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I understand why they hate people using their products that are over thirty, but we spend a lot of money on their products. It sucks to see them intentionally make their products less useful for us.

I understand some like drinking the Hatorade like it's a fine wine...but have you tried increasing the font size?

The iMac - a minimalist, low-cost, laptop-derived machine with a CRT that was extremely easy to set up and which was design-forward - good-looking enough to put it in the center of your living area and not hide under a desk. Yeah, that was totally already done.

Are we talking about these things? The only time something like that was good enough looking to put in the living room was a short period in the 60s (if they came out in the 70s, they would have been uglier shades of orange and earthen brown). I'd rather have a beige mini-tower in comparison.

It was not exactly a stunning debut for Ive's design; he got a lot better when he discovered the joys of barely-translucent white. Most of the rest of his designs have been home runs.

This is why, ultimately, people aren't making much money on apps in general. Because they think they can just depend on the Apple model to protect their investment, when Apple really only cares on making money for themselves.

That's why they've made Developers 30 Billion (that's with a "B") Dollars on App Store Apps, and FREELY hosted FREE Apps, too.

Now, let's contrast that with the Google Play Store...

The statistics disagree: http://www.maclife.com/article...

But hey, a hater has to hate, eh?

And a fanboy has to worship.

If Jobs was so great then why did NeXT, a company completely controlled by Jobs, do so poorly?

According to this article the decision on iPod for Windows came about exactly as I described. From the article:

"We argued with Steve a bunch [about putting iTunes on Windows], and he said no," Rubenstein recalls. "Finally, Phil Schiller and I said 'we're going to do it.' And Steve said, 'F#@k you guys, do whatever you want. You're responsible.' And he stormed out of the room."

That does not sound like Jobs changed his mind. Schiller and Rubenstein did it in spite of what Jobs wanted.

Jobs was brilliant but not perfect. Jobs combined with a strong Board that can override some of his decisions is why Apple did so well. With Jobs alone you get NeXT; a failure.

Not always. I often get "The content owner has not made this video available on mobile" on my Nexus 7.

You know what you never see on your Nexus 7? Flash. Well....unless you don't upgrade to Kitkat, track down the apk and install it manually. That's not going to be a very popular option.

Nor do they offer the slightest bit of interactivity. What's the multi-platform successor to Flash games?

In spirit? Phones and mobile, produced using multi-platform game engines. I see people passing around goofy phone apps the way that they used to pass around goofy Flash games. As the closest-related technology? HTML5.

Except for PC users on satellite Internet.

Again, like I said, it depends on your audience. Honestly, I've never met anyone with satellite internet. Still, HughesNet seems to offer some plans with some decent caps at decent prices (given what the service is).

Even if one plans to export the animations to YouTube, in which non-Adobe program should one create them in the first place?

Why would it have to be a non-Adobe program to create the animation? My problem's more with Flash/SWF than Adobe products. Edge produces HTML5 content, and is the Adobe product that's meant to succeed Flash. If you'd rather ditch Adobe products completely, from what I understand, there are alternatives.

Asked and answered - disabling the animations is item number 2 in the list:
http://www.maclife.com/article/columns/terminal_101_5_mountain_lion_ui_tricks

As for having to look for where to turn on and off certain features, I would suggest that settings have to be somewhere, and where we expect that somewhere to be varies from person to person, based on experience. And if you can't find it, there's a search box in the upper right corner of the System Preferences window.

In the novel, the protagonist Winston Smith's television watched him just as he was watching it.

Interestingly, Apple has three relevant patents. The first involves concealing the camera behind a panel. These cameras could still be detected by disassembling the device and inspecting its contents, and as such will appear in any disassembly article. The second involves actually hiding the camera behind the display itself, requiring a specially-modified display panel and backlight. And finally, the real piece de resistance, and actually not the latest of these patents: A display whose image sensing elements are distributed throughout. And of course, through gaming, Microsoft has gotten in on the action too. (I didn't want anyone to think I was going to leave them out, or single Apple out...)

Before too many more people go off half-cocked, please allow me to remind everyone that every major tech company, particularly Apple, patents all sorts of crazy stuff that they never use. Here is an article detailing 10 patents from the last few years (the article is a year old) of crazy things that had /.ers (and others) predicting all sorts of weird and crazy stuff -- and not a single product has been released using any of them.

Remember when Apple patented touch gestures for the rear of an iPhone-like device? In the four or five iPhones released since then, have they ever implemented it? No. Seems doubtful they ever will at this point.

I'd wait until such a device actually exists in the wild before getting excited about it. Like a lot of companies, Apple simply builds up their patent portfolio for offensive and defensive purposes.

Yaz

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/microusb_set_european_commission_standard_smartphones
Brought to you by those commie, over-regulating Europeans.

Because your phucking brain dead don't mean the Europeans have to follow suit, If you was old enough you would know what brought on standardization, in the first place across Europe, Your a one brain cell controlled chicken chit apple zombie the who can't think for himself,

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/microusb_set_european_commission_standard_smartphones
Brought to you by those commie, over-regulating Europeans.

In general, you can do work or you can answer questions from management, but you can't do both.

Not buying it; we're not talking about some open-source, crowd-funded underdog, here - If you're really trying to convince me that communicating with customers when things go wrong is too much work for a company that has more money than the government, you've got a tough road ahead. It becomes even harder to convince me of such when taking into account Apple's history of deny, deny, deny.

Yawn. Apple commented that it was looking into the problem last night, and has now confirmed that it has been fixed.

Meanwhile: Google denies Android botnet claim, Google denies preventing anti-competition probe, Google denies 'cooking' search results,Samsung denies, and Samsung remains adamant in denying its full responsibility and unwilling to pay due compensation to all the deceased workers..

In general, you can do work or you can answer questions from management, but you can't do both.

Not buying it; we're not talking about some open-source, crowd-funded underdog, here - If you're really trying to convince me that communicating with customers when things go wrong is too much work for a company that has more money than the government, you've got a tough road ahead.

It becomes even harder to convince me of such when taking into account Apple's history of deny, deny, deny.

I can't believe I had to scroll down this far before someone pointed this out. "Apple to set up an employee cafeteria" is some kind of news item?

And what's worse is they already HAVE one...I've eaten there (2003), and it's called Cafe Macs:

http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/apple%E2%80%99s_corporate_food_court_o%E2%80%99_plenty_reviewed

http://g.co/maps/aqgpy

And yes, it's full of silly hippie food. Macrobiotic this and vegan that, although I will say they make awesome burritos (spinach tortilla).

...they're right.

Srsly. As a whole bunch of posts have said, plenty of companies have in-house cafeterias, and this is Apple's second one.

Maybe it'll save some employees the disappointment of finding out that the Little Mustard Seed isn't a sandwich shop....

I'm betting they'll take cheap diner food, put it on fancy plates, and charge 3x more for it. Amirite?

No, you're not, if its anything like Caffe Macs.

SoundJam MP.

SoundJam MP was, perhaps, the first genuinely useful MP3 application for the Macintosh. One could easily rip CDs to MP3, mix songs as one wished in playlists, and then burn them to CD.

Rip. Mix. Burn. Where have we heard that before?

It even had support built in for the few MP3 players of the time.

Review of an early incarnation of SoundJam.

Review of the final revision.

And, the ObWiki entry .

MacLife history of iTunes .

Without SoundJam MP. there would likely have been no iTunes, as Apple bought SoundJam MP, filed off the serial numbers, slapped a coat of paint on it and called it iTunes V1.0.

Well, yeah, there still would have been AN iTunes. Apple would have just bought Audion .

So, while the iPod was indeed a seachange for the portable music player (cassette/CD/digital) of the era, without the software to support it as easily and as elegantly as SoundJam, er, "iTunes", it was the software that made the iPod the success it was and remains to this day.

They've had that since the beginning: http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/seven_hidden_features_ipad_camera_connection_kit

Even a Mac site doesn't back up your number. Not even by half. Sorry.

You're off by a little.

More like 8 percent.

When you consider that there are hundreds of OEMs, 8 percent of the market is a big hairy deal.

If you want some aspect of the PPC OS/software, keep it.
My tip if you want to play with OS X get anything intel.
Always donate the PPC or put an intel motherboard in it.
eg http://www.maclife.com/forums/topic/114762/1

iPad (damn that is the WORST name, I still can't believe Steve came up with that.>

You do realize that Steve Jobs was going to call the original iMac the MacMan? Yeah. MacMan. Business technologist extraordinare he is, but he's really not good at names.

Ok, since you wanted to quibble when I picked the only part of your post that deserved a response, I'll answer the rest ;)

1) I guess that is why OSX is losing market share

Citation?

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apples_market_share_pc_world_continues_surge

(and yes I'm aware that you can perfectly well cherry pick other studies that interpret numbers in a different way. Ergo, I didn't think this was a meaningful discussion nor one worth having for any reason)

2)Do you think that windows can't dual boot?

No, it can't dualboot OSX unless you're talking hackintosh. Most people don't mess around with things like that.

3)What are you doing with your notebook that you are breaking the hinges? I suggest a tough book, they will stroke your need to have nice (read)expensive things, and they will be tougher that your macbook.

Working with hardware at a small business (including laptops for people who travel for their jobs) I can say that for us the Apple hardware lasts longer. Yeah, it's a limited data set, but it beats your sample size of zero? Again, it's not worth arguing unless somebody has any industrywide statistics to add, and AFAIK those don't exist (at least publicly).

To be fair, Expose was WONDERFUL, but its currently dated with web browsers being tabbed, and the rise of dual monitor systems.

You asked an opinion question, I gave you an opinion question. I fail to see how any other opinion here has any relevance to mine... Especially since you haven't even mentioned anything better in Windows 7.

And out of curiosity, how does OSX render fonts better than Windows7?

I already said I prefer it.

OS X Loses Market Share for Fourth Straight Month http://www.maclife.com/article/news/os_x_loses_market_share_fourth_straight_month

Your highly selective reading and responding to my posts matches up quite nicely with your highly selective picking of sales numbers.

Okay, Dells numbers should be falling greatly, noticeable AND those numbers are going to Apple. Let's look at overall sales numbers?

Yes let's! I'll respond to this paragraph again at the bottom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/technology/19compute.html

Apple also picked up market share in the United States, growing to 5 percent, from 4 percent, as its shipments increased 30 percent, according to Gartner. Apple grew faster than any other PC maker in the United States, Gartner said.

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apples_market_share_pc_world_continues_surge

or http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/14/apple_sells_estimated_1_4m_macs_in_us_to_capture_8_market_share.html

Research firm Gartner said that Apple was the fifth-largest PC seller in the U.S. for the three-month quarter to start 2010. An estimated 1.398 million Macs were shipped in the States, and Apple only lagged behind HP, Dell, Acer and Toshiba.

Looking back 6 years...

http://www.macworld.com/article/43741/2005/03/marketshare.html

Apple's desktop market share in the United States for the fourth quarter of 2004 was 2.88 percent (and 2.06% q4 2003)

So in those 7 years Apple managed to almost quadruple their marketshare (2.06 to 8.0, 6% or 3.8x). Dell lost 9%. HP gained 3%. etc.

http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Dell/10-Things-Dell-Must-Do-to-Catch-Up-to-HP-221568/

Obviously primarily an opinion piece with many facts, but does this sound like anything I've been saying about Dell / Apple?

1. Keep It Simple
Dell tries to do too much. The company has spent the last few years attempting to be the company that satisfies any potential buyer. That's a mistake. HP has shown that simplicity will reign supreme in the computing market. That company has gone out of its way to provide customers with several options that will satisfy them in one way or another. Dell should follow suit. Its buying process is a mess that's overrun with customization options. Even its product offerings are all over the place. Enough is enough. Keep it simple, Dell. That's what customers want.

Okay, Dells numbers should be falling greatly, noticeable AND those numbers are going to Apple. Let's look at overall sales numbers?

Dell loses ~8%, Apple gains about 6%. Those are the numbers. You don't think that's significant? Really?

Dell has closed or is closing almost all of their facilities in the US, including a factory building ~5 years ago near where I live. Should this tell you anything?

given the success of the Apple store
Success, measured in what why? Compared to what?

Success meaning that they are profitable! Success meaning that they have helped quadruple Apple marketshare in the last 6-7 years. Success meaning that while others like Gateway tried--and failed--to open branded computer stores, Apple is opening more every month. Is this really that difficult to see?

Apple has been so popular over the past decade

Popular means going from 2% of the computer market to 8% in 6-7 years. It means everybody in the WORLD knowing what an iPod, and a lot of them having one! It means 1.7 million iphones sold in 3 days at prices higher than most Android phones (and none of the 2 for 1 deals). It means virtually every

There's no indication of something like that happening anytime soon. Not sure? Then ask Steve Jobs:
He actually said there won't be any Mac App Store, and that the rumors about the Mac dying are "completely wrong". Furthermore, rumors about the iPhone 4 cutting into Mac OS X development are false.

I understand that Apple hate is crazy high in Slashdot lately, but I'll say about 50% or more is all about blind fanaticism.

Funny, most of the "Apple hate" that I've seen at Slashdot lately has been perfectly cogent and justified. Of course, that could be due to the moderation system filtering out the cruft. I admit that the grandparent post was sensational and misleading, but in at least one case, it was a minor correction away from truth.

Meanwhile no apps can be accepted at the App Store if they even mention Google...

If you replace "Google" with "Android" in that quote, there is at least some precedent. This page claims that an author was asked to remove an [innocuous] Android reference from his iPhone application.

Actually, unless the engine is redesigned for the platform, often they DO suck. Think about the hundreds of games that were great on PC but absolutely dogshit on a more powerful gaming system, or going from PC to Mac.

Uh, what? First, a decent PC is always equivalent to or more powerful than a game console. Sure, an Xbox 360 has three PowerPC chips and a fat GPU, but these days a triple-core Athlon is about $75 and you can probably build the whole box for less than the 360 and a couple of wireless controllers. Even when it was the new hotness you could build a PC faster than it, it would only cost you more money.

Also, the only time Apple has ever had machines faster than the typical PC was during the earlier parts of the PowerPC era. You paid a substantial price premium in those days; the premium is 0-25% today, with higher-end Apple laptops in particular achieving price parity with higher-end non-Apple PC laptops; it was 25-50% then, pretty much across the board. Some things cost even more; My mom's $8,000 Macintosh IIci system was about equivalent to a $5,000 PC system with more processing power... but back then, there were compelling reasons to use a Mac for desktop publishing, largely the fact that Adobe applications could be counted on to crash more than the Windows 3.11 or NT 3.51 you ran them on. Today, Apple machines are slower than the competition because they are so slow to being out new hardware revisions. Apple's the only major manufacturer without a quad-core laptop, for example. How long has this situation persisted? I was talking about buying a MBP if they would just put a quad core in there what seems like years ago.

Anyway, the point of this performance-oriented rant is that you simply couldn't port a game from PC to Mac and have it work if you were trying to go from a 486 to a 68030. Apple's machines lagged in performance too long to attract game developers. It has nothing to do with shitty ports and everything to do with shitty Macs. Now that Macs are no longer shitty, Apple is dealing with years of neglect. Period, the end.

FYI, even if you use your own key, Mozy only encrypts the contents, not the filenames. That's rather insufficient. A court could subpoena them for a list of your files, establish that particular files exists, and require you to produce them. See http://michaelshadle.com/2007/05/07/mozy-the-backup-client-damn-close-but-still-no-cigar/

Plug: In 2006 I founded https://spideroak.com/ specifically to provide a zero-knowledge approach to online backups. We don't know anything about your data, including your file and foldernames. On the servers we just see sequentially numbered data blocks. It's written in Python and C and we've always supported Linux and OS X (and Windows if that's what you're into.) SpiderOak keeps historical versions of your files and deleted files forever (or until you decide to remove them) and will sync folders for you across several computers. Some reviews are http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6644/1/ and http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/online_storage_battle_which_cloud_backup_service_reigns_supreme