I used an Apple Macintosh as a teen and liked it very much so let it not be said that I speak with zero prior knowledge. In more recent years, I have stayed away from Apple products partly because they started out being too-cool-for-you and are now everyone-has-one, and partly because of the closed walled garden ecosystem that they put in place and vigorously enforced. [Update: And they're expensive!] Now we have this more complete description of Apple's (and Steve Jobs's) failings:
In the days after Steve Jobs' death, friends and colleagues have, in customary fashion, been sharing their fondest memories of the Apple co-founder. He's been hailed as "a genius" and "the greatest CEO of his generation" by pundits and tech journalists. But a great man's reputation can withstand a full accounting. And, truth be told, Jobs could be terrible to people, and his impact on the world was not uniformly positive.
via What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs
Stuff like this has got to affect the prospects of the company itself at some point, because surely consumers, the media, government, Apple's suppliers and maybe even Wall Street (!) don't only care about the pretty gadgets the company churns out.
Comments