

My how far you have come, Apple. - blhack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULUGHJCCj4

======
pg
Wow. They could never run an ad like this now. And yet this was just a few
years ago. It reminds me why I used to like them so much. They made beautiful
things and seemed like cool people. Now they just make beautiful things.

~~~
dcurtis
If you think about Apple from the perspective of their customers, without bias
toward iPhone developers, they still seem like cool people.

~~~
pg
I don't know. I think the locked-downness of the iPhone and iPad are probably
noticeable to a lot of more sophisticated users too.

These products are impressive, but they don't seem in any way like they're
aimed at rebels or rule-breakers.

~~~
delano
The locked-downness is part of Apple's approach to entering the corporate
market.

Interestingly, this approach (consumer -> corporate) is precisely the opposite
to RIM's approach with the Blackberry. It almost seems too crazy-bold to have
been planned from the early days of the first ipods, but it does seem to be
slowly working out.

~~~
moe
_The locked-downness is part of Apple's approach to entering the corporate
market._

Huh? Since when does apple even exist in the corporate market?

Last time I checked you'd not find many of them outside of design departments
and hip startup offices.

------
nicpottier
God, can we please unplug from the incredible myopia that is the geek
viewpoint of Apple?

They still make amazing products, they still use and contribute a huge amount
to open source. So they have their phone OS locked down, there are reasons for
that, and they mostly revolve around the best experience for most users. (read
not you)

Get over it already.

~~~
stanleydrew
With all due respect, I think the non-geek viewpoint of Apple suffers from a
lot more myopia.

------
dchest
These words now live on TextEdit icon: <http://imgur.com/SQjQZ.png>

------
n8agrin
I don't know, as a developer Apple's OS install and development policies hurt
and Apple's refusal to let you do things like hack their hardware hurts. And
sure I wish Apple was being even more progressive by doing things like selling
the iPhone unlocked and open for all networks, thus pushing phone carriers to
compete a bit more.

But that said, Apple has done a lot. They push design and refuse to let
feature complexity compromise the beauty and simplicity of their machines.
Arguably the iTunes music store single-handedly pushed the music industry to
drop DRM. The Webkit project has led to a highly advanced and open-sourced
HTML5 platform. And Apple has focused their build and packaging process to be
more environmentally "friendly".

They are not infallible, and I'm sure many people here would argue that their
contributions to the good are far outweighed by the bad, but the point is that
it's easy to forget these positive things amongst all the bad press.

------
sumeeta
The ad makes me think more about (and appreciate) Steve Jobs the individual
rather than the Apple brand.

------
ryoshu
I'm not sure how this doesn't apply to Apple's current approach? We've left
AOL and CompuServe far behind; OSS is waxing while closed source is waning.
Even IBM and Microsoft are reaching out to the open source community.

Apple is thinking different.

~~~
blhack
"They're not fond of rules"

~~~
commieneko
Geniuses are not fond of _other people's_ rules.

------
Keyframe
OK, I'll say it - Apple is a marketing company, always was and always will be.

~~~
endtime
I'd argue that they're an excellent design company with good marketing, good
hardware, and mediocre software.

~~~
seldo
I would argue that you can wrap up all those up by saying that they focus on
the user experience, rather than on any of functionality, features,
performance or price. And it turns out people like stuff that works easily,
even if it doesn't do exactly what they want.

------
shrikant
I think most of those lines would apply to Apple even today.

------
sheldonwt
Apple feels like a cousin who hit the lottery and is now too cool to chill
with you anymore. Linux feels more like he still cares.

~~~
redcap
Neal Stephenson's article about computers (In the Beginning was the Command
Line) likens (iirc) Macs to BMWs and Linux to a build your own tank. Sure it
might be cheaper and a hell of a lot of fun to make your own car, but it's not
for everyone. Not sure he cares so much as while he needs work done he gives
you great mileage per gallon.

------
martythemaniak
What a pretentious piece of crap.

------
shizcakes
EDIT: False. Richard Dreyfus. They sound quite similar, though.

~~~
naz
No, it's Richard Dreyfuss

