Turtle is playing the long game

John Gruber is arguing that Apple is weakening its advantage over competitors by adding more ads into their operating systems: Apple’s competition is lousy with ads. Downright lousy. Apple seems to be choosing the route of “Don’t like ads? Choose Apple, we shove fewer of them in your face.” That’s way less bracingly clear a marketing message than “Don’t like ads? Choose Apple, we don’t shove any ads in your face.” If your competitors’ stores all smell like dogshit, don’t aim to have the store that smells the least like shit. Aim to have a store that smells pristine. “Our stores only carry a vague whiff of dogshit” is not insanely great. Unfortunately a part of the MacOS community has been getting comfortable smirking at Windows, and have enjoyed hardware and software purchased as a package for years. Now, they can no longer consider alternatives with a better GUI and with no ads, where you first have to install the door to get into the house. Yes, setting up a USB drive and clicking…