Apple is not your friend

In July, 2001, I bought an Apple iBook computer. I had plenty of previous experience on Macs (my wife has always used them), but their operating system had lagged far behind and was basically obsolete by about 1994. However, I was interested in Mac OS X, Apple's new unix-based operating system; I had used unix at work from 1992-1995, when I was forced to switch to Windows (which I never liked much), and OS X seemed to offer all the benefits of unix, along with a good graphical interface and plenty of applications.

I was very pleased with my iBook, and with OS X. As promised, Apples are much easier to configure than are Windows machines. Setting up a wireless home network was a snap, as was setting up all my email accounts and so on. And OS X gave me all of the unix tools I like to work with, right out of the box. These facts, along with the vaunted stylish design of the iBook, made me a quick Apple fan. In fact, I switched to Apple at work, too!

Also, it really seemed that Apple had a different corporate philosophy from Microsoft, trying to keep their customers happy by providing a good user experience and making it easy to do what we want, rather than taking every opportunity to squeeze out a few more bucks from us.

Well, that was wrong, and here's how I know.

When I bought my Mac, the box that it came in, and the instruction manual, and all of the Apple advertising, promised that "access to [my] free iTools account is built into Mac OS X". The "free iTools account" included some space for a free web site, and for storing and sharing some files...and also a "free mac.com email account." Apple's advertising suggested that by using my mac.com email (mine was pnprice@mac.com) I would never need to change email addresses again: change jobs, change internet service providers, it doesn't matter because I can use my mac.com address forever.

Well, "forever" turned out to be "for about 14 months", and "free" turned out to be "for $100 a year": in August 2002, Steve Jobs announced that iTools would no longer exist (what happened to it being "built into Mac OS X"?) and that keeping my mac.com email would henceforth cost $100 a year (or more, of course, if they ever decide to raise the price).

Unlike some people, who thought that Apple's promise of free email forever was legally binding, I had read the user agreement when I signed up for my iTools account, and I knew that Apple had kept the option of eliminating, or charging for, some services. It even occurred to me that they might start charging for email accounts. But it never occurred to me that they would do the underhanded bait-and-switch that they have chosen to do: encourage people to use their mac.com email addresses, and then charge a ridiculously high fee to retain them, once people are hooked. The $100-per-year price clearly isn't designed to let Apple recoup its costs for providing email (providing email forwarding wouldn't cost Apple more than $15 per user per year, tops), it's just extortion: Apple knows how inconvenient it is to change email addresses, and they figure people will pay up rather than go through the hassle. Is it legal? Probably. Is it right? No.

Steve Jobs tried to justify this outrageous decision by citing the fact that other "free email" services have started charging, and Apple needs to do so for the same reasons. That's ridiculous, of course: the other services planned on making their money through advertising (which turned out not to bring in enough money to provide the services), but Apple never planned on that. And in fact, it's misleading to say that Apple ever provided free email accounts: what they did was provide email accounts that were included in the cost of the computer. I already paid for my email account when I bought my iBook; now Apple is charging an exhorbitant fee to let me keep it.

One immediate effect of Apple's new policy was to lose them several hundred dollars of my business: having bought an iPod (digital music player) for my wife, I was enchanted by it and had decided to buy one for myself. But I now have a sour taste in my mouth about all things Apple, so I've decided to forgo that purchase. Someday, maybe I'll buy such a device...from a different company.

Unfortunately, I did cave in and pay Apple to retain my mac.com email address for the next year. I just couldn't get my act together in time, to buy my own domain name, find someplace to host it, and inform all of the people who currently use my mac.com email address. Much as it pained me to do so, I sent Apple my money.

But from now on, I'll treat Apple like Microsoft: I'll use their products when I need to, but I'll always assume that if I come to depend on a service that Apple provides, then they'll find a way to try to squeeze extra money out of me to retain it. So, if alternatives to Apple products are available then I'll use those alternatives.

This is a particularly frustrating situation because much of my investment portfolio is in...Apple stock (currently far below my purchase price). As an owner of the company, I don't want the company to use unethical business practices, especially when I think those practices are to the long-term detriment of the company's bottom line.

By the way, Apple isn't just screwing us customers, it's busily screwing small developers whom it ought to be cultivating in the hopes that they will create the next "killer app." One such app is (or could have been) Karelia Software's "Watson" tool, which finally makes it easier to use the computer for common tasks (like finding a movie to go to) than to use old-fashioned tools (like looking in the newspaper). If you haven't seen Watson, then you don't understand how great this tool is. Apple apparently thought so too, since they copied the program, right down to the appearance of the toolbar, and it's now included with new versions of their operating system---a Microsoftian tactic that crushes a small developer, seemingly for no reason: they could easily have bought or licensed the tool, rather than developing their own. (Read an interview with Karelia owner Dan Wood to get the whole story). Predictably, Karelia is now working on a Windows version, rather than concentrating on the Mac version. Again, as an Apple shareholder, Apple's behavior seems both reprehensible and short-sighted.

So now it's apparent that Apple would love to extract every dime from us, by whatever deceitful and underhanded tactic necessary...they just haven't felt that that was in their best interest before, so it wasn't apparent before. Apparently they have similar feelings about their developers, too: rather than encourage them to develop great new software for the Mac, they'll let their developers design innovative new products, and then use Microsoftian tactics to add the desirable features to their operating system or one of their standard applications, thus putting the developer out of business.

So, let this be a warning to you, if you're contemplating buying a Mac: their operating system really is excellent, and their computers really are nice and easy to use...but their business practices are as sleazy as anyone's, and if you can avoid relying on them, then you should.