Long story short: desicanuk posted Tiger to a bittorrent site and Apple sued. Then Steve Wozniak came out and said Apple should go easy on the guy. Reaction was swift and ran the gamut from “burn the b@stard” to “let it go, no harm done.” You can read the story here.
Honestly, I see both sides. The guy seems like a decent enough fellow but what he did was pretty obviously wrong. Were it me, I’d let it slide. I suspect Apple would let it go as well if they weren’t trying to make an example out of him. It is fairly clear that the folks at Apple were all kinds of pissed off when the Mac Mini was leaked (hence the reactionary lawsuits against the rumor sites) and they probably see this as a way to set an example of what happens to someone who violates the NDA (non disclosure agreement). The lawsuits against the rumor sites weren’t going to go anywhere, they were a losing proposition to begin with, so why not find the first person who agreed to Apple’s terms (by clicking agree), violated them heinously and make an example out of this person. Kind of like placing a William Wallace’s head on a spike outside the castle thereby providing a warning to anyone else who might, someday, inspire Mel Gibson to make a movie.
On the surface the logic makes perfect sense. Crush a violator financially, emotionally and legally and others will think twice, or three times, before violating a signed agreement. In this case I think it would work. They smash the living hell out of desicanuk and someone like desicanuk probably won’t make that mistake again. On the other hand the very fact that Apple went ballistic on desicanuk makes the whole process more enticing for the born contrarians. Point being is that someone is sure to provide downloads of all the Apple beta’s if for no other reason than to piss off Apple from this point forward.
Which brings us to the most salient point: the computer industry, as a whole, is very insular. Sure it would have been cool if Steve would’ve surprised everybody at Macworld with the Mac Mini but the larger population didn’t even know there was a MacWorld. The press pretty much reported the event without alluding to the fact that “simply everybody” knew about the announcement. In short: the Mac mini would have been a really cool surprise for those of us that follow Apple closely but most folks, even most Mac users, don’t get into the whole “What is coming next?” deal. My suggestion: realize that the two percent of the two percent of the people that use Macs actually care and act accordingly. It is easy to think that everyone worries after the Mac as much as you or I do but to most people it is just a freaking computer.
I apologize, usually during the Pepsi/iTunes Promo I try to give away a free song with each post (Who loves ya, baby?). To achieve this I cheat. That is I tilt the bottle so I know if I’m a winner. I was getting really strange looks while doing this today, loser bottle after loser bottle, so I scooted without an iTunes song. Sorry again. I’ll try a different store tomorrow.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the links. Oh no, the links are a prerequisite. So, in way of recompense, I offer:
Carlo’s constant cauldron of calamitous conundrums:
Who is Carlo and why should you care? Well Carlo e-mailed me asking if there were any jokes in iMovie on the Cheap. I couldn’t quite tell if he had already bought (all the coolest people have, a CD with the PDF on it is rapidly replacing the iPod as the status symbol du jour) or if he was contemplating purchasing said book. Let me assure Carlo and everyone else: I put some jokes in the book.
Sponsor time (What could it be? What item could people be trying to sell that benefits both MyMac AND Chris Seibold? The suspense is killing me!)
Well that was the least surprising thing since Napster got cracked. Onto links:
I live in Tennessee. Todd lives in Tennessee. Hence I find the following story highly suspect:
Tennessee had the lowest rate of alcohol and marijuana abuse
Don’t get me wrong, we definitely don’t touch the hippy lettuce but we down enough alcohol to make Boris Yeltsin jealous.
Disco Elevator
Wish I’d thought of that.
Digital Belt Buckle
NASCAR meets geekdom. The big problem is that this thing is still smaller than my fist. When they come out with a hubcap sized model redneck bars will be filled with them.
Alliteration gone wild
Excellent
HELLO KITTY SAYS ME LIKE SEIBOLD NAUGHTY DANCING TO MY SHARONA
To which I say: “How does that effing cat know these things!”
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