I'm not so sure that Apple is as socially progressive as they would have you think.
Ya nah. They're "woke" in ads, it's performative. See also all the companies that change their logos to rainbows in Oct. But who also sell products in Russia, Arabia, various parts of Asia, etc. And who, suspiciously, for some reason, don't also change their logos in those locations...
I mean look at their revenues, they're as hardcore a neoliberal company as you can get. They have to be, almost by law; they're publicly traded. Well, maybe that still counts as "liberal" to someone that's fallen off the deep (right) end in the US, but it's at best a very centrist position in the broader scheme of things. Where it really matters is this: how much of their money do they give to support progressive organizations? Lobbying for progressive causes? Giving to charities helping the poor, homeless, etc.? Supporting unionization within their organization, or elsewhere? (Not much of an issue for the most part, with the freedom of movement enjoyed by most in the tech industry, but
video games have seen some organization in recent years, and also, the inequality between C-suite and the worker has still only continued to rise, regardless of whether those workers are doing shop work or engineering.)
The same happened to Google, what used to be a fair and open minded company ("Do no evil!"), quietly dropped its tagline a long time ago and joined the behemoths in being, about par for the course as far as megacorps go. That said... (continued below)
Well, I've done contract work for both Apple and Microsoft. Apple would bully us into whatever they felt they wanted. IT was truly insulting sometimes, but they didn't care. We had to put in a completely separate shared network drive just for the stuff we did for them. This was literally different hardware from the network shares that we used for everything else. The only people that could access the drive were the ones that they authorized. Visiting their campus at 1 Infinite Loop was much like visiting a military base. There were not groups of armed soldiers marching around, but there were plenty of visibly armed security personnel. Getting into any building required showing identification. Getting into any room required an employee with a swipe card to serve as chaperone. While there, the project manager pointed to each of us one by one and said, "I like you, I don't like you, I don't like you..." WTF? I would be fired for doing something like that, but it was evidently SOP there.
Yeah, that sucks... I see their interest for secrecy -- inevitably, the next iPhone 667 or whatever gets leaked before release; schematics and other design files drop out of supply chains; etc. It's critical to their marketing strategy, to protect that. So it makes sense to lock up contractors carefully that way, even if it means duplicating effort (what might be avoided by having stronger communication between employees and contractors, better visibility into internal projects, etc.). And I mean, they're not exactly hurting for profits, they can handle that.
That PM sounds like something HR should've heard about though. Whether or not HR would take their side, who knows, or if they'd care what some menial contractor has to say. Think I'd want to at least scribble that interaction in my notepad, maybe ask the PM later about it (say to confirm they said what had been written down -- will they double down for it?), though that's probably too direct/confrontational; maybe take it to another higher-up or to HR. Something else to put on their file if nothing else.
Assuming there wasn't other context of course. A simple "like/not like" isn't exactly grounds for dismissal, and could make sense in context, if maybe not being a very professional thing to say, even in context. I'm assuming from your impression, this wasn't the case.
Meanwhile, working with Microsoft was a very enjoyable experience. I recall one engineer saying, while on a conference call, "I hope you guys are having as much fun with this as we are." Visiting their campus was like visiting a vacation resort. There were small park-like spots scattered around outside with benches and decorative plants for a little bit of privacy. Inside there were gyms and workout rooms. They were obviously interested in their employees well being and even suggested that we could use the recreational facilities while in town.
(continuing from above)... That's good. Probably, they've been around this for long enough, that they know better than to dig in too deep. Can't exactly crunch-time something as important as a whole-ass operating system, and it doesn't make sense anyway for things like continuous development or the like (e.g. might also consider Windows Updates as a coarser kind of CD).
And there's Facebook, which as far as I know is more or less generally okay with management of workers, but you also have their involvement in the manipulation of now several countries' political processes, on top of the glaring privacy issues, unfair ad marketing, etc.). They pay quite highly these days, so I've heard, and with good reason, still having high turnover despite that pay. (I mean, no idea what the overall numbers are, but many treat it as a shiny badge to stick on the resume, so, just work there for a year or two, do a few projects, learn how to do things at truly world scale... then get away from that mess.)
Or Amazon, as far as I know very much on the grind from top to bottom. Software side maybe not as bad as warehouse but still under constant/implied threat of PIP. (Performance Improvement Plan: give worker unrealistic expectations as grounds for termination.)
If you want my personal opinion, I am not fond of Microsoft and don't trust them, but I will never, ever support Apple in any way. Again, that is not based on their products but entirely on my view of the corporation itself.
As a rule, it's a good idea not to trust any large company. They make too much money in too many ways and places, to have any kind of ethics, or transparency. Trust is earned, not given. Similarly, it may not be possible to avoid exploitation in a capitalist society, but we can at least try to reduce our individual impacts on that. Using Amazon, Alphabet, MS or other services, at all, is not a moral failing but an unfortunate inevitability given their scope. The best we can do then, is to reduce our use of them.
I mean, if you want to get all ethical about it. Or political. At least it's not religion, amirite?...
Tim