How Apple makes more profit on their systems...

[Bill McGonigle]

On 10/05/2009 10:47 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> I have watched Linux systems improve for the past 15 years.  Free
> Software is amazing, and it is getting better. Certainly the GAP has
> closed between FOSS and Microsoft. The gap may or may not close between
> Apple and FOSS.

Depends on how accurate the slopes of your two curves are.  I think
there's actually a chance of this happening in the next five years.  For
one, Apple seems to be losing interest in Macintosh, which may affect
their slope.  A desktop iPhone seems inevitable.

I was recently complaining that a Macbook Pro I bought 3 years ago costs
the same to 'buy again' today, but that the manufacturing costs have
gone down significantly over that same time and it's barely any faster a
machine.  When I bought 3 years ago I did a component comparison and
found it to be a very good value.  That same comparison today largely
fails, leaving only the value of the software and service to make up the
difference.  But I still think it's a good value for non-computer geeks.
 With Macintosh you pay up-front.  With Windows you pay on the back-end.
 Linux installs tend to be somewhere in the middle.

When it was recently insisted to me that "Linux on the desktop isn't
ready for most users" is an old and tired mantra, and that everything
worked now, I typed in this list off the top of my head:

"Things that frustrate me on a daily basis would include: pulseaudio is
always crapping out (they blame the hardware drivers that work under
ALSA), wake from sleep on my netbook is hit-or-miss, syncing my phone
isn't yet possible (maybe the next-next version of OpenSync will work),
no detection of unplugging an external display (kms will handle this in
the next xorg), DPI rendering issues depending on the toolkit/window
manager in use (better in KDE 4.3 but still some problems), no usable
multi-head configuration tool, crazy-hard file manager, crazy-hard file
chooser (depending on toolkit), multimedia codec difficulties
(improving), no tear-free video (probably in Wayland), difficult to
setup some printers (had to manually configure one wireless HP last week
with an hour of googling and an hour of experimenting), video drivers
that don't support currently available hardware, Network Manager hoses
my routing table, task bar requires too many clicks. I can handle lots
of these but my parents can't."

The interesting thing about my current list of frustrations is that a
good chunk of the really hard ones are being worked on right now.  Some
of those require significant re-architecture to get right.  But from
there, a stable foundation for getting a polished system will exist, so
things look brighter now than they ever have.  That's enough for me to
know that if I work on the stuff I can there's a good chance of having a
great product in the end.  I file *lots* of bug reports, but FLOSS
developers actually seem to care about fixing them.

For my money, Apple's hostility towards open source on the iPhone and
their attempts to get bloggers (as a class) ruled by the CA courts as
being unable to be considered journalists for the purposes of protecting
sources were too much for me.  So I started switching my business
desktop workflow over to all-free software a year ago.  I'm nearly done
- the Macbook Pro is off at AppleCare now getting a new: dvd burner,
battery, bluetooth module, keyboard, case fan, and maybe top assembly.
Each has minor issues but I bought the machine with the $300 extended
warranty and a very nice and very smart US-based support gal helped me
get the service all setup in about 20 minutes, and was readily able to
listen and understand that I knew what I was talking about and savvy
enough to listen to and agree with my diagnostic procedures.  The
computer is already sold to a friend for about half of its original
value (slightly less than the eBay market price), which ain't bad for a
3-year-old laptop (it cost me about a buck a day to own while I had it).

I also recognize that Apple employs FLOSS hackers and that they make
important contributions to the ecosystem that we all benefit from.
There's no bright line here between false dichotomies and every one of
the big tech companies has something special to hate about them.  Yet,
for people who will tend to call me expecting free tech support - they
should be buying Apple hardware until Linux is ready.

And, yeah, it sounds like Alex got the dweeb at the Apple Store.  I've
also had terrible service at another Apple store, and yes, Apple charges
convenience-store prices for RAM and peripherals.

-Bill

-- 
Bill McGonigle, Owner
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