09.23.13

Gemini version available ♊︎

Copying Apple’s Graphics, Not Apple’s Business and User Experience

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux at 4:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Linux Mint 15

Summary: What we can copy from Apple and what we oughtn’t ever copy, only abolish

IMITATING Apple’s business practices in order to advance GNU/Linux is not a good idea. Imitating Apple’s presentation, however, may be acceptable (Apple’s patent aggression aside because it’s trigger-happy w.r.t. lawsuits). One thing which Apple is undoubtedly good at is marketing, unless or until it gets caught. Years ago we covered examples where Apple essentially bribed or influenced some bloggers to help manufacture some hype for the hypePad and days ago Apple got caught paying homeless people to pretend to want Apple gadgets rather than a home [1]. That’s just utterly rogue. Think different. Think Apple.

Anyway, there are several Ubuntu-based distributions which try to imitate the appearance (and sometimes behaviour) of Apple’s platforms. Pear OS [2] and Elementary OS [3] are just two of them and they are likely to meet just limited success because they aim at converting Apple fan, who would probably be disappointed as GNU/Linux can’t meet the expectation of being Apple. The many efforts to sell GNU/Linux as a “cheap Windows” (see Xandros, Linspire and several other defunct companies) were never successful because even with Wine GNU/Linux was unable to imitate Windows reliably enough. GNU/Linux is not Windows. And it’s not supposed to be.

“Nobody deserves Apple-branded products as a gift; it’s not a gift, it’s a digital jail in shrink-wrapped boxes.”One distribution which uses some Apple-like graphics but does not go too far in imitating Apple is Linux Mint and right now it tries Apple’s method of selling hardware tied to the operating system [4-6]. Linux Mint is currently the distribution I install for GNU/Linux converts because it gives them the polish of Mac OSuX while not pretending to be Mac OSuX. It is easy to use (good out-of-the-box experience) and it removes the need to be technical for those who are not.

On the technical side, Apple fails on the basics [7], copies Android/Linux [8], and uses technical tricks to punish and restrict customers [9]. Nobody deserves Apple-branded products as a gift; it’s not a gift, it’s a digital jail in shrink-wrapped boxes.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. L.A. homeless hired to buy latest iPhones

    A businessman scheming to get his profit-minded hands on dozens of new iPhones allegedly recruited about 100 homeless people from Skid Row in Los Angeles to wait in line overnight at the Pasadena Apple Store, but many were left unpaid and stranded after his plan was exposed, local media reported Friday.

  2. Pear OS 8 Linux Distribution Will Be Inspired by iOS 7

    David Tavares, the father of the Pear OS distribution, has just shared a screenshot on Google+, teasing Linux users with the iOS 7-inspired look of his upcoming Pear OS 8 operating system.

  3. If I had to leave the Mac? I’d switch to Elementary OS

    Perhaps it’s a holdover from the Apple Depression of the 1990s, but I sometimes wonder where I would go if I ever needed to leave the Mac.

  4. The MintBox 2 is available!

    The MintBox 2 is now available and can be ordered from CompuLab at http://fit-pc.com/web/products/mintbox/

  5. MintBox 2 Computer Officially Unveiled, Powered by Linux Mint 15

    Clement Lefebvre, the founding father of the extremely popular Linux Mint operating system, had the pleasure of announcing today, September 13, that the next-gen MintBox mini PC is available for purchase.

  6. MintBox 2 ships with Linux Mint 15 and Core i5 processors

    Linux Gizmos reports that the MintBox mini-PC is shipping with Linux Mint 15 and Core i5 processors. This is a neat little computer, and I particularly like the fact that Linux Mint is the default distro on it.

  7. Chaos Computer Club breaks Apple TouchID
  8. Did Apple copy Android in iOS 7?

    Today in Open Source: Did iOS 7 borrow ideas from Android? Plus: Linux Defenders and dangerous patents, and the launch date of Ubuntu Touch 1.0

  9. Free Software Foundation statement on new iPhone models from Apple

    The Free Software Foundation encourages users to avoid all Apple products, in the interest of their own freedom and the freedom of those around them.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 09/06/2023: Microsoft's 'Online' ("Clown"/OneDrive) Storage Goes Down Again, Files Cannot be Reached

    Links for the day



  2. What Will Happen After All Major News Sites Die Isn't Pretty

    With webspam, chaff, sponsored puff pieces and worse things being presented as "the news" we're running out of actual purpose for the World Wide Web



  3. HMRC 3 Weeks Later: No Action, Same as 'Action Fraud' (Your Tax Money 'at Work')

    When people need police enforcement against a crime it turns out that police is “MIA” (missing in action); it might matter that Sirius worked with the British government, so there’s a reduced incentive to affirm crimes were committed and then arrest the perpetrators



  4. Links 08/06/2023: Istio 1.18 and FreeIPMI 1.6.11

    Links for the day



  5. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Sourcehut, Gemini Identity, and BBS Comments on Cosmos

    Links for the day



  6. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 07, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, June 07, 2023



  7. The Need to Evolve on the Internet

    Tux Machines is one year away from its twentieth birthday and its increased focus on protocols aside from HTTP/S is paying off; Tux Machines also weaned itself off all social control media, including Mastodon and Diaspora (they're not the future, they're the past)



  8. EPO Management is Still Bullying the Staff (While Breaking the Law and Violating the European Patent Convention)

    Overloaded or overworked EPO workers are complaining about further deterioration at the workplace and their representatives say "this management style may well contribute to feelings of disengagement, depression, or even burn-out"



  9. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Not Responding After 20 Days (Well-Founded Report of Tax Fraud) and British Police Pretending Not to Exist

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ have helped unearth a profound problem in the British law enforcement authorities; What good is a monopolistic taxman (called after the British Monarchy even in 2023) that cannot assess its own tax abuses? Or abuses connected to it via a contractor? Meanwhile, as per what I was told, the police is not responding to my MP and that’s ANOTHER scandal (police not only refusing to act against crimes, committed against many people, but moreover not responding to elected politicians)



  10. Links 08/06/2023: Cinnamon 5.8 and Leap 15.5 Release Mature

    Links for the day



  11. Gemini Links 08/06/2023: Emacs and Thoughts on Bubble

    Links for the day



  12. Links 07/06/2023: Reddit Layoffs and OpenGL 3.1 in Asahi Linux

    Links for the day



  13. Gemini Links 07/06/2023: Jukka Charting Geminispace

    Links for the day



  14. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 06, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, June 06, 2023



  15. NOW LIVE: Working for the Public — Universities, Software and Freedom - a Talk by Richard Stallman at Università di Pisa (Italy)

    As noted a few hours ago, Richard Stallman is delivering a talk at Università di Pisa this morning



  16. Richard Stallman's Talk is in Two Hours and There's a BigBlueButton Livestream

    Dr. Stallman is in Italy to give talks at universities this week; he will soon give a live talk, accessible in his site or directly at the source



  17. Links 06/06/2023: Angie 1.2.0, New EasyOS and EndeavourOS Released

    Links for the day



  18. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: OpenKuBSD, GrapheneOS, and More

    Links for the day



  19. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day



  20. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day



  21. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)



  22. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day



  23. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day



  24. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023



  25. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day



  26. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day



  27. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023



  28. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day



  29. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day



  30. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts