Slashdot Mirror
iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward"
An anonymous reader writes "FSF's John Sullivan launches the Defective by Design campaign and petition to rain on Steve's parade, barely minutes out of the starting gate. 'This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,' said FSF's Holmes Wilson, 'If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad.' The iPad has DRM writ large: you can only install what Apple says you may, and 'computing' goes consumer mainstream — no more twiddling, just sit back, spend your money, and watch the show — while we allow you to." What is clear is that the rise of the App Store removes control of the computer from the user. It makes me wonder what the next generation of OS X will look like.
Attacking Apple's products is one thing. Why not create your own open source tablet to compete, and let the marketplace decide?
Why would they want to do that? It is much easier to complain and tell someone else to do it instead.
In terms of a general purpose device, the iPad comes nowhere close. However, like the Sharp Netwalker, it purports to be a general purpose device or at least a PC companion device. This means that some modicum of compatibility and interoperability. This usually means that users will be able to load software of their own choosing, even so far as loading software of their own making.
However if this device is a closed system and requires purchase from an "app store" to enable desired functionality, then we are talking about something far removed from a general computing device. To this end, it is important to realize that Smartbooks have been around for a couple years in various forms (ARM/x86, Win/Lin) and that these existing devices are actually open for development.
Software Freedom isn't only about free software. It is also about being able to use and extend computing devices as a primary freedom.
You may carp on how the FSF demands software freedom at the expense of choice, but if freedom can only be preserved by removing choice, then that is how it must be achieved. Just as health insurance can only be enjoyed by those covered by it, it makes sense to require everyone to have it under penalty of law. Only in that way can we extend the benefits of universal coverage, though it may in some way require the forfeiture of some freedoms (the freedom to pay out of pocket).
I've always been a PC at heart.
Not like the rest, the others. Everyone around me. I was at odds with my society and knew it early since birth. Unlike them, I did not "Think Different!"--the mantra of the Macs around me, the phrase on all the billboards in the city that served as a reminder to its citizenry. Sameness pervaded the essence of my being and no amount of self-conditioning I did could change that. Eventually, I gave up and isolated myself emotionally from society.
I gaze at the faces going by, the white earphones contrasting their black turtlenecks, connecting their ears to their pockets, their blank faces engrossed in hip Indie rock music and various garage bands. I envied them for their perfection against my flaws and my compulsive nature to expand, to burden my life with troubles instead of remaining, like them, simple and easy to deal with. The grandest of virtues, simplicity... the philosophy by our loyal benefactor Steve Jobs, who descended from the heavens, creating the Earth, the iron, the wind and the rain. Steve Jobs, who defined the parameters of existence, the one who set about the patterns of reality, the constants, the variables. He who made gravity, electromagnetic energy, and shaped atomic structures and brought forth motion. From these things, he crafted the elements, processed them, refined them, and from these things engineered Apple products through the purity of his mind. Each Apple product was individually crafted by his own hands with the programming code used to run each device having being compiled in his brain and uploaded to each device telepathically, breathing life and perfection into each and every unit.
Except, it seems, for me, for I was not among the many. I was a PC. They were Macs. I've always been a cold, stiff person. I got by, disguising myself by keeping my non-Ipod music player safely out of sight, which I use because of my depraved nature demanding more functionality than the simple and easy-to-use Ipods have to offer.. In the safety of my own home, behind locked doors, I ran a Forbidden, a contraband computer from more depraved, earlier days that was not given the love and blessing of being birthed by Steve Jobs. I dual booted, out of the great sin of curiosity-- curiosity, a shameful value of a PC, as curiosity has no place where simplicity matters most--using two of the great unutterable blasphemies-- something called "Windows Vista" and something else called "Linux." Although, as I mentioned before, although my tendency to be a PC and towards conformity has always been inherent to me, I was truly transformed when I found these old things in a hidden cache of computer parts predating The Purging. Perhaps the greatest sin of all, the single evil that, if discovered, would damn me forever, was the fact that my mouse had more than one button.
As I walk among the Macs on the streets, passing the Starbuckses as I went along, I wondered how it all came to this. I glanced at The Holy Marks on the foreheads as the people wandered down the streets, the Bitten Apple tattooed on all our of us at birth, and wondered if, perhaps, there could be something more to life. But again, this was a PC's thought, and not, like everyone elses', a Mac's. We were to hold ourselves to the philosophy of Steve Jobs--so as his products were designed for idiots, so too were we to be idiots. But I was not a Mac--I was not an idiot. I was simply too complicated to be a worthwhile person.
Nature called. I found a nearby public iPoo--squeaky clean and sparkly white, things weren't all bad--and let myself go, expelling the waste that had accumulated inside me. After relieving myself and committing the overly-complicated and thus illegal act of wiping my ass (I did not flush as iPoos, designed to be idiot-proof, did not flush) I left and once again wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping to find some meaning in a world where I simply did not belong, a world where if my true nature was discovered, I would be endlessly persecuted by smug, self-righteous sons of bitches.
It'd be amusing to see a video of a Victorian orphanage/poorhouse full of ragamuffins each getting handed an iP*d. Then one looks up at the grizzled, warty man handing them out and says "Please, sir, may I have something different?"
Then he could either scowl and bellow "Different, not at Apple!" and clout the kid.
Or he could break into a gleaming, toothpaste-commercial smile and say "but of course" and hand the kid something from Asus or Marvell.
If you want open and free, go somewhere else and take your chances
Where? The only company I could see releasing a copy of this thing without getting sued into oblivion is Google and it's Android OS and I've heard no plans of a Google tablet (gPad?). MS could fight off the lawsuits, but their UI would suck and probably be just as locked down.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Seriously, they released a tablet that won't run regular OSX apps but only stripped down sandboxed app store approved apps?... HAHAHAHA
HAHA
HAHAHAHA
What idiots. Definatly a huge step backwards. But Apple Fan Bois will say look at the interface and how thin it is... its a huge step forward.
Totally delusional wingnuts.
Well, I guess it's possible that couple of fat smelly hippies (mad love to all y'all) wearing sweaty Free Dmitry Sklyarov shirts and scarfing donuts outside of Apple stores hit their sales so badly that Steve Jobs himself stepped in and changed Apple's policy.
It's also possible that when I get home, I'll find that a naked, horny Alyson Hannigan has been duct taped to my bed. By the Easter Bunny.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What has choice done? It's given us the chaos of spam, malware, worms etc...
The average consumer should get a locked down device such as what Apple are proposing, a limited device with a closed market. And you do realise this is really no different to a games console.
Full blown computers should be reserved for those of us who know how to manage them responsibly.
The only thing they should do, is ensure that the locked down devices and the apps on them use standard APIs and formats, so that those of us with full blown machines and the knowledge to use them can still easily communicate with the non technically literate.
Computers as they are today are simply too complex and difficult to manage for the average consumer, so you either give them something simple or you take the management out of their hands.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Why on Earth would you list Beck and Palin and ignore Keith Olberman, Jon Stewart, and Rachel Maddow? Or even Barack Obama? Surely you can't believe that Palin has been the recipient of greater publicity than Obama, or that Beck is more extreme than Olberman.
As for the nerdy meat of your comment -- sometimes, I would prefer to have simple and limiting to complex and free. I don't *need* to have complete and total control over my phone, my music player, or a simple internet device. These are items that just need to work out of the box, be aesthetically pleasing, and do the job they are intended to do. That doesn't mean that I'm anti-Free Software, but that I don't want to use it for everything that I do.
I run ArchLinux on my primary PC, and love it. I alternate between KDE 4 and ScrotWM as window managers, depending on my mood and task. I also love my iPhone, which does 95%+ of what I want out-of-the-box. For that other 5%, jailbreaking is trivial and allows complete control.
Learn about Photography Basics.
The iPad has the most creative potential of any device I've seen. It's going to slowly eat Adobe's lunch. Can't wait.
No.
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
You wont to know why EVERY major business uses PCs?
Bucause they can do whatever the fuck they want.
Apple locking down is preventing them from competing with Microsoft.
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
I completely agree.
Much preferred the classic Apple logo with the gay pride flag right out on front where you can't miss it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
whatever you say, there are clearly more than enough cocksuckers out there to keep apple afloat, lets face it. even if they're so daft that they just want to avoid getting a virus on their phone.
they can dig their own graves (in a walled garden) and support their favorite corp but the point here is that they don't realize the implications of their behavior. not only are they screwing themselves but other users as well
it could be a fair point to say that if a consumerist is buying into the apple dream they're not likely to to care about other people- and that might be what underlies this.
what is important to recognize is that apple is and always has been a detrimental influence on computing and technology. the pretty designs quickly look tacky and we are supposed to just go out and buy more of the same tat. what we're left with is more and more restrictions on our lives.
Android-X86 and install it on a tablet PC of your choice
Yes, but who the frak wants an OS that gives 'applications' only 16MB of RAM to run in? Google it yourself if you don't believe me.
Just as a point of reference, I can't update, add, or modify ANY of the software on my Motorola RAZR, nor can my wife on her Nokia "smartphone". Not even to simply turn of existing features I don't want. By comparison, the App Store is a huge step forward in openness for phones.
I would think Amazon dropping DRM first and selling MP3s at a very competitive price had a lot more to do with dropping that
You do realize that Amazon never had DRM on music in the first place, so it didn't "drop" it, don't you? You do realize that the only reason that Amazon was allowed to sell DRM-free music in the first place was only because of an act of revenge from the record labels against Apple, don't you? You also must realize that Apple started selling DRM-free tracks before Amazon even started to sell downloadable music, don't you?
I mean really, how can you not be aware of these things, yet be posting on slashdot about this topic?
... and then they built the supercollider.