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Comment by alanthonyc | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't the fact that the iPad is itself a closed...errr, integrated...system counter your argument?

I'm all for open standards, API's and community cooperation of course. I just don't think that Apple is necessarily the antithesis.

The fundamental difference between Apple's position today to Microsoft's monoculture of the previous decade lies in their motivations.

Apple wants to make great stuff.

Microsoft wanted to control the world.

btw PG: I rfs8.html is not on the rfs.html page yet.

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Microsoft's control was superficial, and that's how they like it. They don't want to control what you put on your computer, they just want you to pay them the same reasonable price.

Apple on the other hand clearly does care what you put on your iOS device, and in ways that go beyond a desire for good UX to a desire to control what is acceptable for society: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/apple-finds-christianity-offe...

I agree MS are a lesser evil than Apple. Their culture is particularly far friendly for developers. However, what you've said is rose-tinted.

MS did try to push people into software as a service (but they failed at it). They support DVD region encoding. They have introduced DRM music services. They struck agreements to hamper attempts to sell dual-boot systems. I didn't experience this but understand that at one point windows media player would happily scan existing content on the drive and helpfully encomber it with DRM. Sharepoint takes data in from all sorts of sources but it's much harder to get it out again.

MS have also EOL'd products that dominate major market segments despite users who would have paid plenty for stability: original VB, excel before UI change, every NT release.

These are the actions of a company trying to increase its control on users, attempting to control what they do on their computer.

By way of comparison, traditional unix vendors would be more helpful of big-pocketed companies who wanted to pay to continue to use old software. They could have reversed a firewall and other patches into NT4 that would have hardened it and kept it going if they'd wanted to - these are the teams that reverse-engineered photoshop and hundreds of games and then hotpatched new code over their memory segments when they loaded so that they could get DOS and W3.1 software to run fine on Windows 95 for the release. Interesting alternate history. What if MS had tried to keep NT4sp3 tight and stable and kept drivers coming, and brought it forward conservatively.

> Microsoft's control was superficial, and that's how they like it. They don't want to control what you put on your computer, they just want you to pay them the same reasonable price.

Oh, how a decade of stagnation can change perceptions...

It has nothing to do with Microsoft's stagnation. I've lived the past decade, and I'd rather be forced to use a mildly overpriced platform where I can run any code I want than a [wm]ildly overpriced platform where the code I can use is dictated by people who have a political agenda, and flat out refuse to let me run what code I want on the property I've ostensibly purchased.

Microsoft killed off all sorts of competitors using their sales channel with suppliers and other pressure tactics. You don't know what you're missing because it never happened.

I wish people would stop saying that Bill Gates has always been a nice guy because he's retired and giving away his money.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that MS is more open, they don't have much of a mobile OS for you to compare with iOS anyways.

So you mean if OS X won instead of Windows, there would be more competitors, right? Nope, there would be even less, because Apple makes it's own hardware, it would have killed off a lot of hardware companies, AMD, ATI being big examples.

And Apple is going to kill off so many hardware companies because if it wins like Windows, it's going to be the sole arbitrator of who gets to build hardware for it.

All MS wanted was for you to pay the Windows tax. Apple wants to control the hardware as well. Eg. Windows Phone 7 is a OS that various OEMs can run on different devices. iOS is basically just firmware for Apple's devices.

BS. MS cared very, very much about what software you ran. Remember Netscape? Borland? Microsoft J++? They put pressure on OEMs not to ship Netscape that make anything Apple's done with iOS pale in comparison.

It may be hard to appreciate today, but in the 90's you couldn't start a software company without a ready answer for how you were going to survive if MS decided they had to kill your product to protect the Windows monopoly.

There is a difference between competing in a business environment and limiting what your customers can do with your product. Although competition may indirectly determine what customers can do (by destroying businesses that may have created software they wanted) it is different from directly controlling what customers can do the way Apple does.

I really can't see a meaning with that comment.

I don't think anyone claimed that Apple's e.g. censoring porn is the same kind as Microsoft murdering competition and slowing down development.

For porn -- relax, much online video works on the iPad. :-)

I would argue almost all areas is better with competition. If you prefer monopoly solutions, there is still North Korea (Cuba will go a bit capitalism, I've seen).

Don't use any phone based architecture to run code, then. They were tightly controlled before Apple.

Compare a Mac with windows, instead.

Err. what's wrong with comparing iOS and Android?

I commented on something discussing Microsoft. I didn't know MSoft did Android phones (yet)...

To be fair, gay marriage is one of the only political issues Apple has taken a stance on. See their opposition to proposition 8:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_i...

Aside from that, Apple can certainly be prudish, but that's more out of a desire to remain unobjectionable rather than a desire to control what is acceptable for society. They don't care if you play controversial games, they just don't want to be associated with such games.

I left a similar comment on Reddit about another topic, but doesn't Apple's contributions to open source make them vastly less evil than Microsoft?

Just look at webkit and how Apple's competitors build (are in the process of building) their entire foundations on top of that tech and Apple still contributes.

Microsoft has actually contributed to a lot of open source projects and released a number of their own projects as open source (F# being a recent example). It's just that their schizophrenic nature, with their R&D releasing open source software and their marketing department demonizing it, and complete lack of any open source strategy makes these release far less visible than those made by Apple.

I don't understand why people point to Webkit as a big Apple contribution. Basically Apple took KHTML, which is under the GPL and built Webkit out of it. It is basically forced by the license to release the source. Your point would have more validity if KHTML was BSD licensed and Apple released the source out of the good of their heart or if they built Webkit from scratch and then open sourced it. Apple basically saved a lot of effort by using KHTML and would have been sued if they didn't release the source.

Here's the difference:

You don't have to use any Apple device if you don't want to. That choice is yours.

I spent many years working in places where you had to use Microsoft products. There was no choice.

Microsoft didn't care what you put on your machine because all they care about is making money selling you stuff.

> I spent many years working in places where you had to use Microsoft products. There was no choice.

That's ridiculous - you had choice - you could have chosen to work elsewhere. Can't get the same pay, conditions, etc? That's not the point.

These days there are plenty of jobs where you'll have to use a Mac because Jobs has dictated that you can only do iOS development on a (recent) Mac.

Microsoft's entire empire was built on platform lock-in and network effects -- from business to business, to customers, and to the homes of their employees. It was a staggeringly successful strategy that everyone copied, Apple being the most prominant exception. They've always made products to please the consumer who bought it and nobody else. Cherry pick counter-examples all you like, but this is pretty much how it was.

Really? I don't think that Apple has acted with such altruistic intentions. Certainly they're not just pumping out whatever they can to get more cash, but they're obviously working to make a profit.

If their number one priority was really to please the end-user, they'd be selling everything at cost, open-sourcing and giving away OS X for free, etc. People are generally greatly pleased when they can get cool stuff for cheap or free.

Apple wants to please their customers so much that Apple is deciding what apps their customers are allowed to use, because their customers are too stupid to correctly choose the application that works best for his/her needs. And if you attempt to circumvent this restriction, Apple will do everything in its power, technically and legally, to stop you from doing so.

Did Microsoft ever endeavor to do this? Personally, I find top-down control of the entire distribution channel more of a "platform lock-in" thing than encouraging the use of proprietary IE extensions.

It seems to me that Apple develops more to please Apple than to please end-users. The worship that Apple gets is so very silly, in my opinion.

It has nothing to do with altruism, it's about selling directly to the person using the product vs selling to someone who forces other people to use the product. Even if the seller is acting primarily out of self interest, users are going to end up much happier buying something because they like it, and not because forces out of their control have conspired to make it their only viable option.

EDIT: here, straight from the horse's mouth http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

Apple wouldn't be in existence without the billions it made volume selling to schools. From grammar school to graduate school I was forced to use an Apple/Mac.

Your comment, while mostly fiction IMO, does have a nice storyline.

Were you forced to buy one because your school had one? Was the school forced to buy them so they could interoperate with some other system?

Why do you keep insisting that people are "forced" to buy these things? Nobody has been forced to buy Microsoft. If your job required a Microsoft product, and you didn't want to buy Microsoft products, you could find a new job. You were not forced to buy from Microsoft any more than anyone has been "forced" to buy from Apple.

I've known plenty of people whose jobs didn't even require the use of a computer; if you are so picky about the software you use, perhaps you could consider a line of work that doesn't involve much computer usage.

Well, unless you don't: http://code.google.com/p/iphonedevonlinux/

So choose not to do iOS development.

You don't have to use Microsoft if you don't want to either -- just don't work somewhere that requires MS products. Do you suppose that there aren't companies where using Apple products is required? There are.

That's a bit pat considering that 95% of workplaces use Windows.

I'm just saying but who knows if in x years you also have to use Apple? You know, there was always an alternative for Microsoft products like there is for Apple ones but people actually vote on this with their wallet: if the vast majority chooses Apple you will be forced to use their products too. I'm sure of this because I would never think about working with Objective-C and here I am doing iOS apps because that's where money is.

> I'm just saying but who knows if in x years you also have to use Apple?

Then that's when I'll start to take issue with them.

As Stalin supposedly said, "Once the avalanche has started, its too late for the pebbles to vote."

And Voltaire, "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

Oh, I agree but I also like to be conscious that it's happening (or might happen).

It does not counter his argument, but this doesn't mean he's right, either. His argument states that given a platform function, developers have historically used/exploited said function in ways that its creator had not intended. In terms of device functionality, this comes in terms of new applications for and of that device. The OP surmises that increasing the number of "opened up" functions via providing an API for developers will increase the usefulness of the device via the previous statement. Following his reasoning, the ultimate functional and useful device is "open" in the sense of FOSS because developers have the ability to exploit all functions of the device. My question to that conclusion would be, what if hackers made changes to the device that ran counter to the initial design philosophy of the device...which is what the users initially purchased the device? Is this a good thing always? Is this a bad thing always? The answer is neither, and this is why the implied (as interpreted by myself) conclusion is false.

The OP's argument doesn't necessarily follow because usefulness does not equate to functionality and hack-ability. Good design is not something you can quantify by "featurefulness". If it were, users would have stopped buying new copies of Microsoft Office years ago. Following from the end line of Paul Graham's post, if you give hackers an inch, they will take you a mile. PG doesn't state whether or not that is a mile in the direction your preferred direction of travel.

Right, Apple's shareholders are out there saying "I'm so glad we're making great stuff". Apple wants to make money, no matter how much fandom we bestow upon Apple for having a great design aesthetic, Apple is a corporation whose aim is to make money. Apple is a golden boy because they aren't Microsoft, and if we keep comparing the two, we never give Apple an honest shake.

I don't know. I've always gotten the feeling that Jobs is a perfectionist to the point of it almost being a pathology. I doubt his motivations are primarily focused on money, especially at this point.

It's probably safe to say titans of industry tend to have a diversity of motivations. In markets like finance, I don't doubt that it's often as simple as money, but the cultural currencies of other markets can be equally alluring pursuits. Industrial design, and in the last few decades, tech, have a currency of having a positive impact on users' lives. UX, basically, specifically with the opportunity cost of bad UX.

If there were any way to quantify this -- "quality-of-life improvement credits" -- Apple would likely be quite rich in these as well as simply in financial currencies.

Jobs may be a perfectionist, but he is ultimately just the CEO. As such, he's an agent to the true owners (shareholders). His laser sharp focus on design has been extremely profitable and thus his interests are aligned with those of shareholders. When these interests get out of sync, see ya Steve.

Its hard to imagine now but there will be Apple without their fearless leader one day. They are a profit seeking venture like any other--brilliant marketing has people convinced otherwise.

It was never, ever about money: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i_want_to_put_a_ding_in_the_...

Apple's aim is to make money in the same way that your aim is to reproduce before you die. It's technically true — that's what all lifeforms here for — but it obliterates a lot of important detail about you as a person.

I agree - Apple is a business, and it strives to make money - should it not??? The fact that they have realized that great user experience (which MS is also now making a priority-office 2007-10 is a perfect example)is a form of added value that consumers will pay heavily for is simply a testament to Apple's leadership (NOT just jobs!). Having an unbelievably talented marketing team doesn't hurt either.

My question is: what has Apple done to directly propel the world (particularly the 3+ billion people in the "third world" - impoverished and middle class) towards globalization? Microsoft (perhaps in their bid for control) has donated & sold (or subsidized) millions of products to this group of people. In some countries, apple hasn't even attempted to sell their products at reasonable prices despite the opportunity. Isn't ushering all parts of the world into the next decade as important as creating the next great iOS?

Also disturbing is the fact that Apple is sitting on a pile of $50 billion in cash while the actual Foxconn workers in China who make iPhones have very bad working conditions and pay. Cmon Apple, a few dollars go a long way in China.

Apple actually pays a subsidy to Foxconn workers above and beyond the wage being paid to them by Foxconn, based on a device's profitability. That being said, the assembly workers manufacturing the iPhone 4 and iPad are the highest paid among all Foxconn's laborers.

If the workers were not happy with their workplace and conditions, they are free to leave, or even better, organize a labor union.

Also, be advised the GE could also pay their chinese laborers a bit more, if you would be willing to pay more for your microwave, you water heater, your light bulbs, your cookware, etc. It's not going to happen. Let China enjoy being the manufacturing capital of the world while we still have fossil fuels, k?

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