Thanks to the hard work and vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has managed to evolve from a mere cult to a mainstream phenomenon. Fanboys, celebrities, politicians and geeks who adore their products have exalted the billion-dollar company to a technological pseudoreligion. A silent witness to Apple's magnificent ascent from failure to stardom has been Microsoft. Though Microsoft has been the traditional bad guy of the Silicon Valley, Apple has stealthily usurped that spot by its recent actions, most of which are a bit on the dark side. As a FOSS enthusiast I believe that Microsoft is overly competitive but so is Apple.
If you think that Apple is much less evil than Microsoft, read on as we give you 7 reasons that will make Redmond look slightly better than Cupertino.
1. Thou shalt not install any external apps
Apple has been busy building a walled garden with big white shiny walls. The Cupertino-based company makes sure that you buy or download apps only from their store and not from anywhere else. Yeah, we know there's an app for everything, but you can't get it if it's not sold by Apple.
2. Thou shalt not jailbreak
Jailbreaking is magic pill that helps you evade the claustrophobic App Store and lets you do everything you wanted to do with your phone. Despite the fact that jailbreaking is legal in many countries, Apple insists that doing so will only void your warranty. It's as if you can buy any device from Apple but you've to use it the way they tell you. So, play by Apple's rules or else...
3. Thou shalt not talk about Apple
Let's say you are a popular celebrity, and you point out some of iPhone's faults on national television, just to poke fun at Apple. Guess what, they don't like it; they'll call you up and ask you to apologize. The same thing happened with Ellen DeGeneres when she did a parody of an Apple ad on her show. Later, she got a phone from Apple accusing her of making the iPhone look hard to use. I hope they've heard of the term 'sense of humor'.
On another incident, Apple reproached someone for talking about one of the much-publicized features of the iPhone 4S. The guy who recorded the male voice of Siri got a phone call from Apple telling him not to talk about the recordings. I guess working for Apple must be like working for a secret government project where you have to be tight-lipped about everything that goes on in the facility.
4. Thou shalt not have the name Apple in your product
If you're a small-business owner and happen to have an apple – yep, it's also a fruit -- in your company's logo, Cupertino's coming at you. Recently, Apple threatened Apfelkind ( “apple child” in German), a family-run cafe in Bonn that has an Apple in its logo. The logo, which is quite different from Apple's own logo, has a child's face inside an apple. According to Apple, Apfelkind infringes on Apple Inc.'s trademark.
5. Thou shalt not find out flaws in our system
In the FOSS world, a developer who finds a security bug or a critical flaw is revered as a hero. In fact, Google even gave out prizes to users who found out critical flaws in their browser. In Apple's case however, finding a bug in the system means that you'll be disqualified as a developer.
6. We reserve the right to reject your app for any reason whatsoever
Apple seems to reject apps from their app store for the smallest of reasons. A Print to PDF app was removed from the store because it used AirPrint as a way to print documents to PDF. Moreover, Kindle, Sony and Kobo reader apps were removed too as they used an in-app payment system. While this doesn't affect big companies like Amazon, it does, however, make a hugely negative impact on the lives of thousands of independent developers who make a livelihood out of making these apps. This is also one of the reasons developers flocked to Android instead of iOS. Recently, fearing lawsuits, many app developers have started pulling their apps from Apple store as Google welcomes them with open arms.
7. We fire our employees for the smallest of reasons
A test engineer at Apple couldn't believe his bad luck when he was fired by the company for prematurely demoing a prototype of the iPad to Steve Wozniak. Wozniak, who happens to be one of Apple's founders, expressed his disappointment at Apple's behavior. The test engineer, however, still remains unemployed. On the other hand Gary Powell, who lost an iPhone prototype is still a proud Apple employee. Need I say more?
Would most people rather buy a FOSS ecosystem? They would but it's Apple that makes the computer they can use. It's Facebook that has created the social network the average person can use.
All I hear from FOSS is that these other Corporations are evil yet there's no FOSS alternative. If I want a macbook air type laptop I have to buy Apple. The average person can't use Ubuntu.
The average person wants to walk into a shiny Apple store and find a wonderland. So is it Apple that is evil or perhaps is it the consumers who shop Apple stores making them the most profitable stores per square inch of any retail establishment.
1) Apple has successfully implemented a seamless lifecycle comprised of its hardware, software, and services. Each of them are built for functionality with the other elements, they're made for each other. This is why people are always praising the way things work so seamlessly with each other with relatively little, if any, glitches. Open that market up and try to make your product more 'versatile' will only make room for incompatibility...less control, but more blame and liability.
2) Chastising a company for discouraging jailbreaking? Please show me a cell phone OS developer that encourages us to do so. Android, Windows, iOS; all of which require their users to jump through a considerable amount of fiery hopes to do so.
3) Blaming Apple for having a responsive and effective PR team? Like 99% of successful corporations out there? This point of yours is oozing of naivete.
4) Do yourself and search 'Apple Federal Credit Union' and think about rewriting this one.
5) Finding a bug in their system means you get disqualified as a developer, huh? That must mean that the folks at Apple are the luckiest sons of guns in the world, because if this were logically true, all of them get it right on their first tries. They must not have beta versions at Apple.
6) I doubt people are starving on the streets or going to sleep while trying to quiet the rumblings of their stomach, simply because Apple cancelled support for Airprint. Stop hyperbolizing.
7) I guess codes of employee conduct are to be used as toilet paper at corporations you've had experience with, because apparently you think they're just for jest and don't mean sh*t. When you work at a corporation that is defined by its groundbreaking products and the market anticipation that drives them, I'm betting that you wouldn't want some engineer out in the field parading it as a spectacle for everyone to see before it is fully finalized. If you seriously see that as a 'small reason,' then there are other issues you need to come to grips with in this world.
Luckily, Apple's days are counted. Watch out for Samsung, Google and Linux - and Motorola a.o. for mobiles. Better - even free! - choices abound already!
And to the person above who claimed ordinary people are unable to use Linux: How do you manage to start your browser?
Yes, please.
What utter drivel