"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. Working men of all countries, unite!"- Karl Marx
As a note of disclosure, I have been using Macs exclusively at home, starting 20 years ago with a Mac 512K, up to my current system-a PowerMac G5 tower. I have used a variety of Windows-based systems at school and work, and have dabbled very slightly in Linux/Unix, but cannot claim significant knowledge. In addition, I read Slashdot and similar nerdy sites, thus keeping abreast of tech news to whatever extent I can (often to the detriment of my general world knowledge and my Ph.D.). My undergrad degree was also computer related, specifically it was in Engineering Systems and Computing. So, while I'm by no means a professional tech pundit, neither am I a babe in the woods.
So, let me first be clear about why I feel each approach is representative of the economic/political strategy with which I have associated it. Apple has traditionally tried to maintain much tighter control over its products. Putting aside the poorly-thought-out cloning program in the mid-90s, Apple has been the only company capable (legally and technically) of making computers that run the MacOS. Furthermore, they have stuck to stringent standards with their computers: whereas a company like Dell will buy network cards (for example) from whichever supplier can give them the best price on a given day, Apple tends to stick to one manufacturer-and one particular model of network cards-for long periods of time. Apple tends to include lots of features right on the motherboard that PC manufacturers typically include as PCI cards (high-quality sound cards, gigabit ethernet, firewire, etc.). As a result, there is a comparatively small market of upgrade cards for Macs. Since Apple includes most features on-board that average users would need, many people will never even upgrade. Therefore, Apple can reasonably predict that the overwhelming majority of its products in use conform to a reasonably small, and definitely finite set of specifications. Furthermore, Apple provides, free of charge on new Macs, a fairly robust set of software-notably iLife (photo management, music creation and playing, video and DVD creation), iWork (a word processor and Powerpoint-like presentation application), Safari (Apple's Web Browser) and Mail.
The PC world, on the other hand, is dominated by a plethora of manufacturers. You want to buy a network card? There are 200 brands at your local PC superstore. USB cards and peripherals, video cards, and of course, software, all come in myriad competing packages. Though Windows is dominant on the operating system front, there is a hardcore contingent of Linux and Unix users. Furthermore, because the basic installation of Windows contains fairly rudimentary software packages compared to iLife and iWork, and because there are so many Windows users, there's a much more burgeoning market for 3rd-party software. As a result of all this, there is a nearly-limitless number of potential configurations of PC machines. Any slightly-different combination of modem/network card/video card/USB card/Operating System/Productivity applications/etc. is an entirely novel setup compared to any other. While I'm sure the number of potential setups is theoretically finite, I pity the poor bastard who'd have to even figure out how many potential combinations there are, much less what they all are. Similarly, non-iPod MP3 players can choose from a variety of online music stores (Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music and the like) whereas the iTunes store is the only store that sells DRM-protected music that will play on the iPod. Note that the iPod will also quite happily play any non-protected MP3s, AACs, WAVs and a few other formats; this is true of most other MP3 players as well, though many will also play WMA, which the iPod will not.
So, what can we glean from these approaches? Well, I feel that it provides insight into the pros and cons of trying to control the delivery of a service, versus letting anyone and everyone take a shot at getting their product into play.
Macs have long been known to be more stable. This has changed with recent versions of Windows XP, but certainly there are still some issues. For example, I have crazy USB issues on my work PC, where certain devices will only work when connected to certain ports. The reason for this is drivers-little bits of software that tell an operating system how to communicate with attached devices. Each device requires its own drivers, and sometimes those drivers conflict. On the Mac side, you can test fairly well for this; on the PC side, there are just too many combinations of hardware, and from too many obscure, fly-by-night manufacturers to be able to do so.
Macs, on the other hand, are engineered from the get-go to run largely on hardware and software produced by Apple; while the choices are often more limited, the coherence tends to be much better. I know many people will dispute this, and it's ultimately a matter of taste, but I think that by-and-large the consistency and stability of Macs has long been considered one of its strongest points. And this is a result of Apple's position as an influential player in the computer market as a whole and their exclusive role within the Mac platform. A secondary effect of this is that Apple is able to dictate, essentially by fiat, what will be included on Macs. They therefore have the ability to push new technologies in a way that no individual PC manufacturer (say, Dell or HP) can. Although USB was designed by Intel and supported by Microsoft, the single biggest push to adoption of the technology was when Apple included it as the sole peripheral interface on the wildly-popular first-generation iMac. Because of the popularity of that machine, and because ever single iMac sold had to use USB to connect printers, mice, keyboards, etc. (Apple dropped legacy technologies such as ADB, serial and SCSI ports), it provided an instant market and is widely considered to be the turning point for the adoption of USB. Similar effects can be found with CD-ROM drives in the late 1980s, Wi-Fi networking and more.
This then leads to the parallels one can draw. When the Soviet Union represented the dominant socialist power on Earth, it provided a unique vantage point for comparative economic theory. And what we saw reflects what I've stated above. Putting political oppression aside for the moment, when it came to thing like consumer choice, Americans had a definite advantage. A free market, by its very nature promotes choice and competition; Americans had choices in consumer goods that Soviets could never dream about. Furthermore, the efficiencies in manufacture and delivery of goods drove costs down (Macs, at least to a superficial inspection, still tend to cost more than bog-standard PCs), and increased speed of delivery (when Intel announces a new CPU, Dell and HP tend to announce computers using that CPU on the same day; Apple does so much later). However, the flip side to this is internal conflict. Standardisation can be difficult (see the money wasted on the needless VHS vs. Beta/BluRay vs. HD-DVD/X2 vs K56Flex vs. 42bis format wars for videos, next-gen DVDs and modems, respectively). Furthermore, the companies vie for what is best for their bottom line, not necessarily what is best for the consumer. We end up with cheap, disposable, environmentally unfriendly products far more often than we should.
A single command point is slower to react, but generally leads to-eventually-greater synchronicity. Apple's near-fanatical devotion to easy-to-use interfaces tends to trickle down to 3rd-party Mac software; one of the most common complaints of Mac versions of Windows software is that it doesn't "feel like a Mac application". Apple is in a unique position to do so, because they control so much of the vertical integration, they can set an example that Microsoft, Adobe, etc. simply cannot. Furthermore, individual components not only work better together, but can do so in a more-intuitive way, because one company-with a visionary leader at the helm, no less-directs how things "should" work. The Soviet Union didn't exactly prise aesthetics in design, but they certainly praised consistency and comprehensibility to a degree that the disparate companies of the West never did.
The reality, of course, is that no rational person preaches either a fully-unregulated free market, nor a micromanagement, top-down command economy. As with so many other things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And of course, with my computing analogy, neither the PC world, nor the Mac world truly represent either extreme: Macs do compete with PCs, as well as Linux distributions that run on Mac hardware; similarly, PCs adhere to standards and practices laid down by the government or standards bodies. When it comes to computing, it ultimately should be a personal choice: which "feels" better to you. For me that's a Mac, for others its Windows or Linux. So be it. Fortunately for us, our system of government allows for enough of a free market to ensure that each one of us can choose the platform we like. However, to assume that there are no downsides is about as foolhardy as blindly choosing Windows just because there are more boxes on the shelf than there are for Macs. Choice is important, but it too comes with a cost.
"Unfortunately, people are not rebelling against Microsoft. They don’t know any better."-Steve
Jobs
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