Apple's Hubris

Mac software developer Wil Shipley writes about recent mistakes Apple has made, screwing over customers for no other reason than to make money—and he's not talking about the iPhone price drop.

These are EXACTLY the compromises Sony has been making for years -- and because Sony's music and movie arms have been telling the Sony hardware arm to never do anything new or interesting without building in a ton of customer-unfriendly restrictions, Sony is now completely in the toilet. They have gone from an incredibly respected brand to a complete joke. Every time they introduce some new, crippled standard the industry kind of looks away in embarrassment, like Sony is the oafish guy at the party who is parked in front of the meatballs tray eating directly from the dish.

I don't know that I totally agree with his proposed solution of licensing Apple's Fairplay DRM to other music stores, but he's certainly right about some of the anti-customer choices Apple has been making lately, and it's good to hear someone who loves the company's products point out their mistakes. It's this kind of bullshit from Apple that turns fans into de facto apologists. Customers won't find that tenable for long.

iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage [WilShipley.com]

[#1 posted by phi , September 20, 2007 10:58 AM]

I was thinking the same thing when I read it this morning and didn't really put it so succinctly in my blog posts about Apple's mis-steps lately.

Although, I don't think Apple ever had the mantra of "don't be evil/greedy" but I do think they should start just focusing on what they do best, innovate and design and leave the control-freak tendencies to others to worry about.