Talking Up Apple
Growing up with my younger brother, we used to engage in a dangerous game of
sorts that we called DefCon 1. The goal of the game was to annoy your sibling
as much as possible, without having him actually haul off and hit you. Granted,
the contest was far less dangerous than some of our favorite pastimes, which
included Yard Dart dodging and toboggan rides in the woods. But my brother is
a large man, and if I screwed up I was likely to be sporting a few bruises.
So when I called out Apple for its control-freaky nature in Tuesday's
column, I figured I might have crossed the line and earned a punch in the
arm. After all, the Apple community is notorious for nothing, if not its passion.
Surprisingly, I received some nuanced replies.
Bill responded by noting that there's "a fine line between protecting
your infrastructure and investment and surreptitiously guiding or vetting the
experiences and options of your customers." As Bill noted in his response,
Microsoft and plenty of other companies have stomped all over that line. While
he defended Apple products, he agreed that efforts to over-control the platform
can be damaging:
"Your caution is appropriate, I believe. It is mitigated for me by the
positive experiences I have had with Apple products. For the most part, they
simply support what I want to do more transparently."
Others were less understanding.
"To criticize Apple for the built-in kill switch is hypocritical by an
industry that Microsoft created with its activation and WGA [Windows Geniune
Advantage]," wrote Mark from California. "Yes, they [Apple] are control
freaks regarding their IP and their platform, but so is Microsoft with its products
and even more so."
Mark has a valid point. Microsoft drew
sharp criticism from us for a failure that caused its WGA validation service
to malfunction last year, threatening the reliable operation of enterprise software.
And I've long been critical of restrictive digital rights management (DRM) and
license-enforcement systems, if only because those systems inevitably place
enormous burdens on law-abiding customers.
So while I'm more than willing to paint both Microsoft and Apple with the same
broad brush, when it comes to issues relating to IP and platform control, I
still contend that Microsoft's more federated approach provides more elbow room
for developers and users alike to ply their own way -- as flawed as that way
may seem to iPod, iPhone and Mac owners.
"If I had to register every piece of software I developed with Apple,
for my own use on my equipment, I would be royally PO'd," wrote Matt from
Yakima, Wash. "I honestly don't see the draw for an Apple developer. I
can make any app I want for a Pocket PC or Windows workstation and never have
to worry that Microsoft will ban my program from running."
That sound you hear may be me losing another round of DefCon 1. E-mail me at
[email protected] with your
thoughts.
Posted by Michael Desmond on 08/21/2008