The chief executive of Dixons has been poached by Apple to head up its worldwide retail operations.

John Browett, who has been chief executive of the struggling high street electronics firm since 2007, has been appointed Apple’s senior vice president of retail, reporting directly to chief executive Tim Cook. Browett will be in charge of Apple’s already phenomenally successful retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple’s 361 stores around the world. Of the company’s 40 new locations this year, 30 will be abroad with China playing an increasing significant role.

“Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” Cook said. “We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple.”

Enthusiasm’s lovely, but this makes me ask one question: has Tim Cook ever been in a Dixons? If anything, Dixons Retail (which also includes Currys and PC World) is almost the opposite of what Apple’s retail operation should be: regularly poor shopping experiences, a lack of focus, and poorly trained, upsell-fanatical staff.

What a curious appointment by Cook.

I’m anti-censorship and also not thrilled by the situation endured by people building iPads and other Apple kit. But I also happen to be a realist: censorship will happen; goods will continue to be manufactured in places like China, by people working under conditions and for pay that would not be acceptable in many countries. To my mind, how we react to these things is therefore very important.

It’s increasingly apparent that many critics have joined yet another knee-jerk online mob. Twitter are evil! They censor things! Grrr! But what about Twitter’s rivals—how open are they? (Answer: mostly not very.) Do they provide pages with explanations regarding what is censored and how? (Answer: rarely.) And Apple is evil! But what about Apple’s rivals in computing, smartphones and tablets? How many of them use Foxconn and similar manufacturing companies? (Answer: the vast majority of them.) How many of them not only audit these places and stop working with those that don’t pass standards, but also make said auditing openly available? (Answer: I’ve no idea, but I’ve found no other examples like Apple’s. If you have, please let me know in the comments.) And now widen the target to other electronics, and even things like clothes. Are the things you’re buying all ethically produced? If so, congratulations (and I mean that sincerely), but I bet that’s a vanishingly small percentage of people reading this post; and if not, stop slamming one company out of a countless number manufacturing in China, not least because it’s seemingly at least doing something about the problems that are occurring there.

In the case of Apple, I’ve also had comments that Apple’s massive profits means it should lead by example and bring its manufacturing back into the USA and EU. But at that point, one of two things happens: Apple either ramps up its prices and becomes uncompetitive in terms of commerce, or its profits vanish, and it becomes a company that becomes uncompetitive in terms of investment. This could in a short period of time derail the company and ensure its rivals leapfrog it, bringing us back to square one, apart from the diminishing number of people working for a US/EU-only (or whatever) version of Apple. And that’s even suggesting it would be possible for Apple to do this—after all, ensuring some kind of US/EU-only manufacturing for every component would be a massive, possibly entirely unrealistic undertaking. Recently, it was reported that Chinese companies ended up manufacturing iOS devices not only because they were better from a costs standpoint, but also because nowhere in the USA had the capabilities.

As far as I can see, we now have two tech companies criticised for being, if not ‘good’, then at least the ‘least bad’. The ‘least bad’ isn’t something I typically champion, but I would argue that any element of openness from giant social networks and corporations is a good thing. Twitter’s openness about its censorship is something that should be praised, but that doesn’t mean you’re praising the censorship itself; likewise, Apple’s openness about its supply chain should be praised, but that doesn’t mean you back anything to do with the impact of Apple’s manufacturing, including from environmental, safety and human rights standpoints.

But to instead chastise these companies will merely encourage its rivals to clam up instead of following the examples of Twitter and Apple, to a point where change becomes more widespread and possible. I’m not saying things can’t and shouldn’t be better. I’m not saying we shouldn’t encourage them to do more—we very much should. But I am saying we shouldn’t be quick to simply slam those who are trying to improve things, even if the steps are much smaller than we’d like.

Apple is fabulously successful and I’m sure will continue to be so, but I do think Android will, over time, really dominate the mobile market. It’s nothing to do with who’s better, it’s just you have thousands of companies producing these devices… I think it’s going to be a repeat of the PC/Mac market, with 80% Android and 20% iOS.

First, that really isn’t a repeat of the PC/Mac market, which has mostly been closer to 95:5. Even now, with Apple massively outpacing the PC market by some margin, its share of computers remains in single figures.  But secondly, and most importantly, I find the argument that there has to be—or even that there will be—one dominant player in the mobile market without foundation. If we look back through the history of technology, and even examine the present, the PC/Mac market was an aberration. You don’t have people arguing that only one company will become dominant in TVs, cars, sound systems, and so on.

Additionally, we’re today able to enjoy a large amount of interoperability between different systems, largely thanks to the internet, and also through instant-messaging systems, social networks, and even the likes of SMS. Each hardware provider attempts to have its own lock-ins and ecosystems, but, increasingly, we have a mobile environment that can happily cater for and support a number of players.

I don’t doubt Android will retain the largest chunk of the market, although it does appear it will become increasingly fragmented—we may soon end up in a situation were Android is merely the underlying foundation for a number of systems that are, in a de-facto sense, individual entities. (Although I suspect most reporters will happily ignore this, in order to produce yet more link-bait headlines.) But iOS dropping to 20 per cent, or further? It’s possible, but I certainly don’t think we should be using the PC/Mac battles of the 1990s as evidence that it will. And Apple’s Q1 and Verizon’s Q4, where it was revealed more than half of Verizon’s sales were iPhones (CNET), shows that Apple can hold its own against the Android juggernaut, despite being the only company making iOS devices.

After days of silence, Atari issued a statement to Joystiq:

For companies like Atari, our intellectual property portfolio is our most valued asset. While we have great respect for the indie developer community and greatly appreciate the enthusiasm that they have for our renowned properties, we need to vigorously protect our intellectual property and ensure that it is represented in highly innovative games. We have been actively engaging with numerous established and up and coming developers to help us re-imagine our iconic franchises, and outside app developers have already helped us produce two top 10 mobile game successes in Asteroids: Gunner and Breakout: Boost. We look forward to further developing strong relationships with the indie app development community through additional games that we will be releasing in the future.

Responses to Atari’s actions varied. Some argued it was unfairly throwing its weight around; others, such as Jared Newman at Technologizer, argued that Atari was perfectly within its rights, since Vector Tanks

rips off plenty of the Battlezone aesthetic, including the green wireframe tanks, the square- and triangle-shaped obstacles, and the wireframe mountains in the distance set against a black backdrop.

And while Vector Tanks Extreme adds more features,

it’s built on the same cloned foundation.

I find the case more troubling. There’s no doubt Vector Tanks was heavily inspired by Battlezone, but if that’s an argument, Atari needs to realise that the vast majority of its own IP was based heavily on other properties, too, judging by interviews I’ve done with the developers of many of its classic games. Very few games were truly original, even in the early 1980s. And even in today’s litigious society, surely Atari could have taken a smarter route. It talks about outside developers helping to produce updates of old Atari games, so why not just rebrand Vector Tanks as an iOS Battlezone series? Instead of killing the games, bring them sort-of in-house. That way, everyone’s happy.

Today, however, we see the Atari/Vector Tanks situation in reverse. Zynga has released Dream Heights, a game that appears perilously close to indie hit Tiny Towers by NimbleBit. Curiously, one NimbleBit developer said on Twitter that Zynga

did go the honest route and try to acquire us first.

The developer has since written a snarky open letter to Zynga, starkly highlighting the similarities between the games, and noting the difference in size between Zynga (2789 employees) and NimbleBit (three). What links this to the Vector Tanks spat is there’s as much Tiny Tower in Dream Heights as Battlezone in Vector Tanks, but I wonder what would happen if NimbleBit issued a similar take-down request to Apple. Would Apple comply? Possibly. But would the long-term results be the same? My guess: not at all. Zynga would simply unleash its legal team and NimbleBit would have no way to fight back.

This is the imbalance in the App Store. The same legal issues ultimately exist for the Vector Tanks developer, too. There is legal precedent that videogame mechanics are barely possible to protect—only direct IP (trademarks and so on) are; however, the small developer has no chance in fighting the big guns, regardless of whether it’s the one being inspired or the one providing the inspiration. On a gaming ecosystem that’s done more to level the playing field than any other since the days of 8-bit computers, this is a huge pity. Here’s hoping that Tiny Tower being first to market enables it to continue being a success, and that the Vector Tanks developers continue to produce great games that don’t resemble Atari’s IP enough for them to be the target of legal smackdowns.

The article talks about Apple kit like iPhones and iPads being manufactured in China, by people who “in some cases, have never even seen them,” and with “labor practices that would be illegal in the United States”. It talks about underage workers, removed when inspections occur, cramped dormitory conditions, the illegality of unions, workers being hurt by toxins and mega-carpal-tunnel, and so on.

Blodget does at least offer a little balance:

Importantly, Shenzhen’s factories, as hellish as they are, have been a boon to the people of China. Liberal economist Paul Krugman says so. NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says so. Kristof’s wife’s ancestors are from a village near Shenzhen. So he knows of what he speaks. The “grimness” of the factories, Kristof says, is actually better than the “grimness” of the rice paddies.

So, looked at that way, Apple is helping funnel money from rich American and European consumers to poor workers in China. Without Foxconn and other assembly plants, Chinese workers might still be working in rice paddies, making $50 a month instead of $250 a month

But then he reverts to Blodget Standard Mode:

But, of course, the reason Apple assembles iPhones and iPads in China instead of America, is that assembling them here or Europe would cost much, much more — even with shipping and transportation. And it would cost much, much more because, in the United States and Europe, we have established minimum acceptable standards for the treatment and pay of workers like those who build the iPhones and iPads.

There’s of course nothing untrue about all this, and those of us fortunate to live in relatively rich countries rarely take the time to think who made our expensive Apple kit. But Blodget displays a remarkable lack of context in his article, and the sharp focus on Apple is typical of articles closer to internet trolling. Not only does he conveniently ignore Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent email about improving working conditions and terminating suppliers that don’t live up to “Apple’s strict code of conduct”, but he barely touches on the fact that most smartphones, literal tons of electronics, and plenty of other goods (such as the cheap clothes people buy in many US and European chains) are manufactured in similar conditions.

But this is all about Apple. And here’s why:

If Apple decided to build iPhones and iPads for Americans using American labor rules, two things would likely happen: The prices of iPhones and iPads would go up [and] Apple’s profit margins would go down. Neither of those things would be good for American consumers or Apple shareholders. But they might not be all that awful, either. Unlike some electronics manufacturers, Apple’s profit margins are so high that they could go down a lot and still be high. And some Americans would presumably feel better about loving their iPhones and iPads if they knew that the products had been built using American labor rules.

Some Americans would feel better about that, but plenty would stop buying Apple kit if it wasn’t remotely competitive. And just because Apple’s making a profit, it should switch to the US, argues Blodget, but, what, its rivals should continue using Chinese labour? (They obviously would, too, because they’d finally be able to compete on price, which wouldn’t be the case if they too moved manufacturing to the US or Europe.) Also, what do the Chinese workers feel about this? They clearly don’t have the working conditions I’d like for myself, but if Apple pulled out of China, would they really be better off? Or would these people consider that an opportunity taken away from them?

This is a complex issue that’s far beyond ‘Apple is an evil, profit-hungry corporate giant’, and pundits and analysts should do better to recognise this, rather than churning out the same old word-sticks to belt Apple with. Also, you can bet that if Apple did switch manufacturing to the US and unveiled an iPad 3 at the less-than-enticing low-end price-point of $1000, Blodget would be first to his keyboard, banging on about how stupid the company was and how it was doomed. Again.