"Apple's little problem with ripping off artists"

[gabi]

Apple are turning into a mid to late nineties Microsoft.

Do you want to elaborate? In what ways?

 

[editor]

Do you want to elaborate? In what ways?

They're going to introduce the Blue Screen Of Death on to all their machines soon and sprinkle their interface with extra Gates-powered clunkiness.

 

[rocketman]

Answers.com lists it thus: "Think different" (1997–present)"
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-apple-inc-slogans

Answers.com?
*chuckles*
Ladybird book of facts, right?

 

[editor]

Answers.com?
*chuckles*
Ladybird book of facts, right?

Oh, I am sorry.

This site says the campaign ran until as late as 2002, although many people still strongly associate it with the company (I do).

But now that I've looked it up for fear of gaining further ridicule from you, I didn't realise quite how fucking nauseous and smug the campaign was:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who actually do.

Mind you, I'm sure Microsoft has spewed equal amounts - if not more - of PR bullshit that this, but we're not talking about them at the moment. And that stuff above is hideous bollocks.

 

[Dask]

Do you want to elaborate? In what ways?

Look at Microsoft's business strategy from that time.

Remember the Internet Explorer fiasco, The European Anti trust settlement, there are parallels with what Apple are now doing.

 

[dogmatique]

Everyone's at it - and there's quite a few surprises on this site if you haven't seen it before - wholesale creative theft all over the place!

http://www.youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/

Disney stealing from themselves! How lazy is that?

 

[Crispy]

Look at Microsoft's business strategy from that time.

Remember the Internet Explorer fiasco, The European Anti trust settlement, there are parallels with what Apple are now doing.

Yeah, apple does a whole lot more bundling than MS ever did. MS only got in trouble because they were abusing their monopoly position.

I'm not going to complain too hard though, because the bundled apple software is actually really good (apart from iphoto, which isa bloated dog of a program - I really miss picasa)

 

[editor]

urban75 and eme's site both feature here:
http://pirated-sites.com/classic/

(we were the ones being ripped off, I hasten to add! Here's the u75 rip off: http://www.urban75.com/rip_off.html)

 

[Dask]

Yeah, apple does a whole lot more bundling than MS ever did. MS only got in trouble because they were abusing their monopoly position.

That's true, I suppose in order to grow as a corporation you have to become "evil" to some extent.

Same goes for google.

 

[jæd]

Look at Microsoft's business strategy from that time.

Remember the Internet Explorer fiasco, The European Anti trust settlement, there are parallels with what Apple are now doing.

They're not there yet... You can replace Apple's components mostly with 3rd party items. (Ie, you don't need to use WebKit (Safari) but its easier...)

Its just that Apple's components tend to fit a lot better than others...

 

[Pie 1]

FFS: he posted up a fucking irritating lie about me and I corrected it.

Oh FFS, get a grip!
It wasn't a lie, it was a fucking opinion.

Christ, your a dick sometimes.

 

[Crispy]

What happens if you drop Safari on the trash?

 

[editor]

Oh FFS, get a grip!
It wasn't a lie, it was a fucking opinion.

Christ, your a dick sometimes.

How about you "get over" launching off-topic unprovoked personal attacks just because I reference a topical article from a hugely popular website that you don't happen to like?

Or, even better, write to Engadget and accuse them of having an "unhealthy anti apple obsession" because they're the people who wrote the fucking article, not me.

I've posted up both positive and negative criticisms of Apple's products, and I'd be really grateful if you stopped trying to disrupt threads with your unpleasant personal attacks and attempts to misrepresent me.

Thanks

 

[cybertect]

What happens if you drop Safari on the trash?

It stays there until you empty it.

Then it's gone forever.

 

[jæd]

What happens if you drop Safari on the trash?

Never tried it... Want to give it a go...?

 

[Crispy]

so nothing as calamitous as deleting iexplore.exe on a windows machine?

 

[Crispy]

Ah, the internets says to me that WebKit is uninstallable - as many OS components use it to render HTML, but Safari itself can be trashed.

 

[editor]

so nothing as calamitous as deleting iexplore.exe on a windows machine?

Bill Gates comes around your house and makes you use FrontPage 2001 if you do that.

 

[Dask]

Front Page is swear word here at work.

 

[jæd]

Ah, the internets says to me that WebKit is uninstallable - as many OS components use it to render HTML, but Safari itself can be trashed.

One of the advantages of Linux is that you *can* remove core pieces of the desktop manager if you really, really want to. Though there's no guarantee the desktop manager will work.

This can be a disadvantage when put in the hands of a newbie with super-user access...

 

[cybertect]

I'm not in a mood to try it out, but I suspect that you could remove WebKit with root access, some determination and liberal use of rm -rf.

I don't know how much else of the OS would still function afterward though (Dashboard Widgets and iTunes would be obvious casualties for a start).

 

[Crispy]

yeah. it turns out that html rendering is a really useful thing to have in an API, so it turns out that MS was ahead of the game by providing a built-in renderer

 

[TopCat]

Don't NUJ journos get 20% off of all apple products?

 

[editor]

Don't NUJ journos get 20% off of all apple products?

I dunno. I'm an NUJ journo too, so I should check.

 

[Lazy Llama]

I dunno. I'm an NUJ journo too, so I should check.

http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=762 Should have details

 

[editor]

http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=762 Should have details

It just says, "The full range of Apple kit is available to NUJ members at reduced prices at the Apple Store" but doesn't specify the amount.

To be honest, it would have to be something like 50% before I got interested, and I think that's rather unlikely (my 4yr old Vaio still works just fine).

 

[Lazy Llama]

I believe it is 20% as TopCat said.

They do sell other stuff on the Apple Store; external drives, iPod accessories, printers, speakers, cameras, all sorts of stuff, dunno whether the discount applies to those too.

The Apple store isn't usually a place of much cheapness (apart from refurbed Macs and iPods) so even with 20% off it might not be terribly competitive but worth checking.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

iPods aren't cheap on the apple store. Amazon hammers them into the floor.

 

[editor]

iPods aren't cheap on the apple store. Amazon hammers them into the floor.

Do they still work after that?

 

[Iam]

I like Apple kit, own some myself (laptop, iPod).

However, I'm regularly amused by the fanbois insistence that they're somehow different from all the other corps out there.

The song's a disgrace, a blatant ripoff.