GranthamTech

Will Get Fooled Again March 18, 2009

Every time I hear about Apple releasing a new product my brow becomes even more furrowed than usual. It is true that I am not of that half of the population that thinks Apple style is worth the inflated price demanded. Rather than sitting in the serried ranks that display the self confirming half eaten pomme de terre, I’m the chap more likely to have the laptop with the Dell logo on the lid.

I’d like to say that Apple products are a triumph of style over functionality but that would not be true. Their products are definitely most functional as well as being exceptionally stylish. No, my issue is more to do with the level of control they seek to exercise over their products and, by extension, their customers. For example thou shalt only manage your IPOD based music using iTunes (try RockBox for an open source alternative for some IPODs). Or thou shalt only run OSX on Apple hardware.

So I suppose I find myself being somewhere between incredulous and resigned to read that the latest IPOD Shuffle has no means, at least currently, to operate it unless you use Apple proprietary headphones. There is also some discussion about whether a mysterious chip on the device is there for “authentication” purposes or not. There is an excellent review of these issues at iLounge.

If Apple really is trying to limit customer choice in this way then it seems to confirm again, at least for me, the excessive tendency it has to want to control it’s products and it’s customers.

For some of us older people this may seem a tad ironic remembering the famous TV ad when Apple portrayed itself as the liberator, ready to free us from the tyranny of IBM.

It’s not hard to draw parallels from the wider world to see that once again a former liberator has, almost inevitably, turned into a tyrant. The real mystery to me though is why so many people want to pay so much, just to be able to adorn themselves in bright, shiny, chains.