Online shared intelligence

Apple becoming Big Brother, censoring you and I as well

The article in Baseline looking at how Apple is stifling innovation shyly touches in one slide what I think is the biggest problem with Apple: too much power derived from total, arbitrary control over device, software and even purchasing choices. Not surprisingly, that power falls in the hands of a monumental egocentric like Jobs, and it becomes worrying.

I am an Apple fan, and as a consumer probably in the 97 percentil when measured by reliance and expenditure on Apple for personal AND business computing devices. But I have started to be alarmed too, and despite all previous proclamations, have decided NOT to buy the iPad, and to seriously look at switching away from the iPhone.

When Apple decides to keep OUT of the iPad technology that has become ubiquitous, just to REDUCE and without arbitration curtail what I can do with the device, it goes too far.

It goes even further, waaaaaay too far, when it decides in a non-transparent way which apps I can buy or not. No, not apps that could drain batteries (miserable excuse to keep Adobe out of their devices). The decision is taken on CONTENT; in other words, a megalomaniac decides what I can see.

Not that I would use the iPhone to buy porn: the device screen is too small to enjoy it. But who the hell is Jobs to decide what I can do with a device I paid good money for, and which has as competitors wonderfully open devices? Fuck, I left my country of birth to leave authoritarian despots behind, I am not going to take it from Apple. It’s not a matter of motivation: whether the decision is taken to make more money on me or to control my thinking or whatever: it still SUCKS.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 8:12 am and is filed under gadgetry, nausea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.