The fact that macs have been easy to use made them a first computer. The fact that they wouldn’t really let you play with the files and other items made them a computer to dump when you came of age. Now microsoft is similar so there is a gravitation toward linux and other systems.

Overbearing control makes the market shift elsewhere. Companies have the right to market products- people can purchase or not.

Think of Apple as the Toyota of computers, good customer service, good product, until something goes wrong. There isn’t a computer related company in the world that wouldn’t want to knock Apple off its pedastal. So freedom of the press at Apple is just not possible.

I don’t hate Apple. I’m a customer, and think highly of much of what they’ve done (as I wrote above).

You might hate Apple, and it appears that you want to villanize the the company. I’m not a fanboy, but ask yourself: who else can help print media make the transition to be viable? The truth is that Apple has a ready market via iTunes, and the potential to deliver that market with the iPad. Of course, over time, news media will seek other forms of distribution. But the fact is that nobody, not even Amazon, have the infrastructure and available captive market in place to make this happen on the scale that Apple can. This is not a matter of what company you like or don’t, or what piece of hardware you prefer. It’s just business.

I’ve read a lot of sniping that Apple screwed the record companies. Bullfeathers. If not for Apple, piracy would have only been more rampant. Record companies were losing their shirts before iTunes came along. As for alternatives, did you really want PressPlay? Of course not. Apple and iTunes have succeeded because it was suddenly painless for consumers to buy music and other media. Instead of stealing, people WILLINGLY paid for their media instead. As a result, record companies and other media content owners have done better than they are willing to admit. If not for Apple, we would not be enjoying what we take for granted today.

This appears to have been lost on you, Dan.

Yes, I know that newspaper, magazine and book publishers have issues with Apple having the direct relationship with their customers and their credit cards. They bristle at the thought of being held at an arm’s length from demographic data or building a relationship with their readers. I get all that. My hunch is that this is all part of negotiations. And I have a feeling that in the end, this information will be shared with them, especially as competitors to the iPad come to the fore. But if you want to see electronic media publishing flourish, it has to start somewhere, and given their financial condition, quickly.

Safe behind your blog and low-cost distribution system, you may forget how expensive it is to publish on paper. But as we are learning, the real asset of any newspaper, magazine or book publisher is no longer their printing press, but the content they create and/or own. If the publishers want to own their distribution, it’s up to them to build a better mousetrap. But truth be told, the media companies have had years to do this, and they have failed miserably. That Apple is poised to succeed might make you bristle, but it should also tell you that the company’s approach to the market is fundamentally sound.

Dan, I challenge you to see beyond your obvious dislike for Steve Jobs and Apple, and look objectively at what the company can do to save media publishers from themselves.You might not like that. But to lose a newspaper like The New York Times, or a great magazine, because they could not adapt would be a fate far worse.

Apple could easily have had its curated store, with all kinds of restrictions I’d never argue with, had it also opened the platform so developers could write apps for people who wanted other kinds of services and content. If they could sell their apps outside the store, everyone would be better off, except for the company that wants to own and control every possible aspect of customers’ experience and take a financial cut of everything that moves within the platform.

Their hypocrisy and control-freakery is all the more obvious given that you can use the iPhone browser (Safari only, of course…) to find material unsuitable for 8-year-olds. I suppose you want them to turn Safari into a G-rated access system, too?

http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer/
Not as rich as our lala land in our head but it’s pretty nice to use. Plus, pay walls happen on the web today.