Lets be honest they are such an arrogant lot whoever works for them. My son will only use Apple product and yes they do have some benefits but none for me that's for sure
Indeed Gates doesn't work for MS and therefore you cannot project his behaviour onto the company, however Jobs was a CEO of Apple, making him a representative for the company. A relationship that still bear it's marks on the company. I am not sure why you mix other companies into this argument as I never stated that these was much better than MS, care to explain? So an restaurant (unrelated business) with an apple in it's logo (a common fruit) is IP theft ? Is the saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" also infringing on the IP of Apple ? The problem here is the hunt for anything that has a very slight relation to apple, not only straight IP theft, but anything they can either get banned or more prevailing threaten to "voluntarily" change. Again you will have a hard time getting me to applause something they were essentially forced to change. It would be much like calling Nike a beacon of light for stopping using forced labour when they were caught red handed. And this is an excuse how? Indeed but that doesn't change that I do not agree with how Apple manages theirs, or that I do not agree that there should be any limitations on how you wish to use the hardware you purchased. Indeed I will, as said in my first post I can understand if not everyone sees these as reasons not to by the products.
I don't necessarily agree with the Appleaday thing, but holding it up as an example of why Apple is evil is...silly. I can equally see why Apple chose to sue: Luxembourg is not an English speaking country, so use of an English word is going to be fairly unique and hold different meaning. As such, "apple" no longer means a piece of fruit, but the company that uses the word for trading - and Apple Inc certainly make a lot of their trademark. As such, using the world apple could cause problems. Second, their logo is an apple. It's not a direct copy, but yet another similarity in a non-English speaking country. Thirdly, Apple Inc are active in Luxembourg. This then leads to a direct clash. If Luxembourg laws said that different business categories can use the same name, then the suit wouldn't have even started, ergo, in Luxembourg it must be against trademark use to use the name else thee would be no case! Uh huh. Then the CEOs of many many many other corporations are just as evil and naughty and bad. Many of whom you probably buy products from. Because context is necessary. If you only purchased products from companies that you deem ethical, you'll be buying very little. My point is that Apple, in the context of the corporate world, are actually pretty good. See above, context is important. Nobody else does this? You sure? To re-iterate, Apple just do what everybody else does. They just happen to hit the headlines more often because of their size and value. I distinctly remember a certain film studio threatening to sue a pub not a few weeks back due to a name... At least it was changed. Why did it not happen five years ago? Why didn't Dell do it? Why didn't NVIDIA? You can't castigate a company for changing practices that have existed for decades - even if their motive is to reduce bad press. There's a difference between being caught doing something illegal, like child labour, and improving working practice. It's perfectly legal for Apple (read: Foxconn) to pay their workers the minimum, house them in minimum standard accommodation and not provide any other facilities. The suicide rate isn't a legal issue either. However, what Apple have done, and continue to do, is go beyond what is legal and even what is the norm in China, and provide more to their workers in pay, facilities and safety. Sure, if Foxconn was operating illegally, and Apple made them just toe the line on legality, no big deal, it is what you're supposed to do. Investing millions in that extra mile is surely to be applauded. Then don't buy it. That's a perfectly valid reason for not buying an iPhone, but equally understand that others don't care about the same things. Frankly, if you don't like app stores and their owners having control, don't bother with a smartphone at all.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/22/frustration-disappointment-and-apathy-my-years-at-microsoft/ Endemic to all big companies, I'm afraid.
Yeah, pretty much. Actually for apps you did. Initially you could only develop apps in Xcode, before there was a developer outcry and probably because they were forcing an anti-competitive practice (tying) on to the very people they were asking to support their app ecosystem. Actually I would argue that it was the tech journalism industry that did this by forcing Apple's hand. Apple didn't do a thing about it until the bad press kicked in.
I do love a good apple thread! I have enjoyed reading this thread. I dont like apple. At first I just wouldn't buy their products as they are over priced and under power. I couldn't care less about the looks of the thing. The fanboys annoy me. They really do believe apples propaganda, they have no grasp on reality. Apples "head in the sand" approach to security annoys me. They have spent the last decade or more going on about how OSX doesn't get viruses etc etc... yawn. Basically just relying on the fact they weren't worth targeting until now. They spent millions on advertising and gaining market share and now they are worth targeting and boy did they get pwned! A 650,000 strong botnet (massive even by windows standards) that is still there due in part to apple misleading their customers into believing they don't need security and that apple couldn't be bothered to release a security patch until 6 weeks after the fact, and only then after it was made public in the media. What was their first response? Try and get Dr Webs server shut down. Its the same when the famous/infamous Charlie Miller pointed out a security flaw with iOS and instead of thanking him and patching it apple thought it would be a better idea to ban him??? Another thing that annoys me is that apple can't seem to compete with other manufacturers fairly (just like microsoft who make up bogus patents as a way to extract money from competitors) so decides to sue them instead. I mean seriously you can't patent rectangles and rounded corners! Its estimated that they have spent $100,000,000 on legal fees, surely that could be better spent on things like actually innovating and coming up with your own ideas, and security!?! Its getting so bad they threatened to sue a sandwich shop in germany last year! When there are flaws in their hardware apple will deny they exist and blame the customers or say its a design feature (antennagate!). They only admit faults when they are forced to. Apple basically lie and mislead. The thing that really annoys me about apple is that they were responsible to expensive ebooks until the US stopped them and even then they deny it! Apples reality distortion field is really getting out of control!
Easy to get battery chargers for Android phones. I've had one for all three of mine. Had a backup emergency charger for my iphone too. Made the phone awkwardly long and impossible to put in a pocket without feeling the dock connector was gonna break. Typed on the last Macbook pro model with a removable battery. And yes, I have spares. VLC - Prevented people questioning why it doesn't support those formats natively. iTether - pulled for allowing people to question why they have to pay for a separate tethering contract. WiFi Sync - Banned for providing the ability to sync via wifi, questioning why you can't do that in the first place. Spotify - had to be heavily restricted for months because Apple wouldn't allow offline music, as it would provide the option of another music player. Apple is even so paranoid it has banned the use of the word Android in its app store. I didn't say I preferred flash, just that I prefer having in line content. These very forums don't show video inline in HTML5, neither do most news sites. Tech blog sites are the only ones I'm aware of that only embed HTML5 content. I actively use iPads in work, I work for a Mediation provider, and we have to run through common video standards on all popular devices. IIRC there are certain circumstances where the BBC will show html5 content, but the majority of its videos are provided in flash, including iPlayer.
Luxembourg is a very small very international country, and companies with English names are quite common. The laws I do not know my problem is that Apple tries to sue them, they may have no chance of winning however the threat alone is enough to scare many small companies to change names. Essentially Apple acts like a bully. True, I am not perfect and do not have the time to research all the companies I by products from, however in case with Apple I have read enough material to make the decision that it is not a company I wish to support as long as I have a choice. The same reason I avoid McDonalds, Coca Cola, and a few other companies and that I by fair trade products whenever available. But if Apple is so good why is it absent form almost all publicities of ethical companies? Again not saying that Apple is the only one. (wish that was the case) Not castigating, just not giving them any credit for doing so. Just because something is legal does not make it right, The Chinese police has the right to send you to rehabilitation camps without due process where you will be subject to semi torture and forced labour, (guess where most of your Christmas candles are made), now they have complete legal right to this but does that make it all right ? But in China it is Foxconn that improves their working conditions, not Apple. But true that my example falls short of being perfect. From my first post:
Not been outside of UK too much, right ? Half of the business names in non-English speaking countries are in English. And again, as i said before, trademark is not valid against all uses of the trademarked name, you can defend it only if it is the areas you registered in the trademark registrations. So yes, an Apple restaurant is just fine. And no, a circle with a leaf on top is not enough for a logo trademark infringement either.
To an extent I agree, it's not fantastic that they're doing this, but it's what happens when we have the legal system that we do. Equally, why should a small company get away with something that is technically against the law (if Apple win that is), just because they are small? Great, glad you have some kind of ethical code - but it's one that seems to be easily changed by the latest headline, nor is it comprehensive. If you were that bothered about labour rights you need to stop buying anything made in China - well, apart from Apple products as they're pretty much the only ones who now pay their staff decently and provide decent facilities* . I also wouldn't buy in to FairTrade simply because it has a nice logo - there's quite a lot of chatter out there that shows that FairTrade basically makes the wealthy feel a bit better about their purchases, whilst making little difference to the producers. * Yes, they are employed by Foxconn, but the changes have been instigated and paid for by Apple (even if this is via an increased cost per unit of Apple hardware that Foxconn churn out). So in a few years if Apple have become the Most Ethical Company in the World (TM), you still won't give them any credit? Sorry, you're being a bit stubborn here... You're right, and I agree, and you made my point for me. Every other computer hardware company is happy to just keep going with the status quo and keep everything just about legal, no more. That's wrong. Yet when Apple try to improve things beyond that level, you won't accept this? Glad we can agree! Discussion has moved on from that we can all have opinions on hardware and either buy it or not Actually, I'm rather well travelled thanks. Still doesn't change the fact that "apple" is not part of the language, and hence is treated differently. I could create a company called oewgiowngrjsgerg, which is clearly meaningless in English (or any other language), and it would become associated with my company. Somebody else coming along and using that "word" and adding a bit to it could arguably still be confused with my company, especially if the company was as big as Apple. For logo infringement, no, it's not enough by itself. However add the name of the company and use of an apple in a logo and you could potentially argue that something was intended. Equally I'm not a lawyer, and neither are you (I assume), so it really comes down to a court to decide. Again, if Apple had no case, then surely it wouldn't have gotten this far at all, so your assertions that an Apple restaurant is "fine" must be flawed, in Luxembourg at least.
Pulled by the developers when they realised the terms of Apple's licence was in conflict with the open source licence. Apple subsequently changed their terms to support open source licences 'better'. It was pulled because Apple has very broad terms of app rejection / pulling. So it was always going to a risk developing an app that by design is allowing phone subscribers to circumvent paying additional fees for tethering. Wasn't permitted because it broke Apple's terms and by necessity made use of all sorts of private APIs in undocumented ways. Apple had no reason to enable APIs for Wi-Fi syncing when they would have known all along such a feature was on their roadmap. Apple have always said they can (and often will) reject an app if it offers functionality too close to Apple's own apps. Spotify knew this, worked within this model - maybe weren't happy with it. Apple is a company, selling things to make a profit. Everything they do at it's heart is to advance this aim. Of course it'll protect it's own interests, and that means rejecting offline music apps like Spotify until a time they are ready. It's their shop, they can choose to sell anything they like. It's a shop that makes them money so they protect their interests. Everyone knows this, the reasoning is clear if you read their own documentation. Google on the other hand isn't as interesting in making money from it's store as Apple (Although I wager that's changing). Historically they want to sell adverts and therefore get you using Google products. They can do this by offering a viable alternative to Apple which we all have. So these aren't 'random' apps that are pulled to avoid people asking questions of Apple. They were either in breach of some document or other or attempting to compete directly with Apple's own revenue stream. You can argue all you like on whether they should be holding back competition like this, but it's not really on to say these were 'random' acts.
Apple started publishing their supplier responsibility reports in 2007: http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2007_Progress_Report.pdf I never heard a great deal of criticism of Apple's manufacturing before the "Foxconn suicides" in 2010. From then on a lot of the reporting on how bad apple was made use of Apple's own data. If you've got reports on Apple pre 2007 I would genuinely love to read them, it would be interesting to read how bad things were before Apple (and the iPhone) got so big they could afford to force companies like Foxconn to deliver to a set of standards.
True and there will be small companies trying to infringe on Apple to try to gain some turnover based on Apples works, and of course Apple should strive to stop this. The point where I find it unethical is when they start attacking things that clearly have no relation and when they start using their size and muscles to scare everyone smaller. My habits are indeed subject to change based on what I hear in the media, however as I do not intent to use every awaken our doing research on everything using the mass media is one of the best means I have. Fairtrade I have gained some respect for as I have been a part of a few reports concerning fairtrade, and despite everything is it the best we have currently. Nothing is perfect but the least you can do is to try to steer round the worst of it. My opinion of Microsoft has changed the last few years due to what seems like improvements in their business methods, and they even show up on the 2011 ethisphere list of ethical companies. I do not change my mind based on a single case however if these keeps popping up in the next years my mind may well change. It may seem like stubbornness and it may be but the test of time is very important. I accept that it was done however I do not find that it was done for the right reasons and therefore It doesn't change my opinion of the company. A company that changes practices due to force is really no better than the one that keeps the status quo.
Could we just stop this endless war ? Apple, like ALL big companies, is driven by the profit they can make. We all know that almost every single manufactured product we can buy has been built by an under payed human being. Thanks to the over consuming society we are living in, where people always want more more and more, never being happy with what they already have. This kind of discution is a waste of time and energy compared to what is happening in the world. This was my little opinion on this subject, sorry if I disturbed this thread
I didnt bother to read all 4 pages, ill just sum up my thoughts with pics (cause you know, threads are useless w/o them) And the best for last...
