AN URGENT MESSAGE ON APPLE

And happy holidays.

Get It Try It

BELGRAVIA (Rixstep) — World, Meet Apple - Your Enemies.

We've warned about this for over ten years. On 3 February 2020, Apple will attempt to do what Steve Jobs once categorically denied they'd never ever do: they will attempt to lock down their desktop OS and coax third party developers into a forced relationship where Apple will exact 30% of all revenues.

But it's not the 30% that's the worst of it. Certainly that's an outrageous cut, as the industry standard is 10%. What's really outrageous is how Apple will attempt to control everything on the platform. This has gone far beyond the 'freedom to tinker', as Mark Pilgrim put it. They've totally taken away the JOY OF TINKERING.

Apple went from the 'bad boys' of the industry to the historical precedent of ultimate oppressors.

No other company would yet dare.



We've seen this coming since day one. We've seen real repression on their message boards. We've seen how they treat security researchers, not balking at destroying careers and lives in order to preserve their precious image. And then we saw how they reacted when we played our gambit against Steve Jobs himself.

They denied it all.

At least we have them at their word.

Apple's 'NeXT' was a beautiful platform. It was the embodiment of all that a graphical platform should be. It gave accurate regard for the idea of object orientation. The NeXTSTEP classes were second to none, and no one's ever done better, to this day.

But the hedonists of Cupertino never felt that way.

Apple is all about money, nothing else. Apple can exact a pure profit of as much as 40% on their products. That means that an Apple gadget retailing for $1000 should only retail for $700 and still yield a reasonable profit margin. Those extra $300 go directly into Apple's coffers. And no company has cash on hand like Apple.

Apple sell about 18% of the units sold in the mobile market, yet Apple's share of the market's total revenues is a staggering two thirds. Apple's price gouging goes on and their loyal fanbase offer no objections. This has to stop.

Apple management: they're not your friends. They're not the people to save the world from the onslaught of Windows malware. THEY'RE YOUR ENEMIES. They don't care about principles, or decency. They don't care about you.

Rixstep software will not be notarised, or code-signed, or marketed in any cooperation with Apple. What Apple continue to do is nothing short of disgusting. It's anathema. Apple may have always been like this, but today there is no need for further doubt: they're your enemy.

It's a real royal shame that the brilliant technology of NeXT fell into their hands.

We've spent the past half year devising and releasing tools to defeat Apple's attempts to imprison you in their walled garden. They haven't yet pulled the 'kill switch', and may never have the cojones to do so, but their attitude is revolting. Whether our products will still run after 3 February 2020 remains to be seen. Apple can always pull new tricks, and undoubtedly will continue to try to pull new tricks. Apple became what Google people were once so afraid of: Apple have become evil.

We strongly discourage all Apple desktop users to not upgrade to version 10.15 Catalina, even if they finally sort out the bugs that, amongst other things, make your desktop crash at least once per day, with no possible recovery, forcing you to hard boot your Mac. Apple software is not only incredibly confused, chaotic, and buggy beyond belief, it's also malicious in a way you really don't want to imagine.

We heartily encourage all users and clients to immediately look for alternatives to Apple's OS and to migrate as soon as possible. We once brought a lot of people over to Apple; now, all these years later, we're telling you to 'abandon ship'.

They're not your friends over there at Apple. They're your enemies.

Please read the Paul Graham quotes below and give this matter serious thought.

And happy holidays.

Evil begets stupidity.
 - Paul Graham
The best programmers can work wherever they want. They don't have to work for a company they have qualms about.
 - Paul Graham
Programmers continue to develop iPhone apps, even though Apple continues to maltreat them. They're like someone stuck in an abusive relationship.
 - Paul Graham
The dictator in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, incidentally; it's IBM. IBM seemed a lot more frightening in those days, but they were friendlier to developers than Apple is now.
 - Paul Graham
When you look at the famous 1984 ad now, it's easier to imagine Apple as the dictator on the screen than the woman with the hammer. In fact, if you read the dictator's speech it sounds uncannily like a prophecy of the App Store.
 - Paul Graham
The way Apple runs the App Store has harmed their reputation with programmers more than anything else they've ever done. Their reputation with programmers used to be great. It used to be the most common complaint you heard about Apple was that their fans admired them too uncritically. The App Store has changed that. Now a lot of programmers have started to see Apple as evil.
 - Paul Graham
To all those who replied to my first piece I have this to say: Steve Wozniak is one of those I respect greatly but I don't think he ever meant to create a community of snobs around the computer he designed. He is one of the better human beings who were part of the technology revolution that has taken place over the last 30 years. The current batch of Apple users - at least most of the sample I've been exposed to - are an embarrassment to a gentleman like him.
 - Sam Varghese

About Rixstep

Stockholm/London-based Rixstep are a constellation of programmers and support staff from Radsoft Laboratories who tired of Windows vulnerabilities, Linux driver issues, and cursing x86 hardware all day long. Rixstep have many years of experience behind their efforts, with teaching and consulting credentials from the likes of British Aerospace, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Lloyds TSB, SAAB Defence Systems, British Broadcasting Corporation, Barclays Bank, IBM, Microsoft, and Sony/Ericsson.

Rixstep and Radsoft products are or have been in use by Sweden's Royal Mail, Sony/Ericsson, the US Department of Defense, the offices of the US Supreme Court, the Government of Western Australia, the German Federal Police, Verizon Wireless, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Microsoft Corporation, the New York Times, Apple Inc, Oxford University, and hundreds of research institutes around the globe. See here.

All Content and Software Copyright © Rixstep. All Rights Reserved.