would care if they allowed competing marketplaces.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  Yes, but that was exactly my point. Video game consoles have been around for ages, are closed ecosystems, and no one minds. The App Store decides to do this for phones (which were at the time, pretty closed ecosystems anyway) and everyone gets upset. What is the difference?

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

That's really a definition problem. For most people I know outside of IT, the App Store is the magical wonderland that frees them to do things they previously could not - or even did not know was possible. By the time most people find what I find practically unfree (inability to access sandboxed data) they ignore it as just one of those things or try looking for another app. By the time a mass of people find this ethically unfree I suspect the App Store will simply have vanished in commercial swamps.

sambeau 13y ago

"it's hard to imagine something less free than the app store" I would argue that if you are not safe you are not free. The vast majority of App Store users are non-technical and therefore open to scams, viruses and malware. The walled garden may take some freedoms away from the highly-technical but it pays back freedom in spades to 'normal' people. (plus the highly technical can always choose to leave the walled garden if the want to either by jailbreaking or by buying an open device). We geeks have only ourselves to blame — if we won't police ourselves someone else will have to police us. We gave these freedoms away by using our talents to cheat and scam our customers. We're not the first to need it of course, if it wan't for Victorian scammers using suspect weights & measures and adulterating flour with dust and the like there's be no need for Trading Standards Officers. Trading Standards Officers give us all the freedom to buy food & drink safely and I don't believe anyone would truly see us return to a world without them.

JackC 13y ago
> I would argue that if you are not safe you are not free. The vast majority of App Store users are non-technical and therefore open to scams, viruses and malware. That would make great sense, if there was a way for technical users to opt out of the walled garden. But it's the very opposite -- Apple spends a lot of time and money making it harder to jailbreak the phone, in ways that have nothing to do with defending against malware. If they do their best to make it impossible to opt out, then it's not about protecting your safety. It's about protecting the business model. There's an argument for protecting the business model, of course -- making jailbreaking more difficult also makes piracy more difficult. The App Store has funneled a ton of money to developers, which in turn makes for better apps for everyone. But the notion that Apple has gone to absurd lengths to prevent jailbreaking because ... "We [developers] gave these freedoms away by using our talents to cheat and scam our customers"? No. That's not how freedom works. This is about money, plain and simple.
- avar 13y ago
  To play devil's advocate, do you think in an alternative universe where Apple products have built-in easy to use native support for jailbreaking with the push of a button that some large malware outbreak that only affects those devices jailbroken devices won't be blamed on them anyway? Apple has other motivations to maintain their walled garden, but their goals of controlling the whole experience also extend to things like that. They want there to be no question that any Apple device is "safe", regardless of legitimate user configuration. And as long as users at large aren't demanding general purpose computers who can really blame them?

jsz0 13y ago

> Perhaps something else was meant by "freedom" in those days Yes it did. This 30 year old quote has nothing to do with the App Store policies. IBM had a significant presence in every single piece of information technology in those days. Mainframes, typewriters, satellite communication, telecom equipment, etc. When they failed to move quickly on micro-computers / personal computers there was a lot of hope that at least one other major player could rise up and challenge IBM's ability to totally dominate every part of information technology systems. After they finally released the IBM PC they started to attack companies like Compaq who were making IBM compatible computers. For a period in the early 80s it looked as though IBM was going to totally dominate everything For this quote to apply to Apple we have to invent an alternative reality. A reality where about 85-90% of all information technology in use today has some direct dependency on Apple software/technologies/hardware/services. They don't even have that type of dominance in mobile today much less the entire industry.