Jan 27 2010
Apple’s iPad
A giant iPod Touch. I cannot say how underwhelmed I am.
Another locked-down, DRM-infested device whose only purpose is to let customers subscribe to the iTunes store. At least it’s clear where the road with Apple leads: Open computing platforms are history (for them). It’s all about controlling the content that a user has access to – and that this content must be bought from Apple. After you’ve paid an entrance fee of USD 499, of course.
Well, with that prospect it is also clear that I am going to leave Apple land behind. My Mac Pro is going to be my last Apple product.
Hey go to MacRumors and reply back to your post…. It was the “IS APPLE STILL SERIOUS ABOUT THE PROFESSIONAL MARKET? ” Thread …. I’m curious to her your response
Do you think it’s worth it? I usually just post my opinion or answer a technical question when I’m in the mood or have some time to kill, but I’ve quit “discussing” on Internet “forums” a long time ago – because those “discussions” normally end in TV show-style bashing without any value but with loud digesting sounds instead. And especially on MacRumors, I only read the threads that are displayed on the right side of the main page – I never navigate to the forums directly or follow ongoing threads until they’re finished. I’m realizing that reading MacRumors is just a substitute for watching TV for me, and TV is something I gave up on more than ten years ago. And the quality of the contents on the Internet has degraded enough to soon too become an item of the list of things I’m done with. I’ve already written about that somewhere on this site, by the way.
But to go back on topic: I do not think that Apple still cares for the professional market at all. They generate their income with the iTunes-iPod/iPhone/iPad food chain; a chain where they sell shiny little toy gadgets to hip customers that have enough money to burn and who can still afford to consume content that can only be obtained from one filtered and censored source, namely the iTunes store. Just like the iPhone and the iPods, the iPad is another device that can only consume downloaded content. It was not meant to create content or to be a real computer. It’s more like a mobile TV, but one that is tied to and strictly controlled via multiple DRM layers by Apple. It is an Orwellian machine that nobody in his right mind should ever buy. But such as it is, the world has already gone insane a long time ago, so people will spend money on this abomination and let Apple control their consumer behavior and they will even pretend to absolutely enjoy it. It’s John Twelve Hawks’s “Vast Machine” with an Apple logo on it.
In this context, I also believe that the next version of Mac OS X will come with its own AppStore — optional in the first release, mandatory in the following incarnations of the operating system. That is if there will still be a version of the “regular” Mac OS X operating system. Maybe it will only be available for paying and registered Apple developers. Maybe they will replace it with the iPhone OS on all of their machines.
As for the “Pro” line of their computers – it is a dying breed. The ratio between development costs and actual sales might still be acceptable, but I doubt that it is lucrative enough for them, especially when their other sources of income are so much more effective. Also, Apple and Steve Jobs are all about CLOSED platforms. A pro platform, by its very nature, has to be open: To third party software, third party devices, developers and development tools. Now open is the enemy of control, and Apple wants to control its customers. Or, as Paul Graham wrote in his essay “Apple’s Mistake”, Apple wants to “own their customers”.
I don’t know about you folks out there, but this is not something I want to be a part of.
And no, Microsoft isn’t any better than this. Or, wait – they actually are. Apple has turned out to be much uglier, nastier, vile and truly evil than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft “only” wants to own the platform – they don’t really care what others are doing with “their” platform as long as they pay a Microsoft tax. Apple on the other side wants to own it all. They don’t want to play with others at all.
But ultimately, the only digital freedom that we can have will be provided by Free and Open Source platforms. I’m not religious or otherwise ideologically tainted about this, but I cannot deny what I see happening. The commercial platforms have always been about control, and control is the enemy of Freedom. We live in a digitized world, thus digital Freedom is an essential Freedom. Both Apple and Microsoft are among the top players in the game of taking that Freedom away from us, but of course they are not the only players in that game.
Ultimately, the Microsoft versus Apple versus Open Source Platforms discussion is not about technology or which platform is “better”. It is a discussion about whether you want to be in control yourself or if you want others to control you.
I know what my choice is.
Moin,ich schreib auch mal was !
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Viele Grüße