Apple... Evil?

Well, I first teased the idea of evil companies a bit ago... myself questioning if such a concept even were possible, or if companies can simply reflect the evil deeds of those who run them. If there ever were a company where this is a very grey line, it's increasingly Apple. I've had a love-hate relationship with Apple for years. Their products were expensive, but always top quality and backed by excellent customer support. As many of you know, my MacBook Pro has been anything but. Buggy with horrific customer support. However, I am pretty tied into the big wide world of Apple and am not going to escape any time soon I am afraid, despite making escape plans.

The problem, for me, is that Apple keeps introducing amazing new things that just offer BETTER than the competition. The iPhone's App Store has made me long await an iPhone (though when I finally become an AT&T customer after my current contract is up, I may choose an Android device...). The amazing display and physical build quality are the reasons I bought this MacBook Pro I am typing on. Mac OS X has a superior "out of box experience" - everything just WORKS. Usually. Except when buggy nVidia hardware causes the whole thing to melt down and a stupid dent causes Apple to refuse to support you in any way.

These, though, are all consumer experiences. Stupid bugs. Things that relate only to technology that will cease to exist in a few years. If the good outweighs the bad, I can still buy Apple. They're not moral choices. They're "what offers me the best solution for my needs for the money" choices.

Recently, however, I am increasingly appalled by Apple's corporate ethics. We all know that last year a Foxconn engineer committed suicide after losing an iPhone prototype rather than face the wrath of Apple. But it could be justified that he took his own life, and that it was Foxconn, not Apple, he was afraid of. Well, Foxconn only acts like that because they too are afraid of the wrath of Jobs. It made me think.

But Foxconn is a long ways from here and China is a whole different game. Recently, I read about a tragedy right here, on American soil. An Apple test engineer had an iPad 3G (an ANNOUNCED PRODUCT) with him on the Wi-Fi model's launch day, and let Steve Wozniak (who didn't know it was a 3G) see it. For that, the guy was fired. Seriously. For showing an announced but unreleased product to the co-founder of the company. Woz, of course (being an old hippie basically), has basically said Jobs has no heart (in slightly more elegant words).

Can I support a company like this? I don't think so. Apple may be cool and stylish, and the products may be innovative. But if a company can be evil (a still unanswered question), I think Apple's recent actions qualify them as such. Watch the Pirates of Silicon Valley, I think it's a more realistic portrayal of Jobs than many of us would like to believe.

I leave you with two things - an old Apple ad. I love it, it's inspirational and very ironic. It's time to push forward and reject the status quo. At the time that meant rejecting Microsoft, but now - I think it's time to reject Apple and choose ubuntu ("humanity to others") - not necessarily the Ubuntu OS (as great as it is) - but at least something by someone with some sense of humanity to others:



And a view of how Apple ("Mapple" in this spoof) is more realistically acting today (at best):