It doesn’t seem so long ago that Microsoft was deemed to be the evil empire and then the mantle switched to Google which as everyone knows is collecting every bit of information about all of us for seriously nefarious reasons! To date Apple has escaped criticism but that is slowly changing.
First, Apple admitted to putting a kill switch into its iPhone so it could delete any content it found there which it didn’t like (read my take on this here). Apparently Mr Jobs thought it was irresponsible for a manufacturer not to include this facility for social conscience reasons but little seemed to be said about if they could read your apps what else did they have access to on your device! To defend public decency would Apple ban an email coming through to you because it had the word Scunthorpe in it?
Then there was the furore about banning certain apps sent to its online store. Apparently some developers have become trillionaires by providing iPhone users with offerings like the sound of farting frogs when an appointment was due and there was a crying baby app that shut up when you shook it!
Some weeks back iTunes released an update that prohibited users of the new Palm Pre from syncing their music with the device of their choice. This has become of a bit of a tennis match with each side trying to create fixes and counter fixes.
Now it looks as though Apple will not allow music streaming service Spotify to have an app on the iPhone. The simple reason for this is if iPhone users can stream music from Spotify why would they want to buy tracks from the iTunes store. I can see the reason for the ban from a business point of view. Why would I allow an app to sit on my hardware that would detract from my revenue stream? Simple – I wouldn’t unless there was a way that I could monetise the service.
But there’s an niggling trend developing here, The people at Apple have always been an arrogant bunch and this has lost them mainstream acceptance because of their determination to remain “niche.” Despite the probably superiority of the OS, I have never wanted to own an Apple computer because I have this morbid fear of growing a pony tail, becoming wildly creative and start shoving tons of Columbia’s notorious export product up my nose!
Okay, I own an iPod Nano which I think is a fabulous piece of kit, but until recently you had to use iTunes, which has to be one of the most bloated and flaky software offerings ever to be launched on an unsuspecting public, to sync your desktop MP3s with your iPod. Try syncing three iPods on one iTunes installation! If I wasn’t already follically disadvantaged I would have torn my hair out. Thankfully MediaMonkey now syncs MP3s seamlessly but you are still screwed if you want to upload photographs and videos.
But apart from a Nano fetish I have no desire to Apple-ise my life and I would not want to affiliate any real loyalty to a company that is increasingly becoming thumb-suckingly juvenile in the way it deals with non Apple offerings. I might have second thoughts if Apple stopped being so controlling and manipulative. Okay, I probably wouldn’t buy a computer from them but might consider the iPhone if I thought that if I put some unapproved software on it I’d risk Apple exploding some secretly installed plastic explosive and taking my head off.
Cloud computing and Web 2.0 is all about opening up and collaborating using new business models. By continuing its controlling, niche isolationism, Apple might risk because caught on the back foot, pretty much the same as Bill Gates was when he said the Internet wasn’t gong to take off! I find it difficult to believe that a company that has some seriously clever people at every level is reversing itself down a dead end but I guess history has shown us that really clever people are as capable of making silly mistakes as dumb asses like me!
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