krankshaft format solution found

[Paul Mather]

On Apr 6, 2011, at 9:48 AM, Jonathan Smith wrote:

> I am glad to hear you say that! It exactly the closed system (= max profits)
> which turns me off.

You do know that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is a publicly traded company, don't you?  As such, they have a legal fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.  Hopefully, this will help explain some of their business decisions (e.g., "max profits") that are disagreeable to you and me. :-)


> Open system is the way to go. I only bought a Mac when
> they went Intel and used USB ports, allowing non-proprietary peripherals.

Surely you don't mean non-proprietary, you mean commonplace (or maybe cheap)?  The only proprietary things that commonly spring to mind are the ADB keyboards they used to have, and the NuBus cards of the old M68K-based Macs (and I guess the Apple II [pre-Mac] was very proprietary, but then most computers were back then:).  Besides those, Macs have used reasonably standard technologies such as OpenFirmware, SCSI, IEEE1394 (FireWire), Ethernet, IEEE802.11a/b/g/n, CardBus, DVI, SATA, USB, and 3.5 mm jack plugs.  Even gubbins such as DisplayPort has been adopted by VESA and is being used by other mainstream manufacturers such as Dell and HP.

Personally, I thought it was a huge retrograde step when Apple ditched PowerPC and switched over to Intel, but there you go.


> The conditions in which Apple products are produced are also appalling.
> People in Foxconn's mega factory in Shenzen, which produced iPhones, had to
> commit suicide to get a living wage (that reminds me of a Calvert song).


Any company producing electronic devices that use tantalum capacitors (e.g., mobile phones, DVD players, video game systems, etc.) has probably helped support appalling conditions.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but large volume manufacturers are not known to choose China as a place to outsource their manufacturing because of its stellar working conditions.  It would surprise me to learn that Apple was the only big name to act in such heinous fashion.  But, it seems to me that the punters (and most especially the shareholders) prefer to pay a bit less for their shiny electronic toys (clothing, etc.) than to support good working conditions abroad... :-(

Cheers,

Paul.