Arcanasphere.com - Andrew

Steve Jobs has apparently, under some disputed but strong words, stated that Google has done evil by introducing a smart phone to the market. Apparently, the man wished to compound the embarrassment of his iPad release by reminding us that he mixed a Blackberry with the touch screen on the interactive catalog at JC Penney.  Or maybe I should have forgotten that whole Xerox/PARC debacle.

By the end of the month I’ll be ready to put down good cash money toward a new phone. It will not be an iPhone. For one, I disliked Quicktime very much. It looks nice and all, but that ugly blue Q loads up whenever I restart my computer. It eats up system resources just to remind me that our lord Jobs, who art in Cupertino, reinvented RealPlayer, and that too was not evil. I do not like Quicktime.  I do not want Quicktime installed on any of my computers eating up system resources for no good reason.  Without Quicktime, the extended features of an iPhone would be almost entirely useless to me.

In fact, I like to fool with my gadgets and customize them when possible. Jobs, however, thinks it would be evil if I were allowed to do too much of that with an iPhone.   My investment would be turned into an unusable brick should I treat the device in any manner which might incur His mighty wrath.  Any money I may spend on an iPhone will have been in vain if Saintly Jobs does not approve of my wishes.   If I recall correctly, however, the evil competitor has an Open-Source operating system.

Free markets and competition are not evil.  Closed systems run by angry, power-hungry elitists are evil.  Arbitrary rules set out be these elitists with no room or concern for an individual’s wish to improve his station are evil.  If this word is going to be dragged out into the daylight, then I would propose that whoever masterminded the iPhone has done a lot more evil than Google.

Competition gives us choice.  It pushes those people who want to trade for our money to offer a better value - be it in service, product, support, or any combination of offerings.  A lot of people love their iPhones.  I want them to love their iPhones.  Those things aren’t cheap.  Apple has done a good job satisfying their wants and needs.  That was not evil.  I do not have any desire for an iPhone for many reasons of my own.  It is not evil for me to want a product that is more in line with my temperament, goals, and abilities.  It is not evil for a competitor to offer such a product to me.

Apple had no issue trying to upstage other manufacturers or developers.  The Blackberry was offered just about five years before the iPhone.  Their direct attacks against competing personal computing platforms are a part of American pop culture.

As if the Quicktime and Bricking issues weren’t enough to drive me away, this rant put me in the improbable position of actually wanting an iPhone even less.  Now not only does the phone not fit my needs, but the company has proven its complete lack of ethics or common sense.   Jobs just called the practices of his own company evil as well, and the Apple employees are said to have cheered.  I can not in good conscience trade money with them.