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UMTS is the next generation of GSM, and is based on W-CDMA. That makes it a closer relation to Qualcomm's CMDA2000 (the 2G rival to GSM used by Sprint/Verizon Wireless in the US and the common standard in Japan).

However, while 3G UMTS uses W-CDMA rather that GSM's TDMA, it is not supported by Qualcomm. For the 3G of mobile networks, 2G GSM and 2G CDMA2000 carriers were supposed to unify the world under one new standard: W-CDMA UMTS. The U stands for Universal. Such a system would be a lot more like GSM than CDMA2000 in principle: interoperable.

There are problems. For starters, Qualcomm decided to push their own incompatible WCDMA version to rival UMTS, so they'd be assured to make more money. This is like Microsoft using MPEG-4 H.263 as the basis for Windows Media/VC-1, and then using it to compete against the MPEG-4 H.264 standard. Qualcomm hates interoperability as much as Microsoft. Giving either Qualcomm or Microsoft the credit for introducing bastardized versions of standards is questionable.

The other roadblock for UMTS being universal is that it has been built out in Europe and Japan (FOMA) using frequencies that aren't available in the US. That's why AT&T's UMTS isn't the same. A chipset can operate on two different frequencies, but this is still quite a bit more expensive and not widespread enough to be affordable yet, as AT&T's UMTS network is mainly available just in big cities. Slightly worse is the fact that T-Mobile in the US also operates UMTS service on a third set of incompatible frequencies. Having US providers of UMTS fractured between frequencies is preventing economies of scale from working.

In contrast, AT&T, T-Mobile, and European 2G GSM all operate on two out of four different frequency bands, and are common enough that quad-band GSM phones are easy and cheap to build.

A dual-frequency 3G UMTS iPhone could help standardize and cheapen the chipsets required to deliver worldwide UMTS, due to its broad branding, popularity, and common development platform. That could in turn help push other manufacturers toward delivering phone sets that support worldwide UMTS service, and bring things back to the kind of interoperability GSM provided for 2G networks.

Another problem for UMTS is that it requires far more intensive signal processing than earlier protocols, so battery life is a problem when using it. Ubiquitous WiFi might be a better solution.

Readers Write About iPhone, 3G Wireless Networks

Microsoft actually supported Firewire before getting USB complete, particularly USB 2.0, where the two standards overlap in certain areas. While Firewire was invented by Apple, Microsoft also actually delivered support for IP over Firewire first (several years first), although I doubt many people used it on Windows because most PCs that have Firewire only have the 4-pin, non-powered version like Sony's iLink. Mini-to-mini Firewire cables are not too common.

Apple didn't support IP over Firewire networking until around 10.3.5 IIRC. Now that it's there, it is actually quite useful on Macs as a secondary network interface, since all modern Macs have FW400 and many now have FW800 too. Macs also have smart enough firmware to use Firewire in Target Mode, which is a significant feature other PCs won't match anytime soon.

The new FW3200 uses the same connector as FW800, an advantage over the different and more complex USB 3.0 connector.

Another advantage of Firewire is that it provides higher voltage for charging, so it can power more significant devices and can recharge devices faster. It's noticiably faster to charge iPods/iPhone over Firewire. The 30-pin Dock Connector has Firewire compatible pins for charging, even though modern iPods don't support Firewire for data exchange.

There's really no reason for Apple to drop Firewire, and it will be difficult for PC makers to match the features of Macs even when including Firewire ports on their PCs. Not only do BIOS PCs lack any firmware support for target mode use, but Microsoft dropped IP over Firewire in Vista (!). USB 3.0 might bump the speed for new devices, but it doesn't match the Firewire-related features that exist now, and doesn't match the throughput of FW3200, which is also in the pipeline.

Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008
What's Apple going to be up to in 2008? The previous article looked at clues from the Newton MessagePad to the iPhone. Here's a look at the potential future of the rest of Apple's businesses, from hardware to software to services.

You've used Java on your PC, but have you used WinCE? That's what Microsoft's HDi is based on, the rival to BR's features software. Of course, nobody cares much about bonus features. People want to watch movies, not hours of junk about the movie, but trying to talk smack about BR Java is silly when it's used to defend a more ridiculous authoring environment from the maker of Vista-Zune.

The other software bit is the codec: do we want Microsoft's Windows Media 9 (VC-1, based on proprietary extensions to H.263) to become a widespread standard, or would we rather have an ISO MPEG industry consortium that nobody fully controls? VC-1 is backed by Microsoft and its close satellite nations, and rubber stamped by SMPTE (which is videophile for 'ECMA'). Microsoft's codecs are dead everywhere else but HD (WMA players, stores, Zune, video), so the death of HD-DVD was important to prevent an infection of home theater with Microsoft's advances. Yes, Microsoft got VC-1 licensing pushed into the BR spec, but nobody is using it.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

You've used Java on your PC, but have you used WinCE? That's what Microsoft's HDi is based on, the rival to BR's features software. Of course, nobody cares much about bonus features. People want to watch movies, not hours of junk about the movie, but trying to talk smack about BR Java is silly when it's used to defend a more ridiculous authoring environment from the maker of Vista-Zune.

The other software bit is the codec: do we want Microsoft's Windows Media 9 (VC-1, based on proprietary extensions to H.263) to become a widespread standard, or would we rather have an ISO MPEG industry consortium that nobody fully controls? VC-1 is backed by Microsoft and its close satellite nations, and rubber stamped by SMPTE (which is videophile for 'ECMA'). Microsoft's codecs are dead everywhere else but HD (WMA players, stores, Zune, video), so the death of HD-DVD was important to prevent an infection of home theater with Microsoft's advances. Yes, Microsoft got VC-1 licensing pushed into the BR spec, but nobody is using it.

Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles

The "says who" could be answered with a Googling, if you weren't so damned lazy.

In October, Changewave found that not only were 95% of iPhone users satisfied, 82% were "very satisfied," compared to only 51% for RIM blackberry users, 45%-31% ratings on the other phones, with Motorola, Sony Ericsson bringing up the rear. Nokia, Samsung, and Palm were all at 35%. Satisfaction reports for the iPhone are actually up from months prior, so its not like reality hasn't sunk in yet. People who bought it like it.

That's a pretty large difference in satisfaction ratings. Changewave says they interview a pool of 3000 people. Sales, buzz, use reports (web stats) all suggest that's an accurate appraisal. Anyone can manufacture bullshit hype for a few months, but you can't keep it going for a year without delivering the product and actually impressing people.

Do us a favor and stop insisting that reality can't be happening. It's tiresome.

Also, nobody cares that people in the UK have to pay more. They make more. They pay more for everything, from the Xbox to software to CDs. You have high taxes. Don't try to tell me you pay more for the iPhone because of Apple. You pay more because you have really high taxes and O2 thinks they can rip you off for service plans as well. Get a better job or move somewhere cheaper. It's not Apple's fault you live where you do.

Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied - Changewave

iPhone Grabs 27% of US Smartphone Market
Last month, after Apple beat its announced goal of selling a million iPhones by the end of September a couple weeks in advance, Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider announced that Apple was convolutedly "below plan" for meeting its 90 day goal in 74 days, and figured that Apple would only be able to sell about half of its longer term 2008 goal of 10 million phones. A month later, Frommer is now pointing out that Apple has 27% of the US smartphone market.

It's something that's obvious to anyone who appreciates design and elegance. It's the same thing to regular mobile phones that the Mac was to the PCs of the mid 80s.

I can only assume that you also saw nothing there. As much as I hate using the broad brush, most slashdotters would likely agree that there is nothing big about the user interface, and that the CLI is more comfortable, faster, and gets the job done better. From that perspective, it's hard to see why anyone would prefer the iPhone over something with specifications like the N95.

Anyone who wants a removable battery, an SD slot instead of 8 GB Flash, and lots of potential rather than lots of ready usability is always going to prefer make installing over drag and drop, PCs over Macs, and a Java compiler over a multitouch combination of safari/itunes.

There's nothing wrong with that, but a larger portion of the world doesn't want to fix everything all the time, they just want things that work. Most people want a car where you turn the key and push a pedal, not a bunch of mechanical parts to painstakingly assemble and tune in a garage. Most people want to live in a finished house rather than a fix-er-upper. Most people want a computer that just works, not a 24/7 experiment in scripting. Most people want a little device that slides through the web and plays their music, not an assortment of scripts that turn LPs into Ogg files for playback via a streaming server to a handheld Ubuntu PC running VLC.

It's okay, I admire your ability to deal with complexity and yes I realize you can do smart things I can't. There's no danger of the things you like all going away for products that just work. There'll always be mechanics and tinkerers and programmers and robot makers, but the world isn't a bunch of sharp young people with too much time on their hands. Some of us just want shit to work without having to think about it so we can think about other things.

That's why the iPhone captured a lot of attention. It wasn't a mind control act or huge misleading of a public demanding a phone kit running Linux.

If the iPhone didn't deliver, it wouldn't have 95% satisfaction ratings compared to 50% blackberrys and 30% basic smartphones, and the hype would have collapsed as fast as the Zune bubble.

The "I can't believe everyone's such a sucker" thing is so 2007. If you want to express an arrogant disdain for people who prefer simplicity and elegance, be my guest, but don't profess a disbelief in reality, because that's actually far more irritating.

Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008
What's Apple going to be up to in 2008? The previous article looked at clues from the Newton MessagePad to the iPhone. Here's a look at the potential future of the rest of Apple's businesses, from hardware to software to services.

Dvorak looks back at another crappy career year.

On the fault behind Vista's problems:
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 7 - Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC
"Microsoft, in the end, gets blamed for all the flaws while watching Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other ungrateful recipients of its goodwill to make fortunes off the Windows platform." April 2007

PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Dvorak's great Mac Intel prediction in 2003 was that Apple would migrate to Itanium by the end of 2004.

Thoughts on the iPhone:
The iPhone is "trending against what people are really liking in phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. The BlackJack, the Samsung, the BlackBerry obviously pushes this kind of thing. The Palm, all of these. I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong. But I think Apple can do wrong, and I think this is it." January 2007
"there is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive," March 2007
iPhone only delivers "40 minutes of talk time" and "the interface fouls up constantly." April 2007
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone." March 2007
"I no longer believe in the concept [of a pocket-sized computer], after being slapped by reality once too often. When the iPhone came along, I was already sour on the entire idea." April 2007
"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me." June 2007
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics

John Dvorak: How Wrong Can One Guy Be?

Dvorak looks back at another crappy career year.

On the fault behind Vista's problems:
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 7 - Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC
"Microsoft, in the end, gets blamed for all the flaws while watching Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other ungrateful recipients of its goodwill to make fortunes off the Windows platform." April 2007

PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Dvorak's great Mac Intel prediction in 2003 was that Apple would migrate to Itanium by the end of 2004.

Thoughts on the iPhone:
The iPhone is "trending against what people are really liking in phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. The BlackJack, the Samsung, the BlackBerry obviously pushes this kind of thing. The Palm, all of these. I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong. But I think Apple can do wrong, and I think this is it." January 2007
"there is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive," March 2007
iPhone only delivers "40 minutes of talk time" and "the interface fouls up constantly." April 2007
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone." March 2007
"I no longer believe in the concept [of a pocket-sized computer], after being slapped by reality once too often. When the iPhone came along, I was already sour on the entire idea." April 2007
"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me." June 2007
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics

John Dvorak: How Wrong Can One Guy Be?

Dvorak looks back at another crappy career year.

On the fault behind Vista's problems:
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 7 - Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC
"Microsoft, in the end, gets blamed for all the flaws while watching Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other ungrateful recipients of its goodwill to make fortunes off the Windows platform." April 2007

PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Dvorak's great Mac Intel prediction in 2003 was that Apple would migrate to Itanium by the end of 2004.

Thoughts on the iPhone:
The iPhone is "trending against what people are really liking in phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. The BlackJack, the Samsung, the BlackBerry obviously pushes this kind of thing. The Palm, all of these. I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong. But I think Apple can do wrong, and I think this is it." January 2007
"there is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive," March 2007
iPhone only delivers "40 minutes of talk time" and "the interface fouls up constantly." April 2007
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone." March 2007
"I no longer believe in the concept [of a pocket-sized computer], after being slapped by reality once too often. When the iPhone came along, I was already sour on the entire idea." April 2007
"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me." June 2007
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics

John Dvorak: How Wrong Can One Guy Be?

Dvorak looks back at another crappy career year.

On the fault behind Vista's problems:
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 7 - Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC
"Microsoft, in the end, gets blamed for all the flaws while watching Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other ungrateful recipients of its goodwill to make fortunes off the Windows platform." April 2007

PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Dvorak's great Mac Intel prediction in 2003 was that Apple would migrate to Itanium by the end of 2004.

Thoughts on the iPhone:
The iPhone is "trending against what people are really liking in phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. The BlackJack, the Samsung, the BlackBerry obviously pushes this kind of thing. The Palm, all of these. I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong. But I think Apple can do wrong, and I think this is it." January 2007
"there is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive," March 2007
iPhone only delivers "40 minutes of talk time" and "the interface fouls up constantly." April 2007
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone." March 2007
"I no longer believe in the concept [of a pocket-sized computer], after being slapped by reality once too often. When the iPhone came along, I was already sour on the entire idea." April 2007
"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me." June 2007
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics

John Dvorak: How Wrong Can One Guy Be?

Dvorak looks back at another crappy career year.

On the fault behind Vista's problems:
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 7 - Apple's Hardware and Dvorak's Microsoft Branded PC
"Microsoft, in the end, gets blamed for all the flaws while watching Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and other ungrateful recipients of its goodwill to make fortunes off the Windows platform." April 2007

PE U: The Mac OS X Leopard Windows API Myth
Dvorak's great Mac Intel prediction in 2003 was that Apple would migrate to Itanium by the end of 2004.

Thoughts on the iPhone:
The iPhone is "trending against what people are really liking in phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. The BlackJack, the Samsung, the BlackBerry obviously pushes this kind of thing. The Palm, all of these. I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong. But I think Apple can do wrong, and I think this is it." January 2007
"there is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive," March 2007
iPhone only delivers "40 minutes of talk time" and "the interface fouls up constantly." April 2007
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales

"Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone." March 2007
"I no longer believe in the concept [of a pocket-sized computer], after being slapped by reality once too often. When the iPhone came along, I was already sour on the entire idea." April 2007
"Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland. Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me." June 2007
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics

John Dvorak: How Wrong Can One Guy Be?

Bad publicity is working for Rob Enderle.

He prattles on about the iPhone being "damned" and "not a good phone" sight unseen for months prior to its launch, describes various scenarios where an iPhone could result in murder, rape, or the death of teenagers, goes on at length about about a security holocaust facing anyone who might buy one, then declares that at the end of the year that the iPhone was "a game changer."

And what about John Dvorak? Neither have ever been right about anything, but it hasn't stopped them from building careers out of pontification and earning book deals and speaking engagements. Do you really think that actual negative controversy has hurt Sony, Microsoft, Verizon and other horrible companies that rape consumers? Not so much, particularly since pundits like Enderle are paid to shill and spring the truth in opposite directions, and to generate bullshit controversies about their competitors.

It's all a game, thanks for playing.

The New Apple Patent: WGA Evil or iPhone Knievel?
Is it true that Apple is racing to duplicate Microsoft's infamously evil WGA, or is it possible that Apple's patent describes something entirely different that leaps over the heads of industry pundits and performs a spectacular arc over the rows of broken down vehicles underneath (some of which may be on fire), to land a new platform and win applause for doing so?

You are talking past what I said. I was not comparing Xerox with Apple, I was pointing out that Apple developed its own practical consumer technology, that for half the price delivered more usability - in the Lisa. And the Mac was another clear leap past that in terms of consumer usability and relevance.

What Xerox was doing in its labs might have been real cool for the few hundred people who had a license to test drive it, but it had near zero impact on the rest of the world. Apple delivered that, and wasn't even copied well until:

a) ten years after Apple licensed its technology to Microsoft
b) a decade after Sculley drove Apple into the ground
c) 15 years after the Xerox Star failed

If there was any real value in Xerox's UI, why couldn't the company sell it? It's not like they didn't try at all. And sure, for $20,000, you can have nicer hardware than you can for $2500. If you look at the Star's interface, it's obvious that Apple invented a lot of valuable, original ideas. The Mac used direct manipulation with the mouse rather than clicking to select and then poking keyboard buttons, for example.

There was also no overlapping window refresh and really thousands of other things we take for granted. It boils down to two products sold at different price points: one a success and one a failure.

You could probably also make a pretty nice car for $200,000 and a music player that exceeds the technology of the iPod for $4,000. You couldn't sell many of them though.

Xerox Star introduction & promotional video

Newton Rising: Is the Next iPhone Device a G3 MessagePad?
Rumor sites have long been atwitter about Apple resurrecting the Newton MessagePad. While officially dead for nearly a decade, those rumors got a boost this year when Steve Jobs rolled out the iPhone as a combination "mobile phone, iPod, and breakthrough Internet device." The iPhone first appeared to be Jobs' version of the Newton, but after the iPod Touch revealed Apple's long term plans for targeting a wider range of devices, the idea of a tablet assistant gained new credence as a realistic possibility. What does Apple's past reveal about its future? Here's a look.

You are wrong. Google "Steve Jobs 2003 RollingStone" or read the links I provided. I'm sure you find it more convenient to repeat what you think you know.

Apple didn't owe Real's shitty DRM any handout. Had Apple supported Real or WMA, there wouldn't be any market for MP3 commercial music from the big labels, there'd only be worse DRM with more restrictions than Apple's, not less.

Chew on that until you get it.

Daniel Lyons Cries Wolf: The Real Bill Gates Behind the Fake Steve Jobs
Forbes' Dan Lyons, author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, decided it would be entertaining to parody the unplugging of ThinkSecret by pretending his own blog was under threat from Apple. Except that in order to do that, he had to stop pretending to be FSJ and start pretending that the real Steve Jobs was threatening him. That's where he left the world of parody and reentered the familiar territory of lucrative scandal.

Jobs was publicly arguing against DRM in 2003. FairPlay was the least foul DRM, and Apple used its retail leverage to keep prices down.

They labels are hoping to reclaim some pressure by playing hardball with iTunes, but Amazon isn't outselling Apple even when its huge CD sales are included. It certainly isn't comparable to Apple in terms of downloads alone. The labels all preferred Windows Media DRM, but the customer is always right.

There's plenty of pro-Microsoft wags trying to say that Amazon is hurting Apple, but MP3s are good for the iPod. The only thing bad for the iPod is Real/Windows Media/ATRAC DRM that can't play on the iPod.

Apple TV Digital Disruption at Work: iTunes Takes 91% of Video Download Market

Newton Rising: Is the Next iPhone Device a G3 MessagePad?
Rumor sites have long been atwitter about Apple resurrecting the Newton MessagePad. While officially dead for nearly a decade, those rumors got a boost this year when Steve Jobs rolled out the iPhone as a combination "mobile phone, iPod, and breakthrough Internet device." The iPhone first appeared to be Jobs' version of the Newton, but after the iPod Touch revealed Apple's long term plans for targeting a wider range of devices, the idea of a tablet assistant gained new credence as a realistic possibility. What does Apple's past reveal about its future? Here's a look.

Jobs was publicly arguing against DRM in 2003. FairPlay was the least foul DRM, and Apple used its retail leverage to keep prices down.

They labels are hoping to reclaim some pressure by playing hardball with iTunes, but Amazon isn't outselling Apple even when its huge CD sales are included. It certainly isn't comparable to Apple in terms of downloads alone. The labels all preferred Windows Media DRM, but the customer is always right.

There's plenty of pro-Microsoft wags trying to say that Amazon is hurting Apple, but MP3s are good for the iPod. The only thing bad for the iPod is Real/Windows Media/ATRAC DRM that can't play on the iPod.

Apple TV Digital Disruption at Work: iTunes Takes 91% of Video Download Market

Newton Rising: Is the Next iPhone Device a G3 MessagePad?
Rumor sites have long been atwitter about Apple resurrecting the Newton MessagePad. While officially dead for nearly a decade, those rumors got a boost this year when Steve Jobs rolled out the iPhone as a combination "mobile phone, iPod, and breakthrough Internet device." The iPhone first appeared to be Jobs' version of the Newton, but after the iPod Touch revealed Apple's long term plans for targeting a wider range of devices, the idea of a tablet assistant gained new credence as a realistic possibility. What does Apple's past reveal about its future? Here's a look.

I think the Airport Extreme and Apple TV (and similar devices) already obsoleted the type of "home server" Microsoft wants to push. If one wanted more than what those two devices provide (MythTV perhaps?) they'd probably prefer building it themselves, and probably already did.

I wouldn't be too surprised if by the same time next year, we'll have forgotten all about Windows Home Server.

You skirted around the biggest problem: there's no market for what you describe.

What companies are making money selling something like that? The PC makers with weak sales? They're rushing after sub $500 sales. Nobody is looking for $1200 entry level PCs with good components.

When you see "gaps" in a product line, try to image them as white space on a canvas. It's not blank stuff that needs to be filled in, it's serving a purpose.

Daniel Lyons Cries Wolf: The Real Bill Gates Behind the Fake Steve Jobs
Forbes' Dan Lyons, author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog, decided it would be entertaining to parody the unplugging of ThinkSecret by pretending his own blog was under threat from Apple. Except that in order to do that, he had to stop pretending to be FSJ and start pretending that the real Steve Jobs was threatening him. That's where he left the world of parody and reentered the familiar territory of lucrative scandal.

The pundits did ask for an iMac without the monitor, and that's what the mini was. When it arrived, they hailed it as something that would redefine computing, even though Apple never really pushed that.

The iMac hasn't ever really been a prosumer desktop, so your redefinition of things doesn't make reality "specious."

The Mac Pro is the beginning of what could be called prosumer. The iMac is very much a consumer machine like the mini, with more room to provide somewhat better parts. You can quibble about names, but describe what you are actually talking about in real numbers. A $1000 mini with specs like a high end PC? A $1500 mini that looks like a gamer PC, waiting for a $1500 video card, all set to play the PC Games that aren't available on the Mac? Perhaps a Windows PC sold by Apple, with no reason to buy it from Apple whatsoever?

When you quantify what you're saying, it sounds absurd without me having to point it out.

Apple is completely ignoring that "dreamy" market segment because it offers no sales potential, particularly for Apple. The company now sells more laptops than anything, and Mac Pros are a low volume, high end product. If Apple lowered the low end of the Mac Pro, they'd end up with two products, a cheap iPro and the existing Pro, and that would funnel sales of Mac Pros to a cheaper box that cheap-pro users would be less happy with.

The number of people in your boat is too small to matter to Apple. If you're rather get a PC, do so and stop complaining. Does Apple owe every person on the planet a custom designed system to fit their particular needs? It sounds like the iPhone complainers that are incensed that Apple didn't deliver every feature that can be found on $800 phones while also matching the subsidy price of $200 phones that do nothing.

That's what "specious" means, and why Apple ignores your fanciful imagineering.

The New Apple Patent: WGA Evil or iPhone Knievel?
Is it true that Apple is racing to duplicate Microsoft's infamously evil WGA, or is it possible that Apple's patent describes something entirely different that leaps over the heads of industry pundits and performs a spectacular arc over the rows of broken down vehicles underneath (some of which may be on fire), to land a new platform and win applause for doing so?

Yeah right, DOS remained DOS for ten years because Microsoft had to support so many PC makers. Nice one.

The NT equivalent to a userland was shit because it had to run on so many different workstation class PCs. Right.

Cairo was vapor for 7 years because it had to account for all the vapor hardware it would run on. Same thing for Longhorn ten years later!

You have answers for everything! But I've heard them before because they are all moron Windows-infatuated apologies I've already taken apart.

Telephones all worked under AT&T too, they just didn't make much technical progress. Mobile phones work under the oligarchy of shitty service providers too. And Cable works. But they're all anti-competitive shit that makes very little progress.

My grandma is dead, but I'd buy old ladies a Mac so they can use a computer rather than fight off viruses. And when I say old ladies, I wasn't extending the offer to you. I don't like you so much, as you're a bit of an ignorant ass defending shit.

I mean that in the best possible way.

Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source
It is popular among Windows Enthusiasts to dismiss Apple's use of open source as both a self-serving crutch to offset the company's imagined inability to write its own code-insisting that Mac OS X is really just FreeBSD with some extra graphics tacked on is a common meme among certain wags-and also a one-sided grab that takes more than it gives. In reality, Apple does a variety of things for the open source community that are often ignored. Here's a closer look.

So you're comparing two hardware companies against a software company that ripped both of them off, and declaring the software company a winner because other hardware companies were more competitive later? Don't you realize how retarded that is?

Imagine a scenario where rather than only having competition in hardware through the 90s, we'd also had competition in software. Oh, imagine that! Perhaps competition would have advanced the state of the art in software has it did in hardware.

Then, rather than talking about how Cyrix and AMD and Intel and PowerPC fostered competition in CPUs, and RAM vendors challenged each other to deliver better prices and higher densities, and the same thing in video GPUs with Nvidia and ATI, and the same thing in manufacturing efficiencies advanced by Compaq and then Dell...

WE'D HAVE HAD FUCKING SOFTWARE THAT WASN'T ALL SHIT FROM MICROSOFT.

Unpack your fucking colon retard. The PC didn't make progress because of Microsoft, but in spite of it. Apple took software from the simple 70s command line to the Lisa, the Mac, and 32-bit color QuickDraw in the 80s. Then it sat back and didn't do much. Microsoft took over, and continued selling an inferior clone of the DOS command line throughout the 90s, with a ripped off, albeit shittier, version of Apple's UI on top. For ten years! It also delivered a really bad VMS clone called NT, which was almost unusable until 2000. Ten years of nothing. It did make a lot of promises though.

NeXT, OS/2, Solaris, and others all delivered superior software for desktop PCs in the 90s but Microsoft worked hard to prevent any market competition.

In the 2000s, more nothing. Promises about Longhorn that took a half decade to deliver. Once Apple started running again, it delivered Mac OS X in rapid succession over the same period with 6 major releases, 40 service packs, a port to a new desktop hardware platform, and a mobile platform. Microsoft hasn't done anything with its great "Windows technology" but copy existing products. And you're impressed?

That's why you need to retire.

SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s

Sorry I have to call your bullshit.

Apple didn't lock anything down that hasn't always been locked down. Do you think Windows is an open specification? And Mac prices were only insane because RAM was insanely expensive. Apple shipped 32-bit color workstations in the 80s which PC tards compared to 256 color PCs and decided the Mac was more expensive. It was not. Compared to an equally equipped PC, it was the same price. The only difference was that Apple didn't sell cheap low end boxes that were obsolete at purchase (until they changed their strategy and started on the low end with the Mac LC in 1990). It also provided the OS for free.

You can look through old PC mags from the 80s and find $8-10,000 Macs, but you can also find $10-12,000 PCs like IBM's PS/2 line, which had similar high end equipment. Macs had SCSI when PCs had Centronics parallel ports and IDE.

Closed/Open didn't have any impact. Microsoft ripped off the Mac system software and then monopolized the PC market with exclusive contracts that prevented any alternatives from emerging. It's Microsoft that has jacked up the price of software. They set the price of Office at $500 and kept adding apps to it to kill off competitors. They set the price of the OS at $150 when most OS were free. Then they delivered shitty products for 15 years, and now their OS costs $300 or more.

Apple certainly screwed up under its mid-80 to mid-90s CEOs, but the errors were (perhaps) keeping the OS unlicensed and not making any effort to sell to consumers. Apple's past and present control is its greatest strength, and why Macs offer a much better experience. The uncontrolled environment in Windows is why PCs suck, and Linux offers little to help in that regard. It will offer a much cheaper replacement to Windows however.

Microsoft is everything about what's wrong in technology: non-interoperable, infatuated with adware, spyware friendly (WGA, Alexa), a proponent of onerous DRM (HD-DVD, WMV, PlaysForSure, Paladium), and enemy of open source development, and a price hiking monopolist. They also have no taste and deliver third rate products.

Your deluded, Dvorak-brainwashed generation will have to die off before technology can make any progress.

The New Apple Patent: WGA Evil or iPhone Knievel?
Is it true that Apple is racing to duplicate Microsoft's infamously evil WGA, or is it possible that Apple's patent describes something entirely different that leaps over the heads of industry pundits and performs a spectacular arc over the rows of broken down vehicles underneath (some of which may be on fire), to land a new platform and win applause for doing so?

maybe you should stick to pasta then.

I'll buy you a pound of spaghetti if you can actually point out anything that was "badly researched, plain wrong, full of proof of assertion" (no dice for "generally insulting to everyone who didn't agree with the author," as that is a bit subjective among pasta/Zune fans.)

Seriously, put up or shut up with the baseless accusations.

The New Apple Patent: WGA Evil or iPhone Knievel?
Is it true that Apple is racing to duplicate Microsoft's infamously evil WGA, or is it possible that Apple's patent describes something entirely different that leaps over the heads of industry pundits and performs a spectacular arc over the rows of broken down vehicles underneath (some of which may be on fire), to land a new platform and win applause for doing so?

 

The market for the PC you are describing is dying. If there were money in it, Apple would be selling it.

Recall that in 2000-2002, everyone was insisting that Apple should sell a "headless iMac," but when they released the decently priced mini, it wasn't a top seller despite the pundits who insisted it would be shortly after its arrival. What makes you think you have more market data available than Apple? Have you seen the business shape of Dell and HP, or the shrinking market for the PC of the 90s?

As a look into the future, consider Japan, where PC sales are falling, and younger users are moving to fancy mobiles. I see similar things happening in the US in a couple years, where Apple makes money selling $200-400 handheld iPhones and iPods, and shifts even more Mac users toward an expanding variety of laptops in the $900-$3000 range. Apple sees the PC as a high end workstation (Mac Pro), not as a big loud PC box for $400-600 with the option for adding $2000 video cards in order to play games. That market segment is not something Apple can take on anyway.

Linux devices will overwhelm low end PCs from $200-$900, leaving HP and Dell to either migrate away from Windows or simply become the non-profit hardware distribution arm of Microsoft.

The New Apple Patent: WGA Evil or iPhone Knievel?
Is it true that Apple is racing to duplicate Microsoft's infamously evil WGA, or is it possible that Apple's patent describes something entirely different that leaps over the heads of industry pundits and performs a spectacular arc over the rows of broken down vehicles underneath (some of which may be on fire), to land a new platform and win applause for doing so?

Actually the Army moved to Macs back in 1999 because the Classic Mac OS running WebSTAR was less likely to be hacked than Windows NT. Army site defacing dropped from regular embarrassments to zero.

The Navy also bought lots of G4/G5 Xserves, but ran YellowDog Linux on them because they were more familiar with Linux.

The Chinese hackers and spammers are all running Windows though.

I described why the Army moved from a theoretically secure NT to a non-secured OS like Mac OS 8/9, and gained security, in:

Kevin Poulsen Attacks Ron Paul, iPhone, Mac Users In a Single Broad Brush of Wired Incompetence.
Embarrassed over a sensationalist article he commissioned on iPhone security panic, Wired editor Kevin Poulsen pulled no punches to cover over his sloppy work by publishing an inaccurate, politically-tained smear piece that mixed in a conspiracy theory regarding presidential candidate Ron Paul into the discussion of Apple's iPhone security. Someone with Poulsen's tainted history in computer security issues should know better.

You seem to be confusing actual live exploits that cause Windows to fall apart, hand control over to botnets, plague the world with spam, install spyware, etc, with vulnerability reports.

Windows does own the market for actual viruses, adware, botnet membership, spyware and other problems.

Secunia and George Ou are publishing numbers of vulnerabilities that suggest the opposite is true. But it's obviously not.

You can try to muddle those two ideas together, and you reveal your bias by describing my outlining of the truth as "a rabbid rush to take apart" something that isn't true, but that only makes you the jackass.

You sound like a a bind-torture-kill neocon complaining that the "liberals" are all upset about a few "high crimes" when the last democrat president was accused of fooling around with a girl, so everything should be equal. That's also why I'm so happy to watch your ship go down.

Vista, Zune, Windows Media, Windows Mobile: good riddance, losers!

Why Microsoft's Copy-Killing Has Reached a Dead End
Microsoft's rapid rise to power and its ability to hold onto control over the PC desktop throughout the 90s has long been revered by pundits as a classic example of copying an existing business model and then defeating all competition through price efficiencies, despite the fact that Microsoft's Windows software has only ever gotten progressively more expensive with the passing of time. This copy-killing strategy, also described as "embrace, extend, and extinguish," is now reaching a dead end. Here's why.

And I never will again. He's as bad as the people he is criticizing, if not worse. He does exactly what he accuses the "Microsoft shills" of doing. From another article on the site: "I explained that he could just drag the application to the trash, and that in the Mac OS there are no DLL files to worry about."

Riiight. Mac OS doesn't have libraries. There are no possible library mismatch issues on Mac OS. Okay, buddy, whatever."

Well the CNet "review" says:

"Disclaimer: This is all based on what I've seen and read. I haven't seen a Kindle in person. Yet."

WTF?

If you want an excellent review that goes through the whole thing in excruciating detail, you should read the AppleInsider review:

In-depth review: can Amazon's Kindle light a fire under eBooks?

Disclaimer: I wrote it.

If you like that sort of non-stop information that demands an attention span, I also wrote about iPod/iPhone video cables.

I also wrote a disassembly of the George Ou Mac OS X vs Vista Vulnerability Numerology

You're not funny or smart or interesting enough to respond to.

But for the record, the only comments I remove besides the spam that gets wiped automatically is right wing rants that go on for paragraphs about bullshit around the IQ of your spiel here.

Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source
It is popular among Windows Enthusiasts to dismiss Apple's use of open source as both a self-serving crutch to offset the company's imagined inability to write its own code-insisting that Mac OS X is really just FreeBSD with some extra graphics tacked on is a common meme among certain wags-and also a one-sided grab that takes more than it gives. In reality, Apple does a variety of things for the open source community that are often ignored. Here's a closer look.

I don't link articles for your benefit, I link to advertise what I've researched and present it as a background proof for comments I make.

I also don't define Microsoft's business "narrowly" to upset you, I present what the company itself reports about how it makes money and where. As you apparently have failed to grasp, my comments are based directly on Microsoft's own classification of its business, which falls into Windows, Server, Office (three monopolies that make shit loads of money), all home consumer electronics and embedded and everything else (which loses shit loads of money), some online services and tools businesses (which aren't doing anything spectacular in either direction), and "other," which relates to general advertising, R&D, and the legal machinery that eats up billions every year defending itself from the company's criminal behavior by paying off fines and settlements.

If you are not aware of Microsoft's billions of dollars in fraud every year, you need to educate yourself, not complain that I'm pointing out the truth.

The rest of your comments are non-sensical, wrong, or circular fault finding without any point. Go masturbate with your Zune, but don't ask me to watch you get off.

Having to use Microsoft products is plenty enough of a punishment for your asinine behavior, so I don't hold any ill will against you. It will all be over soon enough.

Why Microsoft's Copy-Killing Has Reached a Dead End
Microsoft's rapid rise to power and its ability to hold onto control over the PC desktop throughout the 90s has long been revered by pundits as a classic example of copying an existing business model and then defeating all competition through price efficiencies, despite the fact that Microsoft's Windows software has only ever gotten progressively more expensive with the passing of time. This copy-killing strategy, also described as "embrace, extend, and extinguish," is now reaching a dead end. Here's why.

With disappointments like the iphone, who needs successes? iPhone OS X has surpassed WinCE in total marketshare in 2 quarters.

PS3 does it now with Linux, so M$ must promise to do it by 2010 with the next incarnation of Cairo.

Microsoft makes money on Office, Windows, and Servers. Period. Outside of its three monopolies it loses shit loads of money. Read the company's own profit/loss reports.

I have detailed this missing information as an early warning: PC sales are mature and new/emerging markets are looking for cheap laptops. There's no growth market for a $300 OS running a $300 Office suite. Is that an ad hominem attack in your mind?

Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits

I detailed Microsoft's stock performance over the last few years, but look for yourself at finance.google.com. "The consumer market is voting against Microsoft's products everywhere it has a choice. The result is that stock market is also voting against Microsoft's future, leaving its stock flat over the last half decade. The conservative Dow Jones Index has outpaced Microsoft's stock by a factor of two; Apple has outpaced Microsoft's valuation increase by a factor of 100 over the same period."

Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower

Is that an ad hominem attack in your mind?

"Active Directory, Visual Studio" are not really markets that have no competition, they are markets that now no longer have credible competition on Windows because of Microsoft's tying and dumping. AD was a shitty copycat version of NDS when it arrived years late in 2000, and has improved over the last 7 years of billions of dollars of revenue, but if you think its competitive, it's because you aren't paying to license it.

Neither of those products--nor IIS or any of the other server products that make up less than a third of Microsoft's revenues but not even 20% of its profits--are the consumer market asshat.

Zune = failure
Xbox = failure
360 = failure
WinCE PDAs= failure
Windows Mobile = failure
PlaysForSure = failure

losses over the last 5 years of Microsoft's attempts to sell consumer products outside of its OS/Office monopoly = over $25,000,000,000, not including the billions of dollars in settlements for infringing copyright and patents, defrauding partners, and cheating customers.

And everyone knows the Zune is a poorly done me-too pile of shit.

You can prattle your arrogance in Latin expressions, but I lay out the facts: Microsoft is the largest and most heinous criminal organization that has ever involved itself in tech.

Microsoft makes money on Office, Windows, and Servers. Period. Outside of its three monopolies it loses shit loads of money. Read the company's own profit/loss reports.

I have detailed this missing information as an early warning: PC sales are mature and new/emerging markets are looking for cheap laptops. There's no growth market for a $300 OS running a $300 Office suite. Is that an ad hominem attack in your mind?

Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits

I detailed Microsoft's stock performance over the last few years, but look for yourself at finance.google.com. "The consumer market is voting against Microsoft's products everywhere it has a choice. The result is that stock market is also voting against Microsoft's future, leaving its stock flat over the last half decade. The conservative Dow Jones Index has outpaced Microsoft's stock by a factor of two; Apple has outpaced Microsoft's valuation increase by a factor of 100 over the same period."

Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower

Is that an ad hominem attack in your mind?

"Active Directory, Visual Studio" are not really markets that have no competition, they are markets that now no longer have credible competition on Windows because of Microsoft's tying and dumping. AD was a shitty copycat version of NDS when it arrived years late in 2000, and has improved over the last 7 years of billions of dollars of revenue, but if you think its competitive, it's because you aren't paying to license it.

Neither of those products--nor IIS or any of the other server products that make up less than a third of Microsoft's revenues but not even 20% of its profits--are the consumer market asshat.

Zune = failure
Xbox = failure
360 = failure
WinCE PDAs= failure
Windows Mobile = failure
PlaysForSure = failure

losses over the last 5 years of Microsoft's attempts to sell consumer products outside of its OS/Office monopoly = over $25,000,000,000, not including the billions of dollars in settlements for infringing copyright and patents, defrauding partners, and cheating customers.

And everyone knows the Zune is a poorly done me-too pile of shit.

You can prattle your arrogance in Latin expressions, but I lay out the facts: Microsoft is the largest and most heinous criminal organization that has ever involved itself in tech.

Either Whoosh or Duh.

Why Microsoft's Copy-Killing Has Reached a Dead End
Microsoft's rapid rise to power and its ability to hold onto control over the PC desktop throughout the 90s has long been revered by pundits as a classic example of copying an existing business model and then defeating all competition through price efficiencies, despite the fact that Microsoft's Windows software has only ever gotten progressively more expensive with the passing of time. This copy-killing strategy, also described as "embrace, extend, and extinguish," is now reaching a dead end. Here's why.

That's not true though. Yes, every OS has migration issues and a period of settling in with third party updates, etc. But Vista was a hype fest that stretched on for a really bizarre length of time. Microsoft hasn't ever hit the target as expected, but the slippage has generally been a year or two, not a continuous thing for 3-4 years past the original due date.

The problem isn't that Vista isn't error free, it's that for many users, it's simply unusable. There's always going to be a moan contingent that works up an overblown whine about any new product, but Vista is pissing off fans and enthusiasts. Paul Thurrott complains about it. Gamertards complain about it. And it's now a year old, and there have been no significant updates that clear up the initial wave of problems. It's not even clear how one could do that.

Nobody predicted that Vista would tank to this level either. The expectation was that Vista had arrived late, but was A-OK after its extra long beta period and everyone was swearing that Vista was ready to rock. Instead, it's slow and constrained by driver issues and basic usability factors. It just doesn't work for lots of people, enough to create a bad reputation.

Windows users are not exactly a picky group either. They put up with 95/98/Me, then the hoggish XP that eventually worked well enough on a decently new enough PC. But then nothing for half a decade, and at the same time, competitors kept offering new and interesting stuff. Microsoft kept promising, but delivery kept slipping. Longhorn was compared to Jaguar, then Panther, then Tiger. Now Leopard's out, and widely praised for usable new features and good stability. Minor glitches were addressed within a month by the first "service pack" of 10.5.1. It just works.

Now Microsoft is talking about 7 on a regular basis. Hey, how about fixing this steaming pile of shit you charge as much as $400 for first? Service Pack 1 is scheduled for next year, but testers report no real improvement in performance. Why buy a new PC just to run Windows somewhat slower?

And seriously, Windows 7 in 2011-2012 will impress us by beating the iPhone of 2007? That's the best Microsoft can do with the vapor? This is a company that owns a stanglehold on the PC market and makes $50 billion a year from its monopoly position. But it only wants to pay foreign junior engineers 65% salaries so it can continue to make outrageous profits on shitty products?

No this isn't the same old thing. It's pretty transparent you'd suggest it is.

Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower

Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft's ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here's a comprehensive look at why this is the case.

Microsoft has "nothing to do with" HD-DVD? Are you joking? The entire industry selected to align behind Blu-ray, with HP trying to pull Microsoft in to support it as well. Microsoft wanted to push its WinCE-based HDi authoring system.

Because Blu-ray had already selected a Java based system, Microsoft refused to support it, and single handily pushed Toshiba to continue to invest in HD-DVD, assuring it that HD-DVD support in Windows Vista and the Xbox 360 would turn the tide. The entire HD-DVD/Blu-ray divide is a Microsoft invention. That's not even controversial.*

HD-DVD has evolved into a misinformation effort rivaling "Get the Facts" and the Microsoft monopoly trial astroturf ploy combined. There are forums full of HD-DVD users all repeating the same talking points to the point where it sounds like the Zune. It's manufactured bullshit up the ying yang: the "Chinese will produce cheap players," and "Blu-ray has all sorts of hardware problems" and the "BR discs are expensive to manufacture", and Microsoft is "going to be all liberal and lenient about DRM enforcement" as opposed to Sony... it strains belief.

They count the 150,000 Xbox 360 HD-DVD sales to get a number that sounds significant, but exclude the several million PS3 units because they "are not standalone players," despite being the cheapest and therefore most popular BR players.

Supporting HD-DVD is a faith based initiative as George Bush might say. I am not a proponent of Blu-ray (I think HD is oversold, a position supported by sales of both players), but it's obviously in the lead by a wide margin. Dual format players sound great, but I find it unlikely based on history that that's going to happen. HD-DVD is only going to create VHS/Betamax uncertainty that prevents HD discs from taking off in 2008, offering the potential for more users to migrate toward downloads such as Apple TV and maybe Vudo.

Calling me names might get you excited, but using them improperly doesn't impress anyone. Megalomania is about power and control and domination. Asserting that what I'm pointing out is right in line with facts has nothing to do with forcing or subjecting anyone down. Insisting group-think obedience of Microsoft, other the other hand, is a bit excessive and domineering.

*Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
The arrival of DVD gave consumers far higher video quality in a new compact disc format with a variety of practical advantages over existing VHS tapes. There was no format war related to DVD because the two groups developing a new consumer video disc gave up their differences and worked together. Consumers didn't have to chose a format or worry about obsolescence. So why did the world return to a format war with HD?

Microsoft appears to have used the BSD networking code according to its license, as did many other operating systems. This is actually a good thing, because it ensured Windows would at least be interoperable with other IP clients, and likely have better networking compatibility than had Microsoft written up an implementation itself.

There are a variety of reasons to support open source, and not all are "to end all proprietary development." BSD/MIT/Apache licenses in particular are open to encourage interoperability and code reuse. Writing GPL software that nobody can really use commercially in a closed project provides alternatives to those who want only open software, but does nothing for the vast majority of users who just want things to work.

Microsoft should now drop its IE code and adopt Mozilla or KHTML, and support Open Document by basing the next version of Office on OpenOffice code. Tee Hee. Oh, my sides hurt. Perhaps Windows 7 could just be Linux with a Microsoft .Net middleware running Microsoft branded OpenOffice and Microsoft Firefox.

Should Apple TV Copy Tivo and Media Center?

With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.

Removing "no matter what they do" allows your comment to approach being accurate, but without that phrase, it no longer serves any purpose. What exactly is Microsoft doing right? Is crying about satirical artwork the best you can do?

Objective criticism isn't the presentation of equal numbers of pros and cons when comparing two things. You've just been brainwashed into thinking its polite. Comparing a failure with a success isn't bound to be flattering.

Should Apple TV Copy Tivo and Media Center?

With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.

And please, drop an occasional detail why you think I'm wrong. All this weak ad hominem criticism just makes me more likely to get sloppy. I really need the competition, just like Microsoft.

And please, drop an occasional detail why you think I'm wrong. All this weak ad hominem criticism just makes me more likely to get sloppy. I really need the competition, just like Microsoft.

Anyone who uses the phrase "clearly biased opinion" is too stupid to be insulting anyone else's ideas.

Am I supposed to equally hold everyone else opinion, too?

Also, I don't play the lottery, so I am very unlikely to ever win one. However, Microsoft will change, and is faltering now. Thinking it will remain as it is is simply juvenile. Thinking it will stumbled based on a pattern of short sighted decisions that have been failing in sequence over the last half decade is not nearly as much prognostication as it is simple reporting of facts after they occur.

Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower

You're right, HD-DVD has two large exclusive studios: Paramount and Universal (athough there are titles on both sides of the divide that jumped ship, from Spielberg's Paramount flicks to some BR titles that can be found on HD-DVD). Studios who make multiple format HD discs don't play a role in affecting the outcome. There are no makers building HD-DVD players apart from Toshiba and some efforts Toshiba has made to get Chinese companies to duplicate it.

FYI: megalomania is an obsession with power and control, not a secure assurance of a given outlook.

There really isn't a controversy however. The market has decided. That's why it took $100,000,000 to get Paramount to hold up its BR releases for two years. For things to balance out, but it would take a massively powerful shift of interest, and right now there isn't any mass of interest in HD discs in either format. They're projecting total sales of 1 million standalone players by the end of the year (not counting the 7 million PS3s sold) as the total installed base of HD players. That's absolutely nothing overall. It would be easier and more cost effective to roll out DVD-9 with HD content in H.264 at this point and beat both formats, if it were in anyone's financial interest to do so.

From that standpoint, the massive number of PS3s out there that will be sold, particularly in the next 6 months, do matter and will blow away any blip of HD-DVD, making it silly for studios to continue pressing HD-DVD movies. HD-DVD will become a vestigial addition to DVD just like DIVX and then go away. The players will become enhanced upscaling DVD players. This is so obvious that its painful to hear delusional stuff from HD-DVD buyers who insist that the format has legs because Microsoft promises cheap Chinese players. Microsoft promises a lot of things.

Microsoft said it would ship a video iPod platform and take over the market in 2004. I was late by half a year or so, and then Media2Go fizzled.

Microsoft planned to sell a million Zunes by June. That's really not very many, but it's still selling them at fire sale prices six months later. Apple sold 40 million in that time.

Microsoft is saying that Windows 7 in 2011-2012 (?) will improve upon the iPhone of 2007. Wow, I'd hope so.

Why Low Def is the New HD

The problem is that reality is biased against Microsoft as well.

Take your pic on the data you'd like to take issue with: slagging sales, stock market indifference, consumer market share in any product that has any competition, consumer perception, forward looking sales projections, historical inability to ship, outrageous inability to make money on any product not supported by a monopoly position.

And please, drop an occasional detail why you think I'm wrong. All this weak ad hominem criticism just makes me more likely to get sloppy. I really need the competition, just like Microsoft.

Apple TV Digital Disruption at Work: iTunes Takes 91% of Video Download Market

This quarter's NPD report on video downloads flies in the face of claims made by certain analysts claiming to have the answers required to turn around the supposed "failure" of Apple TV. Echoing his earlier claims that iTunes faced a dire future, Forrester Research's James McQuivey recently took Apple TV to task, fretting that his guesstimate of sales didn't match his earlier sales prediction. Based on McQuivey's guesswork, Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer offered suggestions for "fixing" it.
While it has become fashionable to mimic the complaints of others when talking about Apple TV, the more shocking reality is that the product is actually working as intended to strengthen Apple's plans for the digital disruption of television. Here's why.

All the hating on Sony forgets that the company co-invented the CD format (heard of that?) with Philips, and the two later got behind DVD after their own video format based on the CD was hijacked by Toshiba. That puts Sony behind every successful consumer format of the last decade, not just the turkeys it has failed with.

Betamax has also been the basis for ED Beta, the prosumer format nearly every TV crew uses and has used over the last two decades. Trying to create a black and while picture by dialing up the contrast to ridiculous levels leaves you unable to see the big picture.

Further, it is silly to think that Blu-ray is going to lose out to HD-DVD given that it has one manufacturer (Toshiba), one studio (Paramount), and one tenth the installed base of BR. Will Vista turn the tide? Tee hee. Of course, I think there is more potential in content outside of HD in the near term, and don't see Sony contributing toward that potential or benefiting from it.

Why Low Def is the New HD
The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.

I feel so topical and current! I just wrote the same thing about Microsoft, detailing the spiral pattern affecting the company's entire consumer product lineup, from Zune to Windows to Office to Xbox to WinCE/Windows Mobile. Will the last person left please turn off the lights?

Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower

Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft's ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here's a comprehensive look at why this is the case.

Your comment makes it sound like Symbian is Linux based. It is, of course, not related at all. Symbian is based on the EPOC OS used by Psion for its PDAs. It's backed by Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the EU and DoCoMo in Japan, although each uses a flavor of Symbian that is really a different platform. Symbian's backers like to group them all together because that gives Symbian an overwhelming share (~70%) of the smartphone market.

In reality, Nokia's S60, and Sony Ericsson UIQ, and DoCoMo's FOMA are about as similar as Mac OS X, Linux, AIX, Solaris, SCO Unix, etc. Imagine if the Unix vendors described their share of the desktop/server market the way Symbian does.

Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian
Smartphones: iPhone and the Big Fat Mobile Industry

Your comment makes it sound like Symbian is Linux based. It is, of course, not related at all. Symbian is based on the EPOC OS used by Psion for its PDAs. It's backed by Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the EU and DoCoMo in Japan, although each uses a flavor of Symbian that is really a different platform. Symbian's backers like to group them all together because that gives Symbian an overwhelming share (~70%) of the smartphone market.

In reality, Nokia's S60, and Sony Ericsson UIQ, and DoCoMo's FOMA are about as similar as Mac OS X, Linux, AIX, Solaris, SCO Unix, etc. Imagine if the Unix vendors described their share of the desktop/server market the way Symbian does.

Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian
Smartphones: iPhone and the Big Fat Mobile Industry

OpenMoko is a Chinese manufacturer's plan to outsource software usinghe FOSS community. [1]

LiPS is a partnership between PalmSource/ACCESS and MontaVista Linux to collaborate on Linux phone development. Open Source Development Labs (OSDL, Slashdot's mom) began its own Mobile Linux Initiative in 2005, involving MontaVista, Wind River, and PalmSource. LiPS seemed to be an outgrowth of that. Trolltech introduced its own Greenphone platform based on Qt last fall. Earlier this year, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone formed their own group called LiMo to develop Linux standards for mobiles. The majority of Linux phones are built by Motorola, which uses MontaVista's Linux. They are sold to the Chinese market and are not open in any sense. [2]

Google's Android is an Apache-like collaboration that shares Google's plans and implementation rather than forming a group to develop some. [3]

Apple's iPhone is based around its Mach+BSD+Cocoa architecture, but is just as closed as most Linux phones. It appears Apple will open development in the sense of releasing an SDK that allows commercial development, but it's not yet known how much access developers will have. [4][5]

One significant difference between Linux on a PC and Linux on a mobile is that it is illegal to expose the core baseband processor architecture to open software, because that would make it trivial to create network destroying devices. So "Linux-based mobiles" are really just mobile phones that have some extra environment to run the user interface and higher level functions. They are not freedom/open/GPL untainted by Big Brother/Capitalism/Corporations.

That makes it valid to be interested in mobile Linux because of familiarity with the architecture, the availability of low cost software, and a desire to expand the market for Linux based products, but there is little real political GPL-freedom argument for pursuing mobile Linux.

Google appears to initially be targeting Windows Mobile [6], and offers an alternative to the increasingly creaky Symbian [7]. Some amount of Google's Android seems complementary with efforts to use Linux on the lower levels, but it also competes against the higher level plans of LiPS, Greenphone, LiMo, and OpenMoko, none of which appear to have a very significant future.

[1] Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone
[2] The Standard Soup Prepared by Linux Mobile's Many Chefs
[3] The Great Google gPhone Myth
[4] Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic
[5] Leopard, Vista and the iPhone OS X Architecture
[6] The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile
[7] Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian

OpenMoko is a Chinese manufacturer's plan to outsource software usinghe FOSS community. [1]

LiPS is a partnership between PalmSource/ACCESS and MontaVista Linux to collaborate on Linux phone development. Open Source Development Labs (OSDL, Slashdot's mom) began its own Mobile Linux Initiative in 2005, involving MontaVista, Wind River, and PalmSource. LiPS seemed to be an outgrowth of that. Trolltech introduced its own Greenphone platform based on Qt last fall. Earlier this year, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone formed their own group called LiMo to develop Linux standards for mobiles. The majority of Linux phones are built by Motorola, which uses MontaVista's Linux. They are sold to the Chinese market and are not open in any sense. [2]

Google's Android is an Apache-like collaboration that shares Google's plans and implementation rather than forming a group to develop some. [3]

Apple's iPhone is based around its Mach+BSD+Cocoa architecture, but is just as closed as most Linux phones. It appears Apple will open development in the sense of releasing an SDK that allows commercial development, but it's not yet known how much access developers will have. [4][5]

One significant difference between Linux on a PC and Linux on a mobile is that it is illegal to expose the core baseband processor architecture to open software, because that would make it trivial to create network destroying devices. So "Linux-based mobiles" are really just mobile phones that have some extra environment to run the user interface and higher level functions. They are not freedom/open/GPL untainted by Big Brother/Capitalism/Corporations.

That makes it valid to be interested in mobile Linux because of familiarity with the architecture, the availability of low cost software, and a desire to expand the market for Linux based products, but there is little real political GPL-freedom argument for pursuing mobile Linux.

Google appears to initially be targeting Windows Mobile [6], and offers an alternative to the increasingly creaky Symbian [7]. Some amount of Google's Android seems complementary with efforts to use Linux on the lower levels, but it also competes against the higher level plans of LiPS, Greenphone, LiMo, and OpenMoko, none of which appear to have a very significant future.

[1] Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone
[2] The Standard Soup Prepared by Linux Mobile's Many Chefs
[3] The Great Google gPhone Myth
[4] Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic
[5] Leopard, Vista and the iPhone OS X Architecture
[6] The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile
[7] Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian