Slashdot Mirror
Is Apple The New Microsoft?
Varg Vikernes writes "Even if you don't count Apple's actions this week as a potential threat to first amendment rights (Apple's crackdown on Web sites that love the company), they do nothing to bolster Apple's public image. In fact the company's success of late has yielded accusations of bullying and potentially unlawful business tactics, along with complaints about the fact that songs purchased from its iTunes music service don't work with music players other than its own. According to Forbes, to some these tactics sound like something Apple's neighbor to the North might employ. They wonder aloud Is Apple the New Microsoft?
In fact, I personally believe that if Gates and co. hadn't screwed Apple over all those years ago to bring out Windows 1.0, then we'd be in a hell of a lot worse position than we are now. At least Microsoft only have a monopoly on Software. If the 2 Steves had managed to create a monopoly where Apple had total control of the OS AND the hardware, then it would be impossible for anyone else to get a look in. We saw how Apple treated the clone system builders, and BeOS for that matter. Actually, now I think of it, Apple are setting up their own stores here in the UK and driving their formerly faithful resellers out of the market with their well know price fixing strategies (try buying apple hardware at better prices than Apple supply it direct to see what I mean).
I do like (and own) some of Apple's kit, but I'm not one of the blinkered Mac apologists who defend their every action. Apple is not a bunch of nice people; it's a corporation, and frankly I'm not surprised in the slightest at their attempts to monopolise music downloads and attack their own fans' websites. Maybe Wozniak wasn't all about making money, but Jobs and the others left steering the ship certainly are.
Have you noticed that, althought Apple's own operating system owes a lot to the open source movement, and the thousands of developers whose code they use for free, you and I still cannot run iTunes on our Linux desktop to sync an iPod? No money in it for them...
It's time some people took off the rose coloured hippy glasses and realised that Apple is just another wannabe monopolist who've (luckily for us) simply been curtailed by an unfortunate event perpetrated by the current software monopolist.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
In this day and age, everyone does business this way.
No need to single out Apple for finally joining the crowd in order to stay afloat.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They have a LONG way to go to becoming Microsoft. Some of the things done may look, sound, be the same, but c'mon -- like Apple's market pressure is ANYthing like that of Microsoft's. Please.
All they need now is crushing market share...
They way all corporations do their business is by flexing their muscle. When a company starts to measure its success by how much their quarterly results benefit their investors, then they become myopic bullies and innovation stops. MS is far ahead there.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
This is pure FUD, and guess what? It's aimed at you, the slashdot reader.
From the article:
It's ironic that a company as innovative as Apple Computer could have such a regressive view of the changing world of American media.
Apple's view may seem regressive to the average slashdot reader, but to the rest of the world, it's way ahead.
This is a baldfaced attempt to confuse two sources of outrage for the average geek: threats to free speech and threats from Microsoft. It's a common rhetorical and political tactic meant to funnel away attention from the true threat.
Don't be fooled. Microsoft is the new Microsoft, and the old Microsoft.
From the article:
Problem is, the definition of journalism is rapidly changing. "Traditional" media like print newspapers, broadcast news and weekly magazines years ago began being augmented and in some cases supplanted by "new" media on the Web.
The protection of sources is still a source of contention, even among the "traditional" media. Refer to the Valerie Plame case (another classic "divert the opposition" case) for contention about protection of sources in the traditional media. Protection of sources, even for the major media, is not a set part of the First Amendment.
Microsoft is the New Microsoft. Don't ever forget that, peon hoard!!
(And if anyone else has any "New Microsoft" for sale, won't be long before Microsoft buy that too..)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Bill Gates in a cape with a shroud over his head...
His crackley voice speaks, "Arise Darth Apple"
Steve Jobs sets up, "Yes my Lord."
when you come over to the dark side, all of the evil consumes you.
Welcome Apple, the Evil that is Gates has consumed you.
Next we will find Linus cut in half laying on the floor with RMS shaking his head, "ready not for the battle were you. Dead you now are."
oh yeah, this will be good......
Jobs, in contrast, is at his core someone who knows marketing and wants to dazzle his customers. With Microsoft it's what they want and you have to go along with it. With Apple, it's about finding the best customer experience and using that for profit.
Look at the quality of their respective products. What kind of quality do you get from Gates? Convoluted, buggy, but hey it's got features so shut up. What kind of quality do you get from Jobs? Look at Pixar. They are a money-making machine, but they do it by providing customers with top-notch quality. People are glad to give them their money. With Microsoft, it's often a case of grudgingly giving their money.
So a world dominated by Steve Jobs would undoubtably have it's own problems, it would be different problems than we have seen from Bill Gates. Their personalities are different enough to ensure that.
...Canada?
Carousel is a lie!
"No".
Longer answer:
Apple was never really the "friend" of independents. Macs are designed to be closed systems, not particularly open towards user-implemented modifications. This is one of the reasons the systems are so polished, secure and easy to use. The fact that Apple is willing to sue to protect said secrets doesn't make them the new MS... they're just doing the same thing they've always done - protect their products.
ThinkSecret infringed on that, and it could very well have been detrimental - look at how quickly Intel has designed a Mac-mini clone. Redmond doesn't have to worry about that - most of their software is a clone of Mac ideas anyway.
Apple the New Microsoft? Another one for the neophiliacs
Microsoft is an adjective. Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, microsoft Penis, etc.
I've been an Apple user since the Apple II back in the Day. They have always marketed the image the company and the customers as open, free thinkers, and iconoclasts. The reality is that Apple is one of the most closed proprietary companies around. As Apple moves closer to being an entertainment company, I expect the trend will get worse.
They seek to have total control over their platform and how the users use that platform. Sueing their fansites is exactly the behavior I would expect from Apple.
It is ironic that Apple used 1984 themes in their first Mac ad since Apple revels in "thought" control.
Embraces? You mean takes? Both Microsoft and Apple exploit open source software, particularly that (unforunately) under the BSD license. For example, MS took the BSD TCP/IP stack and utilities, made a few changes, and locked them up. Apple did the same thing with BSD Unix, which is the foundation of OS X.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Yeah kinda cracks me up. That's like bitching that I can't buy a chevy alternator for $50 and put it in my $50,000 BMW. No this isn't a 'Apple is the BMW of the computer world post' It's just a general comment that products built by one company aren't guranteed/flat out don't work in a competitors product. Sure maybe the concepts are similar but they won't intermingle.
Neither will the beaters on my Kitchen Aid mixer plug into my Oster mixer, or anything else like that. It always amazes me that when a company gets runaway success by filling a need in a marketplace that when they end up doing really well people start to want to tear them down.
I work for a computer manufacturer, I've got access to roadmaps that go out for years, if I were to 'leak' these to a 'fan site' that does nothing but try and predict what we were doing my company would go on a witch hunt pretty quickly too. There is a thing called competition and competitors out there, even for Apple. Apple's main 'thing' is to develop innovative products. Their competitors goals are to try and find a way to cobble something together that is 'good enough' and a lot cheaper, and watch people flock too it.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Not until they have $35 Billion in the bank. That's with a "B" -- and that's cash.
see here
If the iTunes Music Store was the only download music store, and they used a proprietary format, then that would be one thing. As it is, the apparently barrier to entry in the downloadable music business is so low that music stores are springing up all over the place (the local radio station now has their own music store where you can download the music from their playlists). MP3 players are for sale at half the stores in the mall.
Nobody is forcing you to use anything from Apple; there are viable competitors in every one of their markets. Nobody is paying an "Apple tax" to buy a computer that doesn't have iTunes installed on it...
forcing you to use anything from Apple?
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I believe that Apple has a right to know if one of its employees, who would've signed a NDA, is the source of the leak. How would you all feel if in cases such as this the "news source" were required to provide its sources to a third party, at that point the company that wanted to know if a leak was internal would be provided the names of sources only if it matched a list of employees.
I do love the protections that the press has and feel that those protections should be extended to online media, but I also think that companies should have some protection of their trade secrets.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
And how is MS using Apple to attack Linux by saying OS X is a better Unix than Linux? I've seen a variety of individuals say something to this effect, but I've never really seen it as an official company line from either MS or Apple.
Web sites were not protected by free speech because they are not legitimate members of the press.
So you only have free speech if you're a journalist? I guess I didn't read the First Amendment closely enough. This comes as somewhat of a surprise. I thought Apple was generally doing things right and not being stupid, but maybe I was wrong. I wonder where Google stands on this?
Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
iTunes Music Store purchases can of course be burnt to CD, at which point they can play on just about anything.
That's an odd complaint. I don't think Apple is demonstrating a grudge against OSS or Linux in particular, it's just that the market share of Linux on the desktop is tiny (2%). If Linux had 70% of the desktop market, they'd certainly be offering iTunes for X11 and Linux. Moreover, if it were purely a quid-pro-quo arrangement, I'm not sure that Apple would be bound to produce iTunes for Linux - maybe they should provide iTunes for OpenBSD, since they actually use that team's products (OpenSSH, for instance). Just because you get Apache and Samba with Red Hat, and OS X (OS X Server has Samba) also includes them, doesn't make them "part of Linux," after all, though they're clearly important to making Linux useful.
If I had a contract with somebody and they broke it, I would want to know about it and so would you.
But make no mistake that if Apple had not bungled the marketing of the original Macintosh way back when, and Apple became the monopoly whey would have made the Microsoft we know and love/hate look like a freakin Saint!!
Gates & Co. are motivated by one force... money, anything that threatens them from making it, they attack. Jobs is motivated by power and ego, and is most certainly a megalomaniac.
I'll take a greedy bastard over a megalomaniac any day!!!
Just mod this whole article -1 Flamebait and get it over with.
I keep reading that "Red Hat is the new Microsoft" or "Apple is the new Microsoft". There is only one Microsoft! They alone have near monoploy market share. They alone have tried their best to lock people into their own proprietary versions (java, web browsers, office suites).
Apple may guard their secrets and markets closely, but they also support open standards and open source.
Red Hat makes the source code for all their products easily available by ftp/http mirrors everywhere.
To paraphrase Gandalf: There is only one Microsoft and it does not share power!
Believe it or not, just like Apple, Microsoft also used to have an army of fanboys for whom MS could do no wrong. I remember the fevered launch of Windows 95, with them all lining up outside stores at midnight to be the first to own a copy - I don't think even the Apple fanboys have got this bad yet!
However, for all the blind loyalty, slowly but surely people started to hate Microsoft. I can see Apple going exactly the same way. Why? Because like Microsoft, they have started to screw the average Joe around and act anti-competitively.
When they make their cute little computers, they can pretty much get away with charging at a premium, as they have total lock-in and nobody else can make a compatible, yet cheaper device (and competition is one of the main things that commerce is founded on). However, with, for example, the iPod and iTunes store, a lot of other companies have been able to produce alternatives that are cheaper, and do the job just as well, but better. What's the Apple answer? Lower the costs? Make their products (Fairplay DRM I'm looking at you) more attractive to consumers? Nope. Instead they try to stifle the competition by making their hardware only able to purchase tracks from their own online store (which kind of feels like a car manufacturer only allowing their cars to be used with their own brand gas), and taking legal action against any competitor that tries to provide tracks that can be made to work with Apple's hardware.
If that isn't anti-competitive, and the Microsoft way, then I don't know what is.
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
Microsoft's DRM is OS level, not application level.
Yeah kinda cracks me up. That's like bitching that I can't buy a chevy alternator for $50 and put it in my $50,000 BMW.
Not at all. You can buy a $50 Chevy alternator. Of course, it won't fit, so you might have to make some metal brackets, drill new holes and find the right kind of pulley to make it fit on the belt, but you can still do it legally. No one can stop you trying and no one should be able to stop you trying.
With DRMed works, you can not do the software equivalent of the above unless authorized, because of the DMCA (even though you supposedly have fair use rights). Now as it happens, Apple do authorize it by letting you burn on to CD and re rip (which may be a pain), but you can still put your songs on a different player.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They all act like this. Their stuff is made in the same factories as PC clones, they're pretty lousy to their customers when there's a defect or quality control problem, and their only concern is their bottom line and their shareholders. The only reason it's worth picking on them for it is they've had this BS image of being above that for years. They aren't, and weren't. Apple fanatics don't like hearing it, but you can't make yourself an individual by buying a mass-market product from a publicly held corporation.
There are big differences between Apple and Microsoft.
Microsoft goes out of its way to steal competitor products (Sybase SQL server and OS2/Windows) copy innovations without any consideration to the originators (see GUI interface and mice: which both copied but apple paid stock for when they borrowed it), choke the life out of people they have contracts with (Look at the spyglass to IE story) and sabotage technology standards that they don't control (See Java and the butchery they did to Javascript/ECMAscript the supposed standard). Even in their originally innovative products, they primarily engage in anti-competitive, intentional incompatibilities (See every upgrade of Microsoft Office) that sabotage the compatibility efforts of others.
Apple does none of these things. They are innovating, inventing and are really careful about asking people to mind their own business. They want to make their money by selling the best products in a category - Microsoft wants to make their money by being the only company to sell products in every category.
To sum it all up: Apple makes, Microsoft takes. If Apple is cooking up new, tasty technology, they have a right to privacy.
They're the old Microsoft. Nobody practiced such harware and software lock-in like Apple did before they produced OSX. However, that's also one of the things that made the mac work so well. Everything was perfectly matched. It wasn't until Firewire and USB that we could use much third party hardware like printers and keyboards and mice(oh my). Really, Apple is more like Sun. Software and hardware lock-in are still there. For me, the quality of the product makes up for it. Now they make a computer that works great AND you can tinker with it to your heart's delight. That's something else you couldn't really do until OSX. Tinkering was(and still kind of is) the only advantage the PC had over the mac.
What?
Apple's crackdown on Web sites that love the company
Paying Apple employees to break an agreement with Apple and leak Apple's trade secrets isn't a manifestation of "love".
Some people have to grow up and understand that a company is about making money, and a company has corporate interests that some blogger may not be able to appreciate. A company isn't "open", like the government is (supposed) to be.
Second, this is about unauthorized publication of private information. Certainly nobody believes that "the press", in any of its traditional or more modern forms, has the unfettered freedom to publish private information, especially if the release of the information is potentially harmful to someone.
Consider the (admittedly imperfect) analogy of a blogger publishing your private medical information, or financial records. Nobody would claim that the first amendment extends to malicious release of private data.
A reasonable person might argue that a corporation is not entitled to the same protection as a an individual, and it is certainly the case that ThinkSecret's actions were not malicious (although they were arguably harmful). OK, we have the basis for a discussion, but not histrionics about a corporate evil empire trashing our constitutional rights.
I can't believe Forbes published that drivel. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple's actions are reasonable or constructive, but this was an inexcusably sloppy start.
And, oh, by the way, my pre-iPod MP3 player (a Creative Nomad II) is currently loaded with mostly iTunes-purchased songs. I guess I failed to notice the Apple-logo'd chains around my neck when I loaded it...
Apple is protecting it's rights here. Trade secret law is a complicated thing. Apple is entitled to protect it's corporate secrets.
Companies aren't open, companies aren't free, companies are typically closed, proprietary, and restrictive. Apparently some Apple employees blabbed and they shouldn't have. Things like this can cost companies millions in lost profit.
Is this bad PR for Apple? Yes, I think it is. Is it within Apple's rights? Certainly. Does it make Apple the next Microsoft? No, last I checked Apple only controlled a fairly modest portion of the market.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
The only reason the PC became the defacto standard was because they didnt kill off their clones.
:)
Apple even without windows would not dominated because Apple in the 80s and early 90s was DUMB!
It is likely another company would have created a GUI system for the PC even if microsoft didnt. An example being GEOS which came out BEFORE windows for the Commdore 64. Geos was ported to the PC about the same time as Windows came out...had there been no windows it is likely GEOS would have become the defacto GUI for DOS based systems. In such an event...GEOS and either Microsoft or DRDOS would have merged.
and Voila... GEOS 95.
Apple's stance on Think Secret is about First Amendment rights. From Apple's perspective, it is trying to protect their trade secrets by limiting information about upcoming products. Apple isn't alone in doing this. Most automanufacturers go to great lengths to protect new models. From ThinkSecret's perspective, it's about their First Amendment rights. A court will settle it.
If it was MS, not only would MS sue ThinkSecret, they would try to influence ThinkSecret's partners, suppliers, and customers in not so subtle ways.
Apple like some companies have and will continue to bully some resellers This behavior could turn away many, and Apple could be nicer. The sad fact of the matter, though, is that Apple owns a monopoly on their own machines, but they have not in recent memory tried to bully resellers against competitors.
Microsoft has not only bullied resellers but strong-armed partners too against their competitors. When Win95 was out, many OEMs were persuaded not to install Netscape but IE or their Windows prices might rise. Intel wanted to develop a Java runtime compiler for i386, but MS hinted that AMD would get a more favorable treatment when MS developed their next version of Windows if they did.
The issue with iTunes keeps coming up, and it never really gets explained. AAC is an open standard. Fairplay contains the DRM. Not many players support AAC and almost all support mp3 (as does iTunes/iPod) and some support wma. Those that support wma have struck deals with MS. Some of those who complain about Apple being closed include MS and Real and that's the pot calling the kettle black. You can always convert the songs into MP3s if you want although it's not a simple process and their will be fidelity loss.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Is it OK for a medium sized business with a small percentage of aggregate market-share to use restraint of trade practices, ethically dubious legal machinations to control product information flow, and closed source development methodology? Complaints about Microsoft have ranged from outright code theft and distribution (Stacker) to breach of contract and restraint of trade while holding a monopoly. And closed source development methodology. Which is worse? Which of the two might cause greater damage across the whole economy? Toss these questions in your ethical scale and decide for yourselves. I know where I sit.
I'm not pleased with Apple's behavior of late. But IMO Microsoft has a long history of much worse. I'll stick with Apple as long as their product does what I need at a price I can afford (both time and hardware/software expense). I bought a Mac because I don't have time to maintain a Linux box at home any longer. I ran both Linux or *BSD on my home PCs for over ten years, and if I had the time to tinker, I'd go back. Not now. I work full time, I take two evening classes, and I'm a part time landlord. My computer is now a tool, not a toy. So, Mac it is - warts and all.
*sigh* As good as much Free Software is, sometimes one must make a tradeoff between necessity and available time. And if that means accepting Apple's somewhat rude and abusive behavior, for the moment I'm willing to do so for expidiency's sake. But that doesn't mean I like it. Apple may convince me yet to make my next purchase an Opteron running Linux. --M
I do believe that corporations have a tendency to skew evil by virtue of their servitude to quarterly profits, but just because a company becomes successful does not necessarily make them evil. This reminds me of people who quit listening to bands like REM because they started doing well. "REM sucks ever since they sold out", Whatever.
To compare Apple to Microsoft and ponder "what if" scenarios is just ridiculous. I haven't seen anything remotely on the level of MS evil on the part of Apple. Apple gets special scrutiny because they're Apple. Believe me, Apple will get away with a lot less than IBM, Sun, or Microsoft.
As I understand the suit against "Think Secret", Apple wants to uncover who leaked genuine trade secrets to the media. Whoever that person is has broken the law by violating a non-disclosure agreement of some sort or another. Apple has a legitimate business interest in stopping the illegal flow of business intelligence out of their company.
As for their songs not working on other players - please. Anyone with a pulse and the most basic knowledge of computing history knows what's at stake here. If Microsoft ever overtakes Apple in the DRM space, god help us. Besides Apple has spent millions of dollars developing a kick-ass music store and portable player that work in perfect harmony. If you don't like it, don't buy it. The idea that Apple is being unethical by not helping Dell and Creative sell their inferior solutions is just bizarre.
Now, if Apple ends up with a long-term monopoly in this space, than they should be held to the highest standards regarding laws regulating monopolistic behavior. However, it's a little early to be thinking along those lines as the whole thing could flip-flop at a moment's notice. Besides, the whole game is moving away from iPods and Mp3 players and into cell phones. DRM and distribution are the new prizes and Apple knows this as well as Microsoft. Most of the whining you hear about iTMS not working with other players comes from the companies who make the other players and from MS and MS apologists who want the MS' DRM to be the de facto standard.
My personal vision of the future of computing involves a mixture of open source and for-profit software and industry standards wherever possible to promote competition. Looking at the history of Microsoft and Apple, and looking at what makes them tick, I find it hard to do anything but root for Apple right now.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Has anybody else noticed that Apple is not suing ThinkSecret? They are not pursuing damages from ThinkSecret. They are not trying to bully ThinkSecret into disappearing from the web.
In short, Apple is not attacking ThinkSecret.
This is not a First Amendment issue. Apple is trying to track down people who violated their NDA. When you sign an NDA, you are signing a legal contract and violating that contract is a violation of the law. When you sign an NDA you have essentially agreed to forfeit your 1st Amendment right as it relates to the subject of the NDA.
Apple is trying to track down a person or people who willfully and illegally violated the terms of a legally binding agreement that they made with Apple. ThinkSecret is safe. ThinkSecret is not being forced off of the web. They are not being sued for damages. They are not being prosecuted at all. They are being subpoenaed for info that would lead to the prosecution of people who have broken the law (this is not even debatable at this point, these people have violated the terms of a contract that they agreed to). No one is attacking ThinkSecret or their right to say whatever they choose to say.
And the whole idea of media sources being protected is sketchy at best. There has never been a clear and well-defined legal precedent for this supposed protection. In fact, whenever "sources" have provided info that is later determined to be false or defamatory, they are usually pursued with the blessing of the courts. And when someone provides information by violating a legal contract, why should it be any different? If you didn't want to get in trouble for telling people, you shouldn't have signed the NDA.
You people have a funny idea of how the first amendment works.
This has been debated before, but I'll put in my $.02-- If MS didn't "take" the BSD TCP/IP stack we would be in a world of locked up and proprietary communication protocols-- the internet itself may be a different place.
Apple did not "lock up" the changes they made to the BSD Unix core "darwin"-- in fact not only have they been very open about their changes the entire core is available under and open source license. Apple has done more than expected-- and continues to port back all or most changes to Darwin. It's actually a neat operating system, and can be run w/o Quartz (Apple's WM).
Do yourself a favor and bite down hard the next time you put your foot in your mouth.
transmission_err
Microsoft is the new IBM, Apple is the new Microsoft, Google is the new Apple... who's the new Google? ...and what's IBM become?
Hello? what part of the previous poster's comments did you not understand? Apple has made the source of any code that they have modified available. Darwin is a complete BSD-based OS, which is freely available. They have contributed patches to other OSS projects whose software they make use of. What they have not made available is Quartz, which was not based on OSS, was not ever OSS itself, and is completely an Apple product. Where have they, as you allege, "been able to take that code, modify it, and charge for it (without providing the source)"?
Used to? Jesus man. I still see so much evidence of this going on today here on Slashdot and everywhere else. To an awful lot of people, Microsoft is still a kind, benevolent company who make secure robust software. Or at least they don't seem to bothered by the rest of the shit MS does.
WTF are you talking about? In order to be able to sell the damned things, they needed to have DRM in place. We don't like it, but that's reality. Their players may only understand their DRM, and other players may not since you'd have to break their DRM to use it. But did you not notice an iPod plays MP3's???
So go buy yourself a friggin' CD and make your own MP3s. Download your MP3s the way you do now and play them. Go buy a non-DRM'd MP3.
An iPod is in my future. iTunes music store isn't something I care about at all. The fact that for the MP3s I've ripped from my legally purchases CDs will play on it is why I'm buying it.
Blaming the economic reality that if you want to sell digital music nowadays and not run afoul of the RIAA it needs to be DRMd on Apple is like blaming a liquor store owner for not selling to minors.
Oh? I have a choice of a whole bunch of MP3 players on the market. The fact that Apple branded players only decode Apple DRM'd things is hardly a shock.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
IANAL but if an employee can break a non-disclosure agreement by passing NDA-protected information to a news site, but can then hide behind a cloak of anonymity in the event of their employer following up the leak, wouldn't that (in effect) render the NDA unenforceable?
Please people, Apple has always been this way. Apple didn't get beat by Microsoft because they were nicer, they just got beat. If you were surprised by Apples recent moves then you just haven't been paying attention.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I went to download quicktime the other day and found that I had to also install iTunes with it. WTF?!? If I wanted iTunes I would have downloaded it long ago. It's like Apple is really the new Real.
My kids, preteens, use itunes all the time and they don't have an ipod or a Mac. I like itunes because I save money and time. I save money because I give them an itunes allowance and they can download the latest singles instead of buying a whole CD for one song. I save time because I don't spend time trouble shooting the program for them. After they download songs they rip a CD and use it in any CD player around, in the car, at home, at their friends home,anywhere. Also isn't it possible to use an ipod with any mp3 file. Summary. I can use itunes without an ipod. I can use an ipod without buying songs from apple. I can use neither, with any alternative music store or music player, or better yet buy CD's and play them on my home stereo, which I did long before there were ipods or itunes. Apple does not control anything that I do. I can use their produces or not use their products. The choice is mine. If an artist decides to release their music only on itunes then that is a poor business choice by that artist.
Crippled? Care to explain how? You can run http://opendarwin.org/ on more models of Macintosh than you can run OSX out of the box (utilizing XPostFacto). Plus, you can run it on several different x86 motherboards. It has a fully functional X system too for all the GUI goodness you could want. It has a rich and growing ports http://darwinports.org/ collection.
If OpenDarwin is crippled, then so is every *Linux and *BSD distribution out there.
Yeah, you definitely put your foot in your mouth.
cr
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone /
Quicktime Standalone, still available.
OK, so hinting and anti-aliasing are different things. You can use both, or none, or one of either, it doesn't matter.
Hinting is about correctly grid fitting the pixels. It can (and should) be used at any size, but is most noticable at small sizes (which is most text on a computer screen). If you want to see text that isn't hinted, look at this.
So to say "hinting is ugly" is not correct: hinting by itself modifies glyph shapes, for the better (that's why people want it). As you can see from the picture, unhinted text is very ugly indeed - unpleasant to read in fact. What you probably mean is that some people don't like anti-aliasing. On Windows it's off by default,on Linux it's on but you can disable it globally very easily, and on MacOS X you cannot disable it without special purpose hacks that often break when you upgrade.
FreeType is capable of anti-aliasing and also using TrueType hinting, which it can do in one of two modes: automatic and by using the data embedded in the fonts. In automatic mode it tries to guess based on the shapes of the glyphs. The algorithms used are fascinating and developed specifically for FreeType, to work around the patent. However the autohinter doesn't always get it right so FreeType can also use the real hinting engine it is supposed to use, if you have a license.
"Font smoothing" is just another way of saying anti-aliasing, except in that thread you linked to where they appear to be using it to refer to what is normally known as sub-pixel anti-aliasing which exploits properties of how pixels are laid out on LCDs to make it look better. Microsoft calls this "ClearType". FreeType can do this too.
In short: hinting and anti-aliasing/smoothing are different things, which have different purposes. It's possible to have one without the other.
"...Apple's actions this week as a potential threat to first amendment rights..."
Look, just because a company wants to shut down some websites, does not make it an automatic 1st Amendment case. The 1st Amendment was originally ONLY meant for the federal government; i.e. Congress can't make laws saying, "no printing bad stuff about any senators." In the early 20th century, the 1st Amendment was "incorporated" so that it also applies to the states (Schenck v. United States); I think it was the first of the Bill of Rights to be incorporated . BUT THAT IS IT. The 1st Amendment does not apply when Apple is suing a few websites over trade secrets/NDA/etc. This case might be corporate censorship through legal intimidation, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a state or federal government abridging free speech.
A good example of a current case that DOES involve the 1st Amendment is the Novak/Valerie spying case where two journalists have been held in contempt because they're refusing to reveal their sources. I think it's a journalist from the Post and the Times.
It's stupid to shout "freedom of speech" whenever anything remotely relating to censorship occurs.
Yea, its a dumb comment. But the issue that should be focused on "is Apple out of line going after the news sites?"
It's only a trade secret if you are the one who signed the NDA or other such agreement with Apple, to anyone else it is just news. Apple is having a problem with employees and contractors and is trying to use the courts to pressure third parties, that have no responsibility to maintain trade secrets with Apple to get at those who do.
This is hardly a national security issue and the judge should bounce the whole thing. Maintaining your trade secrets is your responsibility, Apple should be able to prove its case before it gets to court. e.g. Apple should have the names of the leakers and the signed contracts.
If Apple wants to play this game it should use its own money and not ours by bringing it to the courts or harassing innocent third parties with legal action.
Beside NDAs and contracts, companies may often obscure new product plans, create false product plans, "leak" false information and cleverly plan release dates or release date announcements to name a few tricks that are often used instead of our courts.
(IANAL, I have signed NDAs and I have refused to sign other NDAs but have never broken one.)
OS X without its GUI would probably fall under crippled. However, OS X as a whole isn't open source software that Apple "took and returned to the community a crippled version to us."
Darwin, the kernel that OS X uses, however, is the OSS project Apple used. Apple has since returned many changes they've made to this kernel back to the community. Aqua, the window manager, was developed by Apple itself, and so does not fall under the category of "OSS product they stole and returned a crippled version to us."
So your original point, that they took Darwin and returned a crippled version of it, is false.
Now, you're saying taking the OSS product, adding a window manager, and returning the changes to the OSS product but not including the WM is what makes Apple evil and against OSS? Who the hell do you think you are? Apple created Aqua on its own; it has the sole right to decide how to distribute it, not you.
Your statement about other distros not adding a WM and commercializing it is moot; most other distros include X11, but if they created their own WM then they would have the sole right to decide how to distribute that.
So Apple doesn't give back the source for their proprietary GUI, in which they did NOT get from BSD but is their own. They did do, with Darwin, is release all the code they used and changed with BSD. The way I look at it is that they gave back exactly what they used, and kept their complete original work to themselves.
Its like a bakery who takes a cake recipe changes it, lets anyone have their new recipe for the cake, but not the recipe for their new icing. You still have to buy the cake from them to get that.
Compare this to MS who took something and gave back nothing. That said Apple took alot more than MS. Apple gives back more than just Darwin check it out : http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/
It should be also noted that you can very easily get XFree86 running on Darwin.
That's spot on.
Apple is in the zone of making products you think you just can't be without. You want them. Have to have them. And you will spend the little extra to get the little extras they spend time investing in making a quality product.
M$ has labored to create a market where you have no choice. There is no rational thought involved. You must buy product X to do whatever it is you need or want to do. If you don't, it's not just the little extras you'll be missing. By design you won't (and can't) be compatible with "the market"--whatever that happens to mean for a given segment.
Even if Apple begins to drive a market segment, their philosophy thrives on competitors, even when they hold a majority of the segment. Having something crappy that you could buy but decide on an Apple product instead nets them more profit per unit. As a company, that short- to mid-term strategy is starting to pay off for all involved big time now. Whereas the M$ long-term strategy of sheer dominance is showing cracks lately.
Please take a look at any Mac online discussion board -- a huge chunk of the discussion is chewing over rumors and hypotheses about Apple's upcoming products. Practically all people talk about is rumors -- even the tiniest bit of information is reverberated through the echo chamber of the Mac community, with every implication analyzed long before anyone has any idea if it's true or not. It's gotten to the point of ridiculousness, with Mac Fans making fake boxes and photoshopping fake cases.
So on one hand we have Mac consumers, who love rumors. And on the other hand we have Mac Rumor sites which apparently now are seen by the Mac faithful as enemies of the state.
Well, you can't have it both ways! Take away the obsessiveness about Apple's secret plans and all of a sudden nobody cares what The Steve's big announcement is, the online community has nothing to talk about, and new Apple products are greeted with a big Meh.
Apple's Marketing Hype Machine depends almost entirely on the Mac Community's need for the Next Big Thing. Apple walks the line here with ridiculous secrecy to whip up the faithful. But then when the rumor sites actually hits gold, Apple brings out the legal guns. Being an online Mac freak just got a lot less fun, thanks to Apple.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I'm tired of people saying there are no compatible mp3 players. Here's the list, straight from Apple
iPod - Apple
Nomad II - Creative Labs
Nomad II MG - Creative Labs
Nomad II c - Creative Labs
Nomad Jukebox - Creative Labs
Nomad Jukebox 20GB - Creative Labs
Nomad Jukebox C - Creative Labs
Novad MuVo - Creative Labs
Rio One - SONICBlue/S3
Rio 500 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio 600 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio 800 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio 900 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio S10 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio S11 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio S30S - SONICBlue/S3
Rio S35S - SONICBlue/S3
Rio S50 - SONICBlue/S3
Rio Chiba - SONICBlue/S3
Rio Fuse - SONICBlue/S3
Rio Cali - SONICBlue/S3
psa]play 60 - Nike
psa]play 120 - Nike
SoundSpace 2 - Nakamichi
CD MP3 Players
RioVolt SP250 - SONICBlue/S3
RioVolt SP100 - SONICBlue/S3
RioVolt SP90 - SONICBlue/S3
Really, I am used to seeing (occasionally :-) stupid stories on Slashdot, but this is ridiculous.
Apple gives back to the BSD community. Apple mostly supports standards.
I have made a lot of money over the years because of Microsoft, but I must say that I don't like them for a few simple reasons: lack of support for standards, obfrustcated Microsoft Office file formats, putting marketing before creating simpler more reliable products...
I respect Bill Gates for his donations to charity. It makes me feel great to be able to regularly contribute small amounts of money to organizations like the Heifer Project, American Friends Service Committee, and Habitat for Humanity. But, WOW!!, I can no even imagine what it must feel like for Bill and Melinda Gates to be able to literally help millions of people instead of of a few.
But, as a corporation, I am starting to detest Microsoft.
Apple is my ace in the hole in case Linux is ever outlawed in the USA. I guess that I could live with just OS X.
Who are you kidding?
Apple's persistent proprietary secrecy, its atavistic self-righteousness, and its high profit margins have always been more stringent than Microsoft's.
Which is why Microsoft has always kicked its ass in the market despite lower product quality.
Even after 20 years, I still don't buy Apple because I feel I'll be "locked-in" to a proprietary system with expensive add-ons to do simple things. The fact that they'll be done extremely well doesn't sway me or the other billion Windows users.
Apple the new Microsoft? This is a joke, right? Ok, I'll play.
1 /0 2/172242&mode=thread
I can think of two big reasons why Apple is not the new Microsoft:
1) Apple's products seem to work very well:
http://www.tcf.vt.edu/systemX.html
2) Apple hasn't been convicted of anti-trust violations:
http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=02/1
The only thing that I seriously hate in all this hooplah is the assertion by Apple's lawyers that freedom of the press applies ONLY to the traditional media. I may not have any legal training, but any assertion that certain constitutionally guaranteed rights apply exclusively to people in the elite makes me nervous. Because then you have to start asking where the line is.
If I print out my own weekly newsletter on my computer, am I more of a traditional (and thus constitutionally protected) journalist than a reporter with 30+ years experience who now writes exclusively online?
I think that EVERY citizen has a constitutionally protected right to free press. I don't recall a clause in the constitution that says you have to be certified to truly enjoy that right. The right covers us all.
Additionally, what would Apple's lawyers be saying if this information HAD been published in a big "traditional" paper? Or if it were on CNN?
IMHO, I think they are behaving like Microsoft. They don't really care about constitutional rights or legal protections of free speech, etc. It's just about money. I'm a mac user, but I'm not an Apple apologist - and I think there's something terribly wrong with any corporation's greed can circumvent the rights of ordinary citizens.
Whether you journalism snobs like it or not, anyone CAN be a journalist with enough time and dedication. No certification necessary, according to our constitution.
..locally to me I can give a realistic figure. I use a local mom and pop ISP primarily, although I also have a cheap earthlink as a backup. The local has a few hundred dialup users and I am the *only* linux customer they have, I asked them to check. No macs, one linux, the rest windows. Maybe planetary wide linux has a slightly larger market share, but I doubt it's even 2% inside the US. Maybe in some college towns, or places like that, but across the board I doubt it. Either way combined mac and linux and bsd is still pitiful small, and it's primarily because only a few places sell macs, and MUCH fewer have linux preinstalled on machines, which is primarily where people get their OSes from, pre-installed. I was just at a computer store today trying to get some parts, a couple other customers in there, so being a ratchet jaw kinda guy I start talking, etc, neither of them had even HEARD of linux, they had no idea what I was talking about.
I blame two things for this, in this order-1- severe fragmentation in the linux "community", because there really isn't a "linux" nor is there a "community", there's dozens of perpetual betaware non compatabile ever changing monthly operating systems basically using a similar sort of kernel and that's it, and they each have a miniscule tiny niche fanbase with hardly any rational cooperation, and 2- lack of decent vendor support at the "on the shelf" retail level. And I don't see number #2 changing until #1 changes and there really IS a true well supported and universally adopted "linux standard operating system". I doubt this will happen though.
Technically speaking, yes. You can also bypass the DVD region code system, but the theoretical possibility does not justify the restriction. You don't really expect people to burn their songs to CD every time they want to use them outside iSomething? It is indeed justified to criticize Apple for this.
No, it's not. AAC is an MPEG-4 standard, developed independently of Apple by the same Motion Picture Experts Group that developed standards such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and mp3. It is not an Apple-proprietary format. If your portable player of choice does not support the standard, it's not Apple's fault.
If you insist on using a non-DRMed format (and Apple's is the best DRM around, in that it expertly balances both the fair use rights of the user and the draconian demands of the fanatical recording industry), then you are likely a tinkerer by nature, and there are options available. For example, you could "burn" the tracks to an Image Drive, and then "rip" the tracks off the iso image to another format. I'm sure you could even bang up a script to automate the process and transfer the metadata to an ID3 tag. No physical media need be involved.
My point is that Apple is doing things right. The average user has a great deal of freedom with the songs they have purchased. This is a big accomplishment, considering the demands of the recording industry. Don't be so quick to dismiss Apple's efforts.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
They have already done the right thing, in returning the part of the product based on someone else's work.
Actually, this is soooo misguided. Neither Google nor Apple are monopolies, neither have been convicted of illegal actions... No, Microsoft is STILL the only Microsoft. The rest is mental masturbation.
Buy a second hand mac dual g4 with lots of ram, buy OS X panther, buy a cocoa handbook, install developer tools, code the program works better than iTunes and supports your device.
In which part Apple stops them?
People not using Mac as their only system can't understand how absurd those editorials are.
I got a OS X system, I buy original cds and yet there is not a SINGLE ALTERNATIVE ON OS X FOR iTUNES!
How can I respect any other company if they don't respect the computer of mine?
This business of comparing Apple's success in the digital music market to Microsoft's business practices is drawing a long bow at best.
Apple have always presented a unified platform of software and hardware. That is now and has always been their approach. It is their right to not hold the concept of software and hardware separation as sacrosanct.
For many years this approach has been cited as the reason that they did not succeed in the OS wars with Microsoft. Possibly true too.
It would seem that the approach of "building the whole widget" does work well in the digital music market however.
Apple did not leverage a monopoly in the music player player market to build the success of the iTunes music store. Similarly the success of the iPod was not built on the strength of a monopoly in the download market. IF they are approaching a monopoly in those markets now then it is because the entire strategy has worked.
Fair-play is not new - it was used on day one of the iTunes music store. It was clear that the iPod was the only portable player this stuff would work with. What did the market say? "Gimme"
Apple have always wanted to build the whole widget and that is what they are doing in music. Apparently the users like it this time around.
Plenty of people state your point, trust me. I see it everytime I moderate when I set my threshold to -1. The point here is that complaints about moderation are generally offtopic and uninteresting to those seeking to read about the story. If you disagree with a moderation, you can moderate yourself or M2. Or at least throw an (OT) in your subject line and decline your karma bonus. Or, if you're intent on complaining, at least show some effort; provide a more involved comment with reasons why such moderations are undesirable. That way you might actually sway a future moderator to undo what you felt was unjust.
The problem here is you're drawing a general conclusion about moderation in general, when it's an activity done by thousands in aggregate. Sometimes stuff like this gets modded up. Sometimes it gets modded down. It only takes two people to move something like this up to +4 or down to 0. There is no conspiracy.
BTW, I got here when checking context on M2. I M2'd the Troll mod on your first comment as fair because I thought it was fair.
I sincerely hope this helps you post better in the future. After all, that's the whole bloody point of moderation. Please take the criticism constructively.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara