Apple, Steve Jobs, and the French Revolution

Haughty attitudes and high-handed treatment of customers can go only so far before the peasants revolt. Although likely apocryphal, Marie Antoinette's phrase, "Let them eat cake" inspired a revolution... and a few beheadings. Tetchy people; testy times.

Seems the zeitgeist today is not much different. And when the much revered Apple Inc rushes to market its faulty iPhone 4G, and its users and customers complain complain complain, and complaints home in on its bad antenna, Steve Jobs notoriously says, "Let them eat cake." Er, actually Consumer Reports helps Steve realize he means, 'Let them have duct tape!' (At least it rhymes.) I can see how Steve was confused.

But this new news that Apple Inc is thin-skinned? I, mean, c'mon! Even Microsoft, in its heyday as the Evil Empire, never stooped this low.

And let's not mention the entire Gawker episode in which Apple had the police bust in the apartment door of the journalist who had the pre-release version of the iPhone 4G. Whoa, chill out, guys. You're becoming Appholes, in Jon Stewart's memorable term. You run the peril of fomenting a riot against... yourself.
-- David M Gordon / The Deipnosophist