Month: March 2008

As I tweeted earlier, I saw the Iron Man trailer earlier.

Gave me the same shivers I got from the trailers of Batman Begins, Superman Returns and the recent Star Trek due May 2009.

Funny how that works.

Trust is the most valuable commodity.

It’s not given freely but you also can’t just buy it. The best sorts of trust are built up over years where the trusters and trustees develop a long running relationship.

This is where I am with Apple for the most part. I don’t pay them money for their gear and software for any other reason than I trust them. I know they have spent more effort doing things the right way and I trust them to continue. My experiences with other UNIX vendors, with Windows lead me to believe that the developers did not put in the correct effort to ensure my computing experience would be simpler. Even just using Windows XP from day to day illustrates how the developers did not care about how I felt or whether I minded clicking a few more times to find the right window because their window focus efforts are hard to predict. It’s an extra step I guess to make window focus predictable. Apple did it, Microsoft didn’t. It’s a small detail but it annoys me daily.

So, this trust is built up so that when I am faced with moral dilemmas, I can correctly guess which side of the fence Apple will come down on, acknowledging that they are a capitalist company but naysayers aside, they’re definitely a company with a soul. This contradiction often puts them in conflict with organisations which, on the face of it, represent ‘soul’ in many ways.

With some examples;

Apple’s relationship with Greenpeace isn’t what it should be. Apple has complied with legislation and has in many cases been a front runner. But Greenpeace is always present to complain and hitch a free ride off the release of some new Apple gadget. The iPhone being the most recent example, where the end result was to make Greenpeace look like headline-hungry shills. Even though they were wrong, they’ve just skulked off to wait for the next headline-making doodah so they can add some more nonsense.

Similar, the FreeSoftware Foundation was very quick to mutter about how the iPhone might violate the GPL. All without looking at the software but, of course, they had access to Mac OS X and it’s not in violation of the GPL. Again, an organisation estalished to protect freedoms becomes a media-hungry shill making baseless accusations. And with no retraction, where’s the soul?

There’s a recent hubbub about Apple using undocumented APIs has now been blown out of proportion despite comments from David Hyatt (a developer at Apple I trust) that there are good reasons. These APIs used are unstable, unfinished and likely to change. The guy who discovered it says “To be clear, I do not think that Apple is in any way trying to purposely ‘cripple’ non-Apple software,” it doesn’t stop a massive outcry from unfortunate fools trapped on Linux who posted endlessly on Slashdot about how this was a Microsoft behaviour. It’s true, for years Microsoft hid high performance APIs from the public eye but that’s not what Apple is doing here. Even the Mozilla foundation’s Robert O’Callahan asserts that he “can’t recall Microsoft ever pulling off an undocumented-API-fest of this magnitude” which with the best will in the world is simply hyperbole. His solution was to push Apple to make these frameworks public (which is exactly what Apple said to do). Funny that.

Apple has responded appropriately with Maciej Stachowiak telling developers to file bug requests for these APIs because then they can be brought to attention and firmed up and made public all the quicker. Brilliant idea.

The things that upsets me about this is that the self-interested agendas being pushed here blatantly colour the intentions of those in the action. At least we expect self-interested agendas from Apple: they’re a publicly traded corporation in a platform war with half the technology companies out there (operating systems, PC hardware, phones, handhelds). We expect them to cut corners and frankly “skin us if they need something to write on” but Apple, again and again, exceeds my expectations in their morality. And others, propped up as bastions of civilisation, constantly disappoint.

I expect this sort of headline hunting from Slashdot. I didn’t used to expect it from Ars Technica but I guess that somewhere along the way they figured that Apple headlines sell advertising and so they’re glad to syndicate non-news dressed as scandal.