a personal rant on Apple and their customer nasty behavior

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: James Love [james.love () cptech org]
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 6:51 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    a personal rant on Apple and their customer nasty behavior

I would agree with the general sentiments expressed by Dave Crocker.
Apple has undermined openness in several important ways.  For example,
Apple has not supported open document formats in it's otherwise
excellent office productivity software, iWork. And, in a number of ways,
Apple seems to want to undermine Linux.  For example, Apple has not
released a version of iTunes for Linux.  I don't think Mac OsX out of
the box reads data from a mounted Linux Ext3 formatted drive.  And, it
is difficult to migrate data from the new Mac OS mail client to other
mail clients.

I do think, however, that Linux has improved quite a bit as a client
operating system.  One year ago, frustrated by Apple's lack of support
for ODF in iWork, I switched to a Dell laptop running Ubuntu (sold
pre-installed by Dell*).  I am currently using Ubuntu 8.04, having
easily upgraded twice using the standard Ubuntu install disks.

For a lot of readers of your list, Ubuntu today would be an excellent
choice, and its getting better (slicker, easier and more fun to use)
quite fast. OpenOffice, while it takes some getting used to, has
improved considered in the most recent releases, including the new
OpenOffice Database program.  The main Ubuntu mail clients, such as
Evolution, work fine.  Firefox looks and works great on Linux.  Adobe's
flash and acrobat readers work fine.  A quick visit to Medibuntu and you
can have all sorts of audio visual programs working just fine.  There
remain some issues in terms functionality that will deter some users,
but I would encourage more people to give Ubuntu a look, if you can get
the Ubuntu install to work with your video and sound cards.  (It does
install very well on Intel Macs, by the way, including as a dual booting
computer).

  Jamie

---------------
*About a decade after this request:
http://lists.essential.org/1998/info-policy-notes/msg00007.html

On Thu, 2008-07-17 at 02:39 -0700, David Farber wrote:
> ________________________________________
> From: Dave Crocker [dhc2 () dcrocker net]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 1:58 PM
> To: David Farber
> Cc: ip
> Subject: Re: [IP] a personal rant on Apple and their customer nasty behavior
>
> David Farber wrote:
> > Why oh why do I deal with these people. As soon as there is real
> > competition I don't intend to .
>
>
> But Dave, Apple's model is to ensure the most complete lock-in they can
> achieve.  This means that once you choose to go with their products, you
> really have little -- and in the case of the iPhone, no -- choices.  In
> other words, Dave, if you want competition, you have to leave the Apple
> sphere.
>
> This is, for me, the one compelling reason to stay with Windows for now,
> and move to Linux whenever its set of applications get wide enough to
> support serious desktop business use.  (No, it is not there yet.  For
> example, I cannot do native synchronization with my PDA.)
>
> And it is why I do not have a phone with hardware or service lock-in.
>
> Lock-in encourages poor vendor service and customer service arrogance.
>
> If you don't like it, then don't subordinate yourself to it.
>
> d/
> --
>
>    Dave Crocker
>    Brandenburg InternetWorking
>    bbiw.net
>
>
>
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