How you use your purchasing power is up to you, but you should know that geeks wield an influence of approximately zero. Also slashdot has become institutionally politicised against apple if you look at the kind of comments that are modded 4 and 5, which means that those that would provide a balance of opinion are leaving in droves. Not saying that you aren't entitled to voice your concerns but there is a danger that your arguments won't be strengthened through genuine debate and that there is a lot of preaching to the converted. If that's the endgame then I think it would be a hollow victory.

As for me I am an apple admirer (although not on this issue) and I specifically read slashdot to have my opinions challenged, but more and more I am saddened by the lack of reasoned debate. This is a word of caution to slashdot in general not just your post. For all the good that will do though, as if I have that kind of power!

Potentially insightful but I don't buy it, they have enough clout to play this game of brinksmanship behind closed doors. They haven't come out of this looking good at all.

Insightful 5 lol. Only on slashdot. They fucked up real bad, this wasn't part of some orchestrated marketing campaign. Do you rally think they don't have enough words written about them each day and therefore need to resort to desperate tactics?

Did they honestly ever have a good reputation though in the first place, at least among the tech minded? Anyway it seems to me that they've softened their stance somewhat with a few steps in the right direction, such as not making wild claims about being immune to pc viruses on their website. And requiring third party apps to be signed on mountain lion. And not installing java and flash runtimes by default. And disabling them if they haven't been run for a while. Oh and not creating a significant market for those biggest scareware mother fuckers of all, the virus scanning shysters.

You've presented a false choice, a third option would be to notify apple rather than try to sneak in an app past the terms and conditions. Perhaps it would be ok if I broke into your house in the name of security r&d?

The entire technology industry at large is doing badly, that's why. Microsoft are targeting those innovations that make money.

Do you really think they thought to themselves: "those slashdotters are right, apple are douchebags lets sue the bastards"? No, their motives were altruistic. In other words if apple die by the sword it has NOTHING to do with the fact that they have brandished the sword.

You can be sure they aren't suing as part of some moral deterrent, it's to improve their financial position. On that basis they should be hated to the same extent as apple.

Christianity 1.0 maybe but version 2.0 is a lot tamer. With Islam it seems to be the other way round.

A rare voice of reason, wish I had mod points.

Nah, it just shows that the moderators have a sense of humor and you didn't get that they were joking. Wait a minute - maybe you are joking and it's just gone over my head! Wooooooooosh

Yes I agree with this. Only I didn't see the same sentiment here on slashdot in response to apple taking baby steps to improve the situation for Foxconn workers or for improving their own green credentials.

Yes, I meant ammunition of any variety. The biggest raw nerve that I've observed when it comes to android (well maybe google) fanboys seems to be about privacy violations though.

Except it didn't turn out that way. Before apple decided to not to play ball the big players operated an old boys club of shared patents with a license fee stake high enough to keep newer upstarts out. I would much rather they all went to war with each other than cooperate in a cosy cartel, but I'm open to changing my mind if I hear any decent arguments as to why thats less evil.

Not just apple fan boys but that would be useful against android fanboys too. And any other fanboys. Just imagine it, we could have whole flame wars fought entirely with copy and pasted comments.