This post is different from all the other posts. It my first post trying to comment something I read on the web.
This morning Google Reader showed me what looked like an interesting post to me "
Mac OS X Secretly Cripples Non-Apple Software ".
Would really Apple be willing to use such techniques ?
I am a Mac user, but I am mainly a Unix guy who switched to Mac because he decided to begin
using his computer, rather than
configuring it 7/24.
After my switch to Apple I began meeting and facing Apple users. At the beginning they were mainly with my history (linux -> mac os x), but at some point Apple zealot users overwhelmed coming-from-linux ones.
At that point I started to understand what does it mean to be "an Apple customer" and why long time Apple ones are so loyal to Apple.
Apple, with Mac OS X, really makes a computer usable.
Windows is too cold. You click just because you know you have to click, not because you really know what are you doing.
Linux is still too geeky. It was made by geeks for geeks and only lately someone thought it would be mandatory for it being made by geeks for users.
Mac OS X was and is designed for the casual user.
A cellphone is designed to be used by the casual user (and many geeks usually complain about that as they wanted to unlock their phone potential).
Apple's Mac OS X is what Linux should have been and will never be (as for now that's what I think).
But Mac OS X has always been chosen and used by a minority of people, every Apple user knew it and they were fine with it. But not Steve. Apple needed to make money.
And the switch to a real OS (let me use this expression, please) was mandatory.
Now Mac OS X has grown a lot, it's mature enough to compete in the OS battle.
It has kept the initial design of being usable, but coupled it with the old robustness of Unix.
You (linux user) will never understand what that means until you own a Mac. Believe me.
Now... would this company be willing to cripple third party software by hiding "turbo APIs" ?
They want to sell Macs. They want to appeal new Linux users (usually switchers from Windows) to their platform.
Would it be wise to play these tricky games while being under the fire of the Penguins and the snipers behind the Windows ?
I don't think so.
They are clear: we are a company, we need to make money. We play fair. We give what we can give (without risking to loose money, while keeping ours shareholders happy), but we keep what we think can help us make more money (by selling hardware, i.e. having unique, easy to use [actually FUN to use] software).
Thus I went on reading the original post (an interesting one) and figured out what the author itself better explained later in the post itself. And the answer is "no, Apple does not need to use those cheats".
To sum this up, I think that Linux users should switch to Apple is they are not geeks and people should stop playing the war of the OSes.
