I read this piece by the EFF about Apple and patent trolls and defenseless developers. 

The gist: Apple requires developers to use an Apple-provided service in order to sell their apps in the App Store. The developers are getting sued for patent infringement for doing this. Apple itself is exempt from being sued because they did a separate deal with the owners of the patent.  

Apple should defend the developers. It's not just a moral thing -- it's smart business. Assuming they want to have developers. 

It struck me as parallel to another situation where Apple is making the wrong call.  

All of a sudden Macs have malware. I've seen the attack that's rampant, and it gave me a sick feeling, because it reminded me of the reason I switched back to the Mac in 2005. Windows had become a horrible mess of malware. Microsoft's position was the same one that Apple is now adopting. Leave the users, most of whom think they're immune to malware (Apple told them so!), to fend for themselves.  

They should do a business school case study on this kind of lunacy.  

Nowadays, Microsoft very much takes responsibility for keeping Windows machines defended against malware. The malware problems that caused me to stop using Windows are not gone, but the defenses appear to work. I have several Windows machines that (knock wood) appear to be malware-free and running smoothly. But that was too late to keep me as a Windows user on a personal level.  

The situation with users and developers for the Mac are exactly the same. Apple is the strong party, they're the deep pockets, and they're the ones with the most to lose if developers can't develop for and users can't use their products. 

PS: A good idea for a startup might be a virus scanner for the Mac. Sad, but that's where we are now. And let's hope no patent troll sues them for it.