Ask HN: Isn't it time for an Apple alternative?
Ok ok its not that easy... I know, but is there no one outthere that can combine beauty of design with kick ass technology and software?
The easiest way to answer your question would be to try out a bunch of computers. If you like using the Mac the best, the answer to your question is "no."
I think also the question and your answer somewhat reduces down what Apple are doing to just producing hardware and software - as if that's all that Apple were about.
No matter how big a player the competitor might be, Apple have got users locked-in without them even feeling it, and other companies have got a very long way to go before they even get close to having that kind of buy-in. Apple would have to have a major major screw up to lose that advantage.
I actually experienced the power of that lock-in recently. I'm writing a technical book on a macbook air. Although it's on OSX 10.6.8 I hadn't upgraded to Lion because I didn't want to lose the support of Rosetta for a couple of programs I still use.
I'd been using Pages to write the book because of it's compatibility with ePub and Amazon, and when Apple released iBooks Author I saw the potential for my book. The problem is that it's Lion only.
Now I have a dilemma, upgrade to Lion and lose Rosetta (and several key coding programs) or just stay where I am and lose iBooks Author.... or buy another Mac. Wow. That is power. Name me another company that has that.
It's a false dilemma anyway, because you've ignored obvious solutions like virtual machines or dual booting. Again, exactly the same options you'd have on Windows, Linux, or whatever.
HNers of course are going to find hacks and work-arounds to my dilemma which is not exactly end-of-the-world anyway.
2. Install and run VirtualBox, and install Lion (approved by Apple EULA).
3. ?????
4. Profit
Or install the older OS to another partition. Not a hack or a workaround, it's actually what you are supposed to do if you require access to two versions of Mac OS X on the same computer
I really don't think this demonstrates the power of lock in, or anything at all really. Just classic "time marches on" software incompatibility. Not unique to Apple or any other vendor.
It's just, it's really hard to make money at scale on physical products. There's not much incentive to complete on this. Plus, many people have been trained to evaluate design quality as "looks like Apple products" ... which some days gets to the point where I just fire-bomb the place and take a vacation in Nepal, Tibet, one of those places with mountains.
Interface design specifically is a case where it often comes down to "stop breaking it" vs. "how do I add more awesome" - people make this horrible unusable goop and think it's good design. The Google refresh? Lord knows how much money they threw at that ... and while the old version wasn't all pretty with colors and gradients everywhere, it had fairly decent usability. The new version is riddled with issues, after putting substantially more effort into making it. WTF?
Regarding OS software, it doesn't look like Apple is even trying very hard anymore, so let's see if things like Ubuntu can catch up. (Personally, the bits of software I like most on my Macbook aren't even from Apple.)
The OS is separate from the applications in which it runs. Who cares if Apple makes any of the software you choose to install on OS X or not (as a measure of evaluating the OS itself). It doesn't change the fact that you're able to install those applications and they run fine on OS X nor does it in any way actually measure how good or bad OS X is. Arguably Ubuntu probably doesn't make any of the software you choose to install on it either by that very same argument.
I use both Ubuntu and OS X and I'm all for fair evaluation of good and bad of anything (not just OS or software), but when you make a statement like Apple isn't trying very hard and your best argument is completely irrelevant to the argument itself, I can't see the merit.
That's a rather technical view of the situation. The fact is that a lot of applications are only available on one platform, and basically none is available on all. So quite often your choice of OS is determined by the applications you want to run, whether they're games, a certain office suite or nifty productivity apps. This in turn then ties you to hardware, from a very restricted set (Apple) to a little more relaxed one (Windows) to almost anything with transistors (NetBSD).
In addition almost every platform creates its own culture and environment. Linux and the BSDs embody open source software. Microsoft basically is synonymous with office and enterprise. Apple caters to designers and has a pretty thriving shareware culture, with a lot of small utilities due to its history and the fact that it somewhat dominates the laptop space.
So yes, I'd argue that OS, hardware and third-party software are very hard to separate and you have to consider the whole situation when you think about switching. (In my opinion this got quite a bit better within the last decade, though)
In my specific case, while I feel that Apple is neglecting both its OS and its desktop offers, and I think that its competitors are catching up a bit in the OS space, the whole culture/3rd party thing still would play a major role and could prevent me from switching altogether. Just like someone would like to switch to Linux, but if you're working with high-end CAD software all day, that's a bit hard to do. That's probably the far end of the "switching" spectrum, basically prohibiting it, while reliance on neat productivity tools like Alfred, TextExpander and OmniFocus just makes it harder. (And for a lot of people it's not even just the specific apps, but common general qualities, whether that's clean, simple, good looking apps on Macs or being able to configure everything in text on Unices)
I might have stated it a bit awkwardly, and I hope this clears things up.
I certainly can agree that the OS dictates what is available but certainly there are many ways around this albeit to an extent (virtualization comes to mind) and up until recently with Lion, you couldn't argue it was legal to install OS X on any other OS/VM or even bootcamp-like solutions, but arguably you could with any other OS out there. In this context, OS X actually is more appealing if you weigh the options of availability. Sure, its not perfect that you still have to run multiple OSes but certainly its an option nonetheless, one that weren't genuinely available in any other environment as far as I am aware of even if you could hack your way to make it work illegally.
That said, Apple and OS X are far from perfect and certainly there are a lot more improvements that can be made but I'm not quite sure I agree with you that they're "neglecting" their desktop OS. A lot of changes that came with Lion left people with mix feelings but I find it difficult to believe that that, or any other argument (perhaps I'm missing some) indicates that OS X is being neglected. On the contrary, I think they're striving to continue to innovate on this part. Again, far from perfect but I also personally believe far from being neglected as well.
But putting all that aside, Apple is great in many ways currently. To do better is insanely difficult in part because no one has a clue what better actually is and hardware is a huge gamble unlike software. This and the above factor makes things difficult out the door. I would certainly love to see another hardware/software company come up to compete, and even one with a more web presence too (something Apple lacks a lot of when you look at companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google), but I'm not sure I see a reason for such a company to exist at the moment.
Most companies exist because there is an inherent problem that can be done better. I'm not sure I have much to complain with the way things are going as I'm sure many others don't either. Most of the complaints, if any, are Apple EULA or their closed ecosystem, not so much about things that are actually wrong with their products to the point where its a huge pain point.