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The iPad vs. Microsoft's "Jupiter" Devices
harrymcc writes "A dozen years ago, Microsoft convinced major manufacturers to put Windows CE inside devices that looked like undersized touchscreen personal computers. The platform was code-named 'Jupiter' and shipped as Handheld PC Pro, and it flopped — it turned out that people wanted full-strength notebooks. But in retrospect, it was a clear antecedent of what Apple is doing — much more successfully — with the iPad."
It's actually quite funny to see how similar and in some aspects even better it is (and for a product 12 years ago!). Apart from the obvious (larger price and more weight), the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life. There's also dial-up modem (remember how bulky those were?), more apps, syncing software, and multitasking. 640x480 resolution and touch display.
Pretty awesome for a product in the 1998, considering it even beats iPad at some aspects. Oh and Windows CE also let you install any app you wanted (there was a lot of freeware apps too), not just something Apple didn't block from AppStore or where you have to pay for every app you want, no matter how simple task it does. And you also could program your own apps to it.
But what comes to current generation tablets, I'm waiting to see what happens with Courier. The two touch-screen booklike sure is something a tablet should look like. I mean, you're supposed to hold these with your hands and on top you, while laying on sofa or bed. It's a lot more natural to hold them like a book, either for browsing the internet while having a game or IM window on the other screen or just to read an ebook. The non-book feel of tablets has turn me off. I have a bad feeling they will want to go the Apple route and have only App Store-approved apps like with Windows Mobile 7, but I still hope for the best. The ability to have what applications you want or code your own is a really importantant one.
Modern systems like the Ipad(and various replicas using linux & windows) face entirely different issues. Older systems were incapable of most productive features at the time. PC's were used to do "power hungry" things like run excel and word. There was almost no way an older system could run those in anywhere near the same level.
Now even my G1 can read and let me edit spreadsheets. My blackberry as well. Also we live in the age of web 2.0 and cloud computing, most of the crap people do on the internet is pretty processor friendly.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Just goes to show how stupid people actually are. Better doesn't always win. Better very often loses to market hype and brand recognition. Slap an Apple logo on any iGadget and people will buy it today even if they hated it 10 years ago.
i'll believe Courier is anything more than a mockup when i see it in stores.
The reason the iPad is more successful than the Handheld PC Pro is because the iPad looks like a giant iPhone, while the Handheld PC Pro looked like a small laptop.
the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life
For the record, the iPad has a *minimum* battery life of ~10 hours. So if you play 720p video all day long, your battery is supposed to last about 10 hours, and reviewers have said that it stands up to the claim. Standby time is supposed to be 1 month.
Why do you think I absolutely dislike the window mobile 7 move to Apple like App Store and not allowing to run your own or freeware apps? Sometimes people can think on their and not be someones shill and see faults and goods at anyones products.
The iPad has a lot going for it, especially that you can get one for about 1/3 the price of that thing (if you convert the 1998 dollars, see eldavojon's post) and that you have wireless networking (a major plus).
I think a big part of this (and one that Microsoft has run into with their tablet attempts) is that of expectations. If it looks like a PC (because it has a keyboard), and acts like a PC (because the interface looks like Windows 95/98 did), people expect it to operate like a PC. They should be able to install normal software, it should be fast enough to do normal computer things, etc.
Netbooks ran into this too. They were cheap and cute, so people bought them. Then they found out that weren't "real" laptops and had 1 GHz processors, and were never going to edit video or edit 8 MP photos fast. The things looked like normal computers, but cheaper, so why not get it? Then they weren't happy. Now many "netbooks" are full computers that are just tiny. You can buy netbooks that cost $600+ instead of the early $200-$300. They are what people expect out of a laptop, only tiny.
Apple, on the other hand, made a device that is very clearly not a Macintosh. It does look like an iPhone, which is a plus since people see the iPhone as a appliance and not a computer. These two things add up to people seeing the iPad as an appliance and not a computer, which is exactly what Apple intends. It does what it does, and that's what it's supposed to do.
If Apple released the iPad with a fold out keyboard, people would compare it to another netbook or a normal laptop and criticize it for being so inflexible. I was actually very surprised that Apple is even making a keyboard dock, as it makes it look more like a laptop. The flexibility of being able to easily type a document on the road with the dock (or a bluetooth keyboard) must have been enough to overwhelm the worry, and I can see that being the case.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. WinCE killed my father. Prepare to die.
I don't know that you can say that Apple is doing it more "Successfully". The Newton sold like hotcakes when it first came out. Just because it got an initial rush of die-hard Apple fans and "early adopters" doesn't mean the product won't go the way of the Newton, too. I thing it's too early to call the iPad any kind of a success, just yet...
The iPad has a lot of value added because wireless internet is everywhere.
Also the small weight difference counts for a lot.
$499 is still a little more than I want to pay, and I do care (unlike most people) that it is locked down.
But I would happily pay $300 for a similar device that is wireless only, the iPad is a temptation for me.
if it started at $999 no way in hell. Especially if it was attached to 1998's internet, the added value of the iPad is almost entirely that it is now a decade later, and th internet has more value than it did then.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
It's similar in some respects, but not in several that really matter. One, don't take 3G/WiFi for granted, because that feature (obviously nothing unique to iPad) is a game-changer compared to wired networking. Two, 1024x768 is another game-changer, compared to 640x480, as anybody who is old enough to witness that transition should remember. Three, the content that you can consume, starting from music and video to the Internet itself, has also changed dramatically since 1998. Not to mention that the PV-5000 is also more than twice as heavy, twice as thick, and twice (more if you consider inflation) as expensive.
Geeks have a tendency to look at specs and see quantitative differences, but often it is more important to see if the quantitative difference is big enough to become a qualitative difference. For example, a laptop is not just a lighter all-in-one desktop with a battery.
And there you have it folks. You expect a phone. When you see how well it does movies compared to your phone instead of how poorly it does compared to your computer, you're happy.
The interface simplicity also emphasizes this. We associate complicated interfaces with complex, difficult to use machinery. A 747 cockpit has a ridiculous number of switches, gauges & dials, a door just has a knob.
So what? I used to work on a mobile browser that literally sold hundreds of millions of units. The problem is that very very few of those browsers were ever used, so I personally still consider that a failure. Similarly, Windows Mobile in phones did not create an appreciable rise in mobile data usage, while the iPhone did to the point that AT&T's network was strained. That's just marketing? And Microsoft's response to Apple marketing is to start from scratch to build Windows Phone 7?
As opposed to all the Apple Astroturfers?
And just look how much coverage the Ipad is getting - I made a joke about how we'd have to put up with daily Ipad stories as well as daily Iphone stories, but I take it back: looks like we're now in store for an Ipad and Iphone story each every twelve hours.
It just means their behaviour is not illegal. It doesn't tell anything about the morality of their behaviour.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Sure WinCE is used in millions of devices but none of them work very well.
Windows CE had ONE major problem it was never designed around a multi touch interface. It was basically a mouse touch which means you "click and drag" with your touch finger. WinCE and the related Applications held promise but failed to deliver a consistent user interface, designed for small screens, allow for mutli point touch and gestures, Oh and Not look like s standard desktop shrunk to a screen that a Command line interface would have a problem with usability on.
I repeat this over and over again a Tablet is not a desktop OS. you can't use a desktop application on a tablet and expect it to work well. You must shift the interface design away from desktop if you want your tablet to succeed. it is why Palm worked so well. it had a new interface. Windows CE, Mobile, all strived to look like windows Desktop and it was skinned horribly to hide that fact.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Making it a small fraction of the price in inflation-adjusted dollars might have something to do with it.
Nothing could ever compel me to spend $1000 in in '98 on a touch-screen computer (with a non-touch OS).
But $500 in 2010? Shit, I think I could dig that kind of cash out of my couch cushions.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Just goes to show how stupid people actually are. Better doesn't always win.
You're oversimplifying. "Better" is a relative term, it needs context to be meaningful. Apple does many things right that aren't easy to duplicate and can't be reduced as check-boxes on a feature comparison chart. Using a different context, I could say that iPad is actually "better", just because it sells more units.
I've yet to see an Ipad in stores, personally. Anyhow - there were daily stories about the Ipad months before it was released, and even when it was just rumours (in fact, the first Apple tablet rumour on Slashdot was in 2005). Yet when it's another company, we have to have the product in store, for you to see?
A modem is better than Wifi/3G? THANK GAWD I don't have to use those horrible devices anymore. If someone could just convince everyone to stop printing you'd have killed my pair of most hated devices.
I doubt there are more apps for WinCE than iPhone OS. My experience is WinCE typically doesn't run most Windows apps, or much of anything really. And writing apps for WinCE can be a real pain - at least as bad as developing for iPhone.
Both have syncing but iPhone can sync many files over the air with MobileMe, Air Sharing, etc. Doubt your modem can do that.
Multitasking is really overall a bad idea. Apple has gradually been adding it to iPhone OS in such a way as to keep it from totally screwing the pooch. For a few apps it's really justified but the vast majority it is just waste. Sounds as if Apple is getting it right. I doubt Microsoft did but I don't have any specifics on their implementation other than assuming it's normal WinCE.
640x480 is doable (not bad for back then really) but is certainly not better. Stylus driven is really not the same as a touch display. Even touch is nowhere as good as multitouch. My DS, video camera, still camera, and some older PDAs have stylus or single-touch and they really suck when your used to multitouch. Better than no touch though.
I'm not that impressed with that in 1998. I hand built a handheld computer at about that time that was smaller, had built in camera, mp3, and VoIP, local wireless and cellular wireless, and ran a full Linux OS. And I did that for a few hundred dollars as a stupid hobby project because I was annoyed at how limited my cell phone and PDA were. Again not as pimp as the iPhone but very close in concept. If Microsoft had been on the ball they should have brought us all a real iPhone-ish device a decade sooner.
Have you even used the App Store? It has thousands and thousands of free apps. And you can program your own apps pretty easily (could be a little better but helps protect the market from the spam Android gets).
I don't get book tablets. The reason my laptop isn't as good as a tablet is because it folds in the middle. Why take the worst feature of a laptop and put it into a tablet? If they do that they need to make it so you can use it in slate form when a book isn't a handy format but then they'll have extra bulk and weight for nothing. Doesn't really add up. Maybe make it so two slates can hook together to form a book that works in unison - that might have some uses.
I hope MS does have the sense to go the App Store route. It'll give customers a better experience. Is sure easier than managing a dozen DVDs, going to a dozen websites, and pulling a few things off random Flash drives to get your new computer setup. It would be cool if the App Store would let you save templates of what apps you have installed on different systems and re-install them on new systems all at once. Maybe the new enterprise tools will allow that.
There is certainly still room for improvement in the tablet market. While the iPad is pretty cool and is the closest yet to what I started working on making for myself so many years ago it's still far from perfect. I think eventually we'll see a merge between these lightweight desktops and what we think of desktop operating systems today to get something less restricted but easier and safer to use that will take over both markets (effectively remerging them). I think Chrome OS's idea of apps running in the cloud will get merged in there somewhat too although I tend to think the app will be on the device but heavy processes will run on the cloud when it's available to speed things up.
Still interesting that Microsoft played with the concept back then. To bad they never really took it all the way.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
The Toshiba had a 129-MHz Toshiba TMPR3912U CPU which is something like 2 to 3 orders of magnitude slower than the 1Ghz A4. Sure it functioned but would you use it? Value s not just what you pay but what you get.
You could say that in principle one could have made a Victorian mechanical turing machine into an ipad too.
Apple is what is known as an early settler. ("pioneers get the arrows, settlers get the land."). Apple is also an early adopter. (e.g. see Gui, mouse, postscript printing, .... ) Thus they tred right at the line between pioneer and settler.
How do they know when it's time to settle a market? Steve tells them the wine is ready now. Till then they make fun of the pioneers.
Apple and Jobs sometimes jumps the gun too ( see NeXT or Newton or apples game console if you even remember that).
Apple has more success lately, because it avoids the pitfall that most pioneers have in converting to settlers: undercapitalization. Apple has the resources to design things right and to set up ancilliary markets (see itunes) that an undercapitalized firm cannot. So for apple the wine is ready to serve early than the competition.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, the base charge for developer license and a Macintosh system limits freeware authors. They also need to submit it to Apple, pay their fee and hope it gets approved. If Apple rejects their app they have no way to give it to users. Is that the kind of closed computer systems you want to live with?
The argument is that Apple wants control over the user experience. As so many have pointed out the hardware of the iPhone and iPad is hardly revolutionary but the way you interact with these devices is, it is the distinguishing characteristic. So they want native apps developed with the platform in mind, not programmed for common denominator meta-platforms like Flash or Java.
And they certainly don't want to get into the position where they can't change or deprecate APIs because some third party layer would break and a whole host of applications would stop working especially in this stage where they are still working out where they're going with this touch thing. It's been claimed (read that article it's quite good) that Apple has been forced to alter their plans for OSX in the past because vendors had them over a barrel :
"This isn’t some perceived risk, I can think of incidents where Apple reverted OS changes, dumped new APIs, or was forced to committing massive engineering resources to something it did not want to do because a Must Not Break app vendor told them to."
Clearly Apple is bitter over some past goings on and is planning some insurance that won't happen again now they're still top dog.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I love the slashdot groupthink! It's like it's never occurred to you that market research is something you can do, or that a product with better technology will lose to a competitor that doesn't break Mom's wrists and doesn't require a manual! "Obviously, it must be the cult of Apple!"
Caveat: I'm not a MacHead. I think the iPhone is a shiny toy that barely deserves to be called a phone. The iPad as it stands now is a rather lackluster first effort that would have failed immediately without Apple's mindshare behind it.
That said, the problem with Jupiter was not the concept. The buying public didn't just decide that there was no use for a tablet back then, but suddenly there is now.
The problem with Jupiter was that it ran WinCE.
The issue was pretty much the same then as it was when Microsoft very nearly missed out on the netbook explosion. Namely, Microsoft didn't have an (current at the time) OS with a sufficiently low resource footprint to run on the device. So they dust off WinCE, again, and consumers find, again, that WinCE has the same interoperability issues as any random free Linux distribution, except, you know, not free. Besides being ugly and less advanced than just about anything. And so the device, through no fault of it's own, fails in the marketplace.
And Microsoft learns again that the core reason we run Windows is that everyone else is running Windows, and some other OS, that looks like Windows but isn't really, is not going to fly.
They got the netbook market back partly through strategic decisions -- extending the life of XP -- but netbooks still had to become faster and more power-hungry -- bending the original paradigm a bit out of shape -- to allow Microsoft to compete in that arena.
Hardware and battery technology has improved, and Microsoft with Windows 7 seems to actually have gotten the message that you can't just pile on the bloat with each new release and expect Moore's Law to save you. I suspect there will be some new tablets limping along with Windows 7 Home on the market in a very short time. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft blew the dust off WinCE and gave it one more go on the tablet form factor. Hope springs eternal, especially if you believe your own marketing copy.
However, on these devices, the real competition is from lighter weight operating systems with a sufficient collection of integrated applications, and these days that means Android or iPhone OS. As has been said many times in the past, the only product Microsoft has to compete in this area is (still) WinCE/PocketPC/WindowsMobile, and the user experience on that software platform is dismal. Windows 7 provides a sufficient experience, but is probably too resource hungry to run on a tablet of reasonable size and cost with reasonable battery life.
On the other hand, I thought for sure Microsoft was going to lose the netbook market, and here we are today with most netbooks running Windows. It'll be interesting to see what rabbit they pull out of their... um, hats... this time.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The real antecedent of the iPad, around 19 years ago.
you had me at #!
It's actually quite funny to see how similar and in some aspects even better it is (and for a product 12 years ago!). Apart from the obvious (larger price and more weight), the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life. There's also dial-up modem (remember how bulky those were?), more apps, syncing software, and multitasking. 640x480 resolution and touch display.
You would be far less impressed if you remembered what Windows CE, its multi-tasking, and its apps were like back then. You would wince (har har) even more if you remembered what LCD displays were like back then.
Windows CE, especially the 2x series, was half-assed and its apps would not impress you. Part of the problem is that internet wasn't ubiquitous like it is today. That's not the 98 tablet's fault. There's most of the usefulness of the tablet gone right there. Windows CE could multitask, but the apps didn't even have a close button! Basically you just used apps until it croaked and you had to reset it. If you guys thought Windows 95 was bad... hah. Try to imagine that without the Start Bar.
Oh yeah, forget about going to a web page and installing an app from it. You couldn't even do that on PocketPC successors years later. I'm not even certain they ever got around to supporting it with Windows Mobile. You had to download an app on your Windows machine, run the installer, then run ActiveSync to get the app going on your CE device. Make sure to know what sort of processor your machine uses, btw, so you know which one to install.
Forget using the net on it. Even if you did manage to somehow jam a cable into it and get it on the net, Internet Explorer on Windows CE was a joke then and it almost certainly wouldn't work now. No wonder the thing had good battery life, no wireless or video playback to drain it!
The LCD displays would drive you mad. They had no useful black level. They ghosted. They were desaturated. They'd flicker like mad if you touched them. You could technically 'touch' them but you wouldn't have the gestures that you do today. Even if you did, things would ghost so bad that you'd spend a good deal of your time scrolling to find a landmark. You can forget about watching video on it.
Your definition of 'better' only works if you really really really oversimplify the bullet points. The fact is if somebody handed you the Courier then handed you an iPad, the iPad is the one you'd find an actual use for. Probably more than one simply for the reason that it has a built in wireless connection.
Pretty awesome for a product in the 1998, considering it even beats iPad at some aspects.
Microsoft got its ass handed to them by the much simpler Palm Pilot back then. That should give you an idea of how 'awesome' it was to have all those features of multi-tasking, installing any app you want on it, and so on. Ultimately these things sell by what people envision themselves doing with them, not by their ingredients.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Who said it was better, and how? Specs alone do not "better" make. Plus it cost $999 back then which is like $1300 now. If the iPad, as it is, cost $1300, it would not be selling that well. If the iPad had a flimsy folding keyboard AND had an OS that was even MORE limited than what it has now (WinCE is MUCH further away from Win98 than iPhone OS is from OS X) AND required a stylus it wouldn't sell as well.
Why can't people accept that Apple makes great products AND markets them well? If their products truly sucked, across the board, they wouldn't sell as well no matter WHAT the marketing. In fact, they HAVE had products that sucked AND tanked, like the G4 Cube. That thing was advertised just as much as anything else but it cost $200 more than a comparably-specced, more-expandable PowerMac G4. The Cube's failure is PROOF that Apple does not operate outside the laws of economics. They don't *actually* serve drugged Kool-Aid; their customers are NOT ad-absorbing, check-writing, brainless zombies. But geeks seem to resent their success because they make things that people want to use, not what kernel-compiling Slashdotters think is cool.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
In fact, they HAVE had products that sucked AND tanked, like the G4 Cube. That thing was advertised just as much as anything else but it cost $200 more than a comparably-specced, more-expandable PowerMac G4. The Cube's failure is PROOF that Apple does not operate outside the laws of economics
The G4 Cube didn't really suck. Taken by itself, it was a very slick piece of industrial design and made sense for a certain subset of computer users, namely people to whom aesthetics are important and expandability is not. I know it's hard for Slashdotters to accept but the majority of computer users don't give a whit whether their computer is expandable. They buy it, use it for as long as it continues to work for what they use a computer for (typically Web browsing, e-mail and light word processing) then get rid of it and buy another. They do care what the thing looks like, however. But, as you said, the Cube was overpriced, and the one time in my life I actually had the ear of a fairly high-ranking (from Apple, of course, probably C-level) industry executive for ten seconds, that's what I told him. This was about two days before the product launch. I was rewarded with a dirty look, but at least I was eventually proven correct.
They don't *actually* serve drugged Kool-Aid; their customers are NOT ad-absorbing, check-writing, brainless zombies. But geeks seem to resent their success because they make things that people want to use, not what kernel-compiling Slashdotters think is cool.
My friend, that's so right on target I can't even fathom why you haven't been modded down as a troll yet.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Look, the iPad is a consumer device.
Aimed for consumers.
People who consume video, surf the web, use Skype to talk to FB friends in other countries, read papers online, play games online (FB apps).
It's not a tech thing. It just WORKS. And that is the key difference - I've used one, it takes about 5 seconds to figure out how to use it.
That is NEVER true of MSFT products.
By the way, the EU has just been told (I watch foreign business news at night) that they will get the iPod a MONTH late due to US demand. ... the world has changed and the iPad won ... deal with it. oh, and Flash is dead (by the way, you're going to love HTML6 when it comes out)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Playing video all day long doesn't use much CPU, if any, since it's all offloaded to dedicated hardware. Doing something CPU intensive will drop that battery life below 10 hours easy.
Flash content on the web represents a very large and significant portion of contemporary web experience. (And I can't believe anyone needs to state this.) The developing web standards are adopting most of the features presently provided by Flash. If a portion of the web experience is omitted, you know it is missed.
Some people will admit it when they made a buying mistake. Others will defend their purchase decision until the bitter end. In this case, yes, he cares. Others will not say so. But it definitely matters.
Whem Microsoft "breaks" the internet with its intentionally wounded implementation of HTML and CSS support, most of us understand the harm it causes. And when Apple holds functions and features back for ransom or just so that they can be a hero when they finally enable or allow them, their character is clear and obvious.
Once again, it's not the coolness or slickness that makes "us geeks" jealous. It's the harm to the consumer and to the technology marketplace as a whole that bothers us.
Flash content on the web represents a very large and significant portion of contemporary web experience. (And I can't believe anyone needs to state this.) The developing web standards are adopting most of the features presently provided by Flash. If a portion of the web experience is omitted, you know it is missed.
I've had ClickToFlash on my computer for months now and am only rarely forced to view the Flash content to use a site. As it turns out, Flash is used mostly for needless embellishments that add nothing to the content and ads. I don't miss either one at all.
Comparing Microsoft's intentional damage to actual Web standards to Apple's refusal to include proprietary additions is specious.
This ain't rocket surgery.
I repeat this over and over again a Tablet is not a desktop OS
One example I've been thinking about: pressing a button with a mouse vs. touchscreen. Mice are much more precise. It's a little arrow and the point is only 1 pixel wide. If the arrow's point is over something when you click on it, it can have accuracy down to the pixel. That's impossible with a finger. Instead of being able to hit a target the size of a pixel, you need the target to be at least... 1cm^2? Something in that neighborhood.
On the other hand, it's pretty hard to seek the button out with your mouse cursor. I mean, it's not really hard, we're all used to it, but it's more complicated that you probably recognize. Just the first step, which you probably took for granted: you have to find the mouse cursor's current location. Then you have to guide the cursor to the desired location, which means calibrating the motion of your hand to the motion of the cursor. It used to be that if the location was far away, you'd have to move to the edge of your pad, reset the mouse to the other side of the pad, and then move it again. So that was annoying. They've overcome that by putting some kind of acceleration variable in the mouse's motion-- the faster you move it, the more your cursor moves for moving the mouse the same distance. (If that last sentence doesn't make sense, this might help.)
So in both cases, before acceleration and after, it means that it's harder to hit a precise point with your mouse that is far away from your current mouse position than to hit a button that's close. That's part of the reason we have toolbars that cluster all the controls into a tight area, because seeking around for buttons that are spaced far apart is relatively hard.
On a touchscreen, however, the situation is much easier. Touchscreens aren't precise, but they're as easy as pointing, and you're much more coordinated with your finger than with your mouse. This means that while the buttons need to be bigger, you can exercise much more freedom in their positioning.
The difference in pressing buttons alone is enough reason why touchscreen application UIs should be designed rom scratch, and not just pulled over from desktop applications.
Uh no. 1990 called to remind you about the megahertz myth.
does a 2Ghz i7 run faster than a 2Ghz P4? yes by more than a factor of 10.
processors have been increasing in flops/ghz than they have in ghz alone.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
About 3 kg of brown Zunes per post.
The "average user" visits things like YouTube or blip regularly, or sites with embedded video, so having that missing is significant. Yes, YouTube's now moving to html5, but again, these are average users, who won't understand the need to upgrade their browser AND go find the appropriate codec. And they don't understand whitelisting either.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Yes.
I have no problem keeping the kruft out that way.
If someone makes a good freeware app thats truely worthy of being ported, someone will offer to publish to the store for them. Truth of the matter is most people don't give a shit if they don't get some random freeware program because there is an alternative that may cost $2 instead of being free, but its probably better. (if it wasn't, someone would have bothered to port the free equivalent!)
So yes, for many people there is no problem living in that world.
It costs us more money to wade through all the various problems with shitty software than it does to just pay a little for some software knowing that most developers are going to maintain it in order to maintain their revenue stream.
Freeware is great, but really, anything you can find as 'freeware' probably has a better equivalent for very little cost.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Why can't people accept that Apple makes great products AND markets them well?
Why can't others like you accept that not everyone likes what Apple makes and find them worse then what you seem to feel they are? If they where so earth shatteringly amazing, you would think that after 9 years of being made they would have more then 6% of the computer market. Some people do enjoy and love their Mac, and congratulations for them. Thing is, not everyone likes using OSX. For others like myself, they are very unstable (I've used 6 different Mac's, running OS's 10.4 thru 10.6. No lie, the first 5 crashed completely in the first 5 minutes. The last one lost all internet abilities when I went changing a few settings on a Bittorrent client and I wasn't in a root user account and a restart didn't bring it back, they had to spend a few hours fixing it. Want more examples of people having Mac issues then look at their forums). Telling people that if they have a Mac issue they just need to take it to their nearest Apple store isn't a good option either, since there are only around 220 in the US, and 14 here in Canada. The nearest one to me is almost a 2 hour drive away so taking it there isn't an option, nor is it for anyone else not living near an Apple store. Others can't justify the price to hardware differences, and 'surprise surprise' just being something is running Windows doesn't mean it's a crash-fest so many others have no issues using a Windows box.
But in retrospect, it was a clear antecedent of what Apple is doing -- much more successfully -- with the iPad.
About as much as a 13th century carriage is a "clear antecedent" to a Lamborghini. Yes, it has four wheels. One more author who either has no clue whatsoever about what the iPad actually is (note: "table computer" is not the answer) or who does, and simply wanted to drive up page views by throwing the currently hot topic "iPad" into a totally unrelated story.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If it were possible to make them so they were suitable for mom don't you think that might have happened by now?
Yes, it happened about 25 years ago.
Complete and utter rubbish. For the vast majority of individuals who do not have the luxury of tech support (formal or informal) you have shiny machines that start well and then decline as bit rot takes its toll. Maybe slightly less for Macs if you have easy access to an Apple Store when inevitably things start to go wrong.
Even a perfectly running general purpose computer is far more complex than most people really want to deal with. Of course there is a subset of the general population that is quite happy with them but the point is that it is a small subset. You may not believe that but it will become increasingly clear as better products become more generally available.