Lonnie R. West

I've noticed an interesting trend in the last 6 months: an amazing amount of press that is very subtly biased against the Apple corporation. These stories all follow one of three common threads:

1. Apple is the new "evil empire" because of how they control the App Store.
2. Apple is the new "evil empire" because of they exclude certain kinds of applications and software from their systems.
3. Apple is the new "evil empire" because of their tight control of the hardware and software they use and support.

The overwhelming message being pounded into the collective minds of the public (and I have to question the driving factors behind this onslaught of slanted journalism) is that "Apple should be Open!"

Has anyone considered that all these slanted reports and public outcries are hypocritical?

Our founding belief system in the US is that of innovation and private ownership. We openly encourage our kids from birth to go forth and do something new and great. Our laws, trademarks, and patent systems are designed to protect people that create something that is unique, and we are all given the freedom to do what we want with our creations.

Apple succeeds because they created a very well defined product that is engineered to be simple, ergonomic, secure, and also fun!

The security comes from the fact that Apple has retained control of ~their own~ hardware and software. Without all the gaping security holes that come from having everyone and their brother having a hand in the system, there are far far fewer places to exploit. And when a flaw is found, it is very easy to secure because the ~entire system~ is documented and engineered as a whole.

Why should Apply be "open?" We see how well that's worked for the PC world...
It hasn't!

All it has given us is a ton of viruses, identity theft, and countless lost man-hours of productivity as PC users try to fix things while every vendor with software on that machine is busy blaming the other vendors.

Apple's stance to have proprietary hardware and software that they control (they did create it, right?), and support only "open standards" is wise: You end up with a very robust appliance that can do anything, and it just works.

At the end of the day, the market decides.

People truly don't care about the underlying technology. As long as a product works well and makes sense, people will buy it.

And that is what is happening: people are buying Apple products more than ever now because they are starting to see that the products just work.

They just... work. Simply, efficiently. And they make it enjoyable.

So why the slanted media? I suspect that there are other, financial, forces at work here. Companies who are losing market share because they cannot compete on equal terms are now relying on PR to try to sway the public away from Apple.

So my final words to the intelligent people out there: do your research. If a product works well, does what you need it to, saves you time... Buy it.

If you are the type that just mindlessly believes anything you read online without doing your own due diligence: wake up! You are ~not~ a Lemming, and you don't need to jump off a cliff if you don't want to.

And if waking up is just too hard and it's just easier for you to believe what is hand-fed to you by the press, then here's another idea: Send me $20 because it will clear up your acne AND make you sleep better.