Apple – Making Enemies With Every Success!

I am a fan of products created by Apple. I love the way they go for perfection in small things, but often leave big things out of the story. They join late in providing basic software features but also provide excellent experience for users. The first version of iPhone was all about users touch experience rather than hardware wow factor and later, they beefed up hardware configuration for performance in newer versions of iPhone.

Apple has never been fast to act  and also lacked open culture history of sharing information. Mac OS was nice with graphical user interface but Apple deliberately downplayed the existence of the operating system in the early years of the Macintosh to help make the machine appear more user-friendly and to distance it from other operating systems such as MS-DOS, which was more arcane and technically challenging. Apple thought publicity of their OS will hamper selling of Macintosh as they may appear technically challenging to people. Apple released its first OS in 1984 with Macintosh and Microsoft released Windows 1.0, a year later i.e. in 1985. The start was with Apple, but they were not quick at releasing updates and making business relationship with other companies and Bill Gates excelled in both the things.

Apple is never shy from taking credit.  Steve Jobs gave credit to his engineers for creating the A4 chip inside iPhone 4, the very next day Engadget reported the use of similar chip inside Samsung’s upcoming handset “Wave S8500″. Apple is very good in designing of hardware, along with planning and implementation of software, but it’s not a big secret that they aren’t the creators of the hardware which powers them especially the processor, graphics card and other tiny chips. Apple generally takes out the stickers of items used inside or wrap them in different coating(A4 chip inside iphone 4). This approach is something which I never personally understood. Apple is very well respected and don’t have to do such things for anything. Remember, how previous versions of iPhone were ripped apart by various geeks revealing the names of chips along with their manufacturers, used inside. I, once saw an video of Steve saying that no-one is good at creating everything and you have to respect that and give credit to them. Maybe, its time for me to mail that video to him, oh, one little problem, I have that in flv (flash video)  format.

That was the scenario in desktop arena, but now the game is completely different in case of mobiles. Apple says “it revolutionized the mobile phone industry with launch of iPhone”, I don’t agree with that line, I think they just added a new dimension and approach. To say revolutionize, they had to bring the product to masses but prices of iPhone are pathetic in developing countries. They are riding high on success and thus, don’t need to bring it’s prices down. But their success seems to have given them a new authority, that is to challenge things and create awkward situations for other companies.

Adobe has been on the forefront of receiving attack from Apple. It decided to ban Flash on it’s upcoming iPhone 4 and already launched iPad. They say “Flash is buggy” in code, however most of Internet uses flash to render smooth videos. I remember users who bought iPad complaining of its inability to play flash video and play popular flash based games like “Farmville” on various discussion boards. When everyone wants to have the ability to use flash, you deny them and ask web developers to code in HTML5.

The optimal watching video resolution introduced on the iPad had issues with major media publishing groups as the aspect ratio used on iPad was a new standard and now few companies have reported of not supporting it.

Apple recently launched Safari 5 which has been coded with the ability to hide ads in it’s reader. Safari reader renders pages in extremely streamlined form but leaves out ads, which makes publishers loose money. Apple doesn’t have any advertising platform for computers and thus they are blocking Google ads and few others. However, on the other side of the coin, it is launched a new advertising platform called “iAds” for iPhone and iPad and they are asking everyone to advertise there. It seem its time for me to jailbreak my iPhone.

iMovie was recently announced for iPhone, but with a price tag. If you ask me personally, thats like paying for Windows Movie Maker in Windows. Apple was also recently criticized for scrapping the use of any third party API to build apps for iPhone and iPad leaving developers with no option, but to learn more. Earlier, when I reefered Apple as lacking open culture during early days, it still prevails.

In an interview where both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs featued, Steve was asked, what he could have done different that he now wishes he should have had it during early days of rivalry with Microsfot?. He stressed the importance of making Business relationship with other companies. If we see the current round of fights with companies, he is still lacking that thing.  I haven’t added Nokia to the list because Nokia was the first to file patent law-suit and later Apple filed back.

By seeing this post, you might think I hate Apple, but that’s not the case. It is just that I highlighted a few bad things done in recent times by Apple. If  I would have listed good things, this article would have been even bigger.

apple logo history, apple making enemies, sharing information