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Apple cheat though. Their customers are brainwashed pod people who make excuses for pretty much any abuse by Apple E.g.

http://www.macworld.com/article/131991/2008/02/ipodtouch.html

The iPod touch software update released at last month's Macworld Expo added applications that already appeared on the iPhone along with other new features. But it also delivered some confusion among iPod touch owners who wondered why they were being charged $19.99 for a software update.

It turns out Apple didn't have much of a choice about charging for the iPod touch January software update, according to analysts familiar with accounting regulations.

"It's an accounting requirement that if you upgrade a device that's not on a subscription, you have to charge," Needham and Company financial analyst Charles Wolf said. "Apple has a choice of what to charge, but they have to charge."

Yeah, he only hits me cuz he loves me. Bwahahaha.

As they say, any press is good press. The unwashed masses are only hearing "Apple, Apple, Apple".

unless it's a cider press. those are bad for apples.

Funny, I thought cider press was *good* for apple.

DRM was required by the recording industry. Back when iTunes was the little guy and RIA held all the cards it was a different story. Cut to today and iTunes is huge. It sets the industry standard for track pricing and is arguably a primary source for music online. Apple actually leveraged iTunes and it's substantial market share to get the RIA to drop DRM. Jobs has always disliked DRM. Only after agreeing to allow the RIA to hike the costs for individual tracks beyond the typical 99 cents.

http://www.macworld.com/article/138009/2009/01/drm_free.html

Now we're very happy with the solution.

Does OSX have a better security record?

Can't Apple produce 15" or 13" laptops without that damn glossy display? These mirrors mounted on laptops get really annoying, and I'm not the only one who thinks that non-glossy displays are superior to their allegedly cheaper glossy displays.

One more guy who's looking for a used MBP on ebay.

Why buy used? There are other options for anti-glare screens.

You can't really be so sure about the impending death of desk/laptops. I believe you may have missed the Google outage that had cloud users in an uproar last week: http://www.macworld.com/article/140641/2009/05/googleoutage.html . I think the general web-using public finally learned you can get burned by not running apps on your own desktop/laptop, or by not storing your own data.

Yeah the size of the update was a shock this morning, let me miss my usual train too. From what i've read http://www.macworld.com/article/140578/2009/05/1057update.html the update does a lot more than is actually said (big surprise with the size), even though most of those things aren't directly visible. What i have found is that my dashboard updates a lot faster than before, as i have two standard weather widgets open at all times i guess they really optimized the code there. Normally it would take at least 5-10 seconds to update the display after opening the dashboard, now it's almost instantenous. Anyone else notice this too?

And the appstore will be renamed to iPhone live - where you can only rent apps.

But Dr Evil, thats already happened.

With Jobs on the sidelines, we're back to the Sculley era at Apple...

You're talking out of your ass. Jobs is not on the sidelines. He's too much of a control freak to let Tim Cook or anyone else sabotage the juggernaut he helped to create. If you think Sculley's Apple will make a comeback then you're mistaken and don't know history.

Apple isn't desperate for low-level buzz dealing with obscure hirings. They can leak a single photo or make a "mistake" on the web store and dominate the news cycle for 2 weeks.

This smacks of Verizon using vaporware to kill the hype around iPhone OS 3.0 (as suggested by Roughly Drafted), someone trying to give Verizon's stock a bump with an Apple rumpr (a tactic that previously hasn't been very well hidden) or perhaps Apple trying to gain some leverage in its negotiations with ATT.

Link. Apple allowed it, then (I'm assuming) AT&T complained, and Apple removed it.

According to this article by Peter Cohen from Macworld, Macheist beat them to it. Macheist gave their members free Mac applications if they would tweet about the Macheist bundle.

Again, wrong. Not insightful, wrong.

The 15" MBP claims a battery life of 5 hrs. Dell claims a battery life of 7 hrs for their comparable Latitude E6500 with the extended battery.

Dell: 5.2 pounds, 1-1.3" inches thick (depending on battery)
Mac: 6.6 pounds, 1 inch think (at least according to you)

According to Macworld, the 2.4 Ghz 15" MBPs have a ~2.5 hour battery life. The Dell was recently tested with a 9-cell battery at ~1.5 hours, though you can add a 12-cell battery on top of that to get somewhere in the range 3-4 hours, I'd estimate.

It's not HALF the size, it does NOT have 4x the battery life, is not vastly superior in build quality (I've seen both) and "user experience" is a vague, nebulous, and dubious term used only by Mac fanboys.

So you're going to pay $700 more for a quarter inch?

The difference between the PowerBook and the MacBook is due to a change it Apples default settings, not due to anything hardware wise. See this old article.

Just a day or so ago, Cydia (the awesome package manager for jailbroken iPhones used by reportedly more than 2million iPhones) launched a new app store of its own.

There have always been paid apps for jailbroken phones, but usually they would require you to go to the developer's or another web site to purchase the app. Now however, it appears that not only can you write apps that have full access to the device and without censorship, you can also use the Cydia store for a seamless shopping experience.

The Wall Street Journal and others have more information.

Granted, this doesn't give you exposure in the App store and there are issues with dealing with jailbreaking your phone, but it does provide iPhone developers and users with a choice.

In another news, google rewards users with G1 developer phones by blocking paid apps for them. http://www.macworld.com/article/139045/2009/02/google_g1.html

WTF are you talking about, here is info on 3rd party browsers for the iphone.

Anyway, the iphone is nowhere close to being the monopoly that MS Windows is. I still see more blackberries than I do iphones on a daily basis.

Helio had this available in 2006 They called it "Buddy Beacon":

Buddy Beacon is the new way for Helio members to synchronize their social lives and tell friends where the fun is. Rather than calling or texting, Helio members can switch on their Buddy Beacon and use satellite technology to broadcast their location to the friends they add to their Buddy List. When they turn on Buddy Beacon, their Buddy List friends can see their location on a map along with a nearby address. Members can add up to 25 Buddies to their Buddy List. When members change locations and want to let everyone know the party is on the move, one simple command refreshes the location. Want to hide out? Just leave Buddy Beacon off to enjoy a night of privacy or to slip out the back of the club into the VIP room."

That's been out since 2006. It's been available for the iPhone since April 2008. Google is late to the party on this.

So open source isn't immune to adware.

Proponents of Microsoft often cite their market share as being the reason for bullshitwares' authors' attraction to their OS.

With only 1% desktop share, the last thing that needs to be associated with the word "open" is this kind of crap. Microsoft are the worst [citation not needed], but Apple are also bad. I haven't been this pissed since Sun tried to push Yahoo fucking toolbar into their garden-variety Java install.

While I hate proprietary DRM formats, the proprietary device charge may not be true:
http://www.macworld.com/article/138696/2009/02/kindle_iphone.html

http://www.macworld.com/article/138240/2009/01/triumvirate.html?lsrc=rss_main

I'm out of iTunes installs, and can't deauthorize anything since all those computers are dead/recycled.

When you're in that position, there should be an option in iTunes to deauthorize all computers. Have a look here and here for more details on the exact procedure. Once you're done, just re-authorize your current computer(s).

I haven't had to do this yet but I may have to soon, since even an OS reinstall on the same machine is counted against you.

I might have to do it, I'm out of iTunes installs, and can't deauthorize anything since all those computers are dead/recycled.

Yes you can.

IIRC, you can only do this once a year or so.

-jcr

The last time I had this issue, I used the steps here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/49193/2006/01/deauthorall.html

also: http://drcorner.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/deauthorizing-all-the-pcs-on-your-itunes-account/

It worked just fine, though some apparently Apple restricts you to only doing this once per year. That's a strange restriction, and I really can't fathom a reason for it.

I agree that it's all very silly. I no longer buy from DRM-encumbered digital downloads, and I only buy physical media upon-which I can exercise my fair-use rights. That said, of all of the digital download DRM schemes out there, Apple's is really one of the most lenient. That said, it's kinda like saying that stabbing yourself in the fleshy part of the arm is one of the better ways to stab yourself.

Leopard has this capability built in.
Parental Controls

Surely blocking porn is enough? Blocking anything else is a cat and mouse game. You can be sure that they will figure out how to defeat the filtering anyways.

Obama is an iPod user and someone lent him a Zune. Shame, that was not was not spotted before Slashdot was used as another Wintel advertisement vehicle for the very failed Zune players. Knowing M$, they had W.E. slip him one so they could splash the story around for Christmas. Sorry, Steve, it won't work.

People looking for a music player should buy a used iPod and install Rockbox. You keep good quality hardware out of a landfill and get software freedom for a better price than a Zune that way.

That means it accounts for about 22% of Windows computers, or 1 in 4.4. Since Vista has been out for over two years now

I did a little reconnoiter-ing around the web-site to see what Apple's adoption rate is for comparison: you can see here that MacIntel surpassed Mac OS (the powerPC chip) in September of 2007. Apple first started shipping Intel processors in January of 2006. So ~1.8 years from when the first started shipping, they reached 50% saturation of the new product. Granted, it's not the same thing as Vista versus XP because there's no way to upgrade a powerpc computer to an Intel, but most people seem to be installing Vista on new computers, so maybe it's not that bad of a comparison. Maybe people who were buying macs were buying them more often, or maybe they really had a lot of new buyers whereas MS has pretty much saturated its market.

Another comparison might be made from the point releases of Mac OS X: from the 2008 keynote, Jobs said they achieved 20% install-base with leopard (10.5) in 3 months. However, that was just a point release, it's not a very big decision to upgrade or anything. The best comparison might be for the uptake of Mac OS 9 versus 10.0, but I'm having trouble finding data on that one.

Of course, do you trust Apple to report this data honestly?

Maybe they know they will get more money if they could sell files without DRM?

If they were in the business of profiting from those sales, sure. Since they're not, why would they care about selling more?

Apple claims that operate just over the break-even point with the iTunes store. I'm not sure if they're lying about that as well, but it's pretty clear that at the very least, a large amount of the motivation behind the iTunes store is to sell hardware.

The regular people favor convenience over free and DRM-less already. So no loss there.

You do realize that's an argument in my favor, right? You're implying they don't have much to lose by implementing DRM, and I've given you reasons why it benefits them. Thanks?

And they don't need the DRM for "lock in". They already have that as there is nothing as convenient, good looking and easy to use as iPod/iPhone.

Let's assume that's true. There's certainly an overall public impression that it is true anyway. So people buy iPods because they're by far the best hardware around. They shop at iTunes because it's convenient to sync with the iPod over it (notice that they try to block you from syncing with any software...going as far as encrypting the internal database in the latest iPod models, which prevents other people from writing software that can sync to it. They also prevent people from installing rockbox on the latest models via encryption, which again, means that you can't sync with any software other than iTunes or switch to a firmware that will let you sync with other software). Now somebody else comes out with the iPod killer. It's a badass mp3 player, it has features you can't imagine living without. Well, you're going to buy one instead of the new ipod model, right?

Shit, that's right. You bought all those songs that only work on the iPod. I guess the new iPod model will have to do. And you WILL have to buy a new model, because your battery will stop charging after a few years and it's not user-replaceable. Sure, you can pay them $100 to replace the battery, but if you add just a little bit more cash, you get a new ipod with the new bells and whistles!

But maybe the DRM will exist even if the media companies didn't force them to implement it. But this is unclear.

Nah, it's pretty clear. Like I said, they've implemented their own version of lock-in features over stuff that has nothing to do with media. Like the iPod itunes database, and the iPod bootloader to prevent you from loading rockbox.

List is maintained by Spotlight. There are also Smart Folders in Mail.app.

http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/using-smart-folders-in-mac-os-x/153429
http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=172
http://www.macworld.com/article/60386/2007/10/handcode.html

Apple allows three distribution channels:

1) App store
2) Ad-hoc (does everyone think that developers install their apps during development through the App store?)
3) In-house via iTunes. There's an IT installation path.

http://www.macworld.com/article/133892/2008/06/it_iphoneapps.html

Apple's distribution path isn't conceptually any different from Google's, rather that some channels are more preferred over others. So if this is fine for Google, then it's fine for Apple as well.

BTW, many people don't know that Target Disk mode *also* gives the host Mac access to whatever is in the target Mac's optical drive. Very handy for certain tasks.

http://macworld.com/article/57005/2007/03/tdmoptical.html

overpriced

I thought we'd dispelled the myth that Apple's computers were significantly overpriced.

Oh wait, you were trolling. In that case, nevermind.

Shit! I guess the only anti-Apple argument left is that Apple Computers are gay.

overpriced

I thought we'd dispelled the myth that Apple's computers were significantly overpriced.

Oh wait, you were trolling. In that case, nevermind.

Your assumptions are incorrect.

Either of the bottom corners can be configured for secondary click - so if anything, it's better than the current single click - http://www.macworld.com/article/136063/2008/10/macbook_first_look.html

You can program either the bottom right or left corner of the trackpad to act as a secondary mouse button. In other words, if you click in the bottom corner of the trackpad, it can be registered as a right-click. So the no-button laptop can act as a two-button laptop after all. (Thereâ(TM)s no support for any additional button mappings, however.)

Apple does say that they cannot find any evidence to support the claim, unlike how the story here portrays the issue. But why would anybody trust anything on /. anymore?

http://www.macworld.com/article/135835/2008/10/macpro_benzene.html
If there's no proof of the claim, then can Apple sue the French "scientist" for damage to their business?

Choosing between a family vacation and a new iMac isn't going to go in Apple's favor. If they are going to remain relevant in a tough economy, they are going to have to seriously lower their prices

While I can't explain why, while we are in a tough economy now Apple's sales are actually good.

In case this Google news topic disappears:

• "Survey: Next 90 days look good for Apple"
• "Survey: Plans to buy a Mac hit an all-time high"
• "Survey: Apple riding high on news of economic woes"
• "Next 90 Days Look Good for Apple despite Consumer Electronics Spending Down"
• "Mac sales may hit record highs despite decline in consumer spending"
• "Consumer electronics spending down, but not for Apple"
• "ChangeWave: Apple Mac planned purchases for next 90 days hit new all-time high"
• "Demand for Macs remains high in spite of spending"
• "Report: Mac Spending Up Despite Poor Outlook for Consumer Electronics"

Falcon

It's been in development "for years" and there's no Apple version?

Blizzard had that from the get-go, so does Spore.

Looks like EA needs to catch a clue, since some estimates of planned purchases of name brand computers now have Mac approaching 30%.

That looks like a potentially large chunk of revenue to be losing out on.

Because then you don't have to get the user to do anything but look at a webpage? And I apologize if i didn't pick the best examples,I just grabbed two out of the 702,000 hits I got in Google for "JavaScript Firefox Exploit". I'm sure if you put that into Google you can find much better examples.

Let us be honest here,and while I admit I'm no security expert by any stretch of the imagination,I have been building and locking down Windows boxes since the days of DOS 4 and Win3.x. So I have had experience in fixing them and trying to keep them from getting hacked. My question is this: Who thought it would be a wonderful idea to run code straight from a website? I mean when you think about it,and get past all the "Web 2.0" buzz,it seems more than a little crazy. Just as I said when ActiveX came out "This is a bad idea" and it turned out to be. Why? Because there is a hell of a lot more bad guys in the world,and the number keeps growing every day. I watched as malware went from a troll toy "I'm in ur computer erasing all ur files" kind of crap to a multi billion dollar identity theft and spam botnet business. With that kind of money on the line it is no wonder JavaScript has become so dangerous.

But please,don't believe me,just do some reading yourself. Just typing "JavaScript Exploit" into Google,the first five hits had a JavaSript exploit for iPhone,one for Adobe Acrobat,one for IE with ActiveX,and finally,since I mentioned "Web 2.0" one for AJAX apps. The simple fact is that JavaScript gives the malware writers a common target. They don't know if you are running IE,FF,or a smaller browser like Kmeleon. They don't know if you have REAL player,or iTunes. But they know that there is one place where their code will run almost every time,and that is JavaScript. If we are really going to push this "cloud computing" idea,and ramp up use of JavaScript,then we need to find ways to make it safer to run. Because in it's current incarnation I have found my customers rates of infection go down by nearly 80% by simply killing JavaScript with Noscript. But as always this is my 02c based on what I'm seeing here in userland,YMMV

On May 6, 2008, Microsoft announced that it had sold just over 2 million Zunes. Roughly one million of those were sold since the second generation Zunes launched in November 2007.

So there's roughly 1 million second generation Zunes sold from Nov. 2007-May 2008.

Contrast that to the 22.1 million iPods sold from Oct. 2007-December 2007. That would be 21.1 million more iPods in a four month less span of time. I'm sure this trend continues through FY 2008 as well.

And JUST FOR YOU....http://www.macworld.com/article/131874/2008/01/ipodsales.html There, happy now?

The iPhone 2.0 software has a serious bug that renders all iphones useless. Apple has released 2 updates since the release of 2.0 software and this issue has not been solved. This is a serious problem. The iPhone right now as it is.... is a waste of money. Do not buy it. Read on. Apple refuses to describe the bugs it fixes, so we dont know what they're doing with these updates, and they have not acknowledged this issuse. Many iPhone users are left in the dark.

http://www.macworld.com/article/134923/2008/08/iphonedebug.html#commentsjump

http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/08/07/white-apple-logo-screen-of-death-stops-iphones-in-their-tracks/

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1600894&tstart=25&start=500

Macworld is now reporting this...

http://www.macworld.com/article/134923/2008/08/iphonedebug.html#commentsjump

Read TFA, googled a little. It seems like I'm missing something. It seems they simply charge outrageous markup on generic, mediocre Intel systems. Throw in a moderately cheap-looking case and charge $155 for the OS installation. What's new here?

If this was back when Apple was using PowerPC processors, maybe they'd have a point. But I don't see this as being a "clone" of a Mac, because clone implies hardware and this (and the Mac's) hardware is the same as everyone else's.

It is pronounced "quill", and it isn't Irish for "knowledge" either. Good job there, guys. Maybe if your search engine could, oh, find an Irish/English dictionary...

At WWDC, it was mentioned that there would be something called Universal Push Notification. Some explanation here. It seems you will be able to push either badges (that will attach to your app's icon), custom alert sounds, or overlay text messages (I assume like MSN chat does), which will overlay any currently running app.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any reference to this on their developer web site, which miserably has no search functionality. Yes, that's right, I am also developing for the iPhone. What have I developed? Why, the iVibe. Exactly what it does is left to your imagination. No, it is not yet on the Apple store. Coming soon, for better or for worse.

Comix:
Ctrl-Alt-Del http://www.cad-comic.com/
Diesel Sweeties http://dieselsweeties.com/
Questionable Content http://www.questionablecontent.net/
Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/
xkcd http://xkcd.com/

Blogs:
Warren Ellis http://www.warrenellis.com/
Thighs Wide Shut http://thighswideshut.org/
Kids with Guns http://patrickben.livejournal.com/

Geeky Blogs/Mags:
Boing Boing http://www.boingboing.net/
Cool Hunting
365 Tomorrows
Grinding.be http://grinding.be/
io9 http://io9.com/
Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/
Slashdot
Wired http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
AppleInsider http://www.appleinsider.com/
Macenstein http://macenstein.com/default
The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/
Macworld http://www.macworld.com/

Dirty Stuff:
Fleshbot http://fleshbot.com/tag/straight
FlickrBabes http://flickrbabes.com/
UseMyComputer http://usemycomputer.com/
Homocidal Insomniac http://homicidalinsomniac.blogspot.com/

News:
Salon http://www.salon.com/

For every apple success there is a history of modern flops such as: apple hifi, apple tv mk 1, the cube, xserve raid, etc

As Xserve was replaced by the Xsan 2 I wouldn't necessarily call it a flop. Now I didn't find any sales or marketshare data for the Xserve so I can't say whether it failed or not.

Did they determine those specs using the same calculations Mac used.

They can sell 10 million, easy:

http://www.macworld.com/article/133636/2008/05/10_million_iphones.html

The iPhone will easily top 10 million in 2008. For a concise and logical explanation as to why, read this:

http://www.macworld.com/article/133636/2008/05/10_million_iphones.html

whj