Recently, I came across this article in PC magazine by Mike Elgan. The author tries to argue that Apple has passed Microsoft in predatory practices.

Hardly.

My favorite line is this one:

“ITunes is the slowest, clunkiest, most nonintuitive application on my system. But I need it because I love my iPods.”

By the way, Mike pointed out that his family owns several iPods.

First of all, iTunes is the only intuitive program on the PC I have to use for work (I have a new Mac on order!) and it does exactly what I ask it to do, nothing more, nothing less. So, I don’t know what Mike is expecting. Perhaps he’s just miffed because iTunes doesn’t expect a special PC training certificate to understand that you should use “Start” to stop the computer, and if you want to do a search in Windows, you have to know that *.* means “everything” and so on and so on…

Secondly, if he hates Apple so much, why does he insist on buying several iPods? There are THOUSANDS of other competing products out there. If I recall, the Zune is actually designed to integrate with Windows! Why don’t you own a Zune, Mike, Why??

I’ll tell you why: because the Zune sucks. Poor interface, bad design, with what I call “the *.* effect” — the expectation that people will need to spend some time learning before they use the product the first time.

I remember back in the day when I used PC products having to actually read the manual to learn simply HOW to use a certain piece of software (not much has changed). Apple products only assume you have a very minimum level of training and build their software with an emphasis on making something intuitive so that you don’t have to read the manual first.

Imagine having to read a manual before driving a car. Our streets would be constantly clogged with accidents.

As to the notion of Apple being a monopoly: that’s just simply not true.

Sure, Apple has some sway in certain circles (like online music sales), but is also fighting tooth and nail to keep that sway. At any second, Columbia might decide to pull their music and put it on some other system. Companies like Microsoft and Napster have made competitive products, which were just simply not as good.

I’m not a lawyer, but I understand that the definition of monopoly is a company that is basically immune (or nearly) to sudden shifts that would take away their cashflow. The old AT&T is a good example. They had to build the infrastructure to connect everyone’s phone lines together, thus they argued that they needed an exception to the anti-trust laws to protect their huge investment.

Apple just happens to make great products that have a religious following (with good reason I would argue) and there’s nothing monopolistic or unfair about that. There’s nothing stopping Acme Mobile Phones, INC. from inventing the Acme aPhone tomorrow that beats the pants off of the iPhone. (And don’t forget that a lot of the success of Apple’s iPod is connected to brilliant marketing.)

I believe the author of the article is grossly underestimating the value of good design and a well thought-through product. I’ll be honest. If there were a product out there that worked better (as a complete system) than the iPod, I’d buy it. But products like the Zune are just simply not as usable and so, to me, they have much lower value. So far, no company has beat Apple at that.