>Apple continues to achieve a level of quality in their products that most of us aspire to as entrepreneurs, and the tech world is better for it. The impulse to belittle them in light of an impressive achievement baffles me.
Many have a problem with what Apple because it's trying to normalizing sharecropping in the software development world.
I have to give them a 30% cut if I want to sell software for their hardware. I have to pay them $99/year just to put applications I've written on my own hardware (effectively subscribing to use my own hardware). If I write an application they want to compete with they have the power to make my application unavailable on their device. If I write an application they somehow find distasteful or politically controversial they can make it disappear. Microsoft is following Apple's lead. Why would I want to support either of them instead of an alternative like Android?
"I have to give them a 30% cut if I want to sell software for their hardware."
Right, if you build something and Target puts it in their store you think they don't take a cut or doesn't take it out of the store if it crosses taste lines? Is that "sharecropping in the retail world"? Sorry no, that is just how business works.
Lady Gaga didn't become a big hit because she is the most talented artist and pressed her own CDs and kept 100% of the profits. She became a big hit because she signed a deal that gave 10% of her profits to her agent who got her another deal where she signed away another 70%+ of income to a company that got her the best beatmakers in the world and put her songs on the radio every hour.
Analogously, Apple has put a store together that brings tens of millions of paying customers right to your app's doorstep and makes it super easy for them to buy it. The deal they're offering is that they take 30% to cover expenses (customer service, servers, etc.) and as a finder's fee. If you don't like that deal you're free to say no but plenty of other people have said yes. Very few big software houses develop for Android but not iOS and very few develop apps for Android before iOS despite the market share disparity. Clearly they see Apple's deal as a lucrative investment and not sharecropping.
Software piracy isn't new, yet software publishers have managed to survive. I don't think the existence of piracy is sufficient reason to embrace allowing hardware to be ruled by fiat.
Not entirely true. Both iOS and Android have a way to remove applications from your phone. That's useful against rogue applications, the latest of which is HTC's Android giving away your personal data. You want a safe and unregulated market but you can't have it both ways, specially if you are computer illiterate.
Removing malware from phones and the market is entirely reasonable. That's not the problem. The problem is deciding what kind of non-malicious apps people can use on their own hardware. For example:
Many have a problem with what Apple because it's trying to normalizing sharecropping in the software development world. I have to give them a 30% cut if I want to sell software for their hardware. I have to pay them $99/year just to put applications I've written on my own hardware (effectively subscribing to use my own hardware). If I write an application they want to compete with they have the power to make my application unavailable on their device. If I write an application they somehow find distasteful or politically controversial they can make it disappear. Microsoft is following Apple's lead. Why would I want to support either of them instead of an alternative like Android?