Prudes and Censors in the Church of the Holy Apple

With the purchase of two new Macs, I've given Apple $4,500 this year alone. I've been buying nothing but Macintosh desktop machines and Powerbooks (about 15 total) since 1991, not to mention extended warranties, iPods, Airport routers, and other pricey peripherals.

But there are times when I'd like to kick Apple in the nuts — not because I'm unhappy with the products, but because it's galling to me that I've given all that money to a company that has a troubling penchant for both censorship and the kind of self-serving righteousness that will always receive a smackdown on this blog.

Apple is about as free-speech-unfriendly as they come. That's a plenty stupid corporate trait for any company, but especially for one that disproportionally markets to people who think of themselves as individuals, creators, and (in Apple's words) "rebels, misfits, troublemakers, and round pegs in square holes."

Earlier this year, Apple banned the Eucalyptus e-reader from its online app store because the program draws content from Project Gutenberg, the much-loved online library of rights-free classic books. Actually, that wasn't the problem. The problem was, Apple's bluenoses explained, that one of the books in the Gutenberg collection is the Kama Sutra.

And consider the latest episode of Apple cracking down on iPhone content that few outside of the Cupertino bubble would find objectionable. The fashion photos in question are from a mainstream German magazine. They show just enough skin that the developer, perhaps mindful of Apple's legendary prudishness, asked buyers to state whether they are 17 or older before the app can be used. Not good enough, Apple decided. The company yanked the program.

Why does Apple concern itself with what adults voluntarily download to their Macs and iPods in the first place? It's all very much akin to a customer buying, say, a Sony TV, and Sony having programmed the set to shut itself off as soon as it detects a whiff of on-screen raunch. Crazy church-lady stuff, in other words. It's a miracle that Apple's Safari browser allows access to "objectionable" content (I wouldn't know, actually; I use Firefox).

My feelings about the company are not softened one whit by the recent news that Apple refuses to service machines that have been "contaminated" with cigarette smoke. It's one thing if the company wants to argue that tar build-up inside a Mac, or other excessive tobacco-related gremlins, constitute abuse and thus void the warranty. But Apple's eye-popping claim is that smokers' machines are bio-hazards, and that it would be unethical and illegal to expose its personnel to nicotine-related health risks.

That's thinking different, to say the least. Does Apple honestly assume we don't know how many toxic materials go into the making of a computer as a matter of course? The list includes mercury, radioactive isotopes, cadmium, and dioxins. But some tobacco residue, that'll kill Apple's people like flies? Please. They think nicotine is icky? Here's my free advice: Don a pair of latex gloves, wear a 25-cent mask from the hardware store if you're still worried, and get to fucking work on those broken Macs already.

For the record, I find Apple's actions in all these cases much more distasteful than any content (or tobacco cooties) that the company has so far managed to suppress.

Comments

[DavidMWW]

Absolutely. I've been buying Macs for years, and always recommend them to anyone who asks. My in-laws are on their third now because of me. But, Christ, the company is an embarrassment at times.

[Timmy Mac]

Not for nothing, but if you guys keep buying them, why would they change their ways?

[Rogier]

Timmy:

Macs = crack. That's the only explanation I have.

[Phil Nelson]

Because the alternatives are: Worse companies that make worse products OR no computer.

[Fritz Sands]

I just bought a Droid instead of an iPhone partly because I didn't want the Apple nonsense about selecting what apps I should buy through their special store.

As for computers -- Mac software crashes or hangs at least as much as software for PCs. If you just can't stand MSFT (full disclosure -- I am a long time dev at MSFT), get a Linux box.

Apple continues to be able to pull its stunts because the true believers are OK with whatever the company chooses to do. And with paying premium $$ for the computers. Gotta admit, though, Apple hires great designers.

[Magic from London]

Are you aware that sooner than you know it the Big Steve will be watching you:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/353359/apple-patent-forces-ads-on-mac-users

Some undisclosed sources claim that this new technology will be known as a Cupertino Hiena and that it will be resistant to a cigarette smoke:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/353512/apple-refuses-to-repair-smokers-macs

[hermesten]

You sound like the people who pay money to be treated like proles at concerts and sports stadiums. I don't get it unless they just like the abuse --since virtually everything they go to see in these places is available in some less abusive form, and for less money.

Your complaint seems equally hollow to me. It's not like PC's don't work --they may just not be quite as satisfying to your personal taste. Like sports teams and concert venues, why should Apple give a fuck what you think about their Puritanism as long as you keep buying whatever shit they're shoveling --and at premium prices?

The fact is the people taking your money and handing out the abuse count your dollars, not your gripes. You can keep paying and griping or you can stop giving them your money. When enough people stop giving them money they'll either stop the abuse or they'll go out of business (or, they'll get the State to make you buy their product, like insurance companies do).

[Rogier]

>>It's not like PC's don't work --they may just not be quite as satisfying to your personal taste.<<

Taste is a part of it, sure -- as is the ability to get dozens if not hundreds of hours more work done every year. I've worked with PCs. In fact, I own one -- a Lenovo Netbook for which I've developed very little love since I bought it four or five months ago. To me, Windows machines are torture.

There's truth to your (characteristically abrasively-worded) statement that refusing to spend money with a certain company whose policies one disagrees with is a good way to get their attention -- if enough people do it. Then again, as a business owner myself, I sure as hell do prick up my ears when my customers (especially my most loyal ones) complain about something, and I'll do what I reasonably can to remedy it.

It's debatable whether Apple is more likely to be successfully held accountable by protesting current customers, or by the few who've sworn off the brand. I think there's value in either approach.

But given that my livelihood heavily depends on Macs, and that my creativity thrives on them, and that I have thousands of dollars invested in platform-specific software, I'm unlikely to boycott Apple. Kicking the self-proclaimed geniuses in the shins for their prudery, however, is all in a day's work. My pleasure.

[hermesten]

Of course, given the relative costs of software and hardware, once you start down a particular computer path, your hardware future is pretty much fixed. Even if this wasn't so, if it's an Apple computer that pulls your chain, so be it. I have no love for the PC, it's just cheap (and I loathe Microsoft).

That said, while YOU may pay attention to your customers, I don't think you can extrapolate your more personal level of doing business to the methods of large corporations. For them it is purely a numbers game. If they make more money shitting on people like you and sucking up to the prudes, they're going to shit on you and suck up to the prudes. Lots of people like to say "do the math," but big corporations actually do it.

[Dark Phoenix]

" I have no love for the PC, it's just cheap (and I loathe Microsoft)."

Cheaper if you don't touch Microsoft at all.