Customers ask: Is Apple going rotten? I say it started with that charge for 802.11n. The accountants took over.
never could get the hang of thursdays
never could get the hang of thursdays
Customers ask: Is Apple going rotten? I say it started with that charge for 802.11n. The accountants took over.
Umm the charge for the 802.11n, while being an awful thing for consumers, was actually due to the lack of accountants. There are guidelines about how a publicly traded company should report their earnings and such and there’s something about not adding new features for free because allowing that would be a major loophole.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/january#wed-17-jobs_wifi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes_oxley
That said, yes, Apple is being more of a douche in a more general sense. When Apple started, it seemed like they were fighting against the music industry for the consumer’s benefit but over the years, they’ve sold off little pieces of their soul to the music industry, the movie industry and now the mobile industry. Wil Shipley says it better:
http://wilshipley.com/blog/2007/09/iphone-ipod-contain-or-disengage.html
SOx does not require that you charge customers, it merely requires that you account for it or declare the fact on your reports – and it seems like the accountants said “fuck it, we’re not going back over the accounts or revising the ones for next FY. Charge it to them if they want it.” All they needed to do was declare on the financial reports that there was features they haven’t unlocked – but that would naturally cause uproar in the customer community. It’s just because Steve wants to do his “One more thing” act.
Wil’s piece is also a good one – book-marked on delicious :) – but he’s got a bit narrower focus, primarily on the iPhone. The other issues, such as the games and the video-out locking, are far more “bastard.” style. The iPod platform has always been closed, so I’m not surprised the iPhone wasn’t opened up, despite being an OSX fork.