Apple's cool is no liberal triumph

I was just reading about this on Salon.com today. I thought it was interesting although a tad flawed in reasoning. So I wrote a letter to the editor explaining where I think he went wrong.

The Salon article is available here and link to my letter to the editor below.

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/08/23/apple_and_liberal_values/index.html


http://letters.salon.com/tech/htww/2011/08/23/apple_and_liberal_values/permalink/8ebb47008fa5d66431f8ea2a8e084667.html


Not a bad article but I don't totally agree
First Apple is forced to play the patent game or others will eat their lunch as is currently happening to Google. Google seemed to want to stay out of the patent game but after several court challenges went and bought Motorola undoubtedly for the patents.
As for Asian workers and plants there is not a computer company or a light bulb manufacturer that makes a product here. We don't make things in America anymore. Should it change why not it would be good for jobs but probably not good for low cost items like WalMart's bottom line. Are Americans willing to spend a little more for made in America on their consumer electronics? If they were businesses would be more likely to do it.
A company can be pro liberal and still make smart business decisions. Look take a look at where companies and individuals make political donations and that offers a lot of insight into their political leanings. Mostly liberal candidates you can bet the person or company leans liberal. Same for conservatives, if they split down the middle they are more interested in how government affects their business than their ideology.
Apple owes their success to innovating, to redefining the smartphone and the MP3 player, to building a better OS and sexier computer hardware. They also keeping inline with ideology found ways to make the computers greener using recyclable components and by insisting on better working conditions and pay for the people that make their hardware. When several suicides happened in a short period at the Foxconn plant Apple sent investigators to look into it and see what they could do to help.
Overall they are a company that tries to do the right thing and take care of their employees. Note when the earthquake in Japan occurred Apple stepped up to help their employees and families.
As to the companies software ecosystem, they make money on sales of apps they also shoulder the cost for bandwidth and credit card processing fees taking that off the shoulders of the small developer allowing smaller companies or individuals to publish apps. The vetting process for apps helps curtail malware from getting on smart phones and by building an integrated ecosystem it helps the end user by making sure things just work together. The Mac is stable because the company controls the hardware and the software.
—PaulTheMacGuyScott
Read PaulTheMacGuyScott's other letters
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