Not so!
In fact, this particular posting was inspired by a couple of articles over at PhoneDog, a dedicated Apple Fan-Boy web-site if I ever saw one. The first was Are Apple's app policies keeping you away?, and the second one was Is Apple their own biggest obstacle? .
And that got me thinking. . . . Why is it that Apple products set my teeth on edge? A fair question. If I can stir up World War III with my last post, I don't think a little self-reflection is out of place.
So, why does Apple raise my ire?
That's an excellent question, especially as I remember the original, original Mac - a small box about the size of a four-cup coffee maker, a tiny black-and-white screen, and massive amounts of storage supplied by one, count 'em, ONE 400k* hard-floppy. When I saw that, I was ready to pin a Hot Smokin' Weapon!© award on it right then and there, as the whole mouse-and-desktop paradigm just blew me away. When I found out that the little beastie went for more than three thousand smackers, cold cash, I decided to put the award back in my pocket. Though I was still impressed out of my socks.
* Correction:
My friend Julie, who is one of the best Mac experts, (and historians!), I know, corrected my statement about the disk-size on the original, original Mac. I had originally said that it was a 1.44 meg floppy.
One small correction... the original Mac had a single 400k floppy disk, not the 1.4k. That came much later.Thanks!
Of course, they had dedicated software that ran on their dedicated - and oh so proprietary - hardware, but hey!, who else can do what they do? The PC's of that era? Fuggeddaboutit! I couldn't even do that on my eight-bit Atari. . . . Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had put together something that was a real game-changer, and the game changed overnight.
People had seen what the Apple could do, and were designing their own "desktop" type operating systems.
Instead of keeping the heat on by pushing the envelope, they started suing everyone and their kid brother with (IMHO) bogus "look-and-feel" lawsuits. It seemed that no one was immune to their iron fist. In fact, a small company named Digiac - they made "educational" computers for schools who wanted to teach computer classes - felt the hammer of their fist. And what was the heinous crime they committed? Their logo, (which pre-dated Apple's logo), was a red apple with a bite out of it, showing a small crescent of white. As in "an apple for the teacher", kind of apple. So, Apple took them to the cleaners and they fell out of sight soon thereafter.
Even though, (IMHO), their claim was absolutely without merit, if for no other reason than "prior art", Apple had deeper pockets than Digiac, so they got swamped.
And. . . . Digiac wasn't the only company that was capsized by Apple's sue-mania of that time.
If there's one thing that burns my biscuits, it's a bully.
Then came the "We're so much better than everyone else" attitude.
Fair is fair, and before I really jumped into the PC-type market, I looked at all the contenders. Based on what I saw, there were only two real contenders in that market: the IBM PC and it's clones, and the Apple products.
And to be perfectly honest, I really looked at what Apple had, especially since they had - single handedly - turned the entire personal computer market on its ear. IMHO, anyone who can do that deserves a lot of respect, so I paid serious attention to what Apple said, and what they had to offer
I, eventually, decided on the IBM architecture because you could mess with it if you wanted to. If you wanted to change it around so that it would do what YOU wanted it to do instead of what IT wanted you to do, you could do it. Commonly available parts would fit, so you could get reasonable prices. You want to upgrade something? It was out there, and the price was right.
Apple on the other hand was so proprietary that if you just wanted to replace a floppy drive, you had to order it direct from Apple - or one of their "Authorized Distributors" at a considerably advanced price. Upgrades for the system, if they even existed, were by the grace of Apple.
I decided to embrace flexibility and extensibility in favor of what Apple offered - even though obviously superior at that point in time - as I did not want to get locked into one platform with one static design.
Not only that, but the more snooty and sue-everyone happy Apple became, the further and further it pushed me into the PC camp.
So, why do I believe that Apple may well be their own worst enemy?
They have become so wrapped up in themselves that they've been ignoring the realities of the market. Their whole "It Just Works!" slogan isn't worth a damn nowadays as pretty much everything "just works".
I've seen both the newer Windows desktops and the newer Apple desktops - and wadda 'ya know, there isn't that much difference anymore. Nowadays not only is there no real difference - in both quality as well as features - between Apple and Windows, there really isn't that much difference between Apple and Linux either.
In fact, if I were a total newcomer to the computer market - I would probably still pick Windows over Apple. It "just works", and it "just works" with just about every app on the planet. Not to mention PC's that can do everything Apple's systems can do - and more besides - are cheaper than their Apple counterparts in many cases. (Though, to be perfectly fair, I've seen some Apple systems at Micro Center that are actually priced within reach of Mere Mortals.)
Not only that, but with Windows 7, Microsoft actually has an O/S that kicks some serious butt. Apple has the eye-candy, and Apple has the fan-boys, but if you really don't care about the hoopla, and want something that "just works" - and has a pretty darn good desktop, eye-candy and all, Windows 7 is your man.
Apple really hit "pay dirt" with the iPhone, and like their original desktop paradigm, the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market, and again the game changed overnight.
Now, companies like Samsung, LG, Nokia, and Motorola have taken what Apple has done, and pushed the envelope beyond what Apple's phones are capable of. This has progressed to the point that even Steve Wozniak has said that Apple is, (ahem!), "somewhat behind". (Can you say "understatement"? Ahhh! I knew you could!)
So, what does Apple do? Do they pull out all the stops on Engineering, R&D, and upgrading the user interface to make another game-changing product?
Nope.
They fall right back into their "sue-everyone" rut again. Apparently the slogan over there at Apple's corporate headquarters is "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em!"
And they wonder why fan-boy sites like PhoneDog are asking if Apple is their own biggest obstacle.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Hello Jim,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, let me point out that my only experience with Apple anything was fleeting, and in the past. But, I'm surrounded by those who, because of the special interests and professions with which they're involved,still believe that their machines are simpler to understand and use than anything in the PC world. I have a hard time convincing them otherwise. There are, in the case of music creation, editing, and/or notation, so many PC applications that meet or exceed what runs on an Apple that the only exception I can find is one DAW that seems to remain an industry standard and is still exclusively Apple.
Sometimes it's the application you "grew up with" that influences the platform on which you prefer to work. My first midi sequencer was Cakewalk, which evolved into the Sonar DAW over several evolutionary steps, and it's still what I use now. Changes to the user interface have been in such small steps, that it still feels like old home week.
Now, about Apple taking the legal route to kill its competition, I have made this observation:
There was a time when Apple, Microsoft, etc., could show that they actually owned patents, copyrights, etc. that predated that of the competition. But as things turn out, most major companies have, by now, pretty good ideas about what the public wants to see in features, GUIs, etc., and it has become more and more possible that two companies will simultaneously come up with just slightly different ways of doing the same thing. That makes going into court to knock one's competition out of the market for that particular device, or piece of software, something of a crap-shoot. Likewise, there was a time when a jury's role was to decide which party had the better lawyer, which sometimes meant who could afford the better lawyer. In the case of large corporations, that's not as prevalent as it once was. In the case of small companies, the solution to a patent dispute is often that the large company becomes a licensee or just buys out the smaller one. So, maybe it's time for Apple to take a different approach in the "we'll sue you" area, because their chances of winning are diminishing.
Take care.
Alan
BTW its 400K (a format variation of the 360K drive) and then 1.4 Meg not 1.4k....
ReplyDeleteAs far as the differences I have seen, since I do own an Apple lampshade, it is a bit easier to use mainly because of its consistancy in the interface. . but my unit has fallen behind the times since it has a non-intel processor., throwing my machine a few OS steps behind the current OS X level because of it. I was able to get this unit for some 250.00 dollars, a far cry from the 1200+ that is went for when new..
Having opened up the 1st generation Ipod to attempt a repair. I am far from impressed. It was a sloppy constructed mess inside that had oddly created (modified?) components...
Having seen this I have not jumped upon the apple bandwagon because of design/price points.
TechT,
Delete*I* said "1.44 meg". . . What others say, well. . .
I have an iBook (laptop) that is also a few steps back from the Bleeding Edge, being a PPC-3 processor. Like I said above, it hit it's peak with Tiger.
Though, for what I need, it works just fine since 99.9999% of my clients use Windows based machines. I've really only had one client who wanted to VPN into a Windows network with a Mac - and I was able to find and test a solution with the iBook PPC-3, (non-Intel), just swimmingly.
I'll see your $250, and raise you "freebie". Mine was obtained for free because the company I worked for at the time decided to abandon the non-Intel Mac systems. (I'm not sure, I think they might have just tossed the Apple out with the bathwater, and stopped supporting the Mac altogether.) In any event, the trunk of my car was in the right place at the right time to snag it. Not that there was a lot of intense competition for it. ( :grin!: )
As far as the crummy design, I suspect the (ahem!) "specially Engineered" parts were there to enforce the inability to work with standard interfaces and equipment.
Dell does this to some extent, but in their case, they have the excuse of rapid serviceability - and getting the non-standard cables and such on eBay is neither difficult nor expensive.
I attempted to replace a battery on my wife's Sony Book Reader, and the only way it could have been successfully put together was by using nano-technology. Full size fingers and such were too big.
Likewise, the iBook laptop is a lot like a Toyota - reliable, because it's a [female dog] to try and repair! Obviously, serviceability was not at the top of their requirements list. I opened up the iBook to update the hard drive, and getting that little bastid open was a non-trivial undertaking. I "got 'er done", but I'm in no hurry to repeat it. Getting it open was a royal pain. Re-assembling the beast was a *ROYAL PAIN*! By comparison, doing a complete tear-down and processor swap on my Toshiba Satellite A505-S6980 to add a virtualisation capable processor was a piece of cake - that is, compared to the iBook.
Actually, it was way easier to totally tear down the Toshiba and replace the LCD display panel, than it was to crack open the iBook.
Sigh. . . . People, hopefully, will get wise to the fact that this stuff is designed to cost megabucks, and then it's expected to be thrown away in two or three years when the battery, or whatever, finally dies.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
I have a hard time convincing them otherwise. There are, in the case of music creation, editing, and/or notation, so many PC applications that meet or exceed what runs on an Apple that the only exception I can find is one DAW that seems to remain an industry standard and is still exclusively Apple.phone
ReplyDelete