It's Official: Apple is the New Microsoft | Hacker News Reader

It's Official: Apple is the New Microsoft

pcworld.com

27 pointsnreece32 comments

"Can I reformat my iPod and install something else?"

Erm yes, of course you can. There's a thriving open source community for iPods replacement O/S and software.

Does anyone actually do it? Aside from doing it just because you can.

Of course. Using the 'standard' firmware on anything is just downright boring. Most firmware uses like 50% of the hardwares capabilities.

Gotta admit: "Apple is an abusive monopolist because the iPod doesn't have an FM receiver" is an awesome argument. Way to go, PC World!

You are right, it would've been a poor argument if that's all they said. I'm not sure I agree with the entire article, but your comment had led me to believe that was the basis of their argument, and it isn't.

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.

Apple not only "bundles" iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.

Not fair, you might say. Any hardware device that syncs data with a PC as part of its core functionality has software to facilitate that syncing. True enough. But operating systems have browsers as part of core functionality, too. Doesn't Mac OS X come with Safari? Doesn't the iPhone?

And "bundling" works. Steve Jobs bragged this week that Apple has distributed 600 million copies of iTunes to date. The overwhelming majority of those copies were iTunes for Windows. And iTunes for Windows' popularity isn't driven by software product quality. ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods.

At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else? Can I uninstall iTunes but keep using the iTunes store and my iPods? Apple strongly discourages all that, claiming that the iPod, the iPod software and iTunes are three components of the same product. But that's what Microsoft said about Windows and IE.

They are arguments of similar caliber. You want an FM radio on an iPod? Visit the Apple store. You want to use Media Player instead of iTunes? Get yourself a copy of XPlay. Want to run Linux on your iPod? Go download the iPod-Linux installer.

You don't see Microsoft advocating the end of DRM.

And bundling IE was always the weak argument why Microsoft is a monopolist. Microsoft is a monopolist because they have a serious majority of the market, used completely undocumented features of their OS in their Apps, and particpated in extremely unfair trade practices.

Apple is busting an entrenched industry. This is good. Its possible that Apple will become the new Microsoft indeed. But they are so laughably far from this status the PC world article remains equally ridiculous.

The argument is that apple is an abusive monopolist because songs you buy with iTunes can only be played on the iPod. The FM reciever has nothing to do with it.

And it is a poor argument.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

By FM receiver, do you mean the physical hardware components or the ability to play radio stations through your iPod? Because if it's the latter, Apple makes a radio tuner for the iPod.

Another example of journalistic sensationalism at its best.

"It's Official?" Says who?

The author, of course. We're each kings of our own ego-islands.

I can't hear your petty little comment from way up here on my throne.

Crap article from crap site of crap magazine.

Come on, Google is the new Microsoft. How can you compare Apple to Microsoft -- one's hardware, one's software.

Well, you'd be surprised at all the features they're constantly sneaking into iTunes for example that is sort of making it like a new operating system. Which works best with their own products (iPod). See the pattern? We get people to get our stuff, then we make sure our stuff works best with our stuff and slightly less so with the competition's stuff ...

> At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else?

Yes: http://www.rockbox.org/

Interesting conclusion.

He seems to be arguing that Microsoft was brought to heel by the marketplace, and that the court proceedings against it were redundant and counter productive. And now the same is true for Apple. You can't beat them with lawsuits, only by making better products.

I'm not so sure, though, that the lawsuits MSFT faced had no effect on the marketplace outcomes we're now seeing. Would PC vendors be so quick to put Linux on PCs if MSFT wasn't being monitored by the US DOJ and probed non-stop by the EU?

I'll agree with the iTunes rant but the rest is pretty shallow. You can't call Apple the 'copycat' when their products are superior. And trying to compare MS tabletop UI to the iPhone is like amateur hour. We all know MS stole that UI from the Grad Student who's been showing off his touch interface on YouTube for 3 years. People hate MS because they are successful for making poor products. People hate Apple because they are successful for making great products and they aren't shy about flaunting it.

On a semi-related aside, Microsoft has had that multitouch interface in the works for more than three years. I saw (touched) a productized version of it two years ago.

That's interesting, I didn't realize that. I really like the tech, I would just rather have it on my coffee table than in a bar. I need to charge my friends for eating and drinking at my place ;)

Apple product is superior only from the outside. It's like this analogy: "Dumb hot blonde".

About fifty people will downmod you for criticizing Apple. I, however, downmodded you for criticizing blondes.

I wouldn't mind. It's the mentality of YCombinator's crowd (Apple, hate MS, hate features bloat, short-attention span) and I'm ready to be downmodded. Outside YCombinator's, tons of people would agree with me (and I've met some of them personally that share the same mentality).

Some people just need to think (or look, or hear) outside the box perhaps?

There is a good point in there. How does Apple get away with bundling Safari, Mail, iChat, iLife, etc with Mac OS X when that is what Microsoft ran into trouble with in the EU?

The only difference I can see is market share. Not that I'm complaining. I like some of those desktop apps.

Because the C?I?A? and N?S?A used to use pre-OSX mac computers extensively at the time that M-Soft got sued by the DOJ because there were a lot less OS8 / 9 hackers than their were window hackers. Then by some funny coincidence, OSX gets based on UNIX so now any government hacker anywhere can hack into your Mac with the greatest of ease. Why would you want to rock that boat if you were the government? You wouldn't. You'd say, "As long as you keep making it easier for us to spy on people, you can bundle anything you'd like."

Makes a valid point, but it doesn't mean that Microsoft is no longer a pain in the ass. My boss's experiment in upgrading a few machines in our office to Vista has been the bane of my existence recently. Jesus christ.

My condolences.

Wait until you get bitten in the butt by "compatibility files".

I hope this is official because Microsoft is awesome!

Smells like a Microsoft PR plant.

All humans have a right to have their 5 seconds (sorry, minutes) of fame.

*) If I meant the author or the subject, is left as an exercise to the reader.

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