Dear Apple: We miss you.

Really?

True story: back in the mid-90's, I worked as the Relationship Manager with the Arizona Macintosh Users Group (AMUG) in Phoenix. This was the largest MUG in the world at the time, and to say it was an uphill battle would be an understatement. With Performas going unsold in places like Office Max and acquisition rumors running rampant (Apple is going to be bought by Disney! Apple is going to be bought by Sun!), it was incredibly difficult to be an Apple fanboy.

Frankly, they could have added the name "beleaguered" to their name and nobody would have blinked. Every bloody news story that ever came out about Apple described the company as "beleaguered computer maker Apple Computer..."

Anyway, AMUG was a source of pride and optimism for the company. At least it should have been. I can't tell you how many times I tried to call on reps at the company for assistance and was rebuffed. I'm not talking about financial support, either. I was asking for things like t-shirts and stickers. Simple stuff. Apple reps treated MUGs like they were the proverbial "Cousin It" of the family -- to be barely acknowledged, if at all.

I'm happy for Apple's success. Really. But for Battelle to claim that Apple was somehow part of the conversation at some mythical time in the past seems rather ridiculous.

Congratulations on doing well over the past few years while still maintaining an air of marketing discipline. You could make more money by taking the high volume, low quality route, or the cheaper JIT route. But instead, you continue to take pride in the quality of your hardware and software.

I don't miss you because nothing's changed. Steve Jobs has always been cocky, with the intent to have strong control over the quality of your image. But people have built him up as the antithesis of Bill Gates and Microsoft's revenue model, since Jobs is historically the underdog in the battle. But that shouldn't distract from his true intentions. He's not a proponent of openness and open dialogue. He's a proponent of high quality products and high quality image.

Using "Dear Apple" feels very dramatic.

Once upon a time, your products were brutally expensive and while your engineering choices were sound in isolation, they were so idiosyncratic that no industry-standard accessories or peripherals were compatible with your hardware.

Note of shame: I once paid $3,000 for an 80MB hard drive with your logo on it.

Developing for your platform was a monumental challenge. Every tool cost money and I remember having to pay actual money to obtain xerographed development notes from your developer connection or whatever it was called.

I even purchased the worst product you ever made, a 1x CD-ROM player that was actually a rebranded Phillips reject. One thing led to another and it wasn't long before your stock cost a few dollars and Sun Microsystems was thinking of buying you. Then everything changed.

I don't miss that incarnation of you a bit.

Yep; I'd say that Apple is not a good long term bet unless they change this part of their culture, which will evidently only possibly happen after Jobs retires.

Rock on and don't listen to the touchy, freely Web 2.0 people who want you to come to their conference to make them some more money. Secrecy seems to get more talk time on major news outlets, way to save the old advertising dollars.