Andy Ihnatko, in discussing MobileMe’s value makes this excellent point:
Apple — with some justification — has a nasty reputation for wanting and exerting this kind of influence and control. If that’s their reputation, why don’t they leverage it to the consumer’s maximum advantage? An Apple computer on an Apple network using an Apple online service to interact with an Apple mobile phone could be an absolutely glorious totalitarian state in which every app, document, and device you use has a passported conduit to everything else you use.
I have infinite control over my Linux boxes and there, I bow to no earthly King. But I almost never use them for any real work. My Apples are the most restrictive systems on the planet, and they’re my favorites. It’s simple: I cede 80 mass units of personal freedom to Apple and they give me 402 units of power in trade.