
Herd Mentality - atestu
http://daringfireball.net/2009/10/herd_mentality
======
jballanc
Gruber doesn't quite go all the way here, but it's important to note that no
company can operate in a vacuum. However, what's important, _vitally
important_ , is that you don't operate such that one of your key suppliers is
a monopoly! Just look at Apple's suppliers: Intel? They better keep up with
AMD or else Apple will do to them what they did to IBM. Flash memory
providers? Apple plays so many of them off each other that you can tell when a
new Apple product is about to launch just by watching the market price of
Flash. Graphics? Apple's been bouncing between nVidia and ATI like nobody's
business...

...so really, it's not so much about hardware vs software vs
hardware+software. It's that the smart businessperson doesn't knowingly make a
deal with a monopoly.

~~~
gaius
_It's that the smart businessperson doesn't knowingly make a deal with a
monopoly._

I see what you're saying, but hasn't nearly every Apple customer effectively
done that? A datacentre could maybe rip out Xserves and replace them with
equivalent 1U boxes running some generic Unix apps (e.g. Tomcat) but anyone
who has developed on the Mac platform is beholden to Apple.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, and not that there is an economic
way to stay completely platform agnostic, but it does contradict what you say.

~~~
euccastro
It doesn't contradict it. He talks about Apple, you talk about Apple's
customers. Thinking of it from the company's position, _other's_ monopolies
are bad for you, not necessarily your monopolistic advantages.

~~~
jballanc
Yes, and as for developers, they're developing for a market (i.e. Apple isn't
supplying materials, just opportunity). It's sort of like how Detroit was
developing for the petroleum market. The idea there, though, is that in
developing for a market, you should have general domain abilities that can
span markets. In other words, if you're an Apple developer, you depend on the
Apple market to sell your product, but you should be able to take your
development ability and develop for Windows or Linux should the Apple market
collapse.

Obviously, it's not guaranteed that you'll be that smart. Detroit _should_
have been smart enough to take their expertise in developing for the petroleum
market and transfer it to success in the alternative energy market. But it's
still not as bad as having a key _component_ of your product be supplied by a
monopoly (just ask your local jeweler).

------
wvenable
I think a lot of people take Windows for granted. It's amazing that we have
one operating system that can smoothly run on the most expensive and advanced
PC hardware and run on a netbook that costs less than a really good dinner
out. Hardware manufacturers can put other own drivers as easily as anyone can
put out software. And the same software runs on PC models from dozens of
manufacturers and whatever Frankenstein-PC you can build yourself. Developers
can target one API for all that hardware.

The author doesn't seem to think much of that.

Apple is an exception, an outlier, and a niche.

~~~
allenbrunson
operating systems are a natural monopoly, due to network effects. it's no
surprise that one of them 'won' and captured most of the market. that doesn't
mean it's good for the industry, though.

microsoft has demonstrated time and time again that, with windows, they value
backward compatibility ahead of almost everything else. it still bears the
mark of design decisions made in the eighties. that makes it pretty difficult
to innovate in the windows space, even if microsoft wanted to, and they don't.

apple's macintosh is a viable competitor, but they're after a pretty clearly-
defined market as well. they've got millions of customers they can't afford to
upset.

three primary desktop operating systems is not enough. it retards the spread
of new ideas. we are taking too long to get to whatever comes after the
desktop gui metaphor, because any company that created such a thing today
doesn't stand much of a chance of being able to sell it.

~~~
wvenable
Microsoft values backwards compatibility ahead of everything else because
that's what both users and developers want. Because Apple has never been in
the business market, their is very little custom software written for it. They
can toss out backwards compatibility every few years and someone will write a
new zip utility or port a web browsers. If Microsoft broke backwards
compatibility, zip utilities and browsers would be ported too. But companies
that have invested literally millions of dollars in their software don't have
the time or money to do that.

If Apple were to ever capture (and keep) more than 10% of the market, you'll
see that they too will slave to maintain backwards compatibility. Their niche
status affords them ability to make the sorts of changes you want.

I don't understand this intense desire for speedy change -- do we really need
to replace the desktop metaphor as quickly as possible? Doesn't that just
hurt, rather than help, adoption and understanding of computers? Everytime the
GUI changes half the planet has to re-learn how to use their computers. If we
had more than 3 primary desktop operating systems, all implementing new ideas,
the learning curve for users would be impossibly high.

The fact that one operating system won is good for the industry.

~~~
allenbrunson
yeah, i don't believe any of that. and i'm surprised to see so much of this
attitude here, of all places.

you could have used all those same arguments to claim that guis are bad, let's
just stick with ms-dos. back in the eighties, i remember many people making
_exactly_ that argument. heck, in the back of my mind, i was sort of thinking
that myself! i had a great deal invested in the status quo. i'd spent _years_
learning 8086 assembler and all the tricks necessary to write a dos tsr that
wouldn't bring down the operating system. it was an ugly, stupid, convoluted
system, but i was a master of it, and so i wanted things to remain the same.

apple is never going to stop throwing out old stuff and replacing it with new
stuff, no matter how much of the market they get. not so long as steve jobs is
alive, anyway. that's what makes the mac a healthy, thriving ecosystem. once
an idea has outlived its usefulness, it's chucked for something better. the
fact that the people in charge of windows are _not_ willing to do that means
that it is just a matter of time before the entire operating system is
obsolete.

i'm not saying there _shouldn't_ be a windows. it caters to a certain crowd
that i am not a part of, thankfully, and i think that holds for most of us
around here. but the idea that it has to be pretty close to the _only_
operating system _is_ a bad thing. fortunately, microsoft doesn't wield the
kind of power that it once did, so there's a chance we'll get to see some real
alternatives in the next decade or so.

~~~
wvenable
You might want to take off those rose-colored glasses and take a better look
at Apple. The classic Mac OS existed until 2001 and still lacked memory
protection -- You had to remember to save your work before opening Netscape!
Then they didn't even develop their own OS, but instead purchased NextSTEP
which was already 12 years old at the time and circling the drain. Then,
instead of throwing out the old stuff, they bolted the Carbon API onto it to
allow classic Mac applications to be ported easily. So you really couldn't be
more wrong about Apple.

On the other hand, the number of applications that Mac OS X must run to be
accepted can be counted on the collective hands of the OS X engineers. They
can almost afford to break whatever they want as long Photoshop runs.
Microsoft does not have that luxury.

The command line vs. GUI argument doesn't hold water either. Instead we're
comparing the desktop metaphor with some concept that doesn't exist yet.
Operating system research is always on going and the really good ideas
percolate up into all the current operating systems. You can't just radically
change direction -- even Apple knows that. In fact, they've been removing
features (like creator codes) that distinguished them from Windows and Linux
basically because being compatible with the universe is more important than
being innovative.

------
abalashov
I don't know where the folks responding to this statement by downplaying the
significance of the OS by pointing to the increasing importance of the browser
and the web in applications are getting this line of reasoning. It's a
complete non sequitur.

Sure, web apps and AJAXian techniques may be putting a dent in domains
formerly owned entirely by standalone desktop GUI apps.

But your browser is not going to implement your hardware device drivers, I/O
subsystems, network stacks, filesystems, and, well, ${insert very long list of
other ways in which the OS interacts with the fundamentals of the machine}.

To say, "Ah, well who cares, it's all about the browser now anyway" is really,
really missing the point. Maybe Google Docs displaces Microsoft Office, but do
you really think you're going to XMLHttpRequest your SATA driver, process
scheduler, or IP routing FIB (forwarding information base) away?

~~~
wvenable
The low-level aspects of an operating system are now available, for free, to
whatever company wants them in the form of Linux. Both of Google's operating
systems (Android and Chrome OS) are based on Linux. The Palm Pre is based on
Linux. The fact is that even the device drivers, I/O subsystems, network
stacks, file systems, and the X number of ways the an OS interacts with the
machine are no longer significantly important.

What is important is how the OS interacts with the user. This is where Apple
shines. This is also where Google is looking to shine as well. If the user
experience can be provided entirely within the browser, why not?

~~~
abalashov
_The fact is that even the device drivers, I/O subsystems, network stacks,
file systems, and the X number of ways the an OS interacts with the machine
are no longer significantly important._

Because it is readily available in free form, it is _no longer important_ ,
significantly or otherwise? Seriously?

Yes - it's become more commoditised. No, you can't just "replace" it with a
browser. And yes, there is a qualitative distinction in degrees of hardware
support and underlying engineering.

~~~
wvenable
As you said, it has become commoditised. Is there really a qualitative
distinction? Apple's operating supports Apple's hardware (Mac and iPhone).
Linux claims great compatibility with most PC hardware and tonnes of other
random equipment out there. Windows is Windows. Do you think the average
person cares what file system underpins the iPhone or that Android and the Pre
share an OS kernel?

But you are right, you can't replace an operating system with browser.
However, you can treat the OS as just another layer in the stack in between
the network card and the browser. It's even an interchangeable component --
swap out Linux or Windows or OS X and you have still have something that can
push bits onto the net and run a browser.

------
mrshoe
If Apple had to compete with someone else innovating on the PC, it would force
them to break even further away from the herd. Macs are great, but they still
resemble PARC's Alto from _36 years ago_ far too closely. The times have
changed quite a bit. The iPhone is a much bigger leap _as a personal computer_
(smaller leap as a phone, really).

The potential for innovation is there. It would be nice to see that happen on
the PC. I hope that "someone else" shows up at some point. Better yet, I hope
I can be a part of it. ;-)

------
Raphael_Amiard
"Imagine how much better the industry would be if there were more than one
computer maker trying to move the state of the art forward."

It would also be a nightmare of complexity.

~~~
mrshoe
Not necessarily. Web standards could be a great foundation. The web is open
and anyone is free to push the state of the art forward. Yet the result has
often been more interoperability, not less.

~~~
vorador
Do you seriously believe that webapps would eventually replace desktop apps ?

~~~
edu
Some desktop apps yes, actually many of them have been already replaced. Other
(data/processor intensive: graphic arts, multimedia, etc...) don't think so.

~~~
vorador
Could you give me some examples please ?

~~~
edu
Adobe Premiere for example?

~~~
vorador
I was speaking of webapps that had actually replaced desktop apps.

~~~
edu
Ah, in many cases webmails have replaced desktop client apps. And in my
environment the official suite is Google Docs.

------
beamso
The irony of an Apple fanboi discussing conformity like this is deafening.
Buying Apple is buying conformity.

I suppose with all the downvotes I'll expand.

The conformity is what makes Apple stuff work. A small range of hardware for
the chosen operating system. Running Linux or Windows on Apple hardware is
hard.

Conformity also happens with the iPhone. Unless I bother to jailbreak my
iPhone, I'm forced to use the functionality on my iPhone agreed by my carrier
and Apple through the carrier updates.

~~~
ptomato
Did you ever stop to consider why Apple "fanbois" are? And why, for example,
there aren't such people for other hardware or software manufacturers?
(Microsoft has a good few, actually, and Linux certainly has some, but the
numbers of fanatics for both combined are easily dwarfed by Apple. And no PC
hardware company has anything like it.) Certainly many people will buy Apple
just because it comes from Apple, but the point is that there was something
about Apple that attracted them in the first place; hardware and software
coming from a company that actually cares about good design and isn't as
tonedeaf as Microsoft's attempts at it have been. There was & is actually
koolaid to drink. In any case, Gruber is talking about industry conformity,
not consumer conformity, which is a whole 'nother pigeon.

edit to reply to edit:

"The conformity is what makes Apple stuff work."

To a degree, yes. Or rather what makes Apple stuff "Just work." It certainly
wouldn't be past Apple technologically to make OS X run on commodity standard
boxes, but it wouldn't be a very good business decision. They're a hardware
company.

"Running Linux or Windows on Apple hardware is hard."

No, not even a little bit. Well, Windows on PPC would be impossible (unless
we're talking about maybe one version of windows NT, I think?) but that's
Microsoft's thing not Apple's, in only supporting Intel. Apple's OS these days
comes with a utility that makes installing Windows dead easy if you want to,
and even if you don't use that it isn't any harder than installing it on any
standard PC.

~~~
beamso
> Did you ever stop to consider why Apple "fanbois" are?

Some of them appear to need to follow the underdog, conform but not conform,
or are spoken to through the marketing.

> In any case, Gruber is talking about industry conformity, not consumer
> conformity, which is a whole 'nother pigeon.

The industry is conforming to follow Apple. HP through marketing. Dell through
design. MS through marketing/Zune/Pink. Google through Android.

edit: You jump through additional hoops to get Linux working properly. Video
drivers and sound drivers are poor, sound quality is poor. Getting used to the
synaptics driver for the glass trackpad was hard. And you need the drivers
from Apple for Windows, which they tend to take their time with.

~~~
ptomato
"Some of them..."

Some of them, certainly. Are you honestly claiming that all or even most Apple
users do so because of marketing if there's no quality product to back it up?

Edit: as per your post history/above, you appear to use Apple hardware. Just
because of the marketing?

"HP through marketing."

Without a product behind it.

"Dell through design"

It is to laugh.

"MS through marketing/Zune/Pink."

Which might do something for them, as by all accounts the new Zune is decent,
though with some of their typical tonedeaf touches (30-second ad plays before
running an app? Puh-leease.), though their smartphone OS is still atrocious.

"Google through Android."

With their 7% marketshare to iPhone's 40% (numbers from AdMob, which is
naturally not entirely representative of the smartphone market as a whole, but
close enough for the purposes of argument.). And this despite Android's
improved openess over iPhone OS and the wider variety of harder. Or possibly
because of it... Only having one platform to develop for it certainly a
massive competitive advantage for iPhone over virtually anything else out
there.

"Video drivers and sound drivers are poor, sound quality is poor."

Considering that video/sound chips used by Apple are all (reasonably) commonly
used hardware these days, Linux not having drivers for it is squarely the
fault of the Linux community/hardware manufactures who don't provide drivers
for them. Ditto goes for Windows, with the trackpad being the obvious
exception there.

~~~
beamso
> Are you honestly claiming that all or even most Apple users do so because of
> marketing if there's no quality product to back it up?

You said 'fanbois'. I replied to 'fanbois'. You took the 'fanboi' reply and
blew it out.

> as per your post history/above, you appear to use Apple hardware. Just
> because of the marketing?

I bought Apple because OS X 10.1 looked like a way of running Linux while
still having access to commercial apps should I need them. That was in 2001.
I've not bought a non-apple computer since (5 laptops, 2 desktops, 2 iPhones).

As for the other comments...

Dell's Adamo was meant to be a competitor in design and functionality for the
MacBook Air but is strangled by CPU and price. There is also a thin 16" laptop
but it too is strangled by CPU. It looks like they inaccurately forecasted a
15" Macbook Air, designed and implemented a competitor without Apple coming to
the game, which they should have.

You also have to remember that Zune/Pink and Android are late to the market in
comparison to Apple. If Apple were showing Android's AdMob numbers this early
you'd be talking up their chances. Because Apple are leading the market and
their competitors are in their early stages of market entrance it's acceptable
to look at their total numbers and go 'pah' rather than focusing on the
growth.

~~~
ptomato
WinMo and RIM certainly aren't in the early stages of market entrance. For
that matter, the only competitor that still is anywhere close to Apple's
marketshare is Symbian (which surpasses it somewhat, I believe.) But sure,
let's look at it in a year or two.

"I've not bought a non-apple computer since"

Why not?

"Dell's Adamo was meant to be a competitor in design and functionality for the
MacBook Air but is strangled by CPU and price."

And thus isn't. And part of Gruber's point is that better designed hardware is
worthless with shit software, which will still be Dell's problem no matter
what they do.

Edit:

"You said 'fanbois'. I replied to 'fanbois'"

Well, technically I replied to you saying "fanboi" in the first place. For
that matter why do you think Gruber specifically is a "fanboi"? He certainly
doesn't blindly agree with everything Apple does like many Apple fans, and has
been very vocally critical of them at times.

------
joecode
He seems to be neglecting the most difficult aspect of releasing your own OS:
getting most developers to port/write software for it.

Apple has followed a peculiar path that has allowed it to successfully
accomplish this, but it is very difficult to imagine how Dell could
successfully found their own operating system at present.

Moreover, I'm not convinced the recommendation to license their operating
system is motivated by herd mentality. It's probably just that people did not
believe Apple could get as big a market-share for its own machines as it
appears to be getting. As for the recommendation to put Windows on their
machines, that just seems, well, stupid, but perhaps I am missing something.

~~~
HistoryInAction
That's kind of the key idea behind Microsoft's building of its monopoly:
paying developers to produce software for its OS. Eventually you could get
everything for Windows and software at random for another OS. The equilibrium
here seems to be a for a single dominant OS maker.

Reminds me of the Dvorak v. Qwerty keyboard layouts. The market has space for
a single dominant keyboard type. Individuals can choose between Dvorak (and
variants) or Qwerty, but since so many people use Qwerty, everything is
designed based on that. If Dvorak reaches a tipping point, everyone would
likely abandon Qwerty.

Does anyone thing the expansion of open source makes it more likely that the
OS market is trending towards being a multi-power field?

~~~
gaius
_That's kind of the key idea behind Microsoft's building of its monopoly:
paying developers to produce software for its OS._

Well, it is more subtle than that. If you are a large corporation, you might
have 100,000 desktops, and since Windows came out you might have bought 0.5-1M
licenses. That's an awful lot. Why would you do this? Because the software you
absolutely depend on to run this business is written internally, and the cost
of doing this in a Microsoft tool like VB (historically) is low enough to make
it worthwhile. Microsoft has always cultivated its developer ecosystem well.
Apple are good now, but I remember the dark days of the 90s when you never
knew when a key Apple technology you depended on they would simply abandon
(e.g. OpenDoc).

------
shimon
There are companies that do well by making brilliant things, and there are
companies that do well by making commodities cheaply. It's nice when a
commodity company, like Acer, makes something that seems brilliant, like a
good netbook. And it's nice when a company holds a streak of brilliance for
many years, like Apple has.

What makes the HP example sad is that it's a company that has recently been
running on the vapors of it brilliant ideas, and is now stuck competing in
commoditized markets, where you can really only compete on price. That's not
to say HP couldn't survive, or even become more profitable; but for hackers
who cherish the creation of brilliant things, it is a painful thing to
witness.

On the other hand, this is progress. We have Microsoft's early PC OS monolopy
to thank for the wonderful range of cheap, standardized PC hardware that makes
linux boxes easy and macs/ipods/iphones mass-marketable.

~~~
keltex
The thing about HP, is they have always made commodity crappy consumer systems
as long as I can remember. Compaq, which they devoured, was the quality system
maker.

~~~
mosburger
I suspect you're a bit younger than the people who remember HP's greatness,
especially their scientific instruments and engineering tools. They also used
to be good at making big iron servers (I'm thinking pre HP-UX). Also, one of
the companies HP devoured was Digital, who ruled the world with their VAX
systems.

The hardware giants used to be the likes of IBM, Sun, Digital, HP, Data
General, Wang, Honeywell, and a few others I'm forgetting. The only ones left
now are IBM (a services company) and HP (a commodity consumer hardware
company). I'm not counting Sun because I expect the Oracle deal to go through.

~~~
oconnor0
And HP's laserjet printers. Those things were amazing.

------
buugs
I don't know why he had to bash hp at the end; of course hp is going to be
making bargain PCs they need to compete with other producers, apple is about
the only one that does not offer full computers for ~$500 but they are most
definitely not their rival the rest of the industry is.

~~~
mrshoe
> _I don't know why he had to bash hp at the end; of course hp is going to be
> making bargain PCs they need to compete with other producers_

So, you're saying that HP needs to follow the herd? The entire point of this
article is that they don't and shouldn't. That's _exactly_ why he needed to
bash HP at the end.

~~~
buugs
Well neither you or he offered any useful alternatives for what hp should do
and I offered reasoning on why they need to sell cheaper PCs

~~~
potatolicious
I'll offer one useful alternative: better software integration, and use their
scale to push MS into tighter integration with HP's own software. This advice
applies to Dell as well.

Suggesting that HP should build its own OS is a pipe dream, and completely
unrealistic. They will be running Windows for the foreseeable future. The
question is: why do they have to run the same shitty old Windows that everyone
else is running?

I just had the fortune of happening upon a decent Gateway desktop at a
bargain-basement price, and the sheer lack of software integration is
appalling to someone who's been using a Mac for the past 4 years.

Let me enumerate some concrete examples:

\- Display settings are handled by vendor-specific utilities that have _zero_
UI consistency between Windows and the actual computer manufacturer (Dell, HP,
etc).

\- Sound settings are handled by vendor-specific utilities and drivers that
are also not configurable in a consistent way. On a HP machine practically
nothing is badged "HP" except the box itself - and certainly the usability
reflects this.

\- Complete utter reliance on third party (both in brand and design) software
that fails to integrate deeply into the OS. The whole experience feels very
jarring - because it's really a bunch of code haphazardly stuck together
without any thought or concern.

Imagine if you buy a Windows laptop from, say, Dell, and out of the box you
get a nice Dell splashscreen, and a streamlined setup process that takes care
of all your basic configs transparently (as opposed to default Windows, which
loads a ton of setup upfront for clueless users)? How about the ability to use
your hardware volume up/down buttons without terrible screen flickering (bad
drivers)?

There are a bajillion ways that all of the standard PC manufacturers can use
software to compete in the marketplace - they simply aren't doing so right
now.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> why do they have to run the same shitty old Windows that everyone else is
> running?

I'd say Microsoft has a thing or two to say about that.

~~~
gaius
Microsoft will stop you deploying Windows with your own branded apps and
custom drivers pre-installed? _Really?_ I don't think so...

~~~
easyfrag
Of course not, the real problem is that hardware makers generally don't do
good software. By good software I mean useful and elegant, there's a reason
there's products like PC-decrapifier out there.

~~~
gaius
Yes, Sony is the classic example of this. A company like HP ought to be
capable of it, tho'.

------
iamelgringo
Something tells me that the author was never around for the rats nest of
incompatible micro computers that arrived in the early 80's: kaypro, osbourne,
pet, commodore, texas instuments, ibm, apple, atari, coleco...

All of those computers companies made their own computers and OS's and a
completely different stack of software and hardware peripherals. IBM getting
into the game and creating a defacto standard with their hardware and software
choices helped create a boom in the computer industry that we're still riding.

~~~
allenbrunson
oh man, do i ever _not_ agree with that. i _was_ around for the birth of the
microcomputer, and those were very interesting days indeed.

here's somebody else who thinks so as well: "[...] But I think that there will
be a good long period of cheerful chaos, just as there was in the early days
of microcomputers. That was a good time for startups. Lots of small companies
flourished, and did it by making cool things."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html>

as the micro situation "stabilized," with most of the competitors going out of
business, the fun went with them. the darkest period in the days of high-tech
was when microsoft so thoroughly dominated everything that they were stifling
innovation.

~~~
sfnhltb
Less fun, but it meant computers went from being a novelty to the core of the
vast majority of businesses. This was not a coincidence.

------
JoeAltmaier
The web is just another OS, with an enormous API and constantly-changing
revisions of everything. OSs are not even what most folks mean when they
mention Windows etc. They mean the execution environment
(runtime,libraries,shells). And the trend is to develop portable environments
- JBOSS, .NET, whatever. We are at the beginning of the end of proprietary OS
wars - OS will be no more important a decision than your editor or drive
vendor, eventually.

------
jsz0
Without competition you have one company telling you what a product is. With
competition you have consumers telling you what a product should be.

------
johnrob
"Operating systems aren’t mere components like RAM or CPUs; they’re the single
most important part of the computing experience"

I think this is rapidly becoming less true with the increasing utility of the
browser + web. These days, what I value most in an OS is speed, stability, and
staying out of my way.

------
omouse
_It was at the root of long-standing punditry holding that Apple should
license the Mac OS to other PC makers_

They did until Steve Jobs killed it.

~~~
jws
It was self defense. No jury will convict him.

Edit: for those who don't recall. The clones were intended to speciate and
fill all sorts of niches, but they mostly just built the Apple provided
reference designs with maybe the odd extra bus slot or two. They then
cannibalized the high end and low end of the market.

They got the high end because as Motorola was ramping up each faster chip,
Apple would not release with it until they could ship in sufficient quantity
to satisfy demand. The cloners had no such qualms and would happily take the
piles of money off of the high paying 'must have the best crowd' with the
trickle of fast chips at the front of the production runs, simultaneously
robbing Apple of the lucrative consumer's business and delaying the time when
Apple could get enough chips to launch their own.

The cloners ate the low end of the market, despite their disadvantage of
scale, by making machines a little bit crummier than Apple wanted to build,
but also by not paying a large enough licensing fee for the OS to cover their
share of development.

------
JoeAltmaier
Its fun to talk about "breaking free" of your OS vendor. As a foundation for
software, and about the cheapest software on the machine, I'm not sure I know
what the benefit is supposed to be. "Less unhappy"? With a platform that by
definition hosts incompatible apps?

------
greendestiny
This is a really misleading article. I think people wanted to Apple to license
it's hardware in the days of Macs. Then Apple stopped producing original
hardware for the desktop/laptop and people wanted them to license their OS for
the nearly identical hardware that other manufacturers were making.

The iPhone is a mobile device and lots other companies have produced their own
mobile device and OS (or more likely heavily customized from another base).
Microsoft itself have produced the Zune and Xbox. Palm has it's line. Nokia
uses symbian, which it now owns.

Apple have made good hardware and software, but this is fanboy drivel.

~~~
greendestiny
Let me put it another way. Apple has stopped making unique hardware for the
PC. Yes it sells PCs, but it doesn't innovate on the PC hardware anymore. It
innovates on the cases and configurations, but these systems could all run
windows or linux. Essentially Apple did start making its operating system for
PCs, it just makes it a requirement that you buy the PC from them.

As for the iPhone and mobile market, any number of manufacturers have built
hardware and software for mobile market. Apple simply did this by far the
best.

~~~
ptomato
Well, assuming by cases you include things like the magsafe power cord, which
is undeniably brilliant and which I hope all laptop manufactures manage to
miniskirt around the probable patents for. Or battery life for laptops which
unless I'm missed something absolutely puts to shame all similarly-specced
generic manufactures.

~~~
greendestiny
Actually the point I'm making was more directed at the article in question,
not innovation at Apple in general. In that I don't think maintaining the
exclusive relationship between hardware and software has been necessary for
innovation. If it was there wouldn't be a need to specifically ban non-Apple
PCs from running OSX. Expanding the point to the mobile market seemed dodgy
when you consider the number of manufacturers that have their own OS. Game
console manufacturers have also controlled the hardware and OS in their
markets. I don't think it's nearly as unique as this article tries to make it.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Their value they offer is the UI software but they're determined to get their
money from marking up hardware. Presumably they have figured out people are
more willing to pay the same premium when it's a smaller portion of the total
price (even when it means they have to replace an entire computer to do it).
In the same vein, they charged cloners too little to cover the development
costs of MacOS, which is why losing desktop hardware market share to the
cloners (who were more efficient hardware producers) almost killed them
instead of freeing them from the 10% ghetto.

------
mmphosis
This is a short list of the computers and their makers who have broken from
the herd:

Microsoft XBox

Sony Playstation

Nintendo Wii

Apple iPhone

Palm Pre

RIM Blackberry

HP digital cameras

------
mrfish
The only equalizer will be applications online. Right now running web os apps
suck compared to PC equivilents, but when they don't and people start using
them instead of Office, or other programs, then who gives a rats ass what OS
we use. We'll all be on dumb terminals and we won't give a shit. That will be
Microsofts fall.....or will it? I heard somewhere that their office online
product was way better than googles. I don't know.

~~~
omouse
Hey, it sounds like the late 80s or early 90s! Dumb terminals are coming back
in style! Nice, _turns up the Nirvana_

------
anon-e-moose
What a fucking joke!

Because there aren't thousands of different types of PCs of every shape and
size, tablet, netbook, professional laptop, gaming laptop, gaming desktop,
small form factor desktop, workstation...

All of these computers could run OS X, but Apple doesn't want them to.

And lest we forget, Gruber's job is to talk up Apple('s stock price). Why
anyone should take his opinion seriously is beyond me. He has a vested
monetary interest in Apple fanboyism.

