Open letter to Tim Cook, Apple. Co CEO: Apple as the new General Motors

    Dear Apple, 

    The banality which characterized today's (June 2, 2014) announcements at the World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC 2014) were of such magnitude, that it is clear that unless Apple does not drastically restructure itself, it is on a certain path to social irrelevancy.  It was as if I were attending a car manufacturer's conference, expecting to hear the design of a radically new engine, only to be told that a new color of paint is to be used on its exterior while a new polyester cloth would be applied on its interior seats.  Apple is quickly on its way to becoming the new GM of the 21 century: old, irrelevant, trivial, and overly-priced.

    The crass appeal to a young developer audience, who probably know little of the 'laws of the land' which reigned the computer industry in prior decades also does not help. It is perhaps the inverse of shock therapy: the attempt to obtain such a feeling complacency so as to prevent truly critical thinking about the nature and character of one's products.  Federigni feigned to be getting a 'call from mom', probably knowing very well that most of todays millenials live with their parents. "This is my space, Mom", said Federigni during his presentation.  Federigni reminds me of Christian Bale's character from American Psycho: vain, shallow, and utterly void of authenticity.

    In the meantime, the blatant 'theft' of innovation was going on in the background to anyone who was paying attention.  "Now", Federigni tells us, "you can send large files via email, using iCloud."  Anyone who has observed to the most recent (and best) software innovation can quickly point out to "Bittorrent Sync", allowing users to share very large files between each other WITHOUT a centralized server recording what goes what where. (It is basically a modified peer to peer service, with personal tags pointing directly to one's computers.). Bit torrent Sync is one of the best programs I have seen in the last few years, and now Apple is stealing it without even the slightest whisper of recognition of its true creators. (You would think that with Apple's billions, it would at least have made an offer to purchase the program.)

    If that isn't a direct insult, threat, and frontal assault to developers who are worth a penny, I don't know what is.

    Tim Cook noted the high incidence of iOS users using the latest iteration (iOS 7).  Well, there does appear to be a little of Naomi Kline's "shock therapy" going on here, because most people switched because of an alleged vulnerability in SSL sharing.  But one of the worst changes that occurred upon the 'bait and switch' tactic was that the new iOS (7) made Apple mobile devices even more impermeable to their very owners; Apple in fact is acting as if the real owners of the device as the Apple itself.  DropCopy, a good program for sharing files between computers, could be used to look into the iOS file system, as you normally would on a computer.  After the upgrade form iOS 6 to iOS 7, the machine became impermeable even to DropCopy. To date, a few months after the upgrade, one still cannot look into the file structure with DropCopy.

    One may, however, point out that there is an inherent tension between the natural 'openness' of computers--after all they are made for creating, storing, and sharing information--with key issues of 'security'.  The more secure you want your system to be, the less open it would tend to be.  I remember that the old ipods were no different from attached hard drives, that you could drag and drop files onto it to be played or displayed.  There is in fact, contrary to the image presented at the conference, a constant tension between developers and the Apple company.  While the company is constantly trying to close off rooms, developers are constantly trying to open them.  It does appear to be an endless tug of war, with Appel attempting to completely monopolize how their devices are used.    

    Yet Apple acts as if has never  heard of Thomas Jefferson before.  Remember him?  Yes, the guy who invented the patent law in the United States Constitution pointed out that the functionality of devices--how they are used-cannot be patented. Yet Apple acts as if were continually heading  off in this direction.  

    If you want to look to new directions in computing, it is clear that you have to look elsewhere from now on.  Linux's UBUNTU variant is the way to go.  Toyota anyone?