Is Apple the new Microsoft? - iPhone customers begin backlash

With the iPhone about to hit Britain, it seems not everyone is entirely happy with Apple’s new approaches now that they are a mainstream player. Let the backlash begin…

The iPhone is released in the UK this week, with the hype surrounding the gadget at astronomical proportions after it was named as Time magazine’s ‘Invention of the Year’, but it seems that customers on both sides of the Atlantic are starting to express concerns over what they perceive as Apple’s lurch to the mainstream.

Apple devotees are a strange breed, with most being fiercely loyal to their brand and not letting a bad word go by without some sort of response, but now that the Apple brand has grown to huge proportions, and the company is making more money than at any time in it’s history, the consumers are starting to question some decisions by the company and it’s figurehead Steve Jobs.

Apple was always seen to be on the side of the consumer, the anti-Microsoft with money less of a concern than customer satisfaction and innovation. But that has recently been reversed, with Apple now being seen as much of a money grabbing beast as Microsoft has ever been.

1.4 million iPhones have been sold in America since it’s release in June, which are impressive figures. But the decision to cut the price by $200 just 10 weeks after launch meant a lot of early adopters, the lifeblood of a company such as Apple, were left out of pocket and mad at the company they have supported for years.

But that’s not the worst. As the Guardian are reporting, Wil Shipley, an Apple devotee thinks that Apple’s insistence on using closed systems for their products is their worst crime.

“Why is the iPhone locked to a single carrier, so I can’t travel internationally with it? There’s really only one viable reason: Apple wanted a share of the carrier’s profits, which meant giving AT&T an exclusive deal. Which meant, we get screwed so Apple can make more money. It’s that simple.”

“And the iPhone is a closed system, like the iPods before it, so third parties can only develop software for it if they are EXTREMELY close to Apple. This is an incredibly frightening trend. As Apple gets more and more of its revenue from non-Mac devices, they are also getting more and more of their revenue from devices that simply exclude third parties.”

Making the iPhone only work on one network (AT&T in the States, 02 in the UK) really does not serve the consumer well, and makes a lot of people wary of buying in to the Apple brand. There’s only one reason for doing it, and that is to try and wring every cent and penny out of the technology they can… does that remind anyone else of Microsoft?

Some companies worked out how to unlock the iPhones, and offered their services to consumers unwilling to be forced to go with AT&T in the States, but a software security update in September made some of these iPhones freeze up and erased some programs such as games and instant messaging. That’s just playing dirty.

The same is likely to happen in the UK, with some companies already offering to unlock your newly purchased iPhone, and Apple have already threatened people trying to use the service by warning “installing one of the unlocking programs could make the phone ‘permanently inoperable’ when future software updates are released.”

Whether the iPhone is as big a success in the UK as in America remains to be seen, but what is clear is that Apple have changed from being the consumer driven company you want to see succeed, to another establishment player, and a ruthless money making machine along with it.
source: http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/11/04/are-apple-the-new-microsoft-iphone-customers-begin-backlash/
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