Radsoft
 About | Buy | News | Products | Rants | Search | Security
Home » Rants

Apple's 99¢ iSlave Market

Still pricey for what you get. And no one needs it.


Get It

Try It

Apple now have almost 100,000 iPhone apps available through their App Store. That's the one thing they have over Google Android and the Nexus One. In all other respects the Nexus One running Android rubs Steve Jobs' nose in the dirt. As if he didn't have it coming.

The resolution on the Nexus One is two and one half times that of the relatively puny iPhone. At 800x480 the Nexus One offers almost 100% the resolution found on PCs fifteen years ago when 800x600 was the norm. One can even to this day find archaic websites that proclaim 'this site best viewed at 800x600'. And the Nexus One - a handheld device both smaller and lighter than the iPhone - isn't far off.

An old PC with 800x600 resolution offers 480,000 pixels. The Nexus One offers 384,000 pixels. Or 80% the screen real estate of the old PC. The iPhone comes in a distant last at 320x480 pixels. Its length is the same as the Nexus One's width. That's not too good. The iPhone offers a disappointing 153,600 pixels. Or less than half that of the Nexus One. That's a lot of missing screen real estate. That's 60% missing. Compared to the ancient PC it's 68% missing. That's over two thirds.

And the iPhone is paradoxically both bigger and heavier. It's thicker too. Oops.

Nexus One users can change batteries on their own. Whoa. And the Nexus One can multitask - another thing the iPhone refuses to do. And so on, all down the line, with each and every feature.

Then there's security. Android is build properly. From the ground up. All apps are properly sandboxed. They can't interfere with or corrupt other applications. You as an Android user are as secure as secure can be.

Compare with the iPhone where your security's on the same level as Microsoft Windows. Do you want to go through that nightmare all over again? Really? Imagine all the sods who were early adopters. Who in this world would release a device like that with apps that initially were crash prone - meaning they probably could be exploited - and where everything was either owned and run by root or escalated when run (through the set user ID bit) to root?

And where the passwords to the device became known worldwide?

Where there was no other protection?

Apple's computer OS might have a fighting chance as it's based on Unix and adheres to fundamental Unix system security - but this thing?

Gradually - but only after millions of users unwittingly adopted this dangerous security model - Apple introduced code signing on their device. So there's a kernel that under certain conditions demands apps be signed by Apple to run. That's fine - as long as no one succeeds in cracking the system. But of course the system is time and again cracked.

You have to wonder how good those Apple programmers are. By all accounts, they're Apple's cream of the crop - they left the losers working on the computer OS (with expected results).

Today more than every second article posted in the Apple fanboy world is about the iPhone and more than every second product announcement concerns software written for the iPhone. Selling perhaps for as much as 99 cents. Even the fanboys have forgotten the computer OS.

What a racket. You sign up for the iPhone developer program... Oh heck, why even go through it? It's ridiculous. And the fanboys line up to lick Steve Jobs' boots. In what can only be described as 'iSlavery'. Remember the slides? Boasting developers would get to keep 70% of their revenues?

Go take a look what Google Checkout takes. See if it's anywhere close to that. Steve Jobs fleeces the fanboys and they thank him for it.

Dark Occult Illuminati 1337 HaXorz

Along comes Ashley Towns. He knows there are hundreds of thousands of iPhone users who don't stand for Apple's idea of how constricted users are supposed to be. So the jailbreaking minuet goes on, release after release. But as soon as these people get their devices jailbroken, there's nothing stopping anyone from walking right in.

After all, the two passwords are 'alpine' and 'dottie'.



Apple are to be blamed for this situation. They're the ones who made the device so childishly constricted that a significant number of users feel they have no choice. They buy their iPhones but aren't able to use them as they please.

And of course none of them thought about changing their passwords. Of course not.

Towns has been described as 'dark', as 'occult', as working for the 'illuminati'. There sure are a lot of stupid ignorant people out there.

And where's the iPod? We know Apple's computer OS is a forgotten loss. Apple weren't making enough money from it six years ago and the situation's certainly not any better today.

But the iPod? Their main breadwinner from 2003 and onwards? Already by 2003 that iPod was pulling in over half of Apple's revenues. Where was the computer OS back then? Already in 2003? Forgotten. Remember how Avie Tevanian - as he stepped to the side in a curious horizontal promotion - announced there'd be a bit more of an interval between future releases? Ever wondered why he said that?

Apple have always addressed their product development to a miniscule and gradually diminishing market demographic. That's been single digit for tens of years now. One can't float a corporation on that small a market. All rules of economics say so. So what do you do? You have two choices. As you refuse to address the entire market, as you refuse to create commodity niches for yourselves, you have but two choices.

1. Push expensive insignificant updates on everything. Apple came out with 'service packs' to their OS for years that they called brand new versions, gave them feline nicknames, and charged full price. Anyone who's followed OS X from the beginning has paid nearly $700 for the that operating system up to now.

The above also applies to the iPod which eventually started pulling the Fonzie trick. Redundant product upgrades even the media who normally are infatuated with Apple grew tired of.

Who cares about the iPod anymore? Lesson learned: the iPod kept Apple afloat as their 'computer' business stagnated. But the iPod couldn't last forever. And so fortuitously along came the iPhone. What good fortune. What pure luck.

2. But what happens when even the iPhone is outdated? For that's Apple's second choice. The one they must continually exploit if they're to stay afloat. They have to keep coming up with new products that at least in the short run can infatuate the market. As they have no products the market will always need.

Apple can't afford to make a mistake. Not ever. If a single one of their new shiny products fails then they're totally done for. They're back at the same point they were in 1996 when their chapter 11 loomed on the horizon and Michael Dell suggested they just accept their fate.

No One Needs Apple

No one needs Apple. They don't occupy any key niches. Their products aren't needed to make the world go round. They're not the Ohio tyres to the Detroit wheels. They're not the oriental circuit board assembly plant to the occidental hi-tech startup.

A lot of people like Apple and want Apple products. But no one needs them.

Apple unveiled the iPhone about four years after the iPod became their most important product. Google's Android and Nexus One have already eclipsed Apple's iPhone. Apple are hinting at a computing tablet to be unveiled later this month. But the sky is always falling on Apple.

Apple's future again hangs in the balance: it hangs on how well the new product goes over, how quickly it can get into production, how much revenue it brings in. The smartphone market now belongs to Google. Apple can't match that firepower. Now it's the tablet. After Ballmer's fiasco in Las Vegas, Apple might possibly succeed by walkover.

But for how long? Until another bigger player comes along and steals their market again?

There aren't many people who like Windows. Yet Windows is a niche commodity. It has over 90% of the market. People need Windows.

There aren't a lot of punters out there who know much about IBM's mainframe markets. But the world needs those computer systems. The successful companies are successful precisely because they're able to provide something people need. Year after year after year. They provide quality and consistency and reliability - with the same basic products. Year after year. And so they survive.

With Apple it's just a summer fling. A short lived flirt. At 99 cents per iPhone app, that's still rather pricey.

About | Buy | News | Products | Rants | Search | Security
Copyright © Radsoft. All rights reserved.