Proprietary Ignorance and Arrogance

36 Replies to “Proprietary Ignorance and Arrogance”

• I dont keep buying their stuff. Actually, i never did…

• Their software is great, their policy is as evil as Microsoft’s.
  I’d wait for openmoko to mature…

• Yeah, oh, and I forgot… “They’re a hardware company”… *bitter sarcasm* Wasn’t Google supposed to have an iPhone competitor out by now?? =:(

• I had also the same problem, but there’s the possibility to download it. there are normal mp4 industry Standard. i just used my vlc. The have a zip-file right there in the Botton of the page.

• Don’t take it personally. Given that Linux marketshare on the desktop is still below 1%, it doesn’t make business sense for them to expend any effort targeting Linux users with the iPhone.

• All they really need to do is publish specifications for all the interfaces that Quicktime uses (network, browser/plugin, etc). Then they wouldn’t need to care about Linux support because GStreamer/Xine would support it all. However, they won’t do that because they are addicted to imaginary property. The only reason I would buy an Apple product would be to get my parents to stop bothering me when Microsoft products fail.

• Not supporting 3% of the market is arrogance?

• Microsoft has become the Ferengui, Apple is striving to become the Borg.

• Umm, 3% is an old figure (like, 5 years old). Linux world market share should hit around 7% by the end of this year and is set to continue growing at a more rapid pace. Compare that to Apple’s 3% world market share (also growing, but more slowly than Linux) and I would say that Apple is either very arrogant or is trying to snub out Linux on purpose because Linux market share is growing faster.

  Now, I know, most of you that snub Linux are U.S.-centric. Yes, Apple does have about a 21% market share in the U.S. This is simply a testament to most modern American’s stupidity. (I can say this because I am American, too.) Want further proof of American stupidity? Most Americans do not realize that they are no longer living under their Constitution and that for years, the courts and government have been giving lip service to the Constitution all while doing everything in their power to undermine it.

• @Sean: What are you talking about? How did you download a zip file? I see only downloads for 3 versions of OS X (DMG files) or Windows (an EXE file).

  @Tony: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but 1) as Brice mentioned, Linux actually does have higher market share than 1% and 2) it’s still rude and very intentional and *here’s the kicker* _very_ avoidable.

  @Filip: No. Intentionally designing things to ONLY work with OS X (or, because they want to make money off of Windows users, Windows) is arrogant and rude. And avoidable.

• Ok, so why is it arrogant to ignore 7% of the market?

• Interestingly those videos on the Apple homepage *used* to work! With my kmplayer (IIRC) konq plugin. Now they changed something and it doesn’t work anymore probably some javascript crap … I was to lazy to figure out why.. so what!

• “Umm, 3% is an old figure (like, 5 years old). Linux world market share should hit around 7% by the end of this year”

  Sources please? As it happens, I checked latest market-share figures from netapplications, and they show that Linux has market-share of 0.8% at this very moment. The good thing is that it’s going up. Beginning of this year they reported Linux’es share at being 0.47%.

  Of course their figures might not be 100% accurate, but it does seem that

  a) Linux is gaining market-share

  b) Linux currently has tiny market-share, way smaller than OS X for example.

  “Yes, Apple does have about a 21% market share in the U.S. This is simply a testament to most modern American’s stupidity.”

  There’s nothing “stupid” in owning a Mac. As it happens, I’m typing this on one. Sure, Macs might not be ideal computers for some people. But neither are Linux-boxes or Windows-boxes. It boils down to best tools for the job.

  Besides, I believe that the 21% figure is not correct either. I believe if you look at unit-sales, their share is about 8%. In some segments they do have higher share (laptops, desktops over 1000 bucks)

• @Filip: Heh. As I said, intentionally designing things to ONLY work with OS X (or, because they want to make money off of Windows users, Windows) is arrogant and rude. And avoidable. I’m not a huge fan of Flash, but everyone else in the world uses it because it’s much more broadly available. Granted, if you’re using PPC Linux or x64 architecture, you’re screwed because Adobe hasn’t provided versions for them. And this is evilness of a different kind, I suppose. But why wouldn’t Apple use Flash and instead insist that the only people that can watch its videos are Windows or Mac people? You can come up with another word than “arrogance” if you like, but it’s… again… very insulting and very (here’s the key word again) _avoidable_.

• How about not giving a *blank* about Apple’s crappy products in the first place? Just a suggestion.

• Just open the source code of the page, grab the .mov, open it in kwrite, get the stream URL and open it in *mplayer or VLC, it will work. I hate those quicktime widget too, but they are not stopping you from bypassing them. Someone should make something in konqueror to do that automatically

• I have never purchased or recommended any of their products precisely for their obsession with imaginary property.

  When it comes down to it, their practices are just as arrogant and moronic as Microsoft’s. There is no technical reason why they are pushing Linux users away, other than to make them feel that the great “cool” Apple doesn’t need them and that if they want to join the cool brigade, they better run OS X.

  I like their hardware, but I won’t buy any of it until Apple’s practices change for the better, which I don’t see happening at all.

  I worked in the US for fifteenyears and I learned that Apple gets a lot of free press in the USA and that some people there value brand and coolness over other features such as openness or even quality. With the looming economic crisis, I think Apple’s cool factor is going to yield to price in terms of priorities for many people.

  Finally, I have never met an Apple user in Spain, while I meet Linux users on a daily basis. In our area, the only Apple official distributor just closed down.

• I don’t think Apple is intentionally trying to shut out Linux users so much as it is simply not thinking about them at all (for reasons that make perfect sense from a business standpoint).

  If you don’t want to purchase Apple’s products, then don’t! It’s a free market. But it’s self-delusional to believe that those who *do* use Apple’s products are idiots. They simply have different priorities than you do. Apple tends to focus on user experience , often at the expense of letting people tinker with the innards. That’s a perfectly rational business decision.

• Apple has always been like that, treating Windows as the “PC OS”, no news here. I also hate I can’t have iTunes or Quicktime on Linux.
  The thing is they sell hardware, and they want you to think that software is closed into hardware, being OS X to Macs and Windows to PCs. This way they can bash Windows flaws as if people needed to buy new hardware (aka Apple Hardware) to get software features. Linux is good, and that freaks out Apple, what if users discover they can get rid of security and stability problems for free? Let’s see in the future.

• I was talking that you can download the guide Tour movies in a zip file.
  http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/2008/guidedtour/apple_iphone3g_guidedtour_20080701_848x480.zip

  in my linux box i can’t watch the stream, you was able to download it.

• @Sean: Ohhhh. Gotcha. Sorry, I thought you were saying you’d found a way to download updated Quicktime codecs for Linux. =:/ I am confused, though, as to why my mplayerplug-in isn’t working…

  QuickTime Plug-in 6.0 / 7

  File name: mplayerplug-in-qt.so
  mplayerplug-in 3.50

  Oh well. Back to being grumpy… =;)

• you’ve forgot to mention what their software is made from. most of it. the core parts nobody can see.

• > I’m just sick of it. How is this better than Microsoft again??

  Who told you it was better? It just *looks*, its still completely closed and proprietary.
  Support them at your own peril.

• Tom Zander: it’s also of higher quality in many ways. Take the Temrinal app, for instance. On Windows you can’t even easily resize it horizontally. On Gnome it’s much better. But on OS X, it’ll even rewrap the text inside it if you resize the window!

• It’s interesting that you seem so worked up about it, its a business decision based upon the bottom line and not your interest. However the poor decision behind it is the Linux community are the people who are most likely to buy cool gadgets! So if the Linux demographic only make up 3% of the population that still could be 50% of your sales so I do consider it a little rash.

  By the way the IPhone is absolutely outstanding compared to the competition, I mean Windows mobile is complete crap in comparison and makes me wonder what from factor they had in mind when they designed it. All that said, you’d never see me with a pda!

• Well, don’t be sad. The Neo Freerunner (Openmoko) is coming very soon and that’s a really neat toy for all of us open-source-loving pirates 😉

• Since I watched this Video of the Freerunner on an german Linux Magazine I stop to believe that the Freerunner will be there where the iPhone is very soon! http://www.linux-community.de/story?storyid=25943
  I just hope Android will not be a Frankenstein! I believe the Handset Maker will Crap it. And I’ve real problem to write an Application I don’t know If I should customize it for Qwerty Mobile, Touchscreen, Multitouch or whatever. 🙁

• What do you prefer? An ISO standard that is patent encumbered but with a free software implementation or a proprietary format that is also patent encumbered whose vendor as so far made as little as possible to allow independent information.

  This is just too much about nothing. Apple is like Microsoft. Why bothering?

• @Thomas Zander: Duly noted. And by “better”, I’m referring to all the Microsoft-haters who show Bill who’s really boss by buying into Apple’s line. =:/

  @Dave Taylor: Yeah, it looks cool. Definitely the right idea. Beats the hell out of the Palm stuff I’m still dealing with. =:/

  @Hub: Hey!! =:D I think you’re referring to MPEG4 (with Apple’s insistence on locking you into their Quicktime software (er… I mean hardware…)) versus Flash (with Adobe being nicey nicey and friendly to those they feel like obliging (don’t get me wrong, THANK YOU Adobe, but it would sure be swell if you just opened the specs!!)? And not bothering. Just pointing out the ridiculousness of Apple’s claims to be a “hardware company”. Yeah, right and bite me, Apple.

• “Who told you it was better? It just *looks*, its still completely closed and proprietary.
  Support them at your own peril.”

  It’s not THAT bad. Granted, in many ways, Apple is like MS, pushing proprietary software on us. But there is a difference. Gates and Ballmer called open source “cancer-like” and “un-american” and all kinds of nasty things. Steve Jobs walked on stage in front of thousands of people and said “Open source software, we think it’s great!”.

  And they put their money where their mouth is. WebKit is built on KHTML, and that fact has benefitted KHTML. Their compiler is GCC, and they are a big contributor to GCC. The core of their OS is open, their server is built on open software.

• @Janne: Heh. No, you’re right, Apple has a much better standing with Open Source than Microsoft. And if there were a gun to my head, I’d definitely choose OS X over Windows any day. It’s just so darned irritating that, even as OSS friendly as they claim to be, it sure seems like they’re doing everything in their power to lock people into having to use their software–a very close-minded approach if not downright insulting–especially for a company that so loudly claims to be all about hardware, not software.

• “It’s just so darned irritating that, even as OSS friendly as they claim to be, it sure seems like they’re doing everything in their power to lock people into having to use their software–a very close-minded approach if not downright insulting–especially for a company that so loudly claims to be all about hardware, not software.”

  They ARE about hardware, but software is what makes the hardware work.

  They aren’t really forcing people to use their software. People might choose to use it, but that’s a different matter. Apple is not in the position to force people to do anything, really (unlike Microsoft). Sure, some might say that “if you buy an iPod, you are practically forced to use iTunes!”. But you are not forced to buy an iPod.

  What Apple offers is a “walled garden”. Inside that garden, things work well and everything is peaceful. But if you want to peek in to that garden from the outside, it doesn’t work quite that well and the whole thing might seem pointless. Either you are in, or you are out. But the choice to enter the garden is up to you. When you are in that garden, you will see that in many ways, you might have less choice than before. But on the other hand, you are presented with a cohesive whole that is well integrated with each other and which (by and large) “just works”. Either you buy in to that value-proposition (and that proposition is mighty appealing for many) or you don’t.

  What about Quicktime? Well, it’s Apple’s baby, so naturally they want to use it whenever possible. Just like MS insist on using WMV.

• Not the people who use Apple products are idiots, the people who bitch about Apple (comparing Apple to Borg etc.) are idiots.
  I’m not a Mac user, but I’m happy Apple’s there. Apple develops CUPS, Apple improved the 3rd class KHTML library into the best web rendering engine out there (WebKit), Apple puts lots of resources into free compilers (GCC, LLVM), Apple created free server software (Darwin Streaming Server and Calendar Server), and Apple fixes bugs and develops new features across the whole line of GNU tools.

  If Apple wasn’t there, my Linux experience would not be as smooth as it’s today.

• “Just open the source code of the page, grab the .mov, open it in kwrite, get the stream URL and open it in *mplayer or VLC, it will work. …”

  I agree!! This is exactly what I would do. I LOVE scraping site source code for tucked-away goodies and shortcuts… =8^D

• VLC > Quicktime
  Open standards FTW!

• Filip, just as Psychotron noted, we, the Linux users, were able to easily watch videos from their site, but now they choose to block us.

  All I have to do this to prove it – is view the source of the page that won’t show the video (saying “Get the latest QuickTime”), locate the URL to the .mov file and type the following in my console:
  $ mplayer [URL]

  And voila! I’m watching the video! Enough said!

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