Since Apple is a hardware and software company, the two ‘wares work well together. Apple’s design principles stress ease-of-use, elegance, and professional results. I’m speaking, here, of the MacOS, an operating system I have used for about 25 years. The current MacOS is built on open-source software and is perhaps the best available for any price. I know Windoze users will argue, and I frankly don’t care, nor is Windoze v. Mac even relevant here. Essentially, Windoze and the Mac are the same: they are both proprietary operating systems written by corporations for the sole purpose of making their respective companies wealthy and powerful.

At the heart of this debate is the perennial open source software versus proprietary software question. I have an iPhone for some of the same reasons that I prefer to use the MacOS. Since it’s proprietary, certain standards in interface and design keep my computing experience consistent and predictable. The iPhone (and soon, iPad) are new products, so I’m more willing to cut them the slack I wouldn’t with a traditional computer operating system. They’ll hammer out the wrinkles soon. Where the iPhone gets in trouble is new territory: not only is the operating system proprietary, Apple now controls what we — the users — can do with it in a draconian way, it seems.

Unlike the MacOS, the iPhoneOS is even more closed; I might even call it super-proprietary. On the former, I cannot change the code of the OS, but I can download programs that can significantly alter the operating system and how I use it. I can install modifications and other software that the powers-that-be might not like me having, like BitTorrent, pornography, warez, cracks, and other socially unacceptable forms of software that give the middle finger to any company (or person) that doesn’t like it. This is a question of my personal ethical codes and scruples. Apple supplies the container, but I can put anything in that container that I want, including elements that might not be good for it or me. I purchased a computer complete with operating system. And even though it comes with a proprietary end user license that I have to agree to before using said computer, I’ve never read the license and am pretty certain I’ve violated it many times. The point is: even with a proprietary operating system as we have known them from the beginnings of the personal computer until now, I can choose to ignore the licenses and the legal limits the corporations try to impose on me. I choose, not them.

Yet, it seems that these sorts of mostly open operating systems allow customers — users, programmers, hackers, and crackers (are we all just criminals?) — too much freedom. Enter the iPhone and the super-proprietary operating systems, or what we might more accurately describe as the closed-source-to-modification systems. With Apple’s app store as gateway to my iPhone/Pad/Pod, I can no longer really decide what to put on my computer — Apple decides for me and then gives me a pretend choice. This is analogous to Burger King being the only restaurant in town and saying “have it your way.” This is not a real choice, is it?

Tim Bray, Google’s newest Android bitch, puts it this way:

Yes, he is a corporate spokesman, but he is also exactly right.

Every fiber of my being should be resisting Apple and their path to techno-tyranny. I have championed Apple over Microsoft for years, but it seems that with the success of the iPod, then iPhone, and soon the iPad, they are becoming just as evil as corporations I’ve demonized in the past. I keep hoping that it will not turn out this way, but every day I seem to read something to the contrary. First came news of alleged stock malfeasance, then Jobs’ reputation as a techno-despot, then Fair Play DRM, then its rigid restrictions on how I use my iPod, then its exclusive deals with cell provides, to the iPhone/PadOS. As much as I wish it wasn’t, Apple seems to be changing into a typical ’Merican corporation.

So what are my responsibilities as a citizen and a consumer? I do have an iPhone, but my contract with AT&T is up in June. No matter what I do, it seems a necessity to sign a two-year contract with a cell provider (boooo!), but I could get an open-source phone, like one that runs Android. That leaves me buying hardware from another corporation, like Motorola or HTC. Are they really any different? Yes, Apple controls the applications I can put on my phone, but there are still more to choose from that I will ever need or want. Yes, Apple’s developer license is crap, and it needs to be fixed. Apple did get rid of their music DRM. Is it as bad as Bray and others make it sound?

I currently use Ubuntu on a cheap Acer laptop I bought last November, and it’s fine. But, I find myself missing my Mac more everyday.

Apple, I used to only love you, but your actions lately have been inspiring a lot of hate, consternation, and thoughts of jumping ship. Maybe you should consider that, change some of your policies, and make amends. Please don’t push me away. We’ve been together too long.

Over the weekend, I brought my dead sever home from campus. It used to be LitMUSE.maconstate.edu, but its boot drive crashed early in the summer, just as I was about to go to London. Since it wasn’t mission-critical, I didn’t do anythign with it until now. Prompted by a Lifehacker article, I easily swapped the dead drive and installed the latest Ubuntu, a Linux distribution based on my beloved Debian. The install was a pleasure; the only issue I had was enabling the root account, which I found out how to do with a bit of Googling:

sudo passwd root

Just set the root password, and you can log in with “su -”; you don’t have to do this, but I just got used to using the root account on my Debian installs. I even installed netatalk to use this server as a Time Machine backup. Sweet.

Ubuntu is awesome. And, if my machine wasn’t so old (nine-years), it would probably run much better. Check out this list of essential software. In fact, it runs so well, I’m considering getting a netbook. Thinking about it.

Anyway, one of my motivations for getting a Linux box working at home was the promise of setting up a domain name through DynDNS. Which I did, quickly and easily: lucas.homeunix.net (lucas.homelinux.net was taken). I set up my Airport Extreme to shuffle port 80 (web) and port 22 (ssh) traffic through to the Ubuntu machine. Nice.

The only problem is that Cox blocks port 80 (and others) on residential accounts. As you can see, if you follow the link, is that they only care about their customers’ safety. I say it’s arbitrary. All of it. Here’s another reason to support net neutrality. My question to Cox: why do you need a an acceptable use policy and blocked ports? No, no, let me answer. Reason #1: we’re all criminals. Reason #2: you don’t want anyone to make any money using your . . . uh, “your” network. Is it even yours?

Oh, and the best part? Well, if I had a business account (an extra $30 a month), then I could have not only an open port 80, but a static IP address as well. Wow, it’s amazing what an extra $360 a year can buy me; obviously, if I can afford to pay that, I’m not a criminal and I deserve to make money.

I’m going to try to call them to see if I, an educator, can get a business account for my current price if I promise to follow their acceptable use policy (which I would, anyway). I kind of already know what they’ll tell me, but I need to see. My blood pressure isn’t high enough anyway. Stay tuned…

Oh, and a genuine thanks to CoxTech1. He or she has been a helpful voice.

Seriously. It seems that only narratives about belief and faith get anywhere in this country these days. Facts are irrelevant — too pedestrian. Loud opinion is king, and my don’t we have plenty of it to go around? Not only do we like opinions, but we seem to relish uninformed, indignant, rude, and freakin’ loud! opinions even more, like pigs to the trough. Most of our current debates center around these types of beliefs, too. Yes, heath care is a very real problem, but it isn’t the fact of the problem that people care about, it’s the belief (a mystical flavor of opinion) about it that gets everyone so riled. You know, like religious belief.

My religion would be based around technology, more specifically computer technology. There’s already a Cult of Mac, but “cult” is such a pejorative term. I vote we make it into a full-fledged religion with all the concomitant benefits — and I’m not just talking about the material and economic ones. The narratives are already in place. We could make Apple the thing we worship, and Microsoft could be Satan and all his demonic horde. The particulars can be worked out later, and they’re not really that important. In fact, we could just as easily have chosen M$ as the entity most proper for our thoughtless devotion, but since I’m a Mac user, I’ve made Apple the arbitrary bestowers of goodness and light, and M$ the damned and execrable purveyors of sins most foul. Who is good is not really the point.

The Apple commercials are already allegorical. We have the Mac as the angel on your left shoulder and PC as the demon on your right. Who would you listen to? Justin Long is kind of a winy and right millennial, but John Hodgman‘s evil peecee commands my sympathy with his wry pathos. Apple’s marketing goons have done a great job with the complexity of this choice, like a medieval allegorist. Which will we choose? Well, ultimately there is no choice: we must go with the Mac if we are to achieve computing nirvana, even though its representative is as exciting as a latex-coated bible, and to me not really representative of of the holy OS.

Anyway, a new Apple religion. This is not because Apple deserves to be worshipped, but it does make sense that we’d choose a corporation to venerate in this country today. We love our stuff, and corporations know how to sell it to us. They’re like the pastor passing around the donation plate before communion, and we’re the obedient parishioners smiling while we give ten percent of our income to God before we’re rewarded with a snack. This is about right, too, if we take into consideration the computers at home, in the office, the iPods, service, upgrades, support devices, entertainment appliances, iTunes purchases. . . Ten percent might be conservative.

Still, I’m interested in the what religion signifies in this country above all of these other matters. I want to end the persecution. I want people to treat me and my choices as if they really mattered. You know, like we do for Christians. Religion is not up for debate. It’s not up for discrimination. It’s not up for rational thought. It’s about belief. I want the respect given to religion, say, by businesses and politicians. They don’t even have to understand why I have chosen to use a Mac; why I have chosen to shun Microsoft. They just need to support that decision, like they do, say, Christmas. You don’t ask questions about Xmas, do you? It’s America’s holiest corporate Christian holiday. How dare you!? You must be one of those Marxist Communists.

It’s really not so much to ask. There will be no pogroms to end Microsoft’s monopoly of the computer industry. In fact, they may still wipe us believers off the face of the digital planet. That day would be like Pope’s “universal darkness,” and I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that. Yet, the place where I work is discriminating against my religion by trying to marginalize Mac users and end their support of our platform on their network. They are not friendly toward our technological choices and would sleep much better if we would just go away. Ask them. We are just a nuisance to them, like a small band of believers were to Rome about 2000 years ago.

You don’t have to agree with me. In fact, I’m pretty sure you don’t. We are used to the discrimination of Applists, or should that be Macists? (I think I like the latter, since it sounds like Marxists, and you know that scares the shit out of people, even though they have no idea what it means.) For you non-believers, I will end with a final question: “What computer would Jesus use?”

Apple has joined Google in publicly opposing California’s Proposition 8, a measure intended to ban the rights of gay Californians to legally marry, and has contributed $100,000 to defeat the measure.

Way to go, Apple (and Google)! From Apple’s own web site about California’s Proposition 8:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

For more about Prop 8′s attempted discrimination, see No on 8.

Not because I don’t think it’s the most innovative and appealing product to come along since the original Mac itself; not that it hasn’t received strong reviews; not because I don’t think that this product marks the beginning of a new trend in digital devices that will change our relationships to our technology. From BoingBoing:

Apple now has a DUTY to export this interface to their entire product line. Today’s iPhone naysayers probably don’t appreciate the significance of the UI shift that happened today. The computer industry may once again — at the hands of apple — never be the same again. The interface reminds me of the scene in the film Minority Report where the pre-crimes unit staff were manipulating and viewing multimedia data using direct gestures. I feel like we’re getting a taste of that kind of direct interface control today with the iPhone.

And not because it’s not freakin’ sexy.

It’s not even that I don’t have the money for the 8-GB model; not because I think 8 GBs is too small (even considering I have a 60-GB iPod packed full); not because I think the AT&T rates are outrageous or too expensive; not because AT&T is the weak link in this deal (can you say EDGE?); not because it’s a first-generation product; and not even because I know there will be a better one in a year.

I have a year left with T-Mobile. (Did I mention how much I hate contracts? Why don’t companies, instead of having us sign ridiculous contracts — even more ridiculous when we’re talking about technology under Moore’s Law — why don’t cell phone companies and providers rely on their abilities to innovate and give the best deals? I know: I feel stupid for even asking.) Not that I really have a problem with T-Mobile’s service. I just want an iPhone, and I detest my stoopid Razr.

Therefore — alas! — I must wait another lust-filled year. Probably a good thing, though it will be a long, green year. Stoopid contracts.