Old school (pre Jobs) Apple, and Be were friendly to everyone ('cos they were pretty much the same people). Palm, before they forgot about innovation and started copying everyone else.
Old school Apple made some wierd decicions, but they didn't turn a blind eye to users. Their design and marketing decisions seemed as though they were a healthy combo of "good business sense" and "quality for the users". They had inexpensive Macs that were below the price of the cheapest PCs, but had comparable specs and features (Classic, Color Classic, Performa 500s), and they had high-end workstations that offered unique features (Quadra 840av, Power Mac 8600/9600), unique products that nobody else was brave enough to create (Newton, the eMate, and innumerable others). But they were stagnant in marketing. I think their products were best in the early 1990s, near the end of the 68k era and the beginning of the Power Macs. Now all Macs are really just the same computer in different shapes. There's no uniqueness to features... and they're all expensive as fuck.
New Apple under Jobs seems to be Hell-bent on this vision of his... whatever it may be. It's pretty vaporous if you ask me.
