Apple is #2 in the desktop market behind Microsoft which has 90 plus percent. That's second place, hardly what I would call "lost in the computer market". Apple is not an Operating System company, they are a personal computing company. They are becoming what Microsoft wanted to become, the company that brings computing and computers to every aspect of your life.
It was a brilliant design decision and business decision, period. Full control means there is a much better chance of it reacting the way they thought it would.
Linux and Microsoft can not. Go visit any forum dedicated to either OS and read the multitude of threads where people are trying to figure out how to get pieces of hardware to work together, or figuring how why some piece of hardware causes the OS to crash.
Apple works just fine with Samba, NFS, Active Directory as well as TCP/IP, WAN and LAN technologies. Which standard networking protocols were you referring to?
Mac software such as Itunes and Quicktime in recent years has become troublesome in business environments, and they make it a pain in the ass to uninstall portions of their crappy software. Lets also not forget about how certain viruses infect PC's through apple software and apple blames the other software companies for it's poor business practices. That can also be shown as evendence of not respecting their customers and the general public seeing as much of that were people who purchased Ipods. I support both Apples and Pc's and I see what they do in relation to each other and how they compare in reliability. Far more similarly than you might realize. They even get viruses now, new for us in the last year or so. Although I haven't seen it here yet I have been reading reports that they even BSOD now, so maybe they are getting better at writing code
Mac software definitely could use improving in the business environment, it's making ground but has a long way to go. But that's not it's intended environment so you can't really blame iTunes for not working in a way it wasn't really intended to. Viruses are non-existent, a couple of proof of concepts doesn't really count. We'll talk when Apple is responsible for a Code Red. Also never seen or heard a report of a BSOD on a Mac, they occasionally freeze, but there's not a personal OS on the market that doesn't every once in a while.
I do agree that there is a large number of hardcore Apple people that even if their computer started on fire would not ever say anything bad about apple, and yes that has happened before. But maybe it was really inovative to make a computer with out a cpu fan?
On the other hand have you had Apple brick your phone yet? Do you think they have any right what so ever to do such a thing to your property after you purchase it in full? That is not respecting your customer. Do you think Apple respected its customers when they sent out Ipods with viruses that infected customers Windows Pc's and then Apple first tried to push the blame on their customers for having Windows when it was Apples fault and responsibility? Years ago their CEO made a statement to the effect that apple users felt having more than one button on their mouse was too confusing, is that another way of calling them idiots? I know in more recent years they finally realized people can handle the confusing task of right and left clicking.
And lastly one of the things that makes me the most distrusting of apple is that they know when your Ipod is stolen and they have the capability of deactivating it but have admitted to allowing thieves to reconnect them to itunes and purchase more music for your Ipod so they can continue making money while you're out the often huge cost of certain Ipods. That's damned disrespectful of your customers, but in fairness most companies would probably do the same thing.
Apple hasn't bricked my phone, because I'm using it as it was intended to be used. The purchase/activation for the phone said it was intended to be used only with AT&T networks, don't agree with that and you don't have to purchase it. But please don't come pissing and moaning when you break the rules and get your hand swatted, I could care less. My iPhone still works just fine.
Again, they've already got one of the most viable and Operating Systems built from a BSD base, very similar to Linux. I hardly think they need to work on that.
Google definitely has the engineering horsepower to make a devastating Operating System. I would say the chance that there is one floating around Google is very, very high. However they don't even begin to have the staffing necessary to support an OS in the market. Linux-style community support would be the only option, and I don't really think they want to compete with Linux for no profit.
That's good stuff there, and I'd totally pay the $129 for the upgrade and run it like I stole it.
