[Harmon]

Originally Posted by djgreedo

How many of his customers are even aware that certain software is banned? How many people actually are aware that such a thing as banning what you can do with something you bought is even an option?

Probably most of us. But the more pertinent question is, how many would care? People who buy Apple products regard the integration of the software and hardware to be one of the things that's so great about it.

Here's the concept:

Google does not sell internet phones, and neither does Nokia or any of its competitors. It is only when you put Google software on a Nokia platform that you have a an internet phone. Apple actually sells internet phones. The hardware and the software are parts of a total product, and Apple customers are buying the total product.

People like you want to buy components and put the product together yourself. Okay, that's fine. Go ahead and do it. Nobody wants to stop you.

But notice that YOU don't want Apple to sell the product that the rest of us want to buy.

Banning software for any reason other than legal reasons is anti-consumer, anti-free speech, and anti-technology. It's akin to burning books or rock and roll records.

Now let's see:

How is it "anti-consumer" to sell people what they want, and make tons of money doing it? Apple is not the only place you can get a tablet based internet phone. In point of fact, every step that Apple has taken since Jobs took over again has had the effect of enlarging the market, and increasing overall consumer choice as other companies struggle to catch up.

What is "anti-free speech" about any of this? How has anyone's speech been curtailed? Do you think that your local newspaper has to publish any letter you write to it? Do you think I have to listen to you when you call me on my telephone? Are you unable to buy anything but an iPhone or iPad? Can't you get what you want on a different platform?

"Anti-technology?" It is to laugh. Apple takes existing technology and shows what can be done with it. Apple basically invented the consumer market internet phone, and it might have invented the consumer market internet tablet. How in the world is that anti-technology?

The truth is, your position is anti-free market. You want to say that the computer market must consist of a component based approach which requires everyone to be a computer junkie in order to build a functioning computer. Apple offers an alternative. It's called "choice."

Why should you or Steve Jobs have any interest or say in what others use their own gadgets for? If software exists that offends your sensibilities exercise your right to ignore it.

Two can play this rhetorical game. Why should Apple indulge your taste for porn? If you want software that craps up your phone, exercise your right to buy Android.

And Steve's concentration on porn is a smokescreen which he hides behind while banning apps such as Google Voice and controversial cartoons (i.e. apps which add functionality and exercise free speech). This has nothing to do with taste and responsibility. It is simply Steve Jobs enforcing his own values (e.g. he has a moral objection to any kind of sexual content) on his customers while also ensuring that Apple and its partners make as much money as possible (e.g. banning VOIP apps that allow users to bypass their phone carrier to make cheaper calls).

You can't have it both ways. Either Jobs is enforcing his own values, which means he believes in them, or he's throwing up a smokescreen, which means he doesn't believe in them.

As for making as much money as possible, I certainly hope so. A couple of my kids own Apple stock. Do you think that Apple could or should sell their products at cost?

If Apple owned 95% of the market, your arguments might make some sense, because in that context, what they are doing would be anti-competitive. But in the context of the market that actually exists, they simply represent your desire that Apple sell you what you can easily get somewhere else. It is you, perversely, who is being anti-competitive by wanting to destroy a particular configuration of the product that many other people actually value enough to pay a premium to get.

And the funny thing is, without Apple doing what it does the way it does, you would probably be unable to get much of what you want at all.