Publisher Wiley's Books Pulled from Apple Stores 677
getling writes "Looks like Steve Jobs is almost as unhappy about personal details being publicized as he is with Mac secrets. The book publisher Wiley, who is releasing a new unauthorized biography of Jobs has had its entire line of books banned from Apple stores as a result of their unhappiness with the content of the book. Wiley, publisher of the popular Dummies series of books, as well as the Bible series, is quite surprised, due to the fact that they view the book to show Jobs in a largely positive light ..."
If he doesn't like the spotlight (Score:5, Insightful)
The private life of public figures. (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I'd be damn annoyed if people started publicising my illnesses, my past and my private life [yahoo.com] as well. For the second time no less! There's this myth that if you're a public figure you're not entitled to a private life. Bollocks.
Speech is (and IMHO ought to be!) free, and the publishers are well within their rights to go against a man's wishes about his biography. Steve is also well within his rights to tell the publishers that they'll not sell a damn thing in his bookstores from now on.
My sympathies are with the man whose life they're laying bare (irrespective of how they cast it) rather than the money-grabbing publishing house. "Quite surprised" is a laugh as well - they sent the proofs to Apple for approval and were asked to withhold publishing. WTF did they expect ?
One of the things that seems to have been lost along the route to our western democracy is that actions have consequences. I'm made up that the act of publishing this book will cause them financial pain - perhaps it'll be as annoying to them as it obviously is to Steve that they've gone ahead and published. Perhaps it'll make them think twice about doing the same thing again...
Before anyone gets on their high horse about the 'public's right to know', again, Bollocks. The public has a right to know if a public figure abuses his/her position - completely agree with that. On the other hand, this rather distasteful desire to simply nose into other peoples lives is a sad fact of the human condition today.
Simon.
Two words. (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeat after me (Score:5, Insightful)
- Apple is not the government (therefore, any ridiculous cries of censorship are just a wee tad bit overboard)
- Apple can do what it wants with its own corporate stores
- Yes, this may result in more copies of the book being sold, but consider that this is not an effort to "suppress" the book; it's merely a retaliatory move. Apple is under no obligation whatsover, implied or otherwise, to carry any publisher's books.
In short, business as usual and a BIG yawner:
"It's certainly not unprecedented for a company to protest publication of a book or article it finds unflattering.
IBM, for instance, staged a six-year advertising boycott of Fortune magazine after then-Chief Executive Louis V. Gerstner took exception to a 1997 cover story.
More recently, General Motors withdrew its ads from the Los Angeles Times in protest of an April 6 review of its Pontiac G6."
(From the Mercury News story [mercurynews.com])
Think what you want, but businesses shouldn't be forced to support other businesses they disagree with.
Further, it looks like there's a referrer in the submitter's amazon link.
Re:If he doesn't like the spotlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Another example of the law of unintended consequences. Mr. Jobs, meet Mr. Murphy. He also has a law you should know about.
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:2, Insightful)
Better not click on my sig...
Bill Gates and Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Get off steve's back (Score:2, Insightful)
look at the title (Score:2, Insightful)
nuff said.
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting. So do you think about who you're supporting every time you purchase a book from a store? Or how about when you buy a can of green beans from the SuperMarket? Do you know who you're supporting when you buy a piece of furnature at the store? How about when you watch ads on TV?
Generally, the answer is always a "no" or a "sort of". There are so many people behind the scenes who make these things happen, that there's no way to account for all of them. If you want to boycott someone, your best solution is to first target them, then investigate where they derive money, then organize a boycott around their chokepoint. Your alternative of trying to divine the man behind the curtain in all instances, is both tedious and pointless.
But hey, it's your time and energy.
Re:The private life of public figures. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone gets on their high horse... Maybe what you meant was before anyone else gets on their high horse? Consider this. Ten Speed Press [tenspeedpress.com] has published a book called, "How Wal*Mart is Destroying the World. [amazon.com]" Ten Speed press has published other books such as "Better than Chocolate: 50 Proven Ways to Feel Happier. [walmart.com]" Guess what--- Wal*Mart happens to sell that book. Even the Most Evil Corporation on the Planet (TM) hasn't stooped down to Apple's level.
So root for your Apple if that makes you feel good; they have every right to pull those books. But ask yourself this: what good has ever come from governments or corporations bullying the press? Are their citizens or customers somehoe better served? Will I have a better experience at The Apple Store because Apple has decided to pull some Mac books not because of their content but in retalitiation?
I say all this a long-time Mac user, Apple shareholder and overall fan of the company. But Apple is doing no good by this act, and it only serves to make Apple a certified bully. Think Different, indeed.
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:3, Insightful)
And before you go off and say how amazon referrers are different, you should of that of that before making the reference to a B&M store in the first place.
I think it would bother me more if... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it would bother me a lot more if this meant that nobody got to see it. But Apple's economic power isn't that high. It still bothers me a little though.
I believe firmly in the freedom of individuals to engage in whatever contracts they find mutually beneficial. But, I'm not so sure about a big, powerful public corporation. I think as organizations get larger and more powerful, they become more government-like. You die just as surely whether you starve because nobody will sell you food or someone shoots you.
Re:Repeat after me (Score:2, Insightful)
They're trying to forcefully strongarm the actions of another company. In this case it isn't even for corporate self-interests, but rather for someone's ego, which makes it all the more insidious. Customers should be aware of this sort of coercion (which I think is the whole reason why this is news).
In the case of the instances that you provided, GM overtly changing advertising based upon the friendliness of reviews is a disturbing precedent, and it undermines the credibility of anything positive stated about them (in my town, a suburb of a large metropolitan, the local paper is nothing but recast fawning fluff press releases, and beside each one are ads from the respective companies). Maybe that's just fair business, but when you're hoping for a critical, honest press that isn't a great thing.
Further, it looks like there's a referrer in the submitter's amazon link.
I would really love to know what is going through people's heads when they complain about something like this. Seriously, so what? Would it be better for you if it contained no referral, the only difference being that Amazon makes more? Unless you're an Amazon shareholder, I don't get what the issue is (unless it's jealousy).
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you wouldn't want the guy bringing you information that you found interesting to be rewarded or anything.
The attitude some of you have about referrals really makes me sick. Never mind that this whole SITE that's bringing you this news article you find so fucking interesting is supported by ads.
Re:The private life of public figures. (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure? What would Apple be without Steve Jobs? ...Absolutely nothing.
Re:The private life of public figures. (Score:2, Insightful)
*his* bookstores? Where?
Re:Steve Jobs & Apple aren't synonymous (Score:5, Insightful)
Simon.
Come on People, Let's RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be no issue of lawsuit against the author or Wiley, unless somehow there were libel statements made in the book. The truth can't be libel, by definition. Remember once you're a public figure, you have a more limited right to privacy than otherwise is the case (It's may not seem fair, but those who wish to have the spotlight shined upon them, will sometimes have to accept the spotlight when it's not welcome).
-Mark
Balanced.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If this were a MS story of Bill Gates doing the same, there would be the usual crazy outbreak of 'MS evil empire' type banter. However, because its Apple , the response is a mild - 'oh its ok, hes the Apple man hes allowed to'. Where is the balance? I think somewhere in between to be honest - Jobs and Gates are simply very ruthless business persons, and yet here at Slashdot there is a decided overflow towards Apple.
Is it the OSX thing - its not a free OS.. its not Open, so why the fanaticism, is it because its most Linux like? Windows has cygwin.. and I know a large number of IT specialists whom use it, but Windows is always rated as poor and irrevlevant (by the slashdot community), yet it is the most used desktop, by a rediculous majority? So where is the balance? Where is the even levelled intelligent arguments for both sides, that usually make for a great discussion?
The more I visit here the more I see very common attitudes:
- Apple and OSX rules, and every other platform/OS sux.
- MS are evil and Windows sux.. but Xbox rules (this one has always been a bit of a conundrum - this must imply MS are less evil than Sony?)..
- Sony are evil and PS2 is crap..
- Linux and all Unix's are above all the best OS's and everything else is crap..
- Any programming language that isnt C++ like or OO is crap..
The above is a mere sample of generalisations and these are the usual source of flame wars. But the important thing about these topics, is that taking an opposing stance usually means getting flamed, chastised, or ridiculed.. It is even more interesting that moderators dont try to keep the discussion balanced, Im sure it would result in much better (more interesting) discussions, and a lot less ' is crap, or it sux'.
This leads me to one fairly basic conclusion. Most of the people posting on Slashdot these days are young, easily impressionable males, that have little sense or understanding of two sides of a discussion and generally are very one-eyed about subjects with little or no flexibilty to gauge information as valid or relevant.
Re:Repeat after me (Score:3, Insightful)
- Apple is not the government (therefore, any ridiculous cries of censorship are just a wee tad bit overboard)
Censorship is censorship [answers.com]
The only slack I give apple is because they aren't a major book seller and thus don't have the same stiffling effect on speech.
In short, business as usual and a BIG yawner:
"It's certainly not unprecedented for a company to protest publication of a book or article it finds unflattering.
IBM, for instance, staged a six-year advertising boycott of Fortune magazine after then-Chief Executive Louis V. Gerstner took exception to a 1997 cover story.
More recently, General Motors withdrew its ads from the Los Angeles Times in protest of an April 6 review of its Pontiac G6."
Ahh yes, major corporations bullying the media is the norm and is something I should be comfortable with. A corporation has no buisness using its advertising dollars for the purchase of advertisments to try and influence positive press outside the scope of the ad itself. I certainly hope that Fortune magazine and the LA Times didn't let that influence their writing.
Yes corporations have a legal obligation to make money however they can, just remember that we have a moral obligation to slap them in the face whenever they attempt to censor speech. I love apple and hate microsoft but I can't help that note that to my knowledge MS hasn't threatened to stop buying ads unless
i, con man (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever "savvy" marketers decided to go with that title should be feeling the brunt of this decision. Last I checked Apple was a private company with no obligation to carry anything. If I told Microsoft press I was writing a bio of Gates and later told them it was going to be called "Convicted Monopolist" then I wouldnt be surprised if they dropped me.
At the end of the day Apple is a company just like any other. They'll act in a predictable fashion when it comes to protecting their property and image. Look at what one con artist has recently done to Wendy's restaurant. Bad image and rumors hurt business.
Re:Repeat after me (Score:2, Insightful)
Huh? When did THIS happen? Did somebody go with guns to the publishers' homes and forcefully strongarm them into doing something?
Hell no.
Wiley is free to publish. Nobody's stopping them. They are not entitled to Apple's shelf space in the copy of the Constitution I'm looking at.
Wrong - Books Pulled for Apple, not Jobs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, Jobs is widely viewed (read: by shareholders) - whether or not it's actually true - as the driving force behind Apple's recent successes. Therefore a smear/expose on Jobs that could tarnish his reputation could seem to Apple to be a threat to the corporation itself. In that respect, Jobs 'is' Apple.
In the same vein, Apple could be pandering to its golden boy to keep him happy, having weighed Jobs' ego as more important than allegations of bullying or censorship.
Maybe it's the "iCon" title (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Repeat after me (Score:2, Insightful)
Right...and it isn't theft unless it's a physical object...I get it.
So Steve Jobs having a pissy fit, using Apple as his personal playground, dumping an entire publisher of books that Apple has long carried because they want to send a message to other publishers (that they'd better dump writers that might say something not-nice about Apple or, ridiculously, Jobs), is just normal everyday business. Uh huh.
They are not entitled to Apple's shelf space in the copy of the Constitution I'm looking at.
You know it is absolutely fascinating that the dyed in the wool Apple nuts keep bringing this up. Well you do realize that the constitution also grants people the right to CRITICIZE THEM FOR DOING IT, right? No one is calling for the army to shut down Apple, they're just saying that it's a really shitty thing to do.
So until you hear someone calling for the government to force them to sell these books, shut the trap about the constitution or free speech, because it is completely and absolutely irrelevant.
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:4, Insightful)
Advertising in general has been abused. Flash ads, pop-up sites, adverts that look like news, etc. A lot of people are sick of them, so they've developed a bad attitude about advertising in general. You see, it's too hard to distinguish between advertising and abusive advertising. It's easier to remember to hate 'ads'. Never mind that those very ads basically provide services to you that you don't have to pay out of pocket for (i.e. television, radio, Slashdot...), a few people ruined ads for EVERYBODY.
Somehow, referrals fell into this trap, too. Evidently, it's okay to buy a book, but it's not okay to buy the book from the guy who convinced you to buy it. I probably wouldn't be replying if the choice was between buying it and not buying it, but stripping the referal information out? WTF? Talk about judgement mis-fire.
Re:Repeat after me (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is under no obligation whatsover, implied or otherwise, to carry any publisher's books.
No legal obligation, perhaps. What about obligation to their shareholders? They didn't just pull the book they don't care for--they pulled ALL of the books by this publisher. Wiley is a HUGE publisher and publishes the highly-successful "...For Dummies" series as well as many others.
Apple isn't pulling these books for some great social good. They're not protesting anything that anybody can see except, apparently, the audacity of somebody to dare write a book about Steve Jobs. And to make this point they're pulling a successful publisher from their stores which is obviously going to cost them money and, very likely, stock price. Do they have no obligation to those people who own parts of their company?
The problem with "a largely positive light" (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Apple doesn't have to sell the book. But pulling the entire line is childish. And counter-productive. By going nuclear, Jobs has helped to give the title some buzz--the silver lining in every act of censorship. :-)
Apple's been getting somewhat evil lately. (Score:2, Insightful)
a) iPods with built-in obsolescence
b) a fairly crappy recycling track record
c) suing 15 year old kids for blogging information their own employees or partners leaked.
d) Promoting Censorship within it's stores.
Whatever happened to Steve's Birkenstocks?
Please, for the love of all that's holy... (Score:2, Insightful)
No.
Again: no.
Contrary to what some people seem to believe, your average high-karma Slashdot poster is not an idiot. Frankly, this is getting downright irritating. Bad things involving Apple keep occurring, so you people have to come out of the woodworks and say that people are only supporting Apple because they're Apple, when really, the vast majority of these 'Apple supporters' are just looking at the situation with circumspection. Got that? Just in case that was unclear, that means they're reading TFA, thinking about it, considering the situation and its angles, then replying, rather than giving a knee-jerk reaction like the 'If it were Microsoft...' people. It typically has nothing to do with the fact that it's Apple--we're dead serious when we say we'd support Microsoft/Gates if it were them instead of Apple/Jobs--and everything to do with the facts surrounding the situation.
Fact: Wiley was asked not to publish the book.
Fact: The biography was unauthorized, which is legal, but not really that morally okay, especially when the biography is about someone who's still alive.
Fact: Jobs could not have made Apple stop selling Wiley's products without support from a majority of the Board.
Fact: Apple is not preventing the publishing of the book, they are expressing objection to it by not selling the publisher's materials in their stores.
Fact: A corporation has the right to choose what it wants to sell, and whom to obtain their products from.
Fact: Again, you can walk into Borders or Barnes and Noble or whatever, or search Amazon.com, and still get Wiley's books, including the unauthorized biography of Jobs.
Was it perhaps rash of Apple to do this? Yeah, I think so. Was it a horrible, evil thing for Apple to do? Not really, no. I can understand Jobs and Apple's unhappiness with an unauthorized biography about Jobs. I'd not like someone writing about me and including intimate details without my permission, regardless of what kind of light I'd be put in. I couldn't stop them from doing it, but would it really be wrong of me to object to my fullest ability?
Re:The private life of public figures. (Score:3, Insightful)
God forbid we should continue to live in a free market. Who the hell cares what good comes of it? Everybody involved in this mess is making decisions that they are 100% entitled to make. Wiley publishes a book Apple doesn't like? Apple ceases to line Wiley's pockets. Give and take, free market.
Will I have a better experience at The Apple Store because Apple has decided to pull some Mac books not because of their content but in retalitiation?
Are you going to stop buying Apple products or shopping at Apple stores over this? If so, then you're what I think the economists call a "fragile customer." (I'm not sure I have that term right. I'm remembering twenty-year-old lectures here.) In other words, your commitment to the vendor was so shallow that the slightest thing would have tipped you one way or the other. Price goes up $5? You're outta there. Traffic on the way to the store? You're outta there. Don't like Steve Jobs' latest haircut? You're outta there.
Companies write off customers like that all the time. It's part of the cost of doing business.
Apple's customers, however, are almost exclusively people who are not like that. Apple has spectacularly high brand loyalty according to market research. Sales don't fluctuate very much at all, not even when prices go up significantly. It's not an economic get-out-of-jail-free card, but it means that Apple, as a company, doesn't really need to give a shit about customers who storm out in a huff because we severed a relationship with a third party.
(Incidentally, Nikon has exactly the same kind of customer base.)
Re:Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
He's also a hands-down, certifiable genius.
The fact that he's an asshole really pales in comparison to what he's capable of doing. The man is like some kind of magic crap detector. He can smell crap from ten miles away. And when he sees it, he can tell you exactly why it's crap, and exactly what needs to change to eliminate its crappiness.
Steve Jobs is the most arrogant man I know, but he's also the man most deserving of open, unapologetic arrogance I know.
At least for me, it's possible to personally dislike somebody and admire him at the same time.
Re:Jobs. you just LOST a customer! (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot psuedo activism here... How do you know ol' Steve-o hasn't installed a hardware solution to monitor your ethernet/wireless traffic on your Powerbook since you can't trust him?
Personally I think you're insane not to build your laptop by hand since you can't trust anybody! Who's to say your drive manufacturer's CEO is trustworthy?!
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:1, Insightful)
Whoa, capitalism. Paying for what you want and not paying extra for what you don't want. What a concept!
Re:Maybe it's the "iCon" title (Score:5, Insightful)
Shitty PR for a bit of megalomania (Score:4, Insightful)
No one likes an arrogant arsehole, and people like arrogant arseholes even less who act like mini dictators. It's not like Apple has a 90% marketshare in the computer market to play with, and investors shy away from erratic, irrational CEOs. I can understand him withdrawing the book on his life from the Apple store shelves, as he has the power to do that, but the Dumies series is extremely popular and it could make an enemy of extremely influential people like David Pogue, whose NYTimes tech articles get read by millions.
What worries me most about this is that it reminds me of the bat shit megalomanic attitude that Jobs had before he was canned from Apple the first time in 1985, trying to push others around.
Steve, if you or one of your slaves is reading this, take these words of advice: You, as a celebrity and CEO of a very trendy company, give away a certain amount of privacy as part of your status. You, like me and everyone else, are not an island. You depend on literally millions of other people for your success, from customers, to shareholders, to employees, to reviewers, to the press. Think about that before you fly into a rage like a spoilt five year old brat the next time.
Re:Please, for the love of all that's holy... (Score:1, Insightful)
Prove it. Seriously, prove it. I have seen very little to actually back this up. Sure most slashdotters are full of trivia, but very few seem to have any solid reasoning ability. It's always amusing to watch the "look who's evil this week" rants. Another thing that annoys me is how slashdotters seem to react to how things make them feel rather than facts and reality.
I would submit the paper I wrote, "The Psychology of Slashdot" but the editors wouldn't let it through.
(I got an "A", by the way)
Re:Selling 30 cent parts for $6 (Score:5, Insightful)
I also know it's still a good enough deal for me, because a 16 oz. Coke in a bottle is going to cost me more.I'll pay the buck.
It's good business all around, even though I'm paying more than I theoretically need to for the Coke.
If, however, I own and operate a convenience store, drink Cokes at three cents a pop out of the business profits, but charge my financial partner a buck a Coke when he comes into the store and stick 97 cents of it in my own pocket, that isn't "good business." That's being a scum sucking bastard.
KFG
You are a good little corporate citizen (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is not refusing to sell just this book; it is refusing to sell any of the large number of Mac books put out by this publisher. The decision will cost the shareholders money, as the Apple stores profited on each book sold, and they sold quite a few.
Now, it's not horrible and evil, so I'll agree with you there. It's merely massively stupid, and the press that this move has gotten will improve the book sales.
Just a minor point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Curious logic there... so a biography has to be authorised, huh? Like, say, a newspaper story about someone has to be authorised? Or an encyclopedia entry? Do you realise that you'll just end up with self-serving crap if you do that, don't you?
How about this for a correction:
Fact: Jobs is a public figure, and his decisions affect large numbers of people. He is also charismatic and famous. An unauthorised biography of Jobs is therefore is a fair and reasonable thing, provided the content of the biography is obtained legally and without deception.
Re:Please, for the love of all that's holy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it's the "iCon" title (Score:5, Insightful)
All those people going into the Apple store are immediately going to see Jobs' picture on the front and think he's a con artist. Doesn't exactly mesh with the honest Apple brand no matter what the pages say.
You missed it. Apple didn't just ban the unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs they banned the entire series of dummies books made by the same publisher. This biography was never going to appear in Apple stores since obviously Apple doesn't carry biographies in its stores, only computer help books.
As far as Jobs is concerned, he goofed on this one. His actions only prove he's an impulsive hothead (not that there's not a dozen other things he's done publically to prove that). The biography just got a huge amount of free publicity it normally wouldn't have. I certainly never would have heard about it, and now maybe I'll buy a copy when it comes out. The dummies books are so popular that the Apple Store will look incomplete without them. People will ask about them, then go to Barnes And Noble on the other side of the mall to buy one. My prediction is they'll re-appear quietly in 6-12 months.
No, lemming, get a clue (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's some free clue: "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of Press":
1. Are _only_ applicable to your dealing with the _government_. Not with private persons, not with corporations, not with anyone else.
I.e., pay attention, lemming: it means that the government can't ban you from saying that Kerry was a better candidate than Bush, or viceversa. It doesn't however mean that Bush, as a private citizen, can't sue your pants off if you publish libel about him. E.g., if you were to start writing that Bush rapes small babies, he could very well sue your pants off, and "freedom of speech" would have nothing to do with it.
2. It never said that anyone has to print, broadcast or help sell your bullshit. If anyone, _including_ the government, doesn't want to publish your speech, sell your book, or pay for public access to your blog, they _are_ entirely within their legal righst.
E.g., "freedom of press" does _not_ mean you can go to NYT and have them publish whatever you want published in their newspaper. As they say, "freedom of press" only applies to whoever owns the press.
E.g., if Apple doesn't want to sell another company's books, "free press" and "democracy" have exactly _nothing_ to do with it.
E.g., if an ISP (even a state owned one) decided to unilaterally block all porn sites, or even all opposition sites, they _are_ within their legal rights to do so. Bad PR move? Yes. Violating your sacred "freedom of speech" or "democracy"? Nope.
3. Additionally "democracy" _only_ means you get to vote for your government. Period. Nothing more. It doesn't mean you get a vote in what books Apple should sell. It does _not_ mean you should get a vote even in what your CEO or CIO decides.
Re:referrer in amazon link? (Score:1, Insightful)
Privacy is like helium in a child's ballon - if you don't think about it, you probably won't even notice that it is slowly leaking out. When the loss finally becomes blatantly obvious because the ballon no longer floats, it is too late to do anything about it -- there is no way you can put the helium back in. Just as you can never really regain your privacy once you've lost it.
IP terrorist (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it's the "iCon" title (Score:3, Insightful)
Try it with other words, and it takes a second to even recognize what the word is (reading them aloud is cheating, unless you stress the 'i'): iDea, iRate, iCicle, iAmbic.
Apple is really beginning.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And Apple IS a monopoly (given that x86-based PCs are considered to be their own market, according to Judge Jackson.. we can assume PPC-based PCs would also..)
They don't need to sell the Steve Jobs biography if they don't want to.. but to completely ban the publisher?
Add this tot he fact that Apple doesn't consider bloggers to be a part of the legitimate press.. and we get a pretty bad impression of them, wrt free speech..
1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Balanced.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, you must be reading different posts than I am. Most of the posts I have read have been along the line of "Well, Apple does have a *right* to do this, but it is a sucky thing to do."
In my opinion this is a fairly accurate view of the situation. Nice *non-fanatical* (in either direction) assessment of the situation.
What I want to know is this - how come every single article that gets posted about Apple has several people such as you posting, asking why everyone is going nicely on Apple? It almost seems like you do not even read the posts, and instead just copy and paste the same damn post every time.
Most of the people posting on Slashdot these days are young, easily impressionable males, that have little sense or understanding of two sides of a discussion and generally are very one-eyed about subjects with little or no flexibilty to gauge information as valid or relevant.
It seems to me that at first you are calling upon Slashdot readers to look at both sides of the story, you are now calling upon them to fall into the party line of "Censorship is BAD! Corporations are EVIL!"
I feel like you are calling upon Slashdot readers to make this into a two-sided issue - either Apple is Evil Incarnate, or the company's actions are so uneventful as to not even justify a Slashdot article about it. You seem to be asking why people do not see Apple as evil, and then say you want to promote differing sides of the debate?
A response that gets posted after each of the "Why is Apple immune?" post is one that points out that with several hundred thousand readers, Slashdot is a very diverse place. There are opinions all over the place. There is no single "party line" here.
If you think this discussion was not full of argument and debate, I would definitely accuse you of not even reading the posts before you copied and pasted your "Why is Apple so loved?" comment. You seem to be calling upon people to call for a boycott of Apple because of this. You want to see the extremist anti-Apple view, and hide it under the guise of "I want more discussion and balance."
Basically you want someone to hate Apple for this. I am sorry, we are grown up here and are capable of seeing a corporation's actions as business decisions, not a result of an Evil Overlord guiding commerce in the country (we save that for the actions of the US government).
Oh, and do not dare give me that "Slashdot these days" crap. Take a look at my UID. I have been here a lot longer than you. If anything, Slashdot is a much more diverse place. A long time ago it was just a hang-out for Linux geeks. It was a lot more as you describe - "Linux rocks, everything else sucks!" As it grew and gained popularity, the readership became more diverse, and debate became more and more common.
Please try not to copy and paste your "Why does Slashdot not hate Apple like they do Microsoft?" comment again next time, please.
Re:Maybe it's the "iCon" title (Score:1, Insightful)
Look, being a jerk and being a con are two different things. He can be the biggest jerk in the US, heck in the world and that does not make him a con. There is no law against being a jerk, but a con is a criminal. You can argue that you don't think the title is offensive, but as you can see from a bunch of reply, people do read iCon as the same as iBook, iTunes, iPhone, iPod.
Ethically speaking, an unauthorized biography should only concern the facts and be neutral in tones. Inferring that the person is a criminal in the title (yeah, we all know that everyone will pick up the book to see that the book as positive on Jobs) when he is not is especially wrong, whether you like the person or not. Even I'd not say that against Bill Gates and his business tactics were found illegal by the court of law.
Does this bother you? Want something to do? (Score:2, Insightful)
Call 1 800 275 2273
Select nothing. Wait until the voice prompts, and then select 0 or say operator.
Tell the operator you want to leave feedback. If you want, you can even give them your name and phone number, which creates a ticket that the PR people are forced to deal with.
simple yet effective, especially if lots of people do it.
Re:Selling 30 cent parts for $6 (Score:2, Insightful)
Ferrari was an asshole and got things done. Bugatti was not an asshole, and got things done anyway. Usually better, because people would pull for him because his personality earned respect and loyalty, not adulation and fear.
Jobs can keep his personality. I don't want it. It only works on the cult minded anyway who have this incredible abiltiy to excuse any behavior of the personality only because they are a "personality," in part, I believe, because they adore what they fear.
And that's fucked up, dude.
KFG
Re:Shitty PR for a bit of megalomania (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider this:
Why would someone choose to write software for a platform if the man controlling that platform would yank your software from the shelves if t didn't conform to his world view or opinion?
Why would a company move to Mac if the tools needed to run the company cuold disappear because of the pissy CEO?
"...best personal computers and mp3 players in the world. "
and, what exactly, do yoiu base the "best personal computers" on?
Re:Irony... (Score:3, Insightful)
I own a company that sells graphics software and we ran head-on into this exact issue. We sell (for PC) high end image manipulation and special effects software, think of Photoshop but faster, deeper and with considerably more features. Very technical, not nearly as warm and fuzzy as Photoshop. It is aimed at image freaks, not just people who like to putter about with photos and graphic art. Just as a for instance, PS supports 20-odd layer modes, we do 70-odd. Definitely a niche product, but a niche product where the niches are large. So anyway, when we originally released it, it was $499 and sold just fine. Later, as we got down the ROI curve, we began to drop the price. Kept selling just fine until we dropped it to below $99.95... then sales dropped off sharply. After a month of just about dead silence, a little bemused, more than a little worried, we raised the price back to $99.95 and zap, sales came right back.
After tossing this issue about for a while, we built an "on sale" automation that offered it for $49.95 if you had (anything at all from Corel, Adobe, JASC, including demo software or free software like a PDF reader... and in fact we don't even check for the presence of such stuff) but "just until 2-3 days from now." Sales went up even further. So $79.95 was a perception threshold we could not cross, but $49.95 is a good as long as the perception was that they should be paying more.
The fact is, we really tried to sell the software for less, but consumers wouldn't allow it. What can you do?
At this point in time, I'd be more than delighted to sell it for $19.95 if I could see a sufficient number of sales to justify it. But I am not at all convinced that those sales would materialize.
People sure are funny. :-)
Re:Funny you should mention this (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean like that giant "Would you like iTunes to organize your music folder for you?" dialog that pops up when you install it?
Idiot.
Re:The private life of public figures. (Score:2, Insightful)