Slashdot Mirror
Shall We Call It "Curated Computing?"
medcalf writes "Ars Technica has an opinion piece by Sarah Rotman Epps on the iPad and other potential tablets as a new paradigm that they are calling 'curated computing,' where third parties make a lot of choices to simplify things for the end user, reducing user choice but improving reliability and efficiency for a defined set of tasks. The idea is that this does not replace, but supplements, general-purpose computers. It's possible — if the common denominator between iPads, Android and/or Chrome tablets, WebOS tablets, and the like is a more server-centric web experience — that they could be right, and that a more competitive computing market could be the result. But I wonder, too: would that then provide an incentive for manufacturers to try to lock down the personal computing desktop experience as well?" And even if not, an emphasis on "curated computing" could rob resources from old-skool computer development, as is already evident at Apple.
"It's very cold, and very beautiful, and you're not allowed to touch anything."
Sorry, I'm more of a hot-rodder than a passive consumer.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Please just bite the bullet and call yourself an Applogist. (Geddit, Apple Apologist?)
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
It's a "managed freedom institution".
an emphasis on "curated computing" could rob resources from old-skool computer development
That doesn't necessarily have to be true. It's not like developers are en-masse converting to develop for mobile platforms. There is an ecosystem in the desktop software that has to be maintained however the market for that is pretty much saturated. This means that new developers will probably lean towards mobile computing because that market is new and pretty much open. As more people get these devices, that market will also start to get saturated and probably much quicker as the gatekeepers try to keep the bad and duplicate apps out.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
As a 30 year old man I love having big brother make all the decisions for me as I never grew out of a child like mental state and can not possibly make a choice by my self
Hmmm, that'd be news to me, and to various people I know.
If she means to say that a tablet would be better for the bathroom than a laptop, though, she might have a point...
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Can't Slashdot editors find ANYTHING newsworthy that isn't about Apple ?
Fucks sake, the content of this article boils down to "Apple's latest iDevice is equivalent to a gold plated toaster, where user choice has been minimized, but leads to a better overall toast experience".
It might be gold-plated, but it's still a turd underneath, and no amount of iHype or Apple apologists will change that.
Bye bye karma, see you again sometime.
Walled gardens have obvious benefits and drawbacks. But more relevantly to this story (or summary, heh heh) this terminology already exists and no new phrasing is required.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The key distinction is: Are you buying a hardware? Or are you buying a hardware encumbered with license restriction that effectively says you cannot "hack" where "hack" is whatever the vendor deems undesirable?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The problem is that you are buying hardware that is general purpose capable and the issue isn't with the simplifying things for average end users it is artificially preventing other users who aren't part of the herd from getting outside those simplifications and attempting to punish them whenever they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5OlolbLXvw
Can't Slashdot editors find ANYTHING newsworthy that isn't about Apple ?
It's not just about Apple. It's also about Microsoft, which uses the same App Store structure for Xbox 360 indie games and Windows Phone 7 apps. (In fact, Apple appears to have copied much of the structure of the iPhone developer agreement and App Store from Microsoft XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games.) And it's also about Nintendo, which was the first to require that all apps be approved by the device manufacturer.
``Ars Technica has an opinion piece by Sarah Rothman Epps on the iPad and other potential tablets as a new paradigm that they are calling 'curated computing,' where third parties make a lot of choices to simplify things for the end user, reducing user choice but improving reliability and efficiency for a defined set of tasks. The idea is that this does not replace, but supplements, general-purpose computers.''
That's fine and dandy, but we don't need *locked down* devices for that. You can make the choices for the end users just fine, without taking away their ability to make different choices. Ubuntu is a good example of this: you can get the streamlined desktop experience that Canonical provides by just going with the defaults, or you can adapt the environment to your liking, starting with things like changing desktop backgrounds and installing packages from the main repositories, and continuing all the way to running a custom kernel and third-party software completely independent from the repositories.
By contrast, many of the 'curated computing' providers will sell you a device where you are prevented from doing many things, all _in the name_ of making things easier and more reliable for you. But really, that's a false dichotomy - your ability to deviate from it does not impact the ease of use and reliability of the default configuration.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
crutch computing would be more accurate.
"curated computing"?
We already have a word for that, is dumbification.
-Woof woof woof!
I think that to focus on the "curated" aspect really misses(or obfuscates) a critical and ugly point.
Consider the following analogy: You want your house to be aesthetically pleasing and pleasant to use; but know fuck-all about color matching and picking furniture. So, you hire an interior decorator. They "curate" your space and emit a list of suggestions. You can then make it so, or not. On the other hand, if you go to a museum, the curator's decisions are not suggestions, and they are generally tailored to fit the desired audience as a whole, not necessarily you. You cannot add, remove, or substitute anything. Your only choice is to attend the museum or not.
In computing terms, the "interior decorator" situation is basically equivalent to the OEM providing a set of sane defaults, chosen for some mixture of security, ease of use, power, and cost. You can pick your interior decorator and, if you wish, you can deviate from their suggestions.
The "museum curator" option, on the other hand, is the iDevice/carrier lockdown situation. You can either take it or leave it; but if you take it, that's it. the OEM retains cryptographic control over "your" property forever.
The big difference is whether your "curator" is providing a list of suggestions, or a list of orders. The former, frankly, is something that OEMs(particularly the wintel guys) really ought to do a lot more and a lot better. Sane, secure, usable defaults are a good thing. The customer shouldn't have to blow the stock image to hell and rebuild from scratch just to get a desktop worth using. However, any set of defaults that doesn't include a "screw this, I'll do it myself and take the consequences" button, somewhere, that allows you to reject advice and do your own thing is ultimately invidious and will inevitably be used as a tool of rent-seeking(as in consoles, where the OEM extracts a tithe for the privilege of being allowed to sell programs that run on the hardware, or as in the App Store) and likely censorship and all sorts of other fun stuff.
So, here's a question. Does the "average" user who picks up an iPad expect it to be capable of more than what it does out of the box?
This is something I just don't know, I bought a Netbook last year and even with that I could install whatever would run on it reasonably, I know I don't like the feeling that I'm limited to what I can run not because of hardware limitation but because of a conscious designer-driven decision (but that's just me.)
crazy dynamite monkey
The key distinction is: Are you buying a hardware?
The fear expressed in a lot of these articles is that the popularity of "curated", "walled garden", or "hobbled" devices will erase the economies of scale of hardware that you buy outright. A "PC" will likely become a niche product used only by established publishers. It has arguably already happened in some fields, such as games, where the major couch-multiplayer titles are either console exclusives or multi-console with no PC port.
I thought it was a better term. or maybe Consumption Computing?
I like microcars
the ipad, what AOL was to internet, ipad is to computers
"moderated computing." Someone other than you decides what you can and cannot do. Good idea from the point of view of end users, people who really couldn't care less about the technology itself, only what it enables them to do. But terrible idea for the rest of us. How long until general purpose computers become a niche application or a hobby like ham radio? And of course become a "boutique" item costing orders of magnitude more than "consumer" toys?
Let's face it. We are geeks. We are always going to like the freedom and power to do whatever we want with our computers.
But we are not the majority.
Most people don't really care if their operating system allows them to recompile their kernel, write a new text editor, or even install arbitrary software. They would be happy enough to be able to install the stuff their friends have, not have to worry about viruses, and surf the web and chat with the aforementioned friends. And do some occasional work.
Some of this stuff is still Not There Yet on the iPad. And maybe the iPad itself will not be the dominant device of its type once things settle down in a few more years. But I think it's foolish to expect that the completely-open, easily breakable, general-purpose PC is going to be the only, or even the primary, computing device that most ordinary people use in 10 years.
PCs will certainly still be around. Business applications, by and large, will always be a poor fit for the iPad and similar devices. So will programming. So will some types of games (but not all!). And, heck, at least for the time being, the iPad requires a computer with iTunes on it for managing it.
But for the vast majority of people, a fully-featured PC is overkill for what they want to do. We're entering a period of transition—and, I would say, moving further toward the maturity of the computer age. As many people have pointed out in previous discussions, in the 1950s, if you owned a car, you more or less had to know how to do a bunch of basic maintenance tasks. Now, many of the parts you had to maintain no longer exist (such as the carburetor, as I understand it—I'm not a car person), and most of the others you can't maintain on your own: you have to take it to the dealer or an authorized service center, or void your warranty. Computers today are just starting to move past where cars were in the 1950s. It's no longer absolutely necessary to know how to perform maintenance tasks, but it still makes things run much more smoothly. And with the iPad, not only do you not need to do those tasks—you can't.
For some people, that will always be a dealbreaker. And you know what? That's OK. Apple doesn't care if everyone buys an iPad, any more than they've ever cared that not everyone buys Macs. The world will go on, but changed: instead of just computers, we'll have computers and "curated computing" devices.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
We won't be calling anything "Curated Computing", but remember we can't all be famous phrase coiners.
There is no reason why the both markets should not coexist.
Except economies of scale. In some fields, the balance has already shifted from general-purpose machines to appliances.
When it comes to my rig at home, I am definitely more of a hod-rodder myself. [...] When it comes to my phone - not so much.
What about the rig that you carry on the bus or carpool to use while you commute? The iPad is supposed to replace low-end laptops.
The word is 'appliance'.
From TFA ...
This pretty much gets to the crux of things. Yes, you can't do everything with this device. But the things you do want to do are more usable, and better designed.
This is a different device for doing different things differently than you do them now. It's not going to replace the machine I do my professional work on. But sitting in the back yard, or in my recliner, or what have you ... it allows passive web surfing, reading a book, or propping it up in the kitchen like a cookbook with a recipe I got off the web.
I'm really interested in one of these once the price comes down a little. The early adopters are shelling out money for them now, but I can see a lot of people eventually getting one of these.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...between reducing user choice but improving reliability and efficiency myself.
Why do non technical people believe the words that pour out of Jobs' gob? The man, and Apple's advertising, is infamous for saying things he knows are not true. Hell, my favorite recent example of this was when he bashed Flash about being designed for PCs as one of the reasons not to use it on the iPhone/iPad when his company makes you use Objective-C! LOL. Guess what Objective-C was designed for?
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Do the 99% of the people who are buying an iPad or iPhone care about not being able to hack their device? I'm pretty sure that's a resounding no.
Your estimate of 1 percent interest in jailbreaking is off by nearly an order of magnitude. It's closer to 7 percent, at least among users of apps using Pinch's library.
"My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the State. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites. We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been cast out. -- And the poisonous weeds of disinformation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directive! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on Earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. -- Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. -- We shall prevail!" -- Apple, 1984. That's the copy from the famous Apple ad with the guy speaking to an audience of people in grey from a big screen.
The Apple fanboys hate that paragraph (and will mod it down to "Troll" in about 30 minutes). But that's a clear statement of Apple's "walled garden" approach. They even use the same terminology: "A garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths". As for the "Information Purification Directive", see the the EFF's analysis of the Apple iPhone Developer Agreement. Apple tries to keep the Developer Agreement secret, but they accepted a NASA app, which made it subject to a FOIA request, and now anyone can read it.
Am I the only one who thought of the removal of Gnome UI customization when reading the description?
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Perhaps we can have scare stories about curated automobiling where you're denied access to wrench your own parts or even choose your own gears. (Everyone who's leasing an automatic, raise your hand.)
Curated dining where the preparation or even ingredients are chosen for you. (Everyone who's eaten at a proper French restaurant or sushi bar, raise your hand.)
Curated gaming, where the rules are enforced oh-so-strictly. (Consoles post-Gameshark, pretty much anything online ever? Raise your hand.)
Curated music. (If you've ever loved a particular DJ, whether he played the best indie and new band rock or the finest selections of '40s jazz, damn straight you're raising your hand.)
Curated drinking. (If you've ever had a good bartender, you know how wonderful this is.)
It's fair to insist that the curation remain a social contract, that you be able to buy a beige-box PC rather than only an iPad or that modding your Wii is grey-market rather than strictly outlawed. But even for enthusiasts in a field, there's plenty of benefit to letting the experts tell you exactly what to do; typically, they're the experts for a reason, and the ecosystem designed entirely under their watch is better for 90% of your needs than what you'd get throwing a cavalcade of enthusiastic morons and autists at the problem.
curated posting
and iPad and BLEND them !
Thanks in advance.
Yours In Smolensk,
Kilgore Trout
Curated Computing sounds like a bad idea to me, because those third persons are making decisions without actually knowing my needs and habits as a user. Therefore less choice is very likely to lead to less relevance as well. This is the kind of computing you get in a big company where a central IT department sets policies and standards for everything, and it generally drives people who try to develop something new or display some creativity into raging fury -- even if the choices that are being made for you aren't braindead.
I think in the long term devices such as the iPad are going to be a success only if they can be personal enough. In theory a more convenient model could be one in which the systems learns from my behavior as a user and adapts accordingly. However, so far this tends to be based on a frequency-of-use approach, which is rather limiting. It isn't much help to the less skilled user, who might never be able to find the right options. And there are potential privacy considerations, if this is focused on monitoring the behavior of a single person.
A better mechanism could be a kind of 'Evolved Computing' working like this: I make myself a member of a peer group, based on common activities and common user interface preferences. I get a software package which may be inherently flexible but complex, perhaps too complex for the daily needs. Monitoring the group statistics allows the system's managers to de-emphasize some features, and highlight or offers others which might be attractive to this group. As a user, I can be presented with tools that other members in my peer group have found useful, and can adapt or reject. Another group may have another set of preferences, of course, but a particular group is offered the relevant subset in its user interface.
It's nothing really knew -- it's traditional user feedback, and the selection mechanism for iPod Apps or other extension packages. But it could be done smoother and more intelligently.
over the last 10 years home laptop sales have outpaced home desktop sales. but in the end most people still do the same basic things on laptops. Internet, email, youtube and a few others.
this is where tablets come in. they are supposed to be good at the basics with the iPad having other software allowing you to do some other basic computing tasks. The reason Win7 doesn't work in tablets is that the install is 15GB and with 16-64GB SSD sizes it's too much lost space for the OS. iphone OS, Android and WebOS are all under 1GB. they will grow, just like Windows did over the last 30 years. the goal is to get the basics right, take over the market and add other features on later. Just like MS did with windows.
i'm thinking of going this way this year. buy a low to mid tier desktop PC. i'll build myself or just buy a Mac Mini. It's enough to play older TW games and Civ4. for the average computing on the couch, mobile computing, taking kids' cartoons everywhere, etc a tablet is the way to go. it's smaller and lighter than a laptop. and the iPad has some nice build quality. feels better built than my $1500 HP business laptop.
the desktop is your server where you keep most of the data. the iphone/ipad is the client you take with you. the desktop is where you can hack. a lot of people don't care about their iphone/ipad not being hackable. it's there to get stuff done or consume media. not explore the file system.
we've had home server systems being sold, but i think they are a waste of money. you just need an external HD to hold your data with a thermaltake external holder. and they cost a lot in electric bills. and only the crazy OCD people think they need to have 20TB of their music and porn online all the time and available
I would call hardware like the iPad a computer appliance. When people buy tools for their tool shed or household items, they know that if they buy something that tries to do everything, usually it will suck at most things it does. So they buy targeted tools/appliances well designed for their specific need. The apps in the apple app store follow this analogy in microcosm, and the iPhone or iPad device follows it in macrocosm. Its certainly a boon for non technical users, but as a developer I don't enjoy the lockdown Apple is imposing on their development environment. Some of their restrictions can be seen to be in place to make the platform more appliance-like (restricted multitasking, etc). But others just seem like anti-competitive practices (disallowing Flash, Monotouch, and presumably Silverlight). I'm alright with it being a limited platform, as that helps out the target demographic, but artificially limiting the developers is just poisonous and makes me want to distance myself from the company.
Does the "average" user who picks up an iPad expect it to be capable of more than what it does out of the box?
"There's an app for that." But then people run into the limitations of what Apple allows in an app and complain to other people. For example, a device with iPhone OS 2 or 3 can run Safari and iPod at once, but not Safari and Pandora at once.
I bought a Netbook last year and even with that I could install whatever would run on it reasonably
Same here. I use my netbook as the low-end laptop that it is. Of course, the danger here is that laptop companies will stop making netbooks in favor of "curated" or "walled" tablets if they see far more profit in the latter.
So far tablets have been "meh" - they have been around for almost a decade now and have gained no traction. Then Apple comes along and sells a million in a month without even trying. Is it a "power" device - No, it isn't. But, it fits a niche. It sent HP and Microsofts attempts at reinventing the tablet into a tailspin and caused them to be scrapped. But what niche will the iPad fill? I have one and love it, for a few reasons - but I see it more of a device for my grandparents. They have no real need for a computer and its power. They want to send email, check pictures, and that is about it. Why should the spend $70 a month on Cable Internet when they can spend $15 on 3G for the iPad? The iPad and the Ink have potiental to become great thin clients as well. Years ago I was looking at the Tough Book "Notepad" thin clients, they were $2000+ EACH and were nothing more than a Citrix client. We shall see. The tablet market has been reinvented. It will be interesting to see what Android vaporware will come out, I'll love to grab one when it finally does.
This statement alone is enough to disregard the entire article.
...where you choose a vendor who will make your computer be reliable.
Gimme a break.
Apple weenies (and a bunch of slashdotters too) need to let go of that aged-out belief that Windows isn't reliable, or that an unreliable app makes the whole platform unreliable. You don't need to switch vendors...you just need to stop using the bad app(s).
Apple users are going to great lengths these days to rationalize the fact that they have chosen a platform with somewhat limited choices. The fact is that they have chosen a computing STYLE, and in so doing, have to some extent limited their computing CAPABILITIES. So, for example, they choose the iPad STYLE and they lose Flash CAPABILITY.
Enough of the "less-is-more" argument in Apple-land...less may be prettier, but it's still less.
This kind of experience is great for people who want to use a computer without the hassle. Obviously this wouldn't be a primary computer for us geeks but it would be great for people who are completely techtarded or just have a few specific uses for their machine. It would certainly save ME a lot of time not fielding tech support questions from friends and relatives! I can see it being useful as a second (or more than likely third) computer for enthusiasts as well. I love my PC and the near unlimited things I can do with it, but sometimes I just need a single screwdriver and don't feel like carrying the whole toolbox.
iPhone OS is a fork of Mac OS X, just with mouseover replaced with multitouch and verification of code signatures made mandatory. The idea is that while other laptop companies have a netbook (running XP), a mid-range laptop (running Windows 7), and a desktop replacement (also running Windows 7), Apple has iPad (running iPhone OS), MacBook (running Snow Leopard), and MacBook Pro (running Snow Leopard).
And hackers think they are cool because they change the background image or download a naughty application. I am with them. There was a time when I thouhgt putting the Bill&Opus motif on my mac was the end all, I thought I was hot. But that is really an adolescent rebellion against anything that is forbidden, not any kind of technical issue. For most of us we have things we hack and things that we need to work. The PC is every office because it can be administered and locked down in a way that few other OS can. No one cares about hacking it because that is not it's purpose. The same goes for the iPhone and iPad. How many people complained that they could not hack their Razr. It was a good phone and that is all we cared about.
If one wants to fiddle go and buy a copy of Make. What we don't need to do is think that Apple or whoever all of sudden violated some basic human right. Most of us don't care that we can't pull out the water pump from our car, and do car that we only have to see the mechanic once a year instead of every week. Most of us don't care that our televisions can't be repaired, but are happy that they give us a few years of good service then die so we can upgrade. Most people don't want a phone or a computer that they continuously have to fiddle with and upgrade. Those who do have cheap ones they can buy. Just not the iPad. Which is ok, because if one is a really a cool hacker, one does not need to show off with an iPad.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Tablets and smartphones and i* are all just toys. No work gets done on these things. Nobody is going to run Quickbooks on an iPhone.
Contrary to "journalists" popular belief, just because their professional is still relatively low-tech (writing) and can actually be done on a wristwatch, these days, doesn't mean that the rest of the world works that way. Those of us who need more than a Gmail account for our actual productive work don't believe for a second that these toys will replace general purpose Windows PC's any time soon.
I don't respond to AC's.
Clearly most Slashdot users prefer more choices over someone making choices on their behalf when it comes to computing. That's because we're computer geeks. The average person, however, is getting real benefits from having a group of experts with more control over the device on their behalf. They also get real negative consequences, such as some applications they want never making it to the device they use and less ability to migrate devices without losing one's investment in apps.
Okay, we know all that already, right? So now we come to what people are doing about it. Half the venders are ignoring the benefits Apple has provided, secure in the knowledge that Apple's innovation will lose in the market. Half of them are emulating Apple, betting Apple is right. What none of them are doing, that I've seen, is innovating. Is there really no way to create a system that provides both the benefits of their "curated computing" while not bringing about the drawbacks? Can't someone build a central marketplace for apps that are vetted, and hosted by any and all comers? Can't a phone or series of phones be built where there is a guarantee that the apps will be portable between those phones and have been vetted for security and performance concerns so the user can make informed decisions? I've long advocated that the average desktop user doesn't have the information they need or the OS level control they need to effectively know what apps to run and how much to trust those apps. I've long advocated that the only way to get proper unbiased information is to build into the OS a way to get greylists of what apps are trusted from multiple sources, weigh them, and then take good, automated action on behalf of the user while providing them the details they need. It's easier to put all this power into the hands of one company, but then you end up having to trust a single party (be it Apple or MS). So who's going out making a better solution? Come on Google, I'm looking at you.
Using an app store should be a process of getting data from many parties. "Three out of four of your security feeds say the battery performance of this app is unacceptable and should be avoided". "Warning: this app only works on this phone and has no vendor promise to allow you to support other AndroidCert phones going forward. Be sure to take this into account." "Warning: this app is rated as malicious by two of your four security feeds. You will need to change your app settings to download it. This is not recommended." In addition, devices should be doing the right thing in the background, sandboxing apps and severely restricting ones that have not been vetted... maybe even refusing to run unsigned apps by default.
It is not impossible to create a decentralized app store using data and servers from a variety of companies... a personalized store that only shows users the apps that meet their security, performance, and compatibility requirements; or at very least makes the needed data available to the end user. People complain about the Apple iPhone App Store, but complaining is not really very useful. Who's making something better? Who's making something that is going to take hard work, but which will make a store that gives users all the benefits of Apple's store and freedom besides?
Are these people just borrowing or throwing money away that they should be saving?
If you save your money, inflation will erode its value. Savings account interest fails to beat the Consumer Price Index nowadays.
"...a new paradigm that they are calling 'curated computing,' where third parties make a lot of choices to simplify things for the end user, reducing user choice but improving reliability and efficiency for a defined set of tasks."
How about "censorship" instead?
Ok, I know I am playing devil's advocate but if the slashdot headline was "China develops computing model where users have reduced choice but increased reliability, with the choices made by the State Education Department", I know the word censorship would be bandied around pretty quickly.
Depends on who you want to make the decisions for you and of course a big question is how much opportunity you have to affect those decisions if you'd like to get involved in the process.
As a nerd, I demand that my excessive non-typical use patterns are subsidized by the general market, because I deserve everything for free or as near as possible, because I have decided that is ethical. You cannot deny me, because I am right, because I have said so.
Poor Troll, you look starving. Here, eat something.
As a nerd I demand my fellow nerds designing nerd-tools not fall into their corporations' traps of making a technological feudal society. We aren't the knights or the clergy in that bleak future. We are the laborers, and we will not be free to leave our lords' lands.
I'd much rather go to McDonald's and say "I'd like a Number One please" than go to say, Subways, and have to decide what kind of bread, what kind of meat, what kind of cheese... %@*^@(%@$% It's too many choices already. Same with watching TV. I'd like to turn on TV and watch whatever is on. If you tell me to go to hulu.com or whatever, I wouldn't know what to watch. TV should be easy and relaxing. It should play something I want to watch, and I don't know what I want to watch. Figure it out. Same with computers. People just want it to work. They don't want to deal with "files" or "processes" or deciding which web browser to run. Just make it work!!
Once a human is involved, all computing is curated, by definition. Because people don't usually talk binary, but computers do. To resolve this inherent human / computer interface problem, there first were programming languages like assembly. Then there were high-level languages like Fortran or Basic. There were OS commands and command-line interpreters. All of these were curated interfaces; they hid the underlying structure and provided the user only what they needed for a specific task.
I remember when the first GUI interfaces came out in the early 80's -- people claimed they were not "real computing", but some limited, "curated" interface.
It is amazing how far we have come since then. But still today, every time someone tries to make an incremental improvement in human / computer interface, it is still is derided as not "real computing", and some kind of strange novelty of limited usefulness. All computer interfaces are limiting, by necessity. That is not a weakness. On the contrary, computer interfaces are most powerful and productive when they provide humans with exactly what they need and nothing more.
Unapologetically MVC systems where data and different types of user interaction can be entirely divorced from another while not screwing up the overall program logic that would be unchanging regardless of platform?
Guess what Objective-C was designed for?
We don't have to guess. It was a proper superset of C for NeXT workstations, which were oddly enough quite a bit less powerful than today's iPhones.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
What service is running software? I run it on my computer using my resources paid for by my money. So what service am I getting? The service of being able to give my money to Apple? The service that they oh so graciously LET me run their software???
FUCK THAT.
This is nothing new for the Open Source world, GNOME has been working towards removing all user preference for years.
People have so much animosity and argument about devices like iPad is because they kept referring anything that has a CPU/RAM/storage/display as a "computer". "Computer" implies a general purpose computational device and it is simply not in this case - devices like iPad has specific applications. I don't see people whine about washing machine with ARM/LCD it lacks an API so people can write an app to have it's LCD show stock ticker.
Should be nazi Computing with censorship on this system!
Baning a cartoon over political satire sound like a Nazi move.
Sir; I wish I had mod points today as you deserve it. One of the best and most insightful posts seen on Slashdot in a long time. Thank you.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
My mom (a distinctly non-technical person) couldn't give a rats ass about anything that Steve Jobs says, but she still loves her iPhone.
Regardless of what you think about Apple's marketing BS, they're consistently releasing products that people like and choose to buy. Most of the talking that Jobs does isn't for the average non-technical consumer, it's geared towards the tech media.
Non-technical people try Apple's stuff because it looks cool, and then they buy it because they discover they can use it to do things that they couldn't figure out how to do on their previous computer/phone.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
iProduct: An interface with a simple grid of pictures to click on instead a design where any literacy is required, no need to worry about any background programs running you won't be able to see/comprehend, no need to worry about programs being installed without a matching deduction from your credit card, no need to be able to watch a video that hasn't been monetized by the man behind the curtain... Even the simple advertising campaigns - just a picture of someone cool (like you want to be) using the product (and a song if on tv) - all designed for those with low cognitive fluency
e.g. "If you build something even stupid people can use, only stupid people will use it".
Stupid people often make the best customers though - to them, you can sell shit and get thanks. They are the ones clicking on the mobile phone carrier's preinstalled spamware to buy $5 ringtones instead of downloading the whole song for $0.99.
Then BUY SOMETHING ELSE.
As long as there's a demand, an alternative will always exist.
Steve Jobs is not holding a gun to your head, making you swipe your credit card to buy an iPad. But don't fault him on designing something uncomplicated that other people will gladly buy because it does what they want in a way that suits them.
I swear, we went through this shit before when the Mac debuted with a mouse and GUI. "It's for babies! What will we do? We're all doomed to a future of stupidity!" GUESS WHAT? Over 25 years later, you can still type in a command line if you want, even in Mac OS X.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
How the hell is this new? Because Apple did it? Have none of you been aware of game consoles for the past several decades? How is an iPad particularly different from a Nintendo DS or Sony PS3?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
all i see is an attempt to make strangling the users under strict control seem sympathetic or convenient. this is all there is to about it.
Read radical news here
Wrong: if there's no mass market for computers, they'll be as expensive as they were in the 1960s. No business ever made a profit by selling cheap products in low volume. When the only potential buyers of a general-purpose computer are large companies and "geeks", some of the former will just grudgingly pay the multi-million dollar price, but we'll be SOL.
I don't imagine it will be quite that bad, because basically the same guts will be going into the locked-down "appliances", but guess what: Tough shit. If you're a hobbyist, you have to be prepared to pay to get your custom stuff and specialty parts. Look at audiophiles. These maniacs spend tens of thousands of dollars on custom setups, while most people are happy with whatever they get at Best Buy... but there's still a thriving audiophile community.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
So called 'couch-multiplayer' titles can stay on consoles.
Then I guess you're not a fan of indie games.
I am able to tolerate the dictatorship Apple holds over my phone because to me it is a phone, and I've never had full control over any other phone I've previously owned.
If your first PC had a dictator, would you have been able to tolerate such a dictatorship on future PCs?
I will never tolerate it for a real computer or a device that claims to be/replace a real computer.
The fear is that once devices with a dictator become commonplace, you might no longer be able to buy a real computer for use at home.
I dare you can find one instance where either Apple or Jobs states that the purpose of the iPad is to replace anything.
Officially it isn't. But look at the iPad, and then look at the lack of a 10" MacBook when major PC makers are making 10" laptops with Atom CPUs.
However, if you want a shell and an open environment and no media stores, why don't you just buy an Android phone?
Android phone is to iPhone as X is to iPod Touch. Solve for X.
Android phone is to iPhone as X is to iPad. Solve for Y.
This is what they called "dumbed down".
I'm just sayin'
And, it sounds like a monarchical thing to do.
And, it sounds like a communist thing to do.
And, it sounds like a theocratic thing to do.
And, it sounds like something a junta would do.
Actually, it is something that any authoritarian government would do.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I wonder what we will compare techno-prowess against in 30 years when the first crop of slashdotters rocks the cradle of their first grandchild...
Oh, yeah, I forgot: most Slashdotters won't reproduce.
There are products designed for slashdotters; Apple doesn't however design products for slashdotters.
The fear is that even companies other than Apple will stop making products designed for slashdotters.
It is designed to consume media with limited ability to create.
Apple makes one device for creating and a separate device for consuming. As the iPad market grows, Apple may decide to make a version of the iPad that runs without first having to be synchronized to a copy of iTunes. In that case, a lot of people will buy only the device for consuming because it's cheaper than also buying a device for creating. This will discourage people who currently consume from starting to create.
"Is there really no way to create a system that provides both the benefits of their "curated computing" while not bringing about the drawbacks?"
Yes. It's called Difficulty Levels in software.
Check out Open Office for Kids (Or Your Average User).
It's got an adjustable toggle for user interface difficulty. It's NOT that tough! You start on "easy", and if you think you're got stuff, you can go to "intermediate" and "advanced". So the Just Works crowd can Just Work, while you might get some support tickets for "I went to Advanced but screwed it up". But at least they knew it was their fault for taking the training wheels off. It's not "the computer is stupid".
Anyone else have any other examples? That's about the only/clearest one I can find really labeled explicitly.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It's true that Apple treats the iPhone/iPad platform a bit like a museum--being obsessive over what "art" is/isn't allowed to be put on display. That's their right, of course--just as it's your right to shun it, if you don't like it.
Generally, Apple has pretty good taste, in that they put a lot of thought and effort into UE and design. Geek types generally don't appreciate how important this is.
Anyone who has worked support, and has an ounce of sympathy for their customers, knows that technology can be brutal. People are pushed to their limits, only to be told, at the end, that they've failed--that they aren't good enough to make it work.
Computers are inexhorably encroaching into the fabric of our lives. Anything that makes this conquest more comfortable, prettier, and friendlier, is helping to reduce the harm in our souls.
Someone made a good point about the Macintosh: it first shipped without arrow keys on the keyboard. It was only years later that Apple relented, and put arrow keys on.
At that time, they were trying to do something difficult: effect the GUI revolution. This meant changing people's entrenched habits, eg, changing keyboard navigation to mouse-based.
Usually, people who criticize Apple for doing what it does, fail to understand what it takes to create breakthroughs in consumer technology. It takes the discipline to cut things out; and an uncompromising approach to design. The sacred cows of "freedom" and "openness" are not driving the revolutions of consumer tech paradigms. "Freedom" and "openness" are misplaced and self-serving sentiments, held by developers who don't understand what consumers really need--or are too lazy to create it.
Now the Internet is another thing altogether. "Freedom" and "openness" are genuine and important values there. Realizing and preserving the social gains the Internet revoluion promises, is one of the most crucial social goals of the 21st century. So things like "net neutrality" are important.
But people are conflating the cell-phone revolution with the Internet revolution. They are being very lazy in their thinking, and painting with a very broad brush. It is simplemined and obnoxious. Mobile platforms need to be engineered to *work*, and work well. It is not a democracy, unlike the world wide web. It is a hardware platform, with an operating system, a set of APIs, a supported toolchain, and a distribution channel. Apple has provided these things. As a developer, either you are in or out. It's your choice.
Hell, my favorite recent example of this was when he bashed Flash about being designed for PCs as one of the reasons not to use it on the iPhone/iPad when his company makes you use Objective-C! LOL. Guess what Objective-C was designed for?
I don't think you are a programmer, because I don't think you would have this misconception if you were. Of course Jobs is going to say things that are good for his company, but he's right about this one.
Objective-C is just a general purpose language, it can run on anything. Apple spent a lot of time rewriting NextStep (or Cocoa, if you prefer) for the iPhone, and they did a fairly good job. So the Apple developer ecosystem was actually built with a phone in mind.
On the other hand, flash was not. Flash on mobile is a direct port of something that was done with a PC in mind. You should be able to see this, even if you aren't a programmer. Think of things like multi-touch, and scrolling menus on the iphone that are different than things you will normally see on a Mac (if you think you will find some). Then imagine how you will do flash things like mouseover. It just doesn't work.
Qxe4
Yes. It's called Difficulty Levels in software.
I see where you're going with this and it makes sense. For this particular case are you proposing something where apps that have not been vetted, may be malware, or which could kill your battery quickly only appear to user who toggle their system to an advanced mode?
So the Just Works crowd can Just Work, while you might get some support tickets for "I went to Advanced but screwed it up". But at least they knew it was their fault for taking the training wheels off. It's not "the computer is stupid".
While I see how companies might like this as a way of not having as much of a blemished image from mishaps, I think this fundamentally the wrong approach for security. Already we have security focused on shifting the blame for problems to the "stupid user" instead of preventing the problem in the first place. In some instances software now makes problems worse and more prevalent in a quest to shift blame away from themselves. Real security does not care about blame, just results.
Another problem with this approach is that the source of problems may not be evident. How many users install random software knowing there is risk, but don't associate that random software they installed with why their computer is increasingly slow or why an update makes their system unbootable? Those are the kinds of problems where having an advanced mode still results in users blaming the vendor and tarnishing the vendor's brand, despite it being the result of actions taken in "advanced mode". Yet another problem is software vendors who are lazy and will only do what is necessary to get the software to the user in the easiest way possible. I see a glut of "please switch to advanced mode to install this software" leaving users in the unenviable position of having to choose between not having access to software they need and want versus giving up on security. Many of those users today have that choice and do blame OS and device vendors for not shepherding a better ecosystem. In fact the iPhone App store is partially a response to that.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of making sure the end user has control of their device and can override the OS and knowingly install malware. I just think it needs a lot of work and other components so they know that is what they're probably doing and it is made clear to them that such an action may result in problems with the whole OS and experience. And most importantly for OS vendors and end users, normal users never, ever are confronted with such a choice.
I INSIST that my computing experience involve maintaining enough resources to staff an IT department, constant attacks from malware and viruses, applications that won't behave for more than a few minutes, flash-crashworthy ads and pop-unders, and a large group of condescending nerds telling me how stupid I am because after 25 years-plus of unchanged UI practices - I'm the one that's behind the times - not the computer. "curated computing"? How about - "it doesn't suck?" I would like that new computer - the flat one. You mean the one that doesn't suck? Yes please.
Apple devices seem like they should be sold in the cosmetic section of a department store. They are devices made to appeal to the eyes and be aesthetically pleasing. However beauty, being in the eye of the beholder, is not the same, nor should be the same for everyone. No one company should be able to dictate that every device should "look like this", or "behave in this fashion". And cosmetics are by nature made to beautify, or "cover up" something perhaps undesirable underneath. Beware any single vendor solutions that lock you into their "way of doing things". The best solution will not be found by ceasing to search, an no one vendor has a lock-in on "truth", no matter how god-like Steve believes he is.
Cheeky bugger! ;)
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Is is not meant to solve the greatest desire of programmers. It is meant for the everyman. That is where the money is. Linux would be wise to learn this lesson.
Knuckleheads.
That is all.
I don't think you are a programmer, because I don't think you would have this misconception if you were.
I don't think you're very logical, I am obviously pointing out that one of the problems Jobs has with Flash applies to Objective-C in exactly the same fashion. Objective-C was designed for desktop computers.
Yet another example of Steve Jobs talking out his a** and only technical people realizing what a lying, dishonest, <ChevyChase>sack of monkey shit he is</ChevyChase>...
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Call it "Nanny computing." It's more pejorative. And accurate.
"Curated" sounds like the company who's controlling your systems is a servant who works for you, a "custodian" of the inner plumbing of your device which you as lord and master do not need to trifle with.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The one thing developers fail to understand (if they haven't tested before), is that developing for a single piece of hardware for a single platform using a single language and api calls is very, very easy to test, and test alot. More testing = more bugs found = more bugs fixed = higher quality.
This is why the experience of playing a game on console is consistance and bug free. While you (may) get improved function on a PC, your quality is going to go down significantly.
The same principle can be applied to any product that caters to a specific platform.
Note also, that this is why (for crossplatform applications) open source is so strong. It takes A LOT of eyes to make sure everything is quality across platforms, devices, hardware, etc.
You lack understanding of subtlety to any degree. In other words, you are dumb as a rock. Objective-C is a general purpose computing language. It's just a piece of the puzzle, and isn't analogous to the entire flash environment (it corresponds most closely to actionscript).
Qxe4
Naturally, I don't accept the groupthink and therefore I am a troll. Go figure, Slashdot approved opinions only and you people think of yourselves as some sort of intellectuals. Cute.
Guess what Objective-C was designed for?
Err ... Apple products? Via NeXT?
Flash, in its current incarnation, is too bloated to be effectively used in mobile devices. Part of the problem is it's too high level, trying to simplify development at the expense of efficiency. ObjC is a (very thin) veneer over vanilla C which imposes very little overhead on the execution environment, but a comparatively large one on the developer. Pointers, memory management, resource leaks, etc., are now (again) the responsibility of the programmer; they are also topics about which the average Flash developer has barely heard about, if at all, but never really learned to handle. Plus obviously Apple's implementation of Cocoa on the iDevices has kept an eye on the relevant restrictions (e.g., no garbage collector on the iPhone OS, although there's one in MacOS's ObjC now); the same could not have been said, either now or in any reasonable version of the future, about Adobe.
So, sorry to deflate your bubble, but your "favorite one" is actually a product of your own ignorance. If you understood the issues involved you would have realized that the point (using ObjC vs. Flash in a constrained hardware environment) makes perfect technical sense, although it is obviously an unpopular, politically-risky move.
But with flash he's talking about the user interface. With Objective-C you're talking about the back-end language, which the user will never be aware of. So, your comparison is a red herring, and it misses the entire point.
Flash has interface elements which are specific to the web, or at least desktop computing where you're using a keyboard and a mouse, navigating menus, and whatnot. It's got tooltips that happen when you hover the mouse and things which make no sense in a purely touch-screen interface that is used on the iPad. This look like it' trying to truly change the way the user interface works. And, from my experience, Flash has always been a big steaming pile of crap, and I don't install it on my machines if I have any control over it. Any site which requires flash doesn't get used by me. Adobe just wants to port the exact same apps to the iPad and continue with the status quo. Apple wants to change things.
What Steve Jobs is exceedingly good at doing is steering a company which sells products which people want, and which they will buy in droves. The fact that iPods, iPhones, iTunes, and (likely) iPads are all very popular and sell like mad, says that as far as the consumers who are buying it are concerned, they're producing exactly what it is people want.
For me, an iPad sounds more like a combination of an e-book reader, iPod, and a lightweight web browsing appliance. Meaning, I would use it entirely differently than I would use a desktop computer, which I believe is the whole point.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That's what it is, after all. I thought Apple was crazy having non-customizable computers in the 80s and 90s. But by the 2k's, it seemed obvious that they included everything that 99% of people needed in a box. Other people are finally realizing there's a consumer electronics niche for computing products. No biggie. "Curated Computers" are in the Smithsonian.
Social media and technology thoughts: http://jasonkinner.wordpress.com
You're obvious incapable of understanding anyone's point other than your own. Jobs bashes flash because it was designed for usage on PCs, not mobile devices. Jobs does so in the complete understanding that he's being totally disengenuous (look it up) because wants you to use Objective-C to develop with instead and Object-C was designed for usage on PCs. It doesn't matter that it's been ported retard.
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http://open-ryan.com/2010/03/13/software-curators/
I was in the Apple store today to ask about the iPad preorders. While I was there, the sales rep asked me why I ran Ubuntu on my laptop. I gave the answer that any iPhone owner will intuitively get: Ubuntu has an “app store”.
He said: “Really?”, and nodded sagely as I showed him around the Ubuntu Software Center. Frankly, though, while it’s pithy, it’s not 100% of my reason for loving software on Ubuntu. The real reason is that I can choose Software Curators.
When I enjoy the news somebody collects and shares, I subscribe to their Blog or Twitter Feed. I also subscribe to TV shows in pretty much the same fashion.
On Ubuntu, people can create a Personal Packaging Archive, or PPA. When I subscribe to it, the PPA’s version of software replaces the standard for the operating system. I am effectively subscribing to their software service, for my laptop. Let me give a recent example.
I recently discovered The Elementary Project. Put simply, it’s an attempt to bring a mac-like design sensibility to Ubuntu. It includes an icon set for GNOME, also a windowing theme, a GDM theme, and branched versions of applications like Abiword and Docky. They are constantly improving, and all it takes to adapt your Ubuntu box to use their packages instead of the standard is subscribing to their PPA. I also subscribe to Chromium Betas, and Firefox daily builds.
Being able to subscribe to PPA’s brings an important level of control back to the user. App Stores like the Ubuntu Software Center are nice, because they are an easy way to discover popular software by developers that the Ubuntu Project trusts. PPA’s allow me to also confer my trust on developers, to get access to their apps using the same infrastructure.
From what I hear, the next version of the Ubuntu Software Center will make it easier to browse and subscribe to PPA’s. I get the impression that Ubuntu is the only OS that understands and supports the idea of outsourcing to a trusted software Curator. I’m proud to be an Ubuntu user.
Ryan Singer
with flash he's talking about the user interface
No, he isn't, and this is why this is so important. You are aware, no doubt, that this great bruhaha recently blew up because you can no longer compile iPhone/iPad applications with non-Apple tools, right? Thus, barring Adobe's compiler for the iPhone.
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Coming from a mainframe world, I have to say certain kinds of lockdown are OK - those that provide standardization in the interests of making the user's experience reliable and stable - but only if the standardization rules allow for the exploration of new things, by the IT group and the user/customer community both, so that reliability doesn't equal stagnation.
Aaaaaaaand you are still dumb. I can imagine you hitting your head with rocks, because that's what you are doing here with logic. I mean, TCP/IP was built on mainframes, but was designed in a way that would make it usable anywhere. Flash was designed for the PCs, in a way that makes them somewhat unsuitable for many mobile devices. Objective-C is much more like TCP/IP in this sense. I await your further response showing your incapacity to understand simple distinctions.
Qxe4
Wow, you're really bad at this. You're now attempting to argue that Flash, which was built to run on multiple architectures and operating systems on the same architecture was not designed in a way to make it usable anywhere, but that Objective-C, which was designed to be run on a very specific hardware system and was then ported (warts and all) to run on Macintosh hardware and then, yet again, ported to run on Apple's iWhatever hardware was in fact designed to run on all types of devices. LOL!
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..and describes quite well what Apple is doing here.
OTHO, how could we have lived through >30 years of gameconsole history without defining a name like that for it?
bickerdyke
hehe, now not only are you dumb, you are also starting to show your ignorance. I'll bet you don't even know which platform Objective-C was designed on (hint: it wasn't Macintosh, and it wasn't by Apple). Objective-C has been around a long time, and as a matter of fact, was designed to be general purpose, and to solve general problems. Come back when you have some knowledge.
Qxe4
You appear to have difficulty reading, is English a second language for you? I quite clearly stated it was ported to the Macintosh.
We're still all waiting for you to explain how it is you managed to deduce (and I use that term very loosely) that Flash was not designed with platform flexibility in mind and Objective-C was.
I mean seriously, anyone reading this thread is just dying to hear your reasoning behind that... :)
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See, this is where your ignorance of being a non-programmer gets in the way. If you were a programmer, you would realize Objective-C is not the same as Flash, it's just a programming language. Flash is an entire UI system, it was designed for use with a mouse. If Apple had ported their UI toolkit directly to the iPhone, it would have been lame. Instead, they rewrote it. It is really not compatible with Cocoa on the desktop. Adobe could do similarly with Flash, but then it wouldn't be Flash anymore, it would be something different, even if they still called it Flash. For now, when people write Flash apps, they expect the user to have a mouse. When people write iPhone Apps, they don't.
As for platform flexibility, Flash doesn't even really support Linux on 64 bit architectures. Objective-C on the other hand, supports over 40 different architectures. There's no comparison in flexibility. When Brad Cox created Objective-C, the whole purpose was to bring the flexibility and modularity of Smalltalk to more common use.
Qxe4
"And it's also about Nintendo, which was the first to require that all apps be approved by the device manufacturer."
That line points out that this battle for content control goes back to before Net-based software. In Nintendo's case the company relied on hardware controls such as the "10NES" system to (try to) prevent unauthorized cartridge games. But that was a dedicated gaming system (despite half-hearted marketing hype and a short-lived Famicom modem service in Japan), not something that was marketed as the Ultimate Amazing Shiny Computer Device.
Basically, I think we're grumping here that the iDevices are shiny, but that we want assurance that devices with more owner freedom aren't going to get crowded out of the market by the majority (?) that'll be content with locked-down gadgets. Nintendo was never really in the position to marginalize the computer market that way.
Revive the Constitution.
Isn't this exactly what Microsoft's whole philosophy has been for decades?
That "assume the user is a moron" thinking is largely the reason why Windows and most other Microsoft products are so limited, inefficient and generally unusable, especially for people who actually know how computers work.
Obligatory car analogy:
Its like welding the hood down on a car. Great for soccer moms, dealers and manufacturers. Hopeless for anyone who actually has the knowledge/ability/desire to maintain their own vehicle.
I was under the impression that console games have been licensed since the dawn of time (I'm remember the magic blue PS2 disks in particular)...
PlayStation 2: 2000. Nintendo Entertainment System: 1985. Consoles prior to the NES and Atari 7800 didn't have any sort of cryptographic lockout, and Nintendo was under the impression that a flood of shovelware contributed to the North American video game recession of 1983.
All of them screaming to "let the market decide"? And why this hoary old Liberal the one making this argument? This is a conundrum!
However, it seems many in this crowd don't understand that the main rule of the market is "If everyone doesn't want it, nobody gets it cheaply." Of course, when cheap, open computing environments go away in a few years, under the pressure of the large number of market participants who want ease of use and reliability more than openness, I'll be too old to give a rat's ass where the invisible hand slaps me.
But that's me - in the long run, I'm sure the wisdom of the marketplace will work it all out. However, in the long run, I'll be dead, just like everyone else.
That is all.
If there is need for a product, some company will make it.
Not if no company recognizes the need, or the one company that does recognize the need gets blocked by patents.
Content doesn't magically appear so I don't understand your point. Someone has to create content.
Yes, somebody has to create works,* but everyone who creates works starts out by consuming works.
They will always be individuals whose need to create is their sole purpose in life.
Thus we have to deal with the transition around the time when someone discovers his purpose, and make sure that becoming an author does not pose an undue entry barrier. As of right now, this is easy because common Internet consuming machines (desktop and laptop PCs) can also be used as low-end creating machines. But if it costs two months' wages to get an entry-level creating machine because all the mass-market machines are consuming machines, these individuals won't fulfill their sole purpose because it is cost prohibitive to get started. For example, I think my purpose in life is to create video games that can be played by multiple people in a living room. But there still aren't a lot of home theater PC users in my audience, so in order to do that, I would need a console license, and that in turn requires a corporation or LLC, a dedicated office, and a track record on another platform.
* I prefer the term "works of authorship" over "content".
I, for one, have always hated console multiplayer (split-screen is for idiots and makes playing any game like an FPS a moot point for ambushing and any real tactics) and console controllers.
Not all games are shooters, and not all shooters are first-person. In a game like Bomberman, Power Stone, or Smash Bros., what advantage would there be to each player getting his own view of the action?
a lot of people including 'non-techies' go through several generations of computers, so the only additional cost is the network hardware so long as they're smart enough not to dump the systems. So long as the games we're talking about here aren't Far Cry 2 or whatever, older systems aren't that big a problem.
How much older? The rule of thumb used to be that the head of household buys a new PC every three years. But a single game usually won't work on a LAN of four computers that are 1, 4, 7, and 10 years old respectively and came with Vista, XP, XP, and Windows 98. A newer game will crawl on the oldest machine; an older game will make assumptions about the operating system that don't apply to the operating system version on the newest PC.
Actually, you're simply proving that you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about. Let's take this most recent 'less than stellar' post of yours apart, shall we? :)
If you were a programmer, you would realize Objective-C is not the same as Flash, it's just a programming language. Flash is an entire UI system, it was designed for use with a mouse
First, you are correct in that I am not a 'programmer', I am a Software Engineer. There's a big difference, and someday you may manage to learn what that difference is - but I doubt it. Second, Objective-C is a language designed in the early 80's and licensed by NeXT, it is considered by most Software Engineers to be a bizarre abomination of C and Smalltalk. When anyone refers to Objective-C on the iPhone or iPad it is obviously in reference to the 'platform.' Perhaps you didn't understand that, ergo your insipid lack of understanding. This means all the Objective-C libraries that make up the Objective-C platform on a given architecture. As for Flash, Flash isn't a UI system, it is also platform. If you were a 'programmer' you would know that. Its manifestation on a mobile device is a runtime - not a 'UI system.' The UI portions of the runtime were designed for use with a mouse, but so were all of the Objective-C UI libraries ever created before the introduction of the iPhone.
If Apple had ported their UI toolkit directly to the iPhone, it would have been lame. Instead, they rewrote it. It is really not compatible with Cocoa on the desktop. Adobe could do similarly with Flash, but then it wouldn't be Flash anymore, it would be something different, even if they still called it Flash.
They did port their UI toolkit to the iPhone, and it is lame - ever heard of Cocoa? LOL. Read the dozens of blogs about why the iPhone API implemenation of Cocoa appears to have been written by some interns over a few weeks and why it should have been implemented differently. No, it is not compatible with Cocoa on the desktop because it's f***ed up.
"Adobe could do similarly..."? You appear to be confused. Flash has its own windowing system that is encapsulated in the runtime, including rasterization. Why would Adobe want an intentionally cross platform product to look and act differently on the iPhone/iPad? Stick to being a programmer, you'd be a terrible Software Engineer.
For now, when people write Flash apps, they expect the user to have a mouse. When people write iPhone Apps, they don't .
I think what you meant to say is that when people write Flash applications they expect users to have a single input device for pointing. This is mostly true since people are only just now targeting multi-touch devices with Flash applications. There are already Flash/Flex authoring solutions (APIs) which support multi-touch and gesture based computing.
As for platform flexibility, Flash doesn't even really support Linux on 64 bit architectures. Objective-C on the other hand, supports over 40 different architectures. There's no comparison in flexibility. When Brad Cox created Objective-C, the whole purpose was to bring the flexibility and modularity of Smalltalk to more common use.
Actually it does and has since 2008. Plus, there are open source flash players. You claim that Objective-C supports over 40 different architectures, which is funny because what is actually more accurate is that GCC supports many architectures and someone wrote a front end for Objective-C. I could spend a weekend and with lex/yacc or building my own front end for gcc to create a new language called 'phantomfive-C' and it would suddenly and miraculously support over 40 different architectures. It would then be, according to your criteria, just as flexible as Objective-C. Of course, that's a stupid way to look at things, but hey, you think the way you want. Objective-C used outside of the walled gardens of the iPhone/iPad? Nowhere, why? Try writing an Objecti
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You can hack an Archos or any number of Intel tablet PCs [dell.com] to run Linux, then you're free as a bird.
Why does a Dell tablet cost as much as six iPads? Is Apple taking a loss on the hardware and making it up on App Store commissions or something?
Ah, so now you are saying that when you say "Objective-C" you mean the entire Cocoa toolkit. And you claim that Cocoa on the iPhone is somehow the same as the one on the desktop. The only way you could have come to this conclusion is if you had gotten your information from blogs (or slashdot) and never actually programmed in both.
Furthermore, Objective-C is separate from Cocoa, it has its own standard library. Saying Cocoa is the same as Objective-C is the same as saying QT is the same as C++. Incidentally, I'd rather write in Objective-C any day over C++ (although that's not saying much; but it sure is a nice language. The programming world would be a better place if Objective-C had won out over C++).
Qxe4
Ah, so now you are saying that when you say "Objective-C" you mean the entire Cocoa toolkit.
No, I mean developing for the iPhone/iPad with Objective-C and not Flash. I'm sorry, but if you're going to act like a four year old and try to claim that you were only referencing Objective-C the language specification then nobody can help you.
And you claim that Cocoa on the iPhone is somehow the same as the one on the desktop. The only way you could have come to this conclusion is if you had gotten your information from blogs (or slashdot) and never actually programmed in both.
Actually, I quite clearly point out that they are not the same between Mac OSX and the iPhone OS, in that they are the same API with problematic implementation differences. They're supposed to be the same but Apple screwed the pooch (so to speak.) This of course pokes giant holes in your theory of cross platform flexibility since you can't even even build the same Objective-C code for a Mac that you can for the iPhone (even though the API is supposed to be the same [I wonder if that's why they have the same name, they are referred to as the same in the developer docs, and are only documented differently at the API level... Hmmm... Interesting.])
Furthermore, Objective-C is separate from Cocoa, it has its own standard library. Saying Cocoa is the same as Objective-C is the same as saying QT is the same as C++.
Separate how? You mean it's not part of the Objective-C specification? Of course not. It is part of the Objective-C development environment for MacOSX, the iPhone, and the iPad? Of course it is. It's all one big mess of Objective-C code. Guess what Cocoa is written in? :)
Saying that Cocoa is not part of the Objective-C platform on Apple products is like saying that Win32 is not a part of the Visual C++ development platform.
Incidentally, I'd rather write in Objective-C any day over C++ (although that's not saying much; but it sure is a nice language. The programming world would be a better place if Objective-C had won out over C++)
I think it depends upon what languages you ran into first in University/College. They're all tools in the toolbox. I don't like some sanctimonious prick (Steve Jobs in case I didn't make that clear along the way) trying to bullshit the world about why he doesn't want Flash on the iPhone (or Java, or any other technology that would allow people to bypass his beloved App store.)
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I'm sorry, but if you're going to act like a four year old and try to claim that you were only referencing Objective-C the language specification then nobody can help you.
If you mean Cocoa, say Cocoa. If you mean Objective-C, say Objective-C. Even Steve Jobs gets his terminology right (maybe his letter was looked over by a developer, I don't know). Clean up your speech. And while we're on the topic, no one ever calls it the Objective-C development environment. That wouldn't even make sense.
Either way, even if you insist on your inane terminology, your original point is still wrong. Your original point was that the iPhone dev environment was designed for the PC, which invalidates Steve Jobs' point that Flash was written for the PC. But Apple rewrote their development environment specifically for the iPhone. Now, some people may complain that it is still not very good, but in my opinion it is significantly better than Brew, WindowsCE or J2ME, and those people are often complaining because it is their first encounter with mobile development and the problems that come with it.
I think it depends upon what languages you ran into first in University/College. They're all tools in the toolbox.
Ah, now this is an interesting topic, although completely unrelated. Java was my first OO language, and then C++. We should do a poll to see what people think of their first language, now that they've been programming a while.
Qxe4
Flash has interface elements which are specific to the web, or at least desktop computing where you're using a keyboard and a mouse, navigating menus, and whatnot. It's got tooltips that happen when you hover the mouse and things which make no sense in a purely touch-screen interface that is used on the iPad
So the developers don't have to use those interface elements in "a purely touch-screen interface that is used on the iPad". Just because Flash has an interface element doesn't mean developers must use it in all their apps. Flash has multi-touch support. Secondly, I have never used any of those "interface elements" of flash in any flash video. Just because flash has some feature that is good for Desktop/Laptop computing does not mean any instance of Flash automatically becomes invalid for "iPad".
I have an old laptop which I use disconnected from network. I run some java applications on it. Your statement is akin to saying : Java has API elements which are specific to network (java.net.. etc.) which make no sense in a purely non-network computer. So don't use java in any non-networked computer.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I think my 3 year old daughter said it best, when I asked her if my iPad was a computer: "Umm... Yes... Umm... No... It just... Ummm... Yes".
Five years ago the simpc was launched in The Netherlands. Many seniors love the basic, "curated computer", with a $12 per month subscription. It offers mail, browsing, chat, skype, open office, a photo album, some games, full support, security, automatic backup and a lifetime guarantee, including replacement if the computer might ever fail. That seems to be enough for most people.
The Mac will get touch for free soon, in the same way it got Exchange for free, and ARM compatbility for free.
iPhone and Mac OS sit on the same OS X core. They share successes.
Package Repository, Anyone?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
If you do nothing more than passively watch, then yes, it is a very negative thing. That means the artwork hasn't touched you. It has failed to be art.
If it otherwise inspires you to create
Then you are a pirate for having created a derivative work, at least in the eyes of the nine companies of the MAFIAA.
If you mean Cocoa, say Cocoa. If you mean Objective-C, say Objective-C. Even Steve Jobs gets his terminology right (maybe his letter was looked over by a developer, I don't know). Clean up your speech. And while we're on the topic, no one ever calls it the Objective-C development environment. That wouldn't even make sense .
Yep, you've retreated to 'four year old' land. You now want to pretend we weren't discussing developing with flash or Objective-C (what you would now like
to label 'Cocoa' apparently - or, much more likely you would like to divide the individual components up because then you can simply focus on the one you believe you can be the most effective apologist for...)
It is quite obvious, to any reading these posts, that we are discussing Flash versus Objective C development. If you want to label it the X-Code environment, well, that's inaccurate because you don't need XCode to produce binaries for the iPhone/iPad. If you want to label it the gcc iPhone/iPad development environment, well that's inaccurate as well because most people use X-Code on top of gcc. If you want to label it the 'Cocoa development environment', it's technically incorrect as well. BTW, I know quite a few iPhone devs and they ALL refer to it as an, and I quote, "Objective-C dev environment", probably because they all develop for other phones (yes, they exist) and Objective-C is anachronistic to them. So, maybe you can get back to the actual points now instead of throwing up straw man arguments about "Oh, well, I didn't realize you were talking about anything other than the Objective-C specification..."
Either way, even if you insist on your inane terminology, your original point is still wrong. Your original point was that the iPhone dev environment was designed for the PC, which invalidates Steve Jobs' point that Flash was written for the PC. But Apple rewrote their development environment specifically for the iPhone .
Great, you turn out to be just as disengenuous as Jobs now. I pointed out that Jobs stated, without any further specification, that "Flash was designed for PCs using mice" and that this was dishonest because all the underpinnings of the iPhone dev environment, including Cocoa, were designed for PCs using mice. Just because multi-touch events were added to the iPhone/iPad version of Cocoa doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination, even yours that it would be anything other than trivial for Flash to handle these very same events. FFS, they're simply messages passed along to a view. This is the entire point - Steve Jobs is a dishonest, lying, sack of narcissistic arrogant monkey shit. He is trying to make Flash sound like antiquated technology because it existed before multi-touch, when his entire toolchain existed before multi-touch, including the API that has been 'extended' to handle multi-touch events.
So no, I'm not wrong. He's still a lying prick. Hell, I can't stand Flash as a development environment (I wouldn't touch it with a 10 meter cattle prod if I didn't have to), but that's a personal and subjective dislike, just like Jobs' objections to Flash.
I'm sure you think what he's doing is right though.
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Just because multi-touch events were added to the iPhone/iPad version of Cocoa doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination, even yours that it would be anything other than trivial for Flash to handle these very same events.
Sure, they could do it. But when they did it to Cocoa, it broke compatibility (as we've discussed in several posts). Sure, they could do it to Flash too, but it would end up either with broken compatibility (which would make Flash pointless) or have it suck as much as every other tablet produced in the past decade (maybe you don't think they suck, and of course you are entitled to your opinion). I'm not saying it's the ONLY reason Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone, or even that it's the main reason, but it is a valid point.
BTW, I know quite a few iPhone devs and they ALL refer to it as an, and I quote, "Objective-C dev environment", probably because they all develop for other phones (yes, they exist) and Objective-C is anachronistic to them
OK, they can call it that, but they are still not right. I'm still going to go with my opinion that the iPhone dev environment is an improvement over BREW, J2ME, or WindowsCE.
Qxe4
Sure, they could do it. But when they did it to Cocoa, it broke compatibility (as we've discussed in several posts). Sure, they could do it to Flash too, but it would end up either with broken compatibility (which would make Flash pointless) or have it suck as much as every other tablet produced in the past decade (maybe you don't think they suck, and of course you are entitled to your opinion).
Well, most of the complaints about broken compatibility is related to the method by which the implementation occurred, not the actual design. I don't think they' break the compatibility in Flash (especially since the spotlight would be glaring down on them), and I don't think they'd have to worry about it working differently than it does in Cocoa because they're the same messages generated by the same input from the same OS as Cocoa is getting. Then again, Adobe does make ridiculous mistakes on occasion. I think most tablets suck, but not because of multi-touch. Personally I'm looking forward to the Adam which is looking so impressive it cannot be anything other than a monumental failure to deliver.
reason Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone, or even that it's the main reason, but it is a valid point .
I'm not convinced (so we'll have to agree to disagree) that Apple's criticism of Flash is warranted when they won't let Flash run on the iPhone OS because it won't run properly on the iPhone OS (chicken and egg syndrome?)
I'm still going to go with my opinion that the iPhone dev environment is an improvement over BREW, J2ME, or WindowsCE
Well, it's better than most, and that's because it's sort of halfway between a real PC dev environment and a mobile device environment. The problem is, there's no legitimate reason to keep Java or Flash off the iPhone/iPad except greed.
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the next step in evolution to the hivemind, single neurons don't have to do any thinking ... they just have to snap :p
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Well, most of the complaints about broken compatibility is related to the method by which the implementation occurred, not the actual design.
Yeah, I've heard the complaints. Mostly I think those people are just whiners. As you said earlier, it's just a tool in the toolbox. I haven't programmed for the iPhone in about a year, but at that time it was definitely in the "immature, but good enough" category.
I'm not convinced (so we'll have to agree to disagree) that Apple's criticism of Flash is warranted when they won't let Flash run on the iPhone OS because it won't run properly on the iPhone OS (chicken and egg syndrome?)
I don't know, if Adobe had implemented Flash on another phone and it worked well, they might have more of an argument, but from what I've heard, it doesn't work on any mobile platform. But you are right, since even if it were perfect, Apple probably wouldn't allow it.
The problem is, there's no legitimate reason to keep Java or Flash off the iPhone/iPad except greed.
Nah, that's not the reason Steve Jobs gave. He said the most important reason was he wants control. I tend to believe him on that one. I think if S. Jobs were more motivated by greed than control, he would have had Apple pay dividends a long time ago so he could transfer some of Apple's huge pile of cash to his own personal bank account.
Qxe4
What's been interesting to me is that Apple seems to be making the same mistake they did last time around. They lost the PC war because they wanted control of the entire (at the time) stack, i.e. the hardware and the OS. In the short run, this was to their benefit as they were able to innovate more quickly -- but in the long run, horizontal innovation blossomed on the more open system and that drove a much broader adoption.
With the iPhone and the iPad, Apple has extended their business model to include control of the application layer. As before, they (and their ecosystem) are innovating rapidly and profiting wildly. And while I agree with those arguing that Apple's offering fits its niche (and a growing niche, at that) to a tee, I still can't help thinking that there's still plenty of opportunity for horizontal innovation in mobile commuting. I find it hard to believe that one hardware-cum-OS company has the forethought and the resources to cover the bases and build the complete foundation for the next round of disruption.
Great answer.
I am sorry I wasn't clear in places. I was thinking most of all of UI features that are vetted safe but "hard-as-in-Barbie's-opinion-on-math".
Known malware would be in a much more severe category.
But there used to be fun in installing Beta stuff. Google Mail aside, the definition of Beta was that it had tasty new flavors, but watch out for the Jalapeno!
However the #1 thing that an Advanced mode would do is show a visible file type and location. I can't count the number of processes I use that involve transforming data among file types, then filing it (at least sorta properly).
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine