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MeToo Apple

So many people think that Apple is the "de facto innovator" in personal electronics. It pains me physically to hear people exclaim "oh what a wonderful idea" when they see some nifty little white gadget from Apple.

Today the news is a-buzz about the AppleTV. Why this thing is so wonderful, I will never understand. Apple is yet another Johnny Come-Later implementor of the media-fusion device. The first of its kind was the Tivo, which was just a computer that could decode MPEG and interface with a television set. Then came Microsoft MediaCenter. Typical of Microsoft, though, it was confusing and not marketed very well. The home user didn't understand how to use MediaCenter because it wasn't packaged. Then came all of the open-source knockoffs of the Tivo device. They're the lunatic fringe, so they don't really account for any market. Then came the XBox 360, which was Microsoft's way of packaging MediaCenter into a fun and useful console. Granted, using the 360's controller as your DVD remote is weird at first, but you get used to it.

Now we have AppleTV which is just a packaged version of Windows MediaCenter. You get a simplified iMac console with Apple's "Media Center" variant of MacOS installed on it. The rest is just plug and play, no different than using the XBox 360 or Microsoft MediaCenter or Tivo.

The great part of Tivo is that it has programming for it. AppleTV has iTunes and no way to get additional content to it outside of iTunes. Yeah, it can do the Tivo recording of your favorite programs, but so what. Any device in this space has to be able to do that. You can get it for free with open source.

Why is Apple "MeToo"? Well, first you had Lisa, which was the first to market a graphical UI for an OS. Apple bought Lisa and created the MacPlus. Then they rewrote their Mac OS to be unix based. Windows NT was already there two years before them. Then they marketed their iPod, which came after the Rio personal MP3 player hit the market. Then they switched to using Intel processors, which everyone else in the world has been using for decades. Today, they have a media fusion set-top box, just like everyone else. Apple's only true identity now is the apple logo and the color "white". They had to buy up the remaining rights to that apple logo, though, because someone else had it first.

Getting tired of me lamenting Apple's management? MeToo.

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