32 Liam Mac Uaid's article, "Apple's rotten core' got quite a response when it appeared on the Socialist Resistance website. We present below, edited extracts from just some of the comments received. You can find the full discussion at http://socialistresistance. org/2457lapples-rotten-core • Curiously, what brand of computer and phone does this author use? I would challenge you to find a single computer company, hosting service, or phone manufacturer that isn't guilty of the same practices you complain about Apple doing. Practice what you preach my friend. Anonymous • This comment by anonymous is an absurd catch-all, which suggests that the author cannot criticize a capitalist because he consumes the products which the capitalist has sold! It is like attacking Marx and Engels for wearing clothes made from textiles that had been produced in the dark satanic mills. You could only reasonably tell the author to "practice what he preaches" if he owned shares in Apple, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't. Roy • What makes Apple a little bit special is the fawning press coverage Jobs has had throughout his recent career. If you have a look at the technology section of any major newspaper there is endless free publicity for Apple products which must equal tens of millions of pounds worth of advertising. It often just seems to be rehashes of the company's press releases by starstruck fans. Is the function of journalism to drool over gadgets or offer an explanation of what's happening in the world? Liam • I was upset on first hearing the news of Jobs' death since when he started he was very much a visionary and might be regarded along with Steve Wozniak (and the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center) as the inventor of the modern personal computer. Perhaps what I'm really saddened about, is he did this great thing in his youth when he was a pot-smoking hippy, but has ended up being a murdering child-labour exploitative capitalist bastard. I suppose that had to be so, since the mentality of all capitalists is to be the first into each and every market place and the main objective to make a profit all other considerations, including the pay and conditions of those who actually produce the final product, being subservient to that. Stephen Hall • Why is Apple being singled out here? The point is that other IT companies don't try to promote some bogus countercultural image. Indeed, IBM was "Big Brother" in those 1984 Macintosh adds. Apple, like Ben and Jerry's, is one of those attempts to dress up capitalism in some groovy image. So debunking Apple is definitely called for everybody knows Microsoft is a bad guy. Negative Potential • In 2010 Apple issued a lawsuit against a Taiwanese company for infringing Apple patents on Android phones. Steve Jobs, sounding more like the Admiralty than Jack Sparrow said "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." However, in the 1996 documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" he referred to Apple's own borrowings thus "Picasso said that 'Good artists copy; great artists steal.? And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas Jobs had obviously learned the lessons of his own past well! Steve Wozniak was more crucial to the technical side of Apple than Jobs. An expert in miniaturizing circuit boards, he developed the Apple I& Il personal computers which used the WIMP Interface (Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) first pioneered by Alan Kay and Doug Engelbart at Xerox Parc. Kay was an associate of the Trotskyist programmer Seymour Papert, the inventor of Logo programming language, widely used in education. People like Kay, Engelbart (who invented the modern mouse) and Papert have generally been employed as consultants and academics, rather then being entrepreneurs. Apple also benefitted from the development of RISC chips by Acorn Computers of Cambridge. When the PC market crashed in the mid-80's, Acorn diversified into the ARM chips, which formed the basis of PDA's. These chips allowed mobile phone sized devices to become Smart. Apple went into partnership with Acorn and VsLi to produce Arm Risc chips for the iPhone, Apple's main revenue earner. Having survived financial disaster, Apple moved its production facilities to China. Soon, it will begin to manufacture iPads in Brazil. Prianikoff • I don't oppose the products of Apple, Microsoft or others. I don't hate products of capitalists, I hate the fact that all the profits go to the capitalists. In a socialist society, the people control the wealth. Democratic elected workers councils will plan our economy, not for profits but for people's need. Instead of competition and high prices, we would have good products for fair prices. Jorein Versteege You can comment on many of the issues raised in articles in this issue of Socialist Resistance at www.socialistresistance.org. or simply drop us a line at PO Box 62732, London, SW2 9GQ
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