
Apple's Animal Farm  - iamelgringo
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/24/apples-animal-farm/
======
mmt
I'm not sorry the evil empire got such a hard time, since they deserve even
more.

Apple's behavior may be reprehensible and worthy of criticism, but it's not
yet clearly anti-competitive, nor is it as likely to have as far-reaching a
chilling effect on general computing technology.

~~~
taitems
Umm excuse me? Apple hardware, sofware and especially the iPhone are
outrageously closed and anti-competitive. Apple has already begun chipping
their own accessories such that third party ones are no longer allowed. None
of my iPod accessories (wall charger, car charger, firewire cable) work with
my iPhone, so I will have to buy all new ones. Also include the other
obligatory examples as the palm pre fiasco.

I found this article to be a little over the top, but strangely true. It was a
good read.

~~~
mmt
Creating a closed product is not anti-competitive behavior, merely consumer-
hostile.

Attempting to close others' otherwise open products (e.g. PC hardware) through
licensing requirements, which require payment regardless of whether or not
ones software is actually installed or not, is anti-competitive behavior.

Granted, this distinction may not be compelling to the average consumer, but I
contend it's more relevant to the average hacker.

~~~
taitems
My beef is more so with Apple's DRM chips installed in their accessories now
which has negated all my previously bought Apple and non-Apple accessories,
forcing me to purchase new, Apple authorised accessories all over again.

One could defend it as time saving on backwards compatability (like forcing
everyone to upgrade to IE8 from IE6 to use a website's "cool" new feature),
but I think its as simple as typical Apple money-grubbing.

It's not illegal, it's not exactly unethical, it's just rude.

~~~
mmt
Like I said, I don't disagree that such behavior is consumer-hostile. I don't
know that they're guilty or innocent of it, just that it's not particularly
relevant to the topic of anti-competition.

However, I'm quite confident the market will take care of that sort of
misbehavior quite naturally.

