iOS is anti-Unix and anti-programmer

It's official—from now on I am anti-stupid-titles on HN. Will flag any submission with a meaningless title like this.

What does it mean being anti? It's either active stance against something or at least major disagreement.

I cannot see how iOS is actively fighting unix (being based on it) or programmers (being created for it and offering thousands of API for them).

Neither I see how iOS is passively anti-unix and anti-programmers. My car has probably a dozen computers but I cannot program on it. So what? My TV probably runs linux, and I cannot program on it either. Does it make it anti-linux and anti-programmer?

Why do some expect anything with cpu, display and storage to be full-blown programmers workstation is beyond me.

> No but I honestly thinks there are people sitting around at Apple dreaming up new ways to take away your money, even if it entails taking away your freedom.

Sure, there is some dude somewhere who only cares about driving up the quarterly numbers. But generally Apple has a pretty long record of shipping premium products at a premium price and selling them with a "buy it or don't" attitude. With the possible exception of those damn video adapters, I've never felt like Apple was trying to squeeze money out of me. Sure, they had to play the DRM game with iTunes and let's not even get into the bullshit that the telcos get away with. But, as a composite entity, Apple has been pretty damn respectful of it's customers.

> Yeah... As an aside I think Apple is overrated.

Different tastes for different people. Go ahead, buy whatever product you like. Just don't accuse a team of hard working, talented people of being out to take your freedom.

> It's interfaces are nifty but as seen with Lion they're not above a misstep.

I'm quite happy with the improvements in Lion.

> Plus while they offer a very nice first-time ("store") experience, with time it's edge over the other OS slowly fades. You have to learn all the keyboard shortcuts or you'll be a bit helpless in your shiny OS.

I've used a Windows machine since before I could speak. I worked for Microsoft for several years. I now cringe every time I have to touch the one Windows box at our office.

> Even hardware which tends to be quality can fail, as witnessed with graphic cards overheating problems for instance.

And you've never had a component on your other machines fail? shrug When the machine I built had a power supply failure, I had to go fucking replace it. I was free to use whatever power supply I wanted, but I wasn't free to use my damn computer for the four days I waited for my new component. When my iMac had a buzzing noise, they replaced it in the store in under an hour.

> I had an iPhone 3G and with the new firmware the thing was a trainwreck of usability

Freedom isn't free. Making that new software compatible with that old hardware costs time and money. They did a decent job to appease the tiny cross-section of people who upgrade software, but don't upgrade hardware. Most people don't even know what a software upgrade is, so their old OS version is running just fine on the hardware it was tested against. In general, those who do care about having the latest and greatest can afford a phone upgrade.

> tough I get more bang for my computing power in Android

Who cares how much bang you get? It does the same stuff. Again, it's clear you value different things.

Look, I'm not gonna respond further because as far as I'm concerned, I've made my point: It's not right to personify corporations as evil simply because they don't match your personal taste. It's insulting to the people who work really fucking hard and take great pride in the (not so) small impact they leave on the world.

Something that, magically, Manhattan, say, has managed to avoid.

Oh, and your experience is "borrowing an iPad for a week".

vs

When my iMac had a buzzing noise, they replaced it in the store in under an hour.

So "sitting on my arse doing nothing, I had to wait four days for a replacement" versus "I physically took my machine to the Apple store and they gave me a replacement at the same time".

These are purposefully selective anecdotes. With your first repair, you yourself could have gone to a store - just like you did with the iMac, only not having to carry the damn thing - and got a power supply in five minutes, taken it back to the office, and had it installed and back up in half an hour. Computer stores and power supplies are as common as muck - unless your desktop PC is really weird, you'll find something suitable by simply throwing a brick.

Total time spent in process for each 'go to shop' scenario? Less than an hour plus travel time. And with the non-imac one, you don't even have to ferry the computer around. All in all, a pretty similar experience.

Unless of course your anecdote is even less fair and the 'four day wait' was for a server part.

It's insulting to the people who work really fucking hard and take great pride in the (not so) small impact they leave on the world.

People who work hard and take pride in the (not so) small impact they leave can still be doing a bad thing, even though they're full of good intentions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations (This link is just a strong example, I'm not trying to draw a parallel)