The truth about Apple Inc and their business practices is very simple. Create products for Mac OS X only and charge the highest price. As a former employee for Apple, I can tell you guys some very shady business practices discussed in board meetings. A lot of people ask me often why I hate/dislike Apple so much and why I refuse to buy their products even when I worked there. When I worked at Apple I had to simply say, I have my reasons. Now enough time has passed since I worked for the company I can publicly share some of the ?core? concepts privately discussed and shared at Apple Inc. If you work for Apple Inc I highly recommend you ether read this or don?t. Depending on how ethical you are a person will determine if you want to believe the truth or not and continue to work for the company. So let?s continue, the daily life of an Apple employee generally consisted of a daily ?brain washing? to start your day. From the time you were trained for you r position to the time you left the door to g home, every moment in the background someone was giving another person a speech how they should only purchase apple products and all others were inferior. At first you can easily brush it off when you work there. As time progress, your boss and others will become more aggressive toward you until you buy into the concept. In order to survive while working there, I honestly lied to avoid the discrimination while working for Apple. I would swear to them I only used Apple products and stated many times daily Apple was the best. This was perhaps my first visual of a bad company with unethical practices. As I moved up the ladder with in Apple, I started to attend more and more business meetings with high up managers within the company. Typically the meetings were honestly very boring but when we would discuss marketing it would get very loud. Any business person with a basic understanding of how to run a company can tell just by looking at Apple they are really in tune with marketing their products. The problem comes in though when marketing crosses over into technical and logical practices. For example, the Apple logo is on ever screen of the OS rather you?re fixing the machine or booting to the OSX disc to repair it. The logo is everywhere. On the surface it?s not a big deal. However, Apple makes a big claim that their machines run better then ?Windows?. In theory this could be a true statement. In practice the statement is very false and misleading. The little marketing Apple does to their machines forces it to run slower and more sluggish then a PC over all. That little Apple requires processing to load. All thought the Mac OS on the surface bare bones is faster, start adding in all that marketing junk to the OS, it will slow down drastically. A PC is slower because it suffers some fundamental issues. First big thing Microsoft says we don?t know who will be using this machine so we will make our OS for the ?average? user and make a generic OS which can be used for multiple things or a general use computer. Apple says were going to make a computer that is somewhat generic but it?s main focus will be to be used a professional tool for professionals and we will charge extra for those tools for this machine. This statement if you can follow it leads to Apple and their software products. A Windows PC has literally millions of built in functions and software programs you can use it for right off the bat for general use or even mild professional use. Ironically the PC does it at a much cheaper price as well then what the Apple provides. So let?s compare because numbers don?t lie. Average Mac costs 1,500.00 Dollars U.S. or more. Now let?s add some software to that like a good video editing program which PC has for free but with Mac you get junk software to start with so you will need something better. Currently on the Apple store it costs 299.99 U.S. for this software. The Microsoft version similar is free on their website. Now with these things said, if you?re a Mac or Apple product user think very hard about everything you had to purchase for your Apple device. Adding up yet in your head? I thought so, also everything you bought had to be bought where, Apple store of course. The Marketing plan is purely ing?nues I have to give Apple that much credit. However, is it a honest way to conduct business? Basically force your product users to only use your products for additional accessories etc. In the mid 90?s Apple accused Microsoft of a Monopoly. By definition isn?t a ?Monopoly? when one business controls the entire market share for a product? Hmm, I can?t think of any other company other than Apple who sells Apple products for Apple computers. Maybe a few little companies out there who are selling some odds and ends but nothing major. So I think it?s safe to say Apple Inc has a monopoly on their own products and software. Microsoft clearly has competitors for hardware and software. So Apple saying Microsoft has a ?Monopoly? is like the pot calling the kettle black? Hmm or maybe it?s something more like Apple trying to cover their own butts and take the attention off their self because they know they have a monopoly of their own products? Which sounds more likely? There is one thing I?ve learned in the software industry is number one the truth hurts, number two the obvious is easy to hide from average users, number three companies can take advantage of others because they do not know or understand and finally the average user only knows what we tell them. The funny part about these life lessons it sounds like politics. Sadly these are in fact cooperate beliefs commonly seen in most business. You can deny these facts and statements if you want but they are true in their most simple form. When I worked at Apple, I remember a corporate executive in a meeting say ?I will do anything to get this company and its stock to the top?. The actions and ideas that followed were not very ethical business practices that followed as well. Now that you have the full picture about Apple Inc their ?ethical? business practices we can discuss the statement in the beginning in more depth. Your IPhone for example, ?America?s favorite phone?. This phone has one intention behind it, convert the consumer to Apple products. Your IPod guess what, same concept. Force the consumer to use the Mac OS for it to provide ?the full Apple experience?. Seen the commercials lately about how your ?Ipad can talk to other Iphones, Ipads and Mac computers with a click of the button?. This is an effort to convert the consumer to Apple products and force them to use Mac OS. Another example a local university can only sell Apple computers to their students. All students can only use Apple computers. Ironically this school is known for being the best school to attend to become a teacher/educator. Let?s think about this for a moment. Who in 20 years will rule this world? Children today of course. If a teacher shows a child all through grade school a Apple computer, the PC will be phased out and never used. He/she will not know what a PC is nor how to use one. So how does this affect us in the future? Well Apple has a huge track record for producing junk to be honest. In my professional option I would never use their junk for anything. Not to mention its typically over priced for obvious reasons pointed out above. Apple also clear has a grudge against Microsoft Corp. Finally their products are not user friendly. Me personally I?m switching to Linux, so I?m not trying to side with Microsoft. But I feel the average American consumer needs to know the truth about their beloved Apple Inc. Company they hold so dear in their hearts. If you want to support a dishonest, unethical company called Apple, go for it. I?ll be at home with my Linux box while you?re off supporting the Hitler?s of modern business. My goal once again is not to convince you that Apple is some evil company, how you perceive Apple after reading this is your personal opinion. I am simply providing you with facts and theories about the company. Apple always told me to think different when I worked for them. I did think differently, I choose a different product all together and a more ethical company too. Sadly this will likely be my last post on this forum for awhile folks. In a effort to properly educate people who are seeking a certification in the It field, I am creating my own certification exam for people and I will be busy working on it. The information above is my personal collection of facts and theories about Apple Inc and my thoughts/what I collected from their company when I worked for them. For any Apple worker wondering, I quit working at Apple. Before working for Apple, I worked for HP. HP to be honest was a great company to work for but I had some family issues I had to go back home to attend too. So that is why I left HP. I do not favor HP over Apple because HP uses Windows. I favor HP over Apple because I know what?s right and what?s wrong in business and what?s ethical.