Monopoly or Mac-opoly?
Steve Jobs just released this new app for OSX; they call it iPhoto. You guys should really check it out, it looks like it blows XP’s photo manipulation app out of the water. By the way, it’s a free download from Apple.com.
Why do I mention Mac-opoly in the title of this rant? Because that is what I think Apple is, a monopoly, or in this case to be clichéd, Mac-opoly. I think of the daily public beatings and abuse Microsoft enjoys every single day at the hands of the courts and the media; “Monopoly this, evil baby eating empire that”, and I say Bullshit! Look at what Apple is doing, the same damn thing, only they’re an “underdog” so it’s ‘OK’?!? They (Apple) have a 23% market share of all new elementary & high school computer sales in the US (Dell is on top with 37%) and cried bloody murder when MS tried to include giving PCs & software to schools just a few months ago. Gee Steve, are you afraid that people may actually realize that Macs aren’t “the shit”. You know Steve, “the shit”, that fairy-tale myth that you and all those long-haired granola eating mofos would force-feed down our throats using candy-coloured translucent surgical tools while wearing jeans & mock turtlenecks?! Does it scare you to think that some inner-city kids might actually realize that a PC can do the same damn things an iMac can do, sometimes better, for close to half the overall price? Of course it does! That’s why you’re fighting tooth & nail to keep MS from “donating” PCs & software as part of their anti-trust settlement! You want to keep your well established strangle-hold on potential buyers & their paying parental units!
No one cares about Apple, they make ‘cute’ things. A company that makes ‘cute’ things can’t be evil and manipulative….can they? CAN THEY!?
I did think the new iMac looked kinda spiffy, and nearly forgot about my contempt for Apple & their candy-coloured PC glop. But half-way through the iPhoto presentation, the bile began to well up in the back of my throat once I had realized that no-one will give a damn that this tech is OSX only, and that it’s free, and that it’s robust (Meaning why the hell would you bother buying a 3rd party app to do the same thing if you can get it for free from Apple? The same exact argument against MS for their bundled apps.), and that it can order prints of digital pictures only through Kodak (Jobs didn’t mention any other companies, and the Kodak logo was emblazoned on the app so I will assume this to be the case), or that you can publish these pictures onto your Apple ‘homepage’. The differences between MS & Apple on this issue are: XP’s photo app doesn’t look as robust, and is probably a bit on the clumsy side for your average user; and with XP you can order prints from Kodak & Fuji and probably a few others. But again, no one will care because Apple is the ‘fun’ company who just wants to sprinkle fairy dust over the world so that people will love each other; not the evil company crushing/monopoly protecting MS who doesn’t even make at least one candy-coloured scroll mouse, or a set of PCs & laptops that can only run MacOS (some brave souls have gotten Linux to run on Mac PCs; Yellow Dog Linux) properly, or an MP3 player that only works with MacOS (iPod), or a wireless Ethernet hub that you can only configure using MacOS (AirPort). Seems to me that Apple is more guilty than MS of being a monopoly, they seem to control more of the hardware/software revolving around their OS than MS does.
“Think Different”, a mind control slogan that should go down in infamy. This slogan was probably never meant for public consumption. Rather it was probably only meant as an internal Apple marketing slogan used to stoke the fires of their PR machinery; it means to make ad-men think different so as to package the same ideas, goals, morals, and tactics as MS in a package or “Mac-centric” lifestyle that people will flock to and accept without question, or difficulty.
Linux is almost the same and would be if it weren’t for the fact that there is no one common identity associated with Linux with the exception of “Tux” (the happy sitting Buddha-like mascot of the Linux world). Sure there’s companies like Redhat, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, and probably a host of others, but no one common company behind the Linux PR machinery…..yet.