"Arrogance is ugly. If you claim to care about aesthetics and design, it's in
your interest to keep from being completely tacky and lacking in taste.
To be honest, there's really only room for mocking everybody else if you're absolutely flawless. And even then, it's pretty bad taste. I've seen exactly what it looks like firsthand to see people take cheap shots and make snide comments about
their nominal competitors, and it invariably makes the complainer look worse
than the ostensible target. When the company you're taking a shot at is
Microsoft, that's saying a lot.So, to Apple: Your company's value, as measured
by market capitalization, is way up. You're dominating the markets you care
about. The quality of your products is generally very good -- my main laptop
runs OS X and we've got the requisite geek household pile of various-generation
iPods around. Apple's got my money, to the tune of thousands of dollars. But
this level of sneering arrogance, at a time when a little humble appreciation of
success is well in order, would go a long way.
You're succeeding. Act like it."