[image title=”jobsandwoz” size=”thumbnail” id=”242″ align=”right” linkto=”https://irrationale2.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/jobsandwoz.jpg” ]I admit that this is probably a terrible place to start apon my great return to the interwebs, considering the massive polarity between Windows people and Mac people, and the inevitable shitstorm that is created any time the two names are mentioned together in the same paragraph, but hopefully the two sides will stop their petty bickering for a moment and hear me out.

I think Apple is great. I use an Apple at home for my designing/ publishing/internetting/musicing/porning, and am quite pleased with it. It’s not for everyone, but I like it (plus it gives me a nice break from using a Windows PC all day).

However, there is something that Apple has done to earn my ire.

You see, Apple have realised that they make so much money from the new versions of their computer operating system, OSX, that they may as well push this same mentality across to their handheld divisions.
Their new iPod Touch and iPhone products now give users the option to upgrade to the latest version of firmware for a fee of $25. A firmware upgrade, which would normally cost precisely zero.

Of course, the operating system on the iPod Touch and iPhone is, for all intents and purposes, a fairly full-powered version of its computer sibling, OSX. Because that’s the case, the amount of time and effort put in to building a new version would be reasonably expensive.

That being said, I’m still pretty shocked at it myself. Apple always classified itself as a hardware company, but are merrily charging an arm and a leg for the software which is required to use the fucking product.

There have even been occasions where I have questioned their charging for upgrades of the computer version of OSX. It seems to me that if I have the kind of money available to purchase a top-of-the-line piece of digital hard-on creator, I should at least be provided with in-line and automatic updates. Not to mention the fact that it’s pretty irritating to remove OSX and install an alternative operating system, and that the hardware is more expensive than its beige-box counterparts while being precisely the same hardware.

I mean, imagine it – If Apple sold its laptops and desktops with a totally free and automatic software update system. Not only that, but imagine if it were all a total surprise, and there was no inkling that an upgrade was on the way – One day you’re faffing about with your system, with your non-3D-ish dock and your tiny little thumbnails, next day it’s been updated to Leopard and has all sorts of nifty, shiny new features which are pointed out to you while you sit there like the mesmerised fanboy that you truly are.

You’d shit bricks. You’d check it every morning to see if there was an upgrade surprise waiting for you. You’d rant about it to your friends. You’d buy one for your mum so that you’d never have to help her through another fucking vista upgrade.

For fuck’s sake, Apple. If you just put your mind to it and went back to your original plan of “Creating a revolution”, you’d conquer the world. Everyone would want a Mac or iPod so that they too could experience the wonderful Christmas-present feeling when they sat down after a surprise update. And you’d make Microsoft look even more terrible because people would say, “Oh, pay for an operating system? That’s stupid. Mine comes free with my computer and way better than Windows!”

See? It’s simple!

Instead you’re trying to make as much money as humanly possible and have simply turned yourselves into a horrible, faceless, money-grubbing corporation, the likes of which the world has never seen. Not even Microsoft has the terrible power that Apple does – incredibly expensive equipment, short upgrade periods for both hardware and software, and a dedicated base of mouth-breathing fanboys who would give their right leg to fondle Steve Job’s raging semi as he looked at his quarterly sales figures.

Fuck you Apple. Fuck you Steve. It used to be about the hardware.