The Imperial Apple

When your behavior deviates significantly from your perceived values, it creates dissonance with your customers and opportunities for your competition.

That's the case with Apple's censorship of applications for both the iPhone and iPad. Steve Jobs has become the Big Brother he railed against in the famous 1984 commercial by not allowing satirical content including political humor and by forcing magazine editors to modify their content for their iPad editions.

So now people on the fringes are buzzing about Apple's intransigence, even lifelong Mac users like me.

And while it hasn't seemed to impact the sales of iPads – they've sold 2 million units in less than 60 days – if they continue to operate at cross purposes with one of their core values, it opens the door for competitors to create products that offer all the utility and a little more "freedom."

I wouldn't be surprised to see this happening in the very near future.