I disagree with that. Apple was one of the first to jump on standardized media. They were using SCSI back in the day, and Ethernet, and USB, and Firewire, and SD cards, etc. etc. etc. Their own hardware is proprietary. They are/were a hardware company. But I'm looking at the MacBook on my desk and none of the things connected to it are Apple branded or single-source standards.
A bit like saying that the pictures taken on a sony-camera can be viewed on any display.
Apples software only run on their own hardware and their hardware only runs their own software. It is a huge split in the ecosystem and any advance Apple has makes future of computing more bleak and proprietary and void of choice.
Their constant battles with right to repair alone is pathetic in its own right. And they had to literally be forced to give up their lightning connector, because their walled garden of accessories was just too profitable. Not sure how one can view that differently than what Sony did.
Only difference is that Apple has a borderline monopoly, which of course makes it immeasurably worse. Sony lost because of competition.
While those things are true, it's still a different animal. Yes, Apple's hardware+OS combo is a walled garden. However, while you can't easily modify that hardware, you can connect it to any brand of SD card or monitor or hard drive or keyboard or mouse or trackpad or whatever. You don't have to buy Apple-branded memory cards or other accessories. With Sony, you had no option.
I'm not arguing against what you're saying, but I think it's orthogonal.
Sonys crap at least to my knowledge had broad compatibility. Whereas Apple often deliberately make sub-par experiences when not in their own turf. You just connected your sony-camera over usb, or just had a plastic adapter for the memory stick.
Seems right on par for the dongle-life that Apple was/is famous for and the lightning-connector alone has created me much more headache than Sony ever did. Which is impressive considering I've owned several Sony (or SonyEricsson) devices but I've never owned an Apple device. At least Sonys proprietary crap were decently priced, at least for the times I looked at it. Didn't enjoy it one bit but I didn't feel robbed.
Apples stunts in the past by deliberately making chargers incompatible is on a whole other level of evil but I guess that's prescribed by now.
Sony put rootkits on CDs though so that is pretty extraordinarily bad too of course.
The reason you can connect anything to a mac is because Apple is the only rotten fruit left. Apples stuff work pretty darn terrible for everyone not in Apples ecosystem.
I don't want to pile on but I just can't see how what Sony did was bad but what Apple does isn't. Feels like people put a blind eye to everything they are dependent upon.
