Since December 1998, when on impulse I bought the original iMac from CompUSA, I’ve used Apple gear. No longer. Late yesterday, I replaced the last fruit-logo with another, fulfilling my pledge nearly a month ago to boycott Apple…

…

Rotten to the Core

Sadly, in 2012, Apple is the company I always worried it would be. A decade ago, some of us journalists occasionally debated question: What if Apple was as big and powerful as Microsoft? Wouldn’t we all be better off? I usually heard that question answered “Yes” — that Apple would never be as aggressive or anticompetitive as Microsoft was during its PC supremacy in the late 1980s throughout the 1990s. I always answered “No”.

The problem: As a corporate culture, Apple seeks to control everything in its supply chain and is secretive about everything else. I saw Apple as being a harsh dictator if ever growing to dominate any part of the tech industry. That’s proved to be the case, but much, much more severely than I ever expected…

…Apple demanded the California court find Samsung in violation of 11 patents, later reduced to two but only one applied to the injunction. What irony, too. Google is master of search, but application of Apple’s patent limits it — dictates core functionality. Google’s Galaxy Nexus update removes universal search from Ice Cream Sandwich, which also is gone from Jellybean. Yeah, I’m living that future now, and cursing Apple because of it…

…Apple did, and still does, create a good user experience, and community around it. But I’ve never really regarded Apple as being the great innovator so many of the apologists do. Everyone copies. Everybody imitates…

…Apple’s patent, or slide to lock. The latter mechanism has been used to secure doors for centuries. Apple didn’t invent the concept, just applied it differently…

…Microsoft has the better way, by the way. The company prefers to cross-license patents rather than sue. Microsoft uses patents to spread and share innovation — to empower it by removing the threat of litigation for all parties. Apple is the clubber on the ice pack, beating down product conceptions like baby seals. Neither reaches maturity…

From : http://betanews.com/2012/07/04/i-declare-independence-from-apple/

My biggest problem with Apple is their claim to innovation.  Apple, almost without exception, takes other peoples ideas strips the edgey features out and slightly improves on the core concept.  Apple simplifies, not innovates.  And that would be just fine with me if Apple didn’t claim to be the great inventor.

• I read a few days ago that they now claim to have “invented the smart phone in 2008″… ya, I don’t think so.
• Steve Wozniak had the balls to write a book titled, “How I Invented The Personal Computer”.  There are between five and 10 people who can claim to have invented the PC, and neither Steve Wazniak or Apple in general have ANY claim.  FYI, the inventor of the PC is Chuck Peddle see commodore.ca/history/people/chuck_peddle/chuck_peddle.htm
• I have heard many time rediculous claims by Apple staff that they invented the Tablet… um ya.. don’t think so.  The certainly popularized it, but they did not invent it.

Something Apple DID invent was the “screw you, screw”  see: urtech.ca/2012/06/apple-screws-customers-this-time-with-real-screws/

The best IT related quote I have ever heard was from the father of the PC, Chuck Peddle, who said ” There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing Evil about Bill Gates”, and yes he knows (knew) both personally.