Considering the bad rap Microsoft get over controlling just the software side of things, I find it somewhat absurd that Apple seem to get a relatively untainted sheet: Apple, after all, get to control not only the software but also the hardware, and are even prepared to unnecessarily cripple their own hardware with their software to encourage you to buy more.
The reason Microsoft got a bad rap in the 90s (they seem to be getting better about this), is the vendor lock in, which they were able to pull off due to their desktop monopoly. I mean they are convicted monopoly abusers on multiple continents.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets (perhaps tablets) so they can't really do it even if they tried. But they also tend to be better about using open standards. For as much as everyone moaned about Apple not allowing Flash in their iOS devices, it was actually a good thing as it gave HTML5 a boost it needed to garner wider adoption.
I will give you a recent example of things Microsoft does that absolutely drive me nuts. Company I work for uses MS Exchange for their email. It's a large corporation and getting to your mail is a major PITA. 2fa and all that. They do however offer ActiveSync without 2fa. But because ActiveSync is a proprietary protocol there is nothing you can do to actually check your email using the ActiveSync on a computer. Those who have tried have been slapped with DMCA notices.
Microsoft has released ActiveSync clients only on mobile devices. And the one company which offered a solution was actually purchased by them and shut down. Now I am not a Microsoft user. I don't run any of the Microsoft software, but I am affected by their vendor lock in. Because they like to push proprietary protocols in markets they have a monopoly.
I have never heard of a reverse case. If you're not an Apple user you can completely avoid Apple in your life. But with Microsoft it is impossible to avoid. That's just a recent example. But there a plenty of other examples of Microsoft's vendor lock in.
- File sharing with thumb drives and the 4Gb file limit. (proprietary FAT32) Because Windows doesn't out of the box support a common open standard file system everyone is stuck using an antiquated file system in order to have cross platform compatibility.
- IE6: Not an issue anymore really, but if you've done web dev in your past you will know how quality of life impacting this was.
- DirectX. Gaming industry is trying to release open platforms, things like Valve's Steam Machine. But one of the main reasons gaming is predominantly a Windows thing is because DirectX is a closed standard that only runs on Windows.
So while Apple has it's problems with OS X hardware lock ins and such. At least they aren't propagating them to non customers. The thing is with Microsoft, even if you aren't in their ecosystem you are still affected by their crap which is way worse imo.
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