Apple's Shifting Differentiation

I really wish Apple sold its hardware independently from its software. They make amazing hardware, and their latest silicon releases practically make me want to buy their computers again.

Their software is shit though, and their walled garden, and insistence on using apple programming languages and IDEs for development, practically ensures that third party software will either not exist or be shit as well. There are only a handful of software shops that make decent software for apple, and they are all fully specialized on apple and therefore do not make software that plays nice with collaborators on other computers, nor used on a cloud server, etc. And if there actually exists better software from third parties that competes with apple software, you can forget about it ever being fully integrated. "Hey Siri, navigate to city hall using Google maps". Yeah right.

Yes, they should break up Apple in a software and hardware company.

Same for NVidia.

It's the only way to actually own our hardware.

This idea of actually ‘owning’ hardware is a total red-herring.

If you buy hardware, you own it in the sense that you can do what you want with it assuming you have the technical expertise.

It doesn’t matter what software comes installed or how locked down it is.

Whether it is iOS, or PostmarketOS, we are dependent on thousands of other people making design decisions that support you in meeting our particular needs.

The only question is who serves your needs better.

I have to agree that the divison based on hardware/software doesn't solve all problems. See for example Google who licenses Android to phone manufacturers (which still is far from optimal).

But I do think this division is an essential step.

If you think it’s essential, you are going to need to explain what you mean.

I mean, to actually own the hardware we buy, i.e. have hardware that works in our interest, not in the interest of some big company.