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Oops! Wrong URL in my previous reply. I meant to say:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

Tip to downoad: wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://trailers.apple.com/movies/wb/thehobbit1/thehobbit-tlr1_h1080p.mov to download the 173 MOV file to play it locally in your QT compatible player. :)

Oops! Wrong URL in my previous reply. I meant to say:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

Tip to downoad: wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://trailers.apple.com/movies/wb/thehobbit1/thehobbit-tlr1_h1080p.mov to download the 173 MOV file to play it locally in your QT compatible player. :)

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

Tip to downoad: wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://trailers.apple.com/movies/wb/thedarkknightrises/darkknightrises-tlr1_h1080p.mov to download the 148 MOV file to play in your QT compatible player. :)

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

Tip to downoad: wget -U "QuickTime/7.6.2" http://trailers.apple.com/movies/wb/thedarkknightrises/darkknightrises-tlr1_h1080p.mov to download the 148 MOV file to play in your QT compatible player. :)

Wow, you can't be happy with anything. Flip it around. Android allows for third party contact syncing to and from anyone with enough initiative to do so. Say the same thing about our SIG's namesake. No integration with anyone who isn't your namesake company.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2337307?threadID=2337307&tstart=0

At least with Android phones, if you have Exchange, you can sync against exchange out of the box. If you have a Google account, you can sync with Google contacts out of the box. If you have some other custom provider, you can write or ask for someone else to write it. Just because Google hasn't held everyone's hand by writing an adapter for 1000 different contact,calendar,etc.. providers, it doesn't mean that someone else couldn't. The API's are open and freely usable. (Except for Facebook sadly, but they invited it upon themselves.

Your baseless and petty attacks show just how philosophically biased you really are.

Yet, for some reason, no one else on the planet has been able to combine these existing technologies as well or as successfully as Apple.

This has more to do with marketing and the reality distortion field that SJ put forth in all Apple releases. Apple's ability to get people hyped up over nothing is a thing of legend.

When you say "They are a decade late to the smart phone race, but they claim to be the most prolific innovators in the market." --

Apple got into the market just when hardware acceleration became available, and benefited from having 1) a brand new OS 2) proprietary hardware and software 3) single piece of hardware. This allowed them to "skip a generation" of technology with their initial offering and only their initial offering. Since then they've largely relied on excellent (and very deceptive) marketing and a very devoted fan base. The proof of that statement is the fact that Apple has been hemorrhaging market share to all of their competition and Apple's decision to use the force of law to solve their problems instead of "innovating". BTW, why don't they just continue to innovate? Oh that's right, people are steeling all their important patents like the one in this story.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but far and away the best selling for ten years. The iPhone was not the first smartphone but it has over half the industry's profits with just 1/20th of the market. [appleinsider.com] And then Apple came along with the iPad and sold more tablets in one year than the whole rest of the PC industry had sold in the previous (almost) decade.

That sounds like proof of the already obvious. They sell an overpriced item and have a ton of after market licensing for third party companies wanting to make products for Apple's proprietary interface. And that's basically why everyone wants to leave Apple: everything is about making you spend money on something you should damn well get for free (or much less). I should NOT have to contend with a god damn iPod connector on a car! They should have been USB and used an open technology, of which there are many to choose from. So ya, they "earned" all of their profits from sticking to their devoted customers. And that's the biggest "fuck you" to the open source community. Apple basically locked out all their competition from using these now proprietary accessories. Real fucking innovative.

If Apple is "just" stealing everyone else's ideas and adding no value to the mix, then their success ought to be easy to replicate, right? Or maybe you're wrong, and they are doing good work, and you're just unable to see just what it is they're doing.

Indeed. Once people realized that Android and WinMo was offering much the same thing at a much lower price, and no asshole behavior, they jumped ship. And that is rather indisputable. You can't argue that they are actually gaining market share. Or maybe you can... I don't know you well enough.

One other point: your claim that "they steal from the open source community" is flat out wrong.

As I said to another user, and this is very much a copy of that: You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.ht

Yet, for some reason, no one else on the planet has been able to combine these existing technologies as well or as successfully as Apple.

This has more to do with marketing and the reality distortion field that SJ put forth in all Apple releases. Apple's ability to get people hyped up over nothing is a thing of legend.

When you say "They are a decade late to the smart phone race, but they claim to be the most prolific innovators in the market." --

Apple got into the market just when hardware acceleration became available, and benefited from having 1) a brand new OS 2) proprietary hardware and software 3) single piece of hardware. This allowed them to "skip a generation" of technology with their initial offering and only their initial offering. Since then they've largely relied on excellent (and very deceptive) marketing and a very devoted fan base. The proof of that statement is the fact that Apple has been hemorrhaging market share to all of their competition and Apple's decision to use the force of law to solve their problems instead of "innovating". BTW, why don't they just continue to innovate? Oh that's right, people are steeling all their important patents like the one in this story.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but far and away the best selling for ten years. The iPhone was not the first smartphone but it has over half the industry's profits with just 1/20th of the market. [appleinsider.com] And then Apple came along with the iPad and sold more tablets in one year than the whole rest of the PC industry had sold in the previous (almost) decade.

That sounds like proof of the already obvious. They sell an overpriced item and have a ton of after market licensing for third party companies wanting to make products for Apple's proprietary interface. And that's basically why everyone wants to leave Apple: everything is about making you spend money on something you should damn well get for free (or much less). I should NOT have to contend with a god damn iPod connector on a car! They should have been USB and used an open technology, of which there are many to choose from. So ya, they "earned" all of their profits from sticking to their devoted customers. And that's the biggest "fuck you" to the open source community. Apple basically locked out all their competition from using these now proprietary accessories. Real fucking innovative.

If Apple is "just" stealing everyone else's ideas and adding no value to the mix, then their success ought to be easy to replicate, right? Or maybe you're wrong, and they are doing good work, and you're just unable to see just what it is they're doing.

Indeed. Once people realized that Android and WinMo was offering much the same thing at a much lower price, and no asshole behavior, they jumped ship. And that is rather indisputable. You can't argue that they are actually gaining market share. Or maybe you can... I don't know you well enough.

One other point: your claim that "they steal from the open source community" is flat out wrong.

As I said to another user, and this is very much a copy of that: You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.ht

First of all, I'm against Apple's abuse of the patent system just as much as the average slashdotter, though I also think they're on similar footing with every other company. Not that this makes what they're doing good, but that's how the game is played these days.

However, I do feel the need to address this particular point:

> Everything they've "invented" is nothing but mashups of technologies that already
> exist in software frameworks made by people other than Apple.

Yet, for some reason, no one else on the planet has been able to combine these existing technologies as well or as successfully as Apple.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but far and away the best selling for ten years. The iPhone was not the first smartphone but it has over half the industry's profits with just 1/20th of the market. And then Apple came along with the iPad and sold more tablets in one year than the whole rest of the PC industry had sold in the previous (almost) decade.

When you say "They are a decade late to the smart phone race, but they claim to be the most prolific innovators in the market." -- can you look at this slide of what were the state-of-the-art smartphones at the time of the iPhone's release and really claim that Apple was not an innovator in the smartphone market? If not, can you explain why every single major manufacturer now makes phones that strongly resemble the iPhone?

If Apple is "just" stealing everyone else's ideas and adding no value to the mix, then their success ought to be easy to replicate, right? Or maybe you're wrong, and they are doing good work, and you're just unable to see just what it is they're doing.

And if you think all their success is "just" because of good marketing--well, that oughtta be easy enough to replicate too, right? Just go find a good marketing company and give them some money, right? Hell, if cigarette companies can sell things that will kill you, selling anything can't be that hard, right?

One other point: your claim that "they steal from the open source community" is flat out wrong. (At least in terms of what matters to the open source world--there, "stealing" means "using and not giving back." "Using" alone does not equal "stealing") Ever heard of WebKit? Apple started out with KHTML, drastically improved, it, and released it. A little company called Google also uses it.

Sorry child, but you're just another ./ fuckwit.

2010 patents granted
2) Samesung: 4551
46) Apple: 563

http://www.ificlaims.com/news/top-patents.html

I suggest you start educating yourself. Read this document *in full*, going over all the layers:http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/OSX_Technology_Overview/About/About.html

After you've finished tell us again what Apple hasn't invented, and what O.S. Samesung has.

You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

No mention of FreeBSD anywhere in there! Assholes.

You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

No mention of FreeBSD anywhere in there! Assholes.

You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

No mention of FreeBSD anywhere in there! Assholes.

You misunderstand why I call it "theft". Not because they copied it, but because they copied it and then portray it as their own work. Plagiarism is probably a better word. It's done so covertly that the average Apple user doesn't know where the OS comes from, so it's plagiarism by omission. Have you ever presented an accomplishment to someone that they accidentally gave you credit for when someone else deserved the credit? Did you correct them and say "the credit really should go to..."?

Well, Apple didn't.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

No mention of FreeBSD anywhere in there! Assholes.

Now, does Apple copy from FreeBSD without giving back? Yes, certainly. But not "steal".

Another ignorant slashdot fuckwit.

http://opensource.apple.com/
http://opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1072/

Now, does Apple copy from FreeBSD without giving back? Yes, certainly. But not "steal".

Another ignorant slashdot fuckwit.

http://opensource.apple.com/
http://opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1072/

No, but OSX is.

Ah, No yourself -- please get educated.

What % *exactly* is in OS X from FreeBSD vs that from NextStep vs brand new original code written be Apple over the last 15 years since 1997? You can check the source yourself: http://opensource.apple.com/. The root comment is nothing but a populist troll, latched onto by group slashdot ignorance.

The Mach kernel is not part of FreeBSD, neither is Cocoa, the Core* frameworks, Quicktime, Carbon, OpenGL, I/OKit, or Grand Central Dispatch to name a few of the subsystems in OS X.

Perhaps parts of the BSD subsystem of OS X, which is a tiny fraction of the entire Mac OS X, and that part uses source from a number of BSD distros, though mainly FreeBSD.

All source is also published (URL above), though it need not be.

Seriously. Apple has Human Interface Guidelines, and has extensive documentation about how they expect apps to work at every stage of their technical documentation - and developers are well aware that Apple is willing to tell developers to go back and try again if an app does not behave in a polished-enough manner.

There are upsides to the curated garden - fewer weeds. It just sucks that they decided extend their curation to reject things for criteria other than technical issues and user fraud.

At least we can confirm what brand Sirius Cybernetics has been trading under in this rather uncharted backwater of the Galaxy's unfashionable Western Spiral Arm.

Apple adapted their Mac word processor, spreadsheet and presentation applications for the iPad. Personally I think they are pretty capable and a good user experience with an external keyboard at least. With the onscreen keyboard I would only suggest brief usage. YMMV.

Do the iPad word processing/spreadsheet and presentation apps compare favorably with the desktop Mac versions? I know that the Android versions don't come anywhere close to Windows desktop Office or Open/LibreOffice versions, which you can currently run with no trouble on a netbook.

I've used both the Mac and iPad versions (and OpenOffice as well), in my opinion the iPad versions compare favorably. However I'm not a features heavy sort of user. My needs are modest. Hell, I'd probably still be using Office 97 if I hadn't gone back to school in recent history. :-)

FWIW, the apps are Words, Numbers and Keynote. http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/apps-by-apple/

I'm referring to the BSD kernel proper

Which BSD kernel? The XNU kernel that Apple uses? They release all of the sources. It's based on CMU Mach, 4BSD, and has more recently some code from the FreeBSD kernel.

Did Apple contribute HFS+ back to BSD?

You mean this code? It's APSL, and someone did port it to FreeBSD, but no one really cared so it bit rotted.

Offhand I can't think of any apple subsystem that made its way into BSD

How about the pthread_workqueue_*() family of functions? They are used by libdispatch to manage a pool of worker threads.

Mach-O loader? no

Why would any BSD want to switch from ELF to Mach-O? You probably could replace rtld with dyld, but what would be the point?

HFS+? no sure

Was ported, no one cared, it died.

Short of the kernel ... which they stopped releasing the source too since it kept being used to easily work around the OSX license restriction

So what's this - chopped liver? They haven't released the source to Don't Steal Mac OS X, but that's another matter. :-)

They don't release the source to all kernel extensions (kernel loadable modules, for the Linux weenies in the audience).

And not contributing anything back to the community. Should Apple fall one day or just discontinue its BSD-based products, all their achievements will be lost.

...with the possible exception of WebKit and clang and LLDB and their contributions to LLVM and their contributions to GCC to handle Objective-C (assuming they've been picked up by GCC) and their contributions to GDB (assuming they've been picked up by GDB) and libdispatch and launchd and other Mac OS Forge projects and any stuff people have picked up from opensource.apple.com.

So if I invent a robot with my own ai code but it uses GPL apis

Presumably you mean "GPLed libraries"; I don't know of any interfaces that are GPLed in any sense, e.g. somebody could reimplement a GPLed library, duplicating all its APIs, and release it under the BSD license without violating the GPL. I guess you could see legal arguments about, say, header files for the library, but those arguments may already have come up and been resolved.

What if I onvested 5,000,000 making the code? Whoops competitors now use my code and undercut me because they didnt have to invest the 5,000,000. I go out of business.

Then whoops maybe you should have invested a little more to implement that functionality yourself, or paying somebody else to implement it, or even just to try to find a free-as-in-beer-at-least implementation with a non-GPL license, rather than using the work of somebody else who doesn't want you to use it in a fashion where you don't have to make source code available under the terms of the GPL.

Google gets a free ride because they are not redistributing. For everyone else who makes smart appliances you are screwed.

If a smart appliance maker is going to invest a lot of money in the software, they're not "screwed", they're just required to invest a little more money making or buying or finding non-GPL software. If their "secret sauce" is the hardware, and giving away the source to the software doesn't make it significantly easier for others to make that hardware - or if they have a patent on the hardware - they may not be "screwed" at all.

Small business owners are too. You cant sell your company as that too counts as redistribution.

A small business using GPLed software most definitely can sell their company. It's not as if using GPLed software GPLs your entire company, including the office desks and the software you bought to run on your computers and your customer lists and the software you've developed without incorporating GPLed code into it.

Just google router xompanies? Gnu went after them

...because they used GPLed code without complying with the requirements for doing so. A company that makes Wi-Fi access points managed to find an alternative to GPLed software for their access points.

So if I invent a robot with my own ai code but it uses GPL apis

Presumably you mean "GPLed libraries"; I don't know of any interfaces that are GPLed in any sense, e.g. somebody could reimplement a GPLed library, duplicating all its APIs, and release it under the BSD license without violating the GPL. I guess you could see legal arguments about, say, header files for the library, but those arguments may already have come up and been resolved.

What if I onvested 5,000,000 making the code? Whoops competitors now use my code and undercut me because they didnt have to invest the 5,000,000. I go out of business.

Then whoops maybe you should have invested a little more to implement that functionality yourself, or paying somebody else to implement it, or even just to try to find a free-as-in-beer-at-least implementation with a non-GPL license, rather than using the work of somebody else who doesn't want you to use it in a fashion where you don't have to make source code available under the terms of the GPL.

Google gets a free ride because they are not redistributing. For everyone else who makes smart appliances you are screwed.

If a smart appliance maker is going to invest a lot of money in the software, they're not "screwed", they're just required to invest a little more money making or buying or finding non-GPL software. If their "secret sauce" is the hardware, and giving away the source to the software doesn't make it significantly easier for others to make that hardware - or if they have a patent on the hardware - they may not be "screwed" at all.

Small business owners are too. You cant sell your company as that too counts as redistribution.

A small business using GPLed software most definitely can sell their company. It's not as if using GPLed software GPLs your entire company, including the office desks and the software you bought to run on your computers and your customer lists and the software you've developed without incorporating GPLed code into it.

Just google router xompanies? Gnu went after them

...because they used GPLed code without complying with the requirements for doing so. A company that makes Wi-Fi access points managed to find an alternative to GPLed software for their access points.

So if I invent a robot with my own ai code but it uses GPL apis

Presumably you mean "GPLed libraries"; I don't know of any interfaces that are GPLed in any sense, e.g. somebody could reimplement a GPLed library, duplicating all its APIs, and release it under the BSD license without violating the GPL. I guess you could see legal arguments about, say, header files for the library, but those arguments may already have come up and been resolved.

What if I onvested 5,000,000 making the code? Whoops competitors now use my code and undercut me because they didnt have to invest the 5,000,000. I go out of business.

Then whoops maybe you should have invested a little more to implement that functionality yourself, or paying somebody else to implement it, or even just to try to find a free-as-in-beer-at-least implementation with a non-GPL license, rather than using the work of somebody else who doesn't want you to use it in a fashion where you don't have to make source code available under the terms of the GPL.

Google gets a free ride because they are not redistributing. For everyone else who makes smart appliances you are screwed.

If a smart appliance maker is going to invest a lot of money in the software, they're not "screwed", they're just required to invest a little more money making or buying or finding non-GPL software. If their "secret sauce" is the hardware, and giving away the source to the software doesn't make it significantly easier for others to make that hardware - or if they have a patent on the hardware - they may not be "screwed" at all.

Small business owners are too. You cant sell your company as that too counts as redistribution.

A small business using GPLed software most definitely can sell their company. It's not as if using GPLed software GPLs your entire company, including the office desks and the software you bought to run on your computers and your customer lists and the software you've developed without incorporating GPLed code into it.

Just google router xompanies? Gnu went after them

...because they used GPLed code without complying with the requirements for doing so. A company that makes Wi-Fi access points managed to find an alternative to GPLed software for their access points.

http://opensource.apple.com/

OS X is not based upon FreeBSD, by the way, though it does use some code from it.

By the way, tell me about "the community". What makes you a part of it?

Short of the kernel ... which they stopped releasing the source too since it kept being used to easily work around the OSX license restriction, they release the source mods to pretty much everything they use. Certainly all of their gpl stuff and various other licenses as well.

http://www.apple.com/opensource/

Who doesn't know this?

Just look at Apple - the company with the most worth in the whole world - selling software that was built upon FreeBSD.

And not contributing anything back to the community. Should Apple fall one day or just discontinue its BSD-based products, all their achievements will be lost. On the other hand, when a big GPL vendor falls or discontinues a product, anybody can come in and keep it alive from the last public release.

http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1072/

Agreed. I think the shift has occurred because of increasing corporate interest in open source. BSD is seen as more corporate-friendly than GPL, when in fact it should be the other way around--BSD allows your competitors to reap the fruit of your labor without giving you anything in return. Start-ups, however, are lured by the idea of being able to close-source everything once their product becomes a smash hit,

There may well be start-ups who are. There are other start-ups who incorporate BSD-licensed code in their software and never open-source their software in the first place. One such startup succeeded rather well.

while established companies face genuine legal issues preventing them from linking GPL'ed code with closed-source code from vendors.

Unless it's an established company that doesn't link GPL'ed code with closed-source code.

Just look at Apple - the company with the most worth in the whole world - selling software that was built upon FreeBSD.

And not contributing anything back to the community. Should Apple fall one day or just discontinue its BSD-based products, all their achievements will be lost. On the other hand, when a big GPL vendor falls or discontinues a product, anybody can come in and keep it alive from the last public release.

Quite the contrary - here's the source. And keep in mind that apple also hired some of the FreeBSD developers, and contributed back to the FreeBSD project with code.

The fact that your carrier gives you a way to pay that money spread over 2 years of contract shouldn't matter when comparing its price to other phones (and you can get quality Android phones a for half that price).

That was my first thought when I read the headline: what have the replaced it with?

They're apparently doing this in order to avoid being dragged in front on Congress and not out of any sort of altruism. (OK, so no one thought they were doing it out of altruism, but you may have thought they were trying to avoid alienating customers. Nope. They just want Congress to drop the issue.)

The article itself makes it pretty clear that they expect that Sprint is simply going to switch to some other software. It's kind of like how the iPhone "doesn't run CarrierIQ as of iOS 5." Well, of course it doesn't - Apple moved all of that stuff into iOS 5 itself. It's built-in to the OS now. All that CarrierIQ information is still gathered, and still sent back to Apple.

But that's OK. Remember when people were upset about the iPhone tracking you? That's a "feature" in iOS 5. Essentially, by allowing you to "track" yourself and your friends, Apple managed to turn "we constantly track and record your location" into a bullet point feature. (Not joking! Yes, you have to "opt in" to be allowed to see the data that Apple gathers about you. That's nice. They still gather it if you have the features turned off, you just aren't allowed to use that data yourself.)

So I fully expect that a couple of weeks after the "remove CarrierIQ update" is released, security researchers will discover Sprint phones now come with some new software with a different name that does the exact same thing.

Still, for as open as you seem to think Mac OS X is, why can't I download Darwin and run Mac software on it?

Because the top layer is not open.

But what layer at all of Windows can you download openly and run at all?

Where are all of the applications for OS X?

Well that was a stupid question.

Why doesn't OS X work on just any commodity PC hardware?

It does. Apple just doesn't sell it that way.

Why does Apple go sue crazy when someone puts together a Hackintosh or when someone even posts a video showing one?

Wait, you are already contradicting yourself? What an ass. I'll stop resounding here since it's clear you are just another Apple Hater Troll.

P.S. as for selling now - well, you've made (by your own admission!) some pretty stupid statements, but that probably is the stupidest.

The iOS dev tools are $599 but they come with a free computer. Furthermore, you have to pay per year to be able to run programs that you compiled on an iPod, iPhone, or iPad that you bought. The Android dev tools, on the other hand, run on any computer that can run Java, including the one you're more likely to already own (a Windows or Linux box), and "adb install" is free.

They're looking for practical applications of their devices and Apple's doing a damn good job of attracting application developers.

This is getting really tired. A friend and I had a face off recently Apple vs Android. He pulled out an App and I showed him the equivalent on Android, then we did the reverse, the only rules were no apps that required jailbreaking.

Both app stores are HUGE. Both app stores have basically an app for everything. Hell both apps stores have games which are direct clones of each other with different graphics (how this isn't a legal issue I don't know).

Although I do admit that I conceded defeat when he used Siri to send me a text message, and then I used Android voice commands to reply saying "Fuck off" and the stupid Android phone didn't recognise the swear word.

Even when you jailbreak / root your way out of the walled garden and the .... picket fenced garden, both phones have apps that make them incredibly versatile.

Well, first, we're talking about the smartphone market, so we shouldn't include them. But, second, it really doesn't change things that much.

If we look at shipments for Q3 2011, we see 60,490,400 Android phones shipped versus 17,295,300 iPhones shipped. Now, let's start with some assumptions for entertainment value.

Let's assume 509,600 Android tablets and non-phone devices were sold in that quarter, just to round Android's numbers up to 61 million. Let's also assume that Apple didn't sell a single iPod nano or iPod shuffle in Q3--that all iPod sales are iPod touches.

According to Apple, they sold 11.12 million iPads and 6.62 million iPods. Now, again, if we assume that all those iPods were iPod touches, we come up with 17.74 million. If we add that to the number of iPhones sold, we come come up 35,035,300. This causes Apple's market share to jump from 16.6% to 26.2% and puts Android at 45.7%. iOS is still a ways off.

Unlike classic Mac OS, modern operating systems have no well-known way to mark blocks of memory containing cached resources as "purgeable"....

Actually, Mac OS X does. Check out NSCache and NSPurgeableMemory. I'm not sure if Firefox uses it, mind you.

The problem is the GPL. Say someone comes along and invests a few million into making a really, REALLY great desktop and distro that does what the average user wants. How are they supposed to recover their costs (never mind make a profit)? After all, the first person they sell a copy to can redistribute the whole thing for free, and competitors can copy all the "good bits" without having to rack up that few million in development costs.

So you have two groups - those who are "scratching an itch" and those who are fixing things that need fixing for them, as opposed to the RotW (Rest of the World).

Contrast this with BSD - there was nothing stopping Apple from using FreeBSD, and throwing money at some of the FreeBSD developers. Additionally, Apple gave back a lot of stuff - you can dig through their site or better yet, here if you're a developer. FreeBSD certainly benefited. Linux benefited. Even Google benefited (Apple's work done on webkit, for example).

So, while the linux kernel will continue to benefit, since there are many companies that have needs that linux can meet, and one of those needs is stability - make too big a mess and the funding stops - the desktop environments don't have nearly the same user accountability (and there are just too many of them, so unlike the kernel, that's an additional lack of focus).

If they were smart, they would have tried to make the DEs cross-platform - even to the point of replacing the Windows shell (as opposed to KDE programs running - poorly - in Windows - people want the whole environment, not just a few me-too applications). The opportunity is lost now - the competition dropped the ball with the initial failure to ship a refreshed OS, instead opting for XPsp3 ... and then Vista. Now? Too late. With everyone going multi-core, even a pig like Vista, with all the patches, runs acceptably for most users, and Win7 got a significant diet.

So the linux distros are left copying each other, nobody is investing much in the things that really count, and the year of the linux desktop will simply never happen.

There's a better way ...

The problem is the GPL. Say someone comes along and invests a few million into making a really, REALLY great desktop and distro that does what the average user wants. How are they supposed to recover their costs (never mind make a profit)? After all, the first person they sell a copy to can redistribute the whole thing for free, and competitors can copy all the "good bits" without having to rack up that few million in development costs.

So you have two groups - those who are "scratching an itch" and those who are fixing things that need fixing for them, as opposed to the RotW (Rest of the World).

Contrast this with BSD - there was nothing stopping Apple from using FreeBSD, and throwing money at some of the FreeBSD developers. Additionally, Apple gave back a lot of stuff - you can dig through their site or better yet, here if you're a developer. FreeBSD certainly benefited. Linux benefited. Even Google benefited (Apple's work done on webkit, for example).

So, while the linux kernel will continue to benefit, since there are many companies that have needs that linux can meet, and one of those needs is stability - make too big a mess and the funding stops - the desktop environments don't have nearly the same user accountability (and there are just too many of them, so unlike the kernel, that's an additional lack of focus).

If they were smart, they would have tried to make the DEs cross-platform - even to the point of replacing the Windows shell (as opposed to KDE programs running - poorly - in Windows - people want the whole environment, not just a few me-too applications). The opportunity is lost now - the competition dropped the ball with the initial failure to ship a refreshed OS, instead opting for XPsp3 ... and then Vista. Now? Too late. With everyone going multi-core, even a pig like Vista, with all the patches, runs acceptably for most users, and Win7 got a significant diet.

So the linux distros are left copying each other, nobody is investing much in the things that really count, and the year of the linux desktop will simply never happen.

There's a better way ...

The VLC developer made the claim because Apple's TOS is incompatible with the GPL. Apple is 100% to blame for that incompatibility.

Actually, the VLC developer that made the claim was unaware that Apple had actually changed it's TOS to accomodate FOSS licenses. See discussion on the VideoLAN list around October / Novemer 2010. Also take a look at Jean-Baptiste Kempf's legal analysis in the latter link.

It turns out that the last stumbling block - as explained in a comment above - is that the GPL license specifically dictates you can’t block the user's ability to redistribute binaries himself. This is conflicts with the iOS security model of only allowing software that is signed by a special certificate (or other enterprise certificates).

Now consider if VLC changed their license to be consistent with the app store TOS. VLC would be allowed on the app store, but it would no longer be free software.

This is plainly wrong, as only GPL licensed software has trouble with this model. Fres software under e.g. Apache, Mozilla or BSD licenses are easily distributed through the App Store.

I haven't read Microsoft's new terms, so I can't comment on them, but the iOS app store is incompatible with the terms of the GPL.

The App Store terms and conditions does allow for a third party license agreement (including FLOSS licenses) to be substituted for their default LICENSED APPLICATION END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT. However only that one section of the terms and services is substituted; the rest of it remains in force. The GPL prohibits you from placing any further restrictions than those in the GPL, and the App Store terms and conditions does just that: In particular

USE OF APP AND BOOK PRODUCTS AND THE APP AND BOOK SERVICES
You agree that the App and Book Services and certain App and Book Products include security technology that limits your use of App and Book Products and that, whether or not App and Book Products are limited by security technology, you shall use App and Book Products in compliance with the applicable usage rules established by Apple and its principals (âoeUsage Rulesâ), and that any other use of the App and Book Products may constitute a copyright infringement

CHANGES
Apple reserves the right at any time to modify this Agreement and to impose new or additional terms or conditions on your use of the App and Book Services. Such modifications and additional terms and conditions will be effective immediately and incorporated into this Agreement. Your continued use of the App and Book Services will be deemed acceptance thereof.

Other FLOSS licenses are compatible with the app store, and other GPL developers don't care about the incompatibility, and thus don't press the issue, but the VLC developer was correct in his claim that the GPL was being violated.

What if Apple doesn't have anything against open source projects?

In fact, they contribute a LOT to open source.

http://opensource.apple.com/

I'm sure there are key commands in most shells, it's just that they're not apparent and nobody takes the time to learn them

Further, I still think your framing of the argument as "newbie" vs "advanced user", while well-intentioned, is misguided and inadvertently divisive.

As far as I'm concerned "advanced users" are those who look stuff like this up in order to figure out how the OS can best _augment_ them:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html

Users who don't bother, and just stick to what's immediately apparent, I consider "newbie/novice" level.

Advanced users will also know how to configure the Desktop UI so that they are able to do many things with it faster than the newbie/novice users can (it may take some pre-setup time to configure dock/taskbar, start menu, etc, but that is just one-time). 3rd party utilities don't count for this (otherwise you could just install a new desktop environment ;) ).

For example, in 9x/2K/XP(classic mode) I do stuff like this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175866&cid=14627608

Some of that no longer works on Windows 7. So on windows 7 I take longer to do stuff that I used to be able to do in a split second. OS X feels even more crippling and primitive (if you ignore the looks factor).

As for winning side, on the contrary. I think everyone loses if they no longer are able to be augmented as much. From what I see you it is not impossible to have a Desktop UI that caters for novices, and still provides short-cuts for those who want further augmentation.

I'm sure there are key commands in most shells, it's just that they're not apparent and nobody takes the time to learn them

Further, I still think your framing of the argument as "newbie" vs "advanced user", while well-intentioned, is misguided and inadvertently divisive.

As far as I'm concerned "advanced users" are those who look stuff like this up in order to figure out how the OS can best _augment_ them:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Keyboard-shortcuts
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343
http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html

Users who don't bother, and just stick to what's immediately apparent, I consider "newbie/novice" level.

Advanced users will also know how to configure the Desktop UI so that they are able to do many things with it faster than the newbie/novice users can (it may take some pre-setup time to configure dock/taskbar, start menu, etc, but that is just one-time). 3rd party utilities don't count for this (otherwise you could just install a new desktop environment ;) ).

For example, in 9x/2K/XP(classic mode) I do stuff like this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175866&cid=14627608

Some of that no longer works on Windows 7. So on windows 7 I take longer to do stuff that I used to be able to do in a split second. OS X feels even more crippling and primitive (if you ignore the looks factor).

As for winning side, on the contrary. I think everyone loses if they no longer are able to be augmented as much. From what I see you it is not impossible to have a Desktop UI that caters for novices, and still provides short-cuts for those who want further augmentation.

Don't whine on Slashdot. Apple has a feedback form for most of their applications (Address book is strangely missing, probably to stop the server from melting). If you don't like the iCal UI fill in the iCal feedback form. Tell them what a miserable pile of shite it is.

Actually, do whine on Slashdot, but tell everybody else about the feedback page.

They would do better if they were more responsive to customers (like, ok, remove Carbon if you must, but provide a downloadable compatibility layer, or open source it! Some people need this stuff).

Compatibility layer? What, like Rosetta?

And use inferior technology that is a patent minefield? At least with H.264 I can be certain that my business isn't going to be taken to court one day and I lose it all. With H.264 I don't need to worry about such, and I get better technology (and hardware decoders on almost every kind of device on planet that can show video).

You are being sarcastic right? You do know that when you purchase equipment such as cameras and software that include a H.264 license it's for non-commercial uses only right?. Let say you purchase a shiny new Mac and you purchase Final Cut Pro. Note the "pro" in the name. And you decide to produce professional video and re-distribute it. You must get a license from MPEG-LA to do that. Read the fine print in the Final Cut Pro license.

Additional use licenses and fees are required for use of information encoded in compliance with the MPEG-4 Visual Standard other than the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer (i) in connection with information which has been encoded in compliance with the MPEG-4 Visual Standard by a consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity, and/or (ii) in connection with MPEG-4 encoded video under license from a video provider. Additional information including that relating to promotional,internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com./

You mentioned "At least with H.264 I can be certain that my business isn't going to be taken to court one day and I lose it all." So I am assuming you are using MPEG-4 for commercial uses and you have contacted MPEG LA for MPEG-4 licenses for each MPEG-4 work that you use commercially correct?

But then you will suggest something like FatBooth, but in reverse... give me some abs...

Yes, not even Amazon has any sub-100 dollar bluetooth mice. And the certainly have no sub-100 dollar bluetooth keyboards either!

And don't even get me started on Apple and their price gouging 100$+ mice, keyboards and trackpads! Granted, I can't find any 100$+ keyboards, mice or trackpads on Apple's store, but I'm sure they're there! It's not like you'd just pull that 100$+ number out of your ass, right?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/nook-tablet-barnes-noble/1104687969
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Amazon-Tablet/dp/B0051VVOB2/ref=amb_link_359054002_4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0AFK4GHC3RQ6S7FCBEQR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1337057902&pf_rd_i=507846
http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-TF101-A1-10-1-Inch-Tablet-Separately/dp/B004U78J1G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323112954&sr=8-1

The results disagree with that assessment.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/