Apple.com is evil

This morning I posted a joke. Although it's not an original joke, I came across it earlier today in a long forgotten folder in my email system, and I simply couldn't resist posting it. Ninety minutes later, and Enda posts a comment telling me that "Bea Arthur (she of Golden Girls) does a great telling of this on iTunes". In fact, long ago I think I've probably heard Bea Arthur telling this joke, but I click on the iTunes link anyway only to get
and suddenly I realise that I hate Apple. Why are they forcing me to buy something from the UK iTunes web site if it's not available there, but presumably is available from the US iTunes web site? If something isn't available at Amazon.co.uk but is available at Amazon.com then I can purchase from Amazon.com without any problems.

The current story about unlocked iPhones becoming useless is the worst type of corporate behaviour. I find it hard to understand why a major corporation in "the land of the free" insists on trying to force people to behave in the way that it wants them to. Fundamentally, Apple has got the same attitude as the Burmese dictators who're currently repressing their citizens so brutally. In the evolution of human civilisation, time and time again it's been proved that co-operation and openness are better than segregation and secrecy, democracy is better than dictatorship.

So I think one that one can characterise Apple's behaviour as Evil. There may be reasons to be wary of Google these days, but as far as I can see, Google's corporate philosophy puts them way ahead of Apple.