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Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

networkworld.com

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Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#61

Post by pohl »

andr wrote: post #40
Locke1689 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it up with the police, not Apple.

Apple sits on the steering committee of the police unit that entered Chen's house. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1795

Which means what, exactly? That the steering committee forced a judge to sign a search warrant without first presenting probable cause? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not what steering committees do.

Does it mean that no one on the steering committee should be allowed report a crime and avail themselves of the services of the force?

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#62

Post by ugh »

gizmo wrote: post #17

Hmm, I think Jon took a few too many creative liberties here for the sake of entertainment. 1. According to Gizmodo the door was broken in because the journalist wasn't at home. He was having dinner in a restaurant, arrived later when the search was already in progress. The authorities acted respectfully with his belongings, etc. There is a huge difference between ringing the bell a few times and breaking the door wh…

Jon Stewart does comedy, not news :)

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#63

Post by jsz0 »

jkincaid wrote: post #8
sgman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from their past actions, I don't think they really care about the PR effect of this.

I disagree. They don't care if a bunch of Apple fanboys or tech bloggers get upset about something, because the general public usually won't notice. Daily Show gets watched by a more mainstream audience, and I suspect it's a demographic that plays a big part in making Apple's products popular.

It's definitely a more mainstream audience but The Daily Show, popular by cable TV standards, only gets about ~1 million viewers per episode or 10% the number of people who bought an iPhone in Q2 2010, or about 1% of the people who own an iPhone/Touch since its launch. So I guess my point is we're still talking about a very small audience.

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#64

Post by onoj »

gizmo wrote: post #17

Hmm, I think Jon took a few too many creative liberties here for the sake of entertainment. 1. According to Gizmodo the door was broken in because the journalist wasn't at home. He was having dinner in a restaurant, arrived later when the search was already in progress. The authorities acted respectfully with his belongings, etc. There is a huge difference between ringing the bell a few times and breaking the door wh…

But guy had already returned the phone - so for what purpose was the search in any case - and why not just call him in - it's not like he posted his own face on his own blog or anything? Apple could be perceived as going too far to protect an average design here.

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#65

Post by arethuza »

statictype wrote: post #60
jrockway wrote: post #20

Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one. But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes! What the fuck is going on?! It's all mixed up! At least Apple doesn't charge you $80 to change your desktop background on a netbook. But otherwise, I agree. Apple is hurting the field -- locking down hardware, mandating woefully outdated legacy programming languages, a…

At least Apple doesn't charge you $80 to change your desktop background on a netbook On the other hand, they do charge you $99 an year for the privilege of putting code you wrote on a device you own.

What about an Xbox 360?

According to this page it is $99 a year to be able to distribute Xbox Live Community games:

http://creators.xna.com/en-US/XboxLIVECommunityGames

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#66

Post by commandar »

FluidDjango wrote: post #59
dalore wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well he was a journalist which should have gave him rights against stuff like this (protect sources etc). They took ALL his computers, not just stuff related to the stolen iPhone, again breaking the law that is meant to protect sources. And if I recall when the story first broke, Apple did not admit it was their prototype until the pictures and story came out.

> the law that is meant to protect sources IANAL. Nor do I know all about journalists' rights v. police procedures, but I am puzzled at all the press and online discussion about "protecting sources": Seems to me that journalists should be able to protect sources of * information * - which is different than protecting sources of * stolen property† * ___________________ †or "stolen-ish" - whatever Calif calls found pro…

The problem is, by serving a warrant and confiscating all his computers and related devices, they've bypassed his ability to protect sources not just in this case, but in all other cases, as well. That's the rationale for making the legal path subpoenas rather than search warrants with journalists.

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#68

Post by mark_h »

ugh wrote: post #62
gizmo wrote: post #17

Hmm, I think Jon took a few too many creative liberties here for the sake of entertainment. 1. According to Gizmodo the door was broken in because the journalist wasn't at home. He was having dinner in a restaurant, arrived later when the search was already in progress. The authorities acted respectfully with his belongings, etc. There is a huge difference between ringing the bell a few times and breaking the door wh…

Jon Stewart does comedy, not news :)

While true, the lines do seem to blur a fair bit at times, court-jester style...

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#69

Post by RyanMcGreal »

BRadmin wrote: post #37
cookiecaper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this relevant to the video? He didn't claim that Apple had any personal information on its users. It sounds like you're bringing up an unrelated point to deflect attention from Apple's actions. That is not appropriate!

I don't believe he's giving an opinion about Apple's actions, rather the accuracy of calling them "Big Brother" in light of the fact that other companies maintain a lot more information about their users than Apple does.

The Big Brother analogy isn't about how much information you collect, it's about how much control you assert.

Re: Jon Stewart assails Apple for becoming "Big Brother"

#70

Post by Retric »

ThomPete wrote: post #55
siculars wrote: post #24

I'm really with Stewart on this one. Both in that I love Apple products and that I think Apple is becoming "The Man" they used to rail against. Can you be a dominant player and not be "The Man"? Well, I think Google is making a good go of it. For what it's worth I'm going to Google I/O this year and not WWDC. Market be damned, my philosophy compels me to seek out open. And nowadays Google is out-opening Apple.

Googles business model requires openes I really don't think it's fair to compare the two. Apple sell products, google sell advertising. Apple is dependent only on their own ecosystem, google on the entire Internet. I would be much more worried about the data that google collects about you than apple. And let's not forget that google is not more open than you don't know exactly how their search algorithms work and hav…

I think Google is in a much more big brother relationship with it's users than Apple is. Apple restricts it's HW and what can run on it, but it does not keep track of it's Users.

IMO, Apple is really much more Disneyland where everything is expensive, looks nice, and is under their control. Also working as a vendor at Disneyland really sucks and involves a lot of rules which can change at any time. But, Disneyland only has the power to kick you out not hand out details of your private life.

PS: I used to develop for Mac OS 8 and while it sucked for a completely different set of reasons it still sucked. I don't think Apple really understands how important developers are because they tend be the first mover and don't have to work to get them.

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