I want to talk about this because of a conversation I had with a colleague on a lunch break a few days ago. I am a doctor, and I was talking to him about how angry I was (and still am) about the fact that the COVID vaccines, when they were first invented, were not made public, but instead were patented and sold. This basic fact made millions of people around the world suffer. I was rambling about how scientific information should always be free. How we should be able to use the internet as the greatest library our ancestors could have only dreamt of, instead of putting information behind paywalls. Even back in med school I was an avid user of sci-hub and I wasn’t ashamed of it one bit. I still use sci-hub to keep up with new researches so I can treat/inform my patients better. And I hate how some of my colleagues think that I am stealing others’ work.
Anyways, so I was rambling on and on. I sometimes do that. And my friend said something so strange and unrelated (in my eyes) to the conversation. He said “Look at you, defending open access to medical information for everyone, yet you only use Apple products.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?” He explained, “Man, all the things you use are made by Apple. Your laptop, tablet, phone, watch, earbuds or whatever, made by the company that is one of the main adversaries when it comes to right-to-repair and open source software.” So you need to see here, I’m not a tech guy. It’s just not my field. My job only requires me to read textbooks and keep up with new researches in my field, which any device can do. So I was like, “I… I don’t think I follow.” So he briefly explained what open-source software is, and how it’s related to my idea of free and open access to information for everyone, but this time it’s not in our field but programmers’. And when I almost reflexively said “Well we’re not programmers” he said “I mean, when it comes to software, it’s the programmers’ and developers’ thing. But free and open source is an idea. It applies to everything. And I think you’re supporting a company that opposes your views by buying their products.”
We didn’t have much time left so that was the end of that conversation. And I have been thinking about it since. When buying tech products I mainly care about if they are integrated with each other or not. Like if I turn on Do not Disturb on my watch, I want my phone, tablet and laptop to go quiet as well. Or I like being able to answer a phone call on my laptop. And I love the aesthetics of Apple products, at least more than what other companies have to offer.
Every evening since that conversation I’ve been looking up stuff related to open source software. Linux, distros, the philosophy behind it all, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Arch, “read the wiki”, terminal, GUI, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA my brain is filled with so many things at this point that I don’t understand anything at all.
So, TLDR; I’d love to hear your opinions about Apple. Most people (myself included) buy Apple devices because of the ecosystem, the design, privacy (?), consistent updates (especially on mobile), or for you might say, a lack of knowledge in the field of tech. Do you support Apple or are you against them, or are you indifferent? Do you think people who are not in the tech field as well should look into and use open source software? Leave your thoughts below! ^^
I’m going to give a different and possibly controversial opinion to the others in here. To get started, I admit that I am a daily mac and ios user so there’s definitely some bias there. That being said, I think there is a clear difference between the vaccine and information resources and using a mac or iphone. I think there is an incredible need for there to be a free and open source option that exists for everything (especially for public health and information), but not everything needs to be free and open source if a free version exists elsewhere (or even multiple viable free options). Just because I like going to libraries doesn’t mean I dislike book stores. As a video editor, I very much disagree with my professional industry basically mandating ProRes, which forces Mac use (or at least it did for a long time), which institutes a costly and sometimes impossible barrier to entry for many people, which is lame because more editing friends in post is always better.
Maybe there’s something I’m missing in the argument, but it seems like if a programmer or end user wanted to use open source software, nothing is stopping them, but if a government wanted to implement “open source” vaccines, that wasn’t possible because of the patents. Sure, cross-integration would be super nice (airpods on an android, ipad on windows, imessage on everything, etc), but I don’t know if it should be an expectation, just like cross-play in video games would be super nice, but shouldn’t be an expectation.
I do like tinkering with things though, and that’s really my main personal qualm with apple (I know they’re a huge megacorporation, but they don’t generally make my personal life worse for the most part). I was running a pretty beefy hackintosh for 7+ years before that computer decided to give up. Now I use that hardware for a home media server. I also love tinkering with little linux distributions on my raspberry pi. Apple really doesn’t scratch any of these itches for me, but that’s why I do both. I have the reliable mac for work and general computing use and I have my other devices for everything else.
Just wanted to piggyback off your comment, since I work in video-production too and feel like it’s a niche that has been very closed-up up until very recently.
Regarding Apple — their products and solutions are at times incredible tools for our work which have little to no competition. When I decided to buy a tablet I had the option to buy an android device which is basically a media consumption tool and has little to no software applicable in my line of work, or an iPad, which has a ton of useful apps in its library. I can monitor several NDI sources and put up waveforms to check the picture while working in live production, I can use at least two different editing solutions (lumafusion and resolve) to create a rough-cut of a video, I have a set of powerful tools to use for still image editing and vector graphics, I even have a tool to create storyboards with 3D assets. Oh and if I wanted to, I could create these assets on the iPad too. It is also probably the best portable display in the industry with a toggle to output rec709 (not perfectly calibrated, but good enough for most cases I’d wager). And there is pretty much none of that on Android. So of course I will choose the option which satisfies my professional needs, or more precisely professional whims, since they are not must-have, but surely belong in the “really nice to have” category.
On the other hand, I have been working on a Windows PC for the last 10 years, because Mac pricing was atrocious until M1. They were underpowered and/or overpriced so heavily. And now I’m thinking about switching to Linux at least partially, since my workflow does not involve Adobe heavily anymore. Even our industry, which has been historically so closed and focused on making people use the same tools for atrocious prices, is slowly moving towards more openness.
The main takeaway related to the topic is this — sometimes you have an option to choose based on convenience, and in that case it always pays off to do research and compare different solutions. Some FOSS solutions can be state of the art, but less known because they have less marketing. But maybe an integrated closed ecosystem saves you precious time that could be spent doing something important, and that’s fine too. Sometimes you gotta choose based on necessity or approved working process, and then it’s really not much of a choice at all. I’m not going to quit my job because I can’t use open-source tools. People don’t need to be shamed for using Apple products (or any other closed solution) if they make their lives undeniably better in some way. But it is always a good thing to be on lookout for FOSS solutions, and in time figure out if you can make the switch and be one of the straws that breaks a mega-corporation’s back.
I fully agree with everything you said. Unfortunately I’m stuck in the Adobe world for now because one of my clients require it, not that Avid is much better when it comes to expensive barriers to entry. I do need to learn how to edit in resolve because I’ve heard some great things about the process, though the thought of rewiring my brain for new keyboard shortcuts seems like a massive ordeal.
Mega corporations exist on massive stilts, propped up off the work of very talented people who aren’t paid nearly enough for what they do. One tiny silver lining of having design language pushed so hard by a company who uses it to sell more products is that good design language can be copied and implemented into FOSS options with enough work. Of course, I don’t know anything about how strong apple goes after their design language patents, but before the iphone, no phone to my knowledge looked like a black glass rectangle (for better and for worse). I won’t be buying apple’s recently announced VR option, but I am excited to see what their design language does for the VR landscape as a whole (even if I don’t buy any of those either).
All this being said, I think there’s a couple good things, but there’s also a lot of bad things about apple as a whole. I figure most companies I’ve heard about are contributing toward the world becoming a worse place, but at the same time, I have to exist in this world, and being more comfortable while being stuck here is pretty important to me personally. I’ll just continue to try to seek out people to vote for who are vocally (and historically take actions) against monopolies, anti-consumerism, and promote strong regulations.
You got that wrong. It’s not that apple is not working on cross-platform integration, they’re actively working against it.
For example: why can you send a file over Bluetooth from an android phone to a random phone from the early 2000s, but not to an iPhone? Answer: any potential way for a user to leave their walled garden must be blocked with extreme prejudice.