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Steve Jobs Says PC Folks' World Is Slipping Away

Posted by kdawson on from the freedom-from-porn dept.

theodp writes "Provoked by an iPad ad promising a 'revolution,' Valleywag's Ryan Tate fired off a late-night missive to Steve Jobs. Jobs responded, and the two engaged in an after-midnight e-mail debate over lockdown, Cocoa vs. Flash, battery life, and whether 'freedom from porn' is a bug or a feature. 'The times they are a changin',' quipped Jobs, 'and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.' Tate was unswayed by the Apple CEO's reality distortion field, but did come away impressed by Jobs' willingness to spar one-on-one over his beliefs — at two in the morning on a weekend."

89 of 1,067 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds to me like Jobs just got trolled hard. 10/10 for Ryan Tate.

    1. Re:Sounds to me... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Funny
      > "Sounds to me like Jobs just got trolled hard."

      "There's an App for that ..."

      "Your App has been rejected by the Apple Store. Because we said so!"

    2. Re:Sounds to me... by sopssa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, it's from a person who said porn and sex is a bad thing. It's no wonder he had nothing more fun to do on a friday night.

    3. Re:Sounds to me... by sayfawa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How do we know it was him? I've heard a few of these stories about emails from Jobs. Too many to believe, IMO. I'm sitting at home on a Saturday night getting drunk and playing old fps games with my intel graphics and posting on /., and even I don't have time to answer all the emails I get... Just sayin'.

      --
      Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
    4. Re:Sounds to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, there is one fantastic quote here from Steve Jobs that he replied to someone who *dared* to criticize him:

      what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?

      What a complete asshole who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.

    5. Re:Sounds to me... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was a low blow ... he seems to forget that he got his good stuff from Xerox, and then got a real operating system from BSD.

    6. Re:Sounds to me... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you honestly believe Steve Jobs would let some underling represent themselves as him and write replies which, most likely, will end up being heavily viewed and analyzed?

      And let's face it, he isn't saying anything here that he hasn't said in other words before. And in his defence (which is something I rarely do), most of his points are fair enough in themselves. The trouble is, when you put them all together, and embody them in an agressive, bullying corporate policy, they morph into something very ugly.

    7. Re:Sounds to me... by node+3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, it's from a person who said porn and sex is a bad thing.

      Where did he ever say sex was bad?

    8. Re:Sounds to me... by node+3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, there is one fantastic quote here from Steve Jobs that he replied to someone who *dared* to criticize him:

      what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?

      What a complete asshole who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.

      His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.

      Of course this is Slashdot, the very definition of all talk and no action, so...

    9. Re:Sounds to me... by westlake · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It was a low blow ... he seems to forget that he got his good stuff from Xerox, and then got a real operating system from BSD.

      Recognizing "the good stuff" when you see it is rare. Transforming ideas into marketable products rarer still.

    10. Re:Sounds to me... by Teufelsmuhle · · Score: 3, Informative

      Jobs didn't design those products, he merely oversaw those who did. Jonathan Ives (amongst others) deserves much of the design credit. And Ives got most of his design ideas from Dieter Rams, who's designs date back to the 50's. Apple's done very little truly unique over the years -- their primary accomplishments are in marketing.

    11. Re:Sounds to me... by bzipitidoo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What I find so disappointing about Jobs is not anything about him really. It's that the public doesn't value freedom enough to tell him where to stick his proprietary lockdown schemes. It's really amazing how an excellent UI is so valuable to quite a lot of people that they'll pay much higher prices, and blow off the overreaching fine print that infringes on our rights. Maybe they're right about EULAs not being worth even a quick look, and ignoring EULAs is the best way to handle them.

      At least no DRM encumbered music format has gained traction. Shows that people do have limits. I'm sure Apple would push a DRMed format if they could get their customers to accept it.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    12. Re:Sounds to me... by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The unique thing that Apple did was actually bring design into the world of computing, it doesn't matter whether the designs were "new" or not (aside from the fact that there is very little new in the world of fashion and art either).

      I think it's good that other companies are being forced to put some effort into UI design and styling to stop Apple pulling ahead. I don't like Apple much these days but they certainly are good for the market.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    13. Re:Sounds to me... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's really amazing how an excellent UI is so valuable to quite a lot of people that they'll pay much higher prices, and blow off the overreaching fine print that infringes on our rights.

      • Excellent UI
      • Excellent hardware
      • Excellent (and easily used) software
      • It really does "just work" right out of the box
      • iPod ditto
      • iPad ditto

      I find Jobs to be the exact wrong person to exert his idea of morals and ethics upon the morals and ethics of his customers. His cry of "you'd understand if you had kids" is just the kind of moronic posturing I'd expect... the Apple store is chock full of blood and gore, but sex, one of the most wonderful things we get to involve ourselves in, is "bad." This is how I *know* that Jobs is possessed of absolutely bankrupt morals and ethics, and why I don't think he belongs between myself, or my children, and content of any type.

      However, he is the exact right person to nail down hardware and software guidelines. How do I know? I run Linux, Windows and OS X. OS X is - by *huge margins* - the best of the three to use day in, day out.

      So hey, Steve: If you were half the man you think you are, you'd pull the violence from the apple store and put sex in. But you're not. You're a posturing idiot who is playing the social game for sales, tapping the social retards who love violence and wave their little religious hands over there eyes at the sight of sex. Congratulations, chump. Stick to areas you have skill in: hardware and software design.

      Not content.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    14. Re:Sounds to me... by MCSEBear · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's pretty obvious that you've never actually seen video of a Xerox Alto in action, or you wouldn't claim the Mac interface was a copy of the Alto. The two are very different.

      It's also very obvious that you aren't aware that Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute, not Xerox, invented the mouse and the windowed user interface as part of a system known as NLS . (NLS was also the first system with: bit-mapped displays, remote procedure calls, collaboration software, hypertext, remote graphical access, the chording keyboard, presentation software, and others)

      The unveiling of NLS to computer scientists in 1968 is referred to as the Mother of All Demos.

      See for yourself.

    15. Re:Sounds to me... by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Okay, so I've decided to feed the troll.

      WTF is it that allows some of the most argumentative assholes on the web just overlook the one simple fact that Apple is really shitty at putting together a UI?

      You could at least provide some examples here btw (beyond a lame joke that has no relevance - a dial is fine for scrolling through a list, but obviously a general purpose laptop needs a more general purpose input system) if you want to distinguish yourself from those you are criticising. Apple's UI accomplishments over the years are obvious, but I guess I'll have to list a few since you are so used to a post-Apple world that you don't realise what they've done.

      They were (one of) the pioneers of graphical interfaces in the 80s, and it took until Windows 95 for Windows to come anywhere near Mac OS (but it was still awful). These days there's less space for refinement in 2D graphical interfaces, but for one thing I loved the OSX dock so much that I installed a dock in Linux - and MS must have loved it too because they modified the task bar in Win7 to function in a very dock-like fashion. Now think of how shitty MP3 players and phones were before the iPod and iPhone.

      I've never owned an iProduct, but I'd always thought that smartphone interfaces were shit. The fact that Windows Mobile was the best smartphone OS out there for a while really says something about how awful everything was (and it's still not great, but it's better), considering how unresponsive and non-finger-friendly it was (I quickly grew to simply using my fingers to interact with my touchphones even when I had a stylus right in the corner of the phone, though it was very awkward sometimes trying to hit a 2mm "ok" button with the tip of your nail). But now all the other phone makers are actually starting to get that response time and usability are important (well, they probably always knew this but since there was little competition going on they didn't put any effort into it, all of them content to wallow in mediocrity because they were raking in plenty of cash already), and that if they don't do something then they are going to disappear into obscurity.

      Apple have really driven UI design in several ways over the years. It's not being argumentative to say that, it's argumentative to try and deny it.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    16. Re:Sounds to me... by PastaLover · · Score: 5, Insightful

      His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.

      Of course this is Slashdot, the very definition of all talk and no action, so...

      This is from the same school of thought that thinks we can't criticize what went on in Vietnam because we "haven't been there". It's just another form of the ad hominem.

    17. Re:Sounds to me... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.

      Most people can recognize stale bread without being bakers themselves.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    18. Re:Sounds to me... by MCSEBear · · Score: 5, Informative
      Xerox PARC was certainly responsible for many innovations, nobody can deny that. However, claims that Xerox single handedly invented the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Pointer, Menus) and that Apple copied that interface exactly as created by Xerox are simply incorrect.

      Englebart's NLS created the first implementation of Windows, and of using a Pointer to access Menus. The only addition made by Xerox PARC was the addition of Icons. NLS had bitmapped WYSIWYG graphics, but did not come up with the idea of using Icons to represent commands, using text based menus instead.

      Here is a bit of Alto History for you:

      The Alto was first conceptualized in 1972 in a memo written by Butler Lampson, inspired by the On-Line System (NLS) developed by Douglas Engelbart at SRI, and was designed primarily by Chuck Thacker.

      Going back farther, NLS was inspired by work done by Ivan Sutherland who created a program called Sketchpad as his Ph.D thesis.

      Sketchpad:

      is considered to be the ancestor of modern computer-aided drafting (CAD) programs as well as a major breakthrough in the development of computer graphics in general. For example, the Graphic User Interface was derived from the Sketchpad as well as modern object oriented programming. Ivan Sutherland demonstrated with it that computer graphics could be used for both artistic and technical purposes in addition to showing a novel method of human-computer interaction.

      Some video of Sketchpad in action is available online. (Jump to the four minute mark.)

      Going back still farther, Everyone I've mentioned points back to an article by Vannevar Bush published in 1945 describing an imaginary personal computer called the Memex as a huge inspiration.

      The Memex (a portmanteau of "memory" and "index", like Rolodex an earlier index portmanteau common at the time) is the name given by Vannevar Bush to the theoretical proto-hypertext computer system he proposed in his 1945 The Atlantic Monthly article As We May Think. The memex is a device in which an individual compresses and stores all of their books, records, and communications which is then mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. A document can be given a simple numerical code that allows the user to access it after dialing the number combination. Documents are also able to be edited in real-time. This process makes annotation fast and simple. The memex is an enlarged intimate supplement to one's memory.

      To sum things up...

      Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad was inspired by Vannevar Bush's idea of the Memex.

      Douglas Engelbart at SRI was inspired by Sutherland's Sketchpad when he created NLS.

      Xerox was inspired by NLS when they created Alto.

      Apple was inspired by Alto when they created Lisa and Macintosh.

      None of these was a direct copy of the other. Learn some history, and STAY OFF MY LAWN!

      (BTW - Neither Alto nor Macintosh were written in an object oriented programming language.)

    19. Re:Sounds to me... by Risen888 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You could at least provide some examples here

      Oh God, I thought you'd never ask. Not the OP, but let me play! Just a quick Top 4 here, because I could really go on forever but I'd like to read the rest of the thread.

      1. The ungodly top bar on OSX. Self-morphing UI elements are a Bad Thing. How this abomination has survived so long is totally beyond me, but I think it has something to do with that shitty hack called...
      2. The dock. The idea that "it shouldn't matter whether or not the application's running or how many instances of this application are running" is bullshit. Just because Microsoft parroted it doesn't make it good. (Christ, if anything, MS took the worst of it.) There's plenty of room for innovation in 2D interfaces. Take a look at Gnome Shell (I'm not huge on it, but I'm not huge on Gnome) or the Plasma Netbook interface (which I am an enormous fan of). Plenty of room for new ideas. Doesn't change the fact that the dock was a shitty one.
      3. The wheel interface is still dumb. If I have to take the mp3 player out of my pocket to know what I'm doing, that's a big fat fail.
      4. Okay, I was just gonna do three, but here's a bonus: the iTunes database. Apple fanboys can pretend all they want that "normal users don't care where on the hard drive their music files are." But they know they're lying. Every time I have ever brought this up to an iTunes user, they've agreed with me. "Yeah, I've always hated that too, but what are you gonna do?" as if it were some kind of law of nature.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    20. Re:Sounds to me... by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Apple still forces you to resize windows from the lower-right corner.

      And the cost of being able to resize from any edge in Ubuntu for example? The need to have a fugly border all the way around every window, which on the one hand consumes display real estate, whilst still being narrow enough that it proves hard for some users to be able to grab easily.

      Forcing the user to do things Steve's way is not a benefit to the user.

      Limited numbers of geeks like to customize stuff. For most functionality for the vast majority of users it's better for the designer to make a reasonable decision. Ref: The Paradox of Choice.

      In terms of learning curve, their interfaces are slightly ahead. In terms of productivity, their interfaces are years behind.

      Your abstract opinion. I'd argue that people are most productive on well designed UIs, and Apples UIs are way ahead of anything Linux has.

      They took NeXTStep's dock and ruined its defaults for prettiness instead of muscle memory, for example.

      That's probably a fair point (not that I ever actually experienced NeXT myself.) And the reason is Fitt's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law

      And you have to move the mouse farther (and on a large display, actually refocus your eyes) to use the single menu bar.

      And there you are wrong. A menu at the edge of the screen is easier (more productive) to use. Again because of Fitt's law. Plus it also is more economic on screen real estate.

      And until OSX, Apple didn't even have minimize/maximize, instead using the same multifinder approach they've been using (annoyingly) for years.

      i.e. It doesn't work like Windows. And Linux copied the Windows functionality. The paradigm in Mac OS is not to run applications full screen - instead of maximizing, the zoom button only increases the size of a window's height or width until the scroll bar is no longer needed (or the extent of the screen is hit.) Any extra growth of a window beyond that takes up screen real estate without revealing any more of the document. It's a waste.

      You are used to Windows and/or Linux, and you assume that it's the right way to do things. When the real issue is that it's just the way that you are used to things being done. That doesn't mean it's the best way.

  2. Freedom from porn. by kentrel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sorry Steve. The PC had me at "Hello boys"

    1. Re:Freedom from porn. by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.

          WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
      IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

      Nice job combining those bottom two, Steve. How did the CEO of the company that produced the 1984 commercial go from that to this utter drivel?

      I am free from programs that steal my private data on my PC if I choose to be.
      I am free from programs that trash my battery on my PC if I choose to be.
      I am free from porn on my PC, if I choose to be.

      Do you see the difference Steve?

          WAR IS PEACE
        FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
      IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

      The most amazing part of this entire thing is the complete role reversal. The running woman in 1984 no longer represents Apple or its products. She is now represented by the PC and its many forms with the drones being Apple users basking in their "freedom". You never have more freedom when you have fewer choices. NEVER.

      This is the very reason I won't buy Apple's products. The doublethink being presented here by Steve goes against everything I believe computing should be about.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    2. Re:Freedom from porn. by The+Fanta+Menace · · Score: 3, Insightful

      wtf? How does free software equate to software anarchy? How does free software equate to sex free computing? How does software anarchy equate to sex free computing?

      --
      -- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
    3. Re:Freedom from porn. by boarder8925 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think that O'Brien's reversal of the motto is more appropriate for Apple: SLAVERY IS FREEDOM. By giving up the right to make "grander" or "higher-level" choices, the user gains the perception that his device will be taken care of for him as far as its software is concerned. By voluntarily becoming a slave to Apple's App Store-iPhone OS ecosystem, the user gains peace of mind, and he gets to say he uses an iDevice to boot.

      --
      Keep your eyes to the sky.
    4. Re:Freedom from porn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dear artard,

      You and your two friends can enjoy not buying apple products, but to my mind a new class of product by definition introduces more CHOICE to the market than was previously available.

      There are probably more important things to stand against.

    5. Re:Freedom from porn. by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And so if Apple goes away that leads to more choice for consumers in what way? They get to choose between Microsoft and Microsoft? Because the reality is that Linux isn't truly consumer grade yet.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    6. Re:Freedom from porn. by silanea · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What new class? If you mean the iPad, no, sorry to put a dark spot onto your world view, but His Jobsiness did not invent the keyboardless touch PC.

      --
      Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
    7. Re:Freedom from porn. by Lord+Kano · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is there even human history before porn?

      No.
      Look here.

      For at least 40,000 years humans have been creating images of people having sex.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    8. Re:Freedom from porn. by MrHanky · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Until so many people have chosen slavery that freedom becomes impractical or illegal. See software patents, h.264. It's important to make people aware that when they choose Apple, they choose to get locked in to a platform that dictates what they can and can't do, and that is deliberately designed to make it expensive to switch, and designed with forced obsolescence in mind.

    9. Re:Freedom from porn. by selven · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The parent is not saying that Apple products should be legally banned. He's saying why they're bad, and why you shouldn't use one. All he's doing is providing a negative review of a product.

    10. Re:Freedom from porn. by Draek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Much like having optional slavery introduces more choice to the job market than was previously available.

      Some people can see farther than 5 minutes ahead. Pity you aren't one of them.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  3. Steve held his own... by pdboddy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hehe, I will say that in the last image of the email exchange, Steve Jobs really zinged Tate.

    --
    Julie Moult is an idiot.
    1. Re:Steve held his own... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Steve Jobs still seems like a dick.

      Steve: "So what if I come off as dickish? What've *you* done to change the world that gives you license to criticize me?"

      Following people are allowed to criticize Jobs: Nobody.

      Among people you might think would be allowed to criticize Jobs, here's why they can't:

      Bill Gates: Windows is useless. The PC is over.
      Linus Torvald: Haha. Exactly what's your market share again?
      God: Who is this God? Even if he existed, what has he developed for computers? Nothing? Moving on.
      Anyone not computer related: YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS ARE BUNK.

    2. Re:Steve held his own... by popeyethesailor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I thought it was a pretty cheap shot. One has to be a prolific achiever now to even criticize Steve Jobs? Sorry that doesn't sound so smart to me. I could've imagined that coming from Steve Ballmer, but I imagined Jobs to be better.

      I'm disappointed in this industry in general. With the advent of internet and open communications/standards, I thought the era of odious restrictions placed by software companies would go away. Looks like nothing will change; only the players change. We need more Stallmen.

    3. Re:Steve held his own... by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's also worthwhile to remember that while Jobs is certainly the credit-taker, there's no evidence that Apple's best achievements were Steve's personal accomplishments.

    4. Re:Steve held his own... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Funny

      "By the way Pastor Niemoller, how many thousand year Reichs have you built?"

      Yeah, I Godwinned it.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    5. Re:Steve held his own... by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I Godwinned it.

      That is ok, Jobs already "think of the children"'d it. Reasonable discussion already ended before the slashdot article was even posted.

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  4. haha by timmarhy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    steve gets a little market share and it goes to his head.

    here in the real world, he hasn't hardly made a dent in personal computing. I'd admit he has cornered the wanky new toy gadget market, that's about it.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    1. Re:haha by OrangeCatholic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.

      Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.

      It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.

    2. Re:haha by peragrin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      your quite right, but the people have been eating at MSFT's burger king for two decades. the fact that they are now willing to try something different, is a sign all to it's own.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:haha by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 3, Funny

      More like succeeding by not having a hand crank on the front of your car. Most people don't miss that.

    4. Re:haha by michaelhood · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.

      Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.

      It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.

      I agree.. and yet you can't even boot, for the first time, a 3G iPad without connecting it to a computer with iTunes. WTH were they thinking with that?

    5. Re:haha by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And an openable hood.

    6. Re:haha by Draek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, not really, the steak dinner is still the more appropiate analogy.

      Having hand cranks wouldn't serve much (if any) purpose on a modern car, so truly most people *wouldn't* want it. Steak dinners, however, are actually desireable and there's a sizeable market for them still. In the case of PCs they're the corporate world, which may love to lock down their employees' computers but despise having them locked from *them*, and for the variety of tasks corporations need computers for, an Apple toy (sorry, "appliance") will never be enough.

      But Jobs' and the Apple fans' dismissal of the business sector isn't surprising. That's why Microsoft considers Linux, and not Apple, its biggest threat: because Apple's ideology of dividing the world between 'geeks' and 'consumers', refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the corporate market, is what ultimately locks them from being more than an 'also ran' first to IBM and now to Microsoft.

      Wake me up when the corporate world abandons regular computers in favor of Apple's toys. But not before.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    7. Re:haha by mlts · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is that "something different" may not be good.

      Obligatory car analogy: It would be like trading in your 10 year old car for a new one that looks cool and is comfortable, but is completely autopiloted, and only lets you out at certain stops. Businesses have to apply to the car maker so the car would stop at their brick and mortar store. And without warning, this can be taken away, so if someone used to stop at a Target, they wouldn't have that option tomorrow and only get Wal-Marts. Continuing the analogy, someone patches the ECM with a steering wheel to allow manual control, but the next year's cars always come with protection against that.

      People trading their computers in for what are effectively game consoles means that they are trading their freedom to run what they want, when they want for an environment locked down and managed by someone else who can do anything they please.

      My question is: Do we want to go this route of sacrificing openness for ease of use? Yes, viruses and Trojans are a nuisance, but do we want to trade our relatively open computers for what would essentially be terminals, locked to some for-profit corporation's motives and future? For me, it is a no-brainer. I will keep my computer, and my phone will be on an open platform. If Android phones become unrootable or impossible to put custom ROMs on, I'll move to the Nokia N900 and encourage others to follow.

      Do we want all our computers to be like PS3s where at any time, functionality can disappear at a moment's notice like the "other OS", and there would not be a single thing we can do about it? I'm sure the usual antagonists of open computing would love a wholesale move to a locked down platform, but is that where we want to take computing as we know it? Do we want to move to a computing model where what we buy, we are only permitted access to whatever the company allows on a whim? Yes, PS3s have no virus or spyware problems, but we are trading freedom for security here, and in the end, we will end up with neither.

    8. Re:haha by daviddennis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I feel your pain, I really do.

      But what if your old car would go to random places all of a sudden and crash into brick walls at random times? And when you went out to browse your porn half the time your car would get a flat tire while you were out there and a bunch of punks would beat it up and you'd spend hours and hours getting it to work halfway decently.

      So Steve Jobs glides up in his gleaming white Gulfstream V jet and says, "Hey, I have a cool car that drives better than anything on the planet. We make sure you can drive on this excellent network of safe roads, and leave the potholed, poorly made old style ones behind. You know, I'm sorry, but not only did those maintenance guys do a lousy job, they had no taste."

      So you take a look at his roads and sure enough, everything is gleaming and works and there are no strange brick walls to be found, anywhere. But ... there is something missing ... something important!

      "Where's the porn?" you ask. "And how about Rush Limbaugh and National Review?"

      "Oh, the porn hurts the kids, and National Review makes fun of our sacred cow Obama(tm), You know, we are all Democrats here, even if we don't quite admit it," he says. "Don't worry, though, you can use Safari to browse any web site you want."

      "And you know what, we know you want to look at porn and we're a big company and can't approve of that garbage. But all you need to do is run Safari or the movie player and you can find that junk you want, just not on our shiny roads. So you go a little out of your way for it, but your experience is still safe and when you're back you will be assured that your car will still work, instead of get banged up."

      And isn't that funny, that might just be better for porn, actually, because you are always safe. How many native porn apps do you have on your computer? I would bet, none. How many porn web sites do you visit? If you are concerned with this issue, probably quite a few. The point is, the makers of porn are not stupid, and they will bring you what you want.

      The App Store does have some downright sad speech restrictions. My Obama IQ game, for instance, was not approved until after the 2008 elections were safely passed. Pretty pathetic, no? Not that one anti-Obama game was ever going to tip an election one way or the other, but the sales would have been nice to get.

      Complete freedom of speech is preserved on the Internet. The App Store is not a vehicle for free political or sexual expression, and to me, that's OK. As long as you can browse the web, you are free.

      Some people who argue against Apple just don't realize how horrible a task it is to eradicate a piece of spyware from a Windows computer. I used to work in IT and my experiences in trying to devirus a computer were just plain horrible and pathetic. Fortunately I've been an almost exclusively Apple user for many years and since I started being one, my computing experience has become far better and smoother and more fun.

      So I have a balanced perspective. Would it be nice if the new iPad was totally free? Sure.

      But isn't the App Store a great invention, something that helps even small developers like me make a few bucks?

      In the past couple of years I have bought far more App Store applications than Mac applications, and most of my Mac applications were made by, guess who, Apple. App Store applications are cheap, and they are easy to buy and use, and a lot of fun. And most of my App Store applications are from small developers, not Apple. So if you are looking at which business model serves the small developer, it might just be Apple's.

      This is not a perfect world. It's a tragedy that evil people deliberately set out to ruin other peoples' computers in pursuit of a few bucks. But they do, and the iPhone software model stops them cold. If you're sick of having to be paranoid about evil people running your computer, you might prefer if it was run by Steve Jobs, as opposed to running it yourself.

      That's a trade a lot of people want to make, and I'm sorry, I really can't blame them.

      D

    9. Re:haha by thesandtiger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The iPad isn't a computer. The iPhone isn't a computer. The iPod isn't a computer.

      Oh, sure, in the broadest possible sense they're "computers" in that they're devices that compute, but they've gone into appliance territory. They're gadgets that let you do certain things in a certain way, and they're actually pretty good at that stuff.

      A better analogy might be an Erector set (Mechano, maybe, for our European friends?) vs. a set of dolls or action figures.

      With one - the Erector/Mechano set - you can make a whole bunch of stuff and do a bunch of different things. Sure, they might not be completely elegant, but if you want a truck, you can make a truck. If you want a house, you can make a house. If you want a robot, you can kind of make a robot. Some people - people who use Slashdot quite obviously - really like this freedom and don't mind the rough edges because they're a trivial price to pay for the flexibility.

      With the other - the set of dolls - you can't really do nearly as much, but what you can do is going to be a more refined experience, and a more specific one. With this, instead of a generic truck, you're getting a Tonka brand Dump Truck. Or you're getting a Barbie Dream House instead of a generic house. Or you're getting Wall-E instead of random robot looking thing. You can't do nearly as much - I mean, if you get Wall-E you aren't going to turn it into a Tonka. Lots of people actually prefer this kind of experience, strange as that might sound. They want to play with Wall-E, not a random robot they made. They want a Tonka, not some truck-like thing. They don't *want* to have to put it together.

      And some people like both for different purposes. Sometimes people just want to make whatever the feel like making, and sometimes they want to play with a specific toy.

      Anyway, while people may have a preference for one or the other and think the one they didn't pick is shit, the fact is, quite a few people see some value - for whatever reason - in their choice.

      When I grew up I had Barbies and also an Erector set. I wound up making machines that would pull apart the Barbies so that I could rebuild them as Cyborgs. I don't know what that means, but I thought if I'm gonna keep going with this toy analogy I might as well share.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
    10. Re:haha by masmullin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the iPad DOES replace a PC for a large amount of people. Take off your slashdot-coloured glasses, and you'll realize that most non-technicals just use their PC to update their facebook, surf the web, and jot a few quick emails.

    11. Re:haha by Razalhague · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How long do you think "most non-technicals" will put up with typing on an uncomfortable, unresponsive piece of glass? Five emails, maybe ten?

      I bet it's longer than they've put up with writing 160 character messages using 12 buttons.

    12. Re:haha by macs4all · · Score: 5, Informative

      Enough metaphors. If you don't know how to use a computer, Apple is for you. If you know how, you don't need the crap that they're trying to sell you

      As an embedded developer for the past 30 years, and an Apple user since 1976, I can assure you that your statement is utter rubbish.

      I use Macs because I don't WANT to fuck around inside my computer. I got all that out of my system about 20 years ago with my Apple ][s, which lived perpetually with their lids off, so that I could tinker.

      Now, I'd prefer my computers to be as APPLIANCE-LIKE as possible. Not because I "don't know how"; but rather, because I have better things to do. Apple (mostly) achieves that goal. I guess I can understand why others don't feel like I do, which is more than I can say for most of the people commenting here.

      But don't ever mistake "don't want to" with "don't know how".

    13. Re:haha by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But don't ever mistake "don't want to" with "don't know how".

      When I had to recover the password on an OSX system, and had to figure out how to get to single user, then start several critical services without which I could not even log in a real user or change a password, I knew that all that stuff about macs being trouble-free was horseshit. All the times I've had to manually edit a plist because some part of OSX was failing to start up tell me that you're a bullshit apologist. OSX may break less often (although IME, it hangs as much as anything else) but when it does it's just as hard to fix as anything else. And practically, it is actually harder, because there are less resources to help you fix it.

      The simple truth is that OSX doesn't prevent you from having to fuck around inside your computer's software, and no modern computer requires you to be continually tinkering with hardware, so that is a red herring.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Try this one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Go out, buy nothing but an iPad and tell me how good your computing experience is 12 months from now.

    No cheating. Not a single transaction on a single machine that isn't an iPad.

    I dare you.

    1. Re:Try this one... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ok, tell me this though.

      How are you going to get the thing to print? Not everyone has a wi-fi enabled printer, myself I still make do with a parallel port printer. Do I print things? Not often, but occasionally I need to for work and the like.

      Are you going to enjoy being locked out of the web? There are tons of flash games out there, tons of flash movies, etc. What benefit are you getting to accept it?

      Are you going to be broke paying for applications? It is entirely reasonable to not have to pay for a single application without pirating on a PC/Linux. Almost every pay program has a free alternative on PC/Linux. On the other hand, due to Apple's draconian policies, a paid app may be the only app "approved" to do something.

      What about storage? The average person is going to have GB worth of movies, music, documents, photos, etc. Flash memory is -expensive-. Also, how are you going to transfer things to the iPad? And backups? What about durability? If a component of a PC fails, its easily replaced. Nothing is truly "fatal" if you have the money.

      The iPad makes a passable secondary "computer" but as a primary computer? I'm better off with my 7 inch EEE 701...

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:Try this one... by Macrat · · Score: 5, Funny

      myself I still make do with a parallel port printer.

      Did the nursing home forget to give you your meds again?

    3. Re:Try this one... by Reverberant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Go out, buy nothing but an iPad and tell me how good your computing experience is 12 months from now.

      Me? Wouldn't work at all (which is why I don't own one). For my mother, older sister, an elderly couple who's network I manage and about twenty other people I can think of? It would be perfect (and make my life much easier).

    4. Re:Try this one... by boarder8925 · · Score: 5, Funny

      How are you going to get the thing to print?

      http://matrisciano.posterous.com/how-to-print-from-an-ipad-6

      --
      Keep your eyes to the sky.
    5. Re:Try this one... by steelfood · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Money? You can't even use the damn thing without connecting it to an actual computing device first.

      If you were somehow stranded on a remote island with a brand new iPad and a power source (a solar powered battery charger or whatnot), you'd basically have a small kickboard that doesn't float.

      On the other hand, if you instead had a phone, a netbook, or even a wireless router, you could at least broadcast a signal out and hope that passing rescue craft would be able to detect it. With an iPad, you've got nothing.

      Granted, getting you off a remote island isn't exactly the advertised use case, but it goes to show exactly how narrow the iPad's use actually is. In particular, it's a rather expensive supplement to a real machine, rather than a real machine in and of itself.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    6. Re:Try this one... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dear dickhead,

      Not all of us are willing to blow $500+ on a device that doesn't enable us to do anything we couldn't do before.

      I need a laptop to get my job done. I need a mobile phone for a variety of reasons. I can't think of a single damn reason why I need a $500 tablet.

      Until you get that not all of us are willing to spend $500 on gadget porn, you won't grok why some people think the iPad is a tremendous waste of money and attention.

  6. Jobs Bot Beta v0.26 by dangitman · · Score: 4, Funny

    What Tate failed to realize that he was actually arguing with a bot, and Apple decided to start testing their new artificially intelligent overlord outside the lab. He then woke up in the morning with a stolen iPhone prototype in his pocket, and a dead hooker in his bed.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  7. Par for the course by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't really surprise me at all. Steve wants a controlled user experience and geeks want the freedom to do whatever the hell they want to do. The two clash. Steve is right though, we don't have to buy his devices, so don't. It's that easy. I do like Steve's quote at the end of the exchange, however. For as many people bitch about Apple here, there aren't enough that actually go out and do something about it. Even if you're not a developer, you can still vote with your wallet. If you want to drive FOSS to greater prominence, either help by using it or help by creating and fixing it. Complaining about Apple on the internet won't do much. Creating or helping to improve FOSS is only real way to stick it to Apple.

  8. The article is just a troller by joeflies · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This guy just wrapped up all the common complaints that Adobe and the non-Apple customers want you to believe what's wrong with iPad, and sends off a profanity laced alcohol induced email exchange to see if he can out wit Steve Jobs.

    I'd say that Steve stayed pretty much on message with what he's been always saying, even without his PR department to filter out his intent. And the blogger just looks like, well, a troll.

    1. Re:The article is just a troller by Mongoose+Disciple · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'd say that Steve stayed pretty much on message with what he's been always saying, even without his PR department to filter out his intent.

      I never really considered that "I'm a pompous douchebag" was Steve Jobs' message, but when I view it that way, it makes a lot of sense.

      I mean, the man makes products that obviously there's a huge market for and good for him, but god damn it's like a one-man circle jerk up in there.

  9. Benefits by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Steve Jobs seems to ignore everything that caused products to be successful: Price to performance. Lets see here the iPad

    The iPad costs ~$500, a cheap notebook costs $300-400, paying $500 for a notebook usually gets you a fast, powerful notebook. With a notebook I'm not limited by stupid design decisions, even Microsoft lets me do what I want and doesn't restrict programs. If I want to install an emulator, thats fine. If I want to install Photoshop, thats fine. I don't have to worry about petty squabbles about how Flash is sooooo evil and destroying the world! I can just choose to install Flash or not. With a notebook I can pay ~$5 for a USB card reader rather than $30 for a single-format card reader. With a notebook I have choices of just about everything else, I'm not locked into expensive hardware.

    The iPod won marketshare for having a good UI and being small. The iPad has a decent-ish design and decent UI. However, when I can get a laptop with a UI that I've been using for most of my adult life... Why change? The iPad runs expensive applications, a laptop runs free applications.

    I think I'm not alone in thinking how annoying it is to have common-sense features be added in at a later date which would have already been done with a simi-open platform.

    No one wants real applications! We will never have an iPhone SDK! After all, programs are -terrible- to run. No one wants an alternate browser! No one wants copy/paste! No one wants multi-tasking!

    Sorry Steve, I don't understand your opposition to common sense. I have an iPod touch because at the time it was the cheapest wi-fi enabled device to have a good internet experience on the go with some games/music/movies. I'm not going to get an iPad because there are cheaper devices that do a -ton- more.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:Benefits by sootman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And for the elevnty-hojillionth freaking time, MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER! Not EVERYONE needs to do EVERYTHING! Plenty of people CAN get by with a very limited device.

      As for the rest of your rant, read this.

      [Engineers and designers at Apple] take something small, simple, and painstakingly well considered. They ruthlessly cut features to derive the absolute minimum core product they can start with. They polish those features to a shiny intensity. At an anticipated media event, Apple reveals this core product... Then everyone goes back to Cupertino and rolls. As in, they start with a few tightly packed snowballs and then roll them in more snow to pick up mass until they've got a snowman. That's how Apple builds its platforms. It's a slow and steady process of continuous iterative improvement...

      Look at the original iPod. Kinda pricey, Mac only, FireWire only--wow, look at crazy Apple, they're selling something that doesn't even work with all the computers they've sold in the last few years! But they added Windows support, and USB, and photos, and videos, and then they made them in different sizes, and according to Wikipedia they've sold over a QUARTER BILLION of them in less than ten years. So you'll have to excuse Mr. Jobs if he doesn't trip over himself to listen to your advice or anyone else's.

      Geeks like Woz but the other Steve is plenty smart too. If you've got a little time, read this 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. Look at how much he got right: "The most exciting things happening today are objects and the Web. The Web is exciting for two reasons. One, it's ubiquitous. There will be Web dial tone everywhere. [emphasis added] And anything that's ubiquitous gets interesting. Two, I don't think Microsoft will figure out a way to own it."

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    2. Re:Benefits by cowscows · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nobody would ever spend $100 on a fancy chef's knife when they could spend $40 and get a pocket knife that's not only got a blade to cut things, but also a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a tiny saw, and some tweezers.

      Except that many people are plenty happy to spend their money on something that is designed to do particular tasks well, even if it can't do everything that a similar product can do.

      --

      One time I threw a brick at a duck.

    3. Re:Benefits by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not a Mac fan really, but if you look at the specs, Mac machines aren't that much more expensive than their PC counterparts spec-wise. The problem is, they have a lot of things most people don't need. Do you -really- need a backlit keyboard? What about a non-standard output port? Do you really need that Core i5 or Core i7 CPU? Do you really need DDR3 RAM? Etc.

      The problem is, most people pay for a $1,000+ machine when their needs are met by a machine half the cost or less. Yes, there -are- people who need Core i7 CPUs and powerful graphics cards and OS X and all the fancy stuff. But the average user? No

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    4. Re:Benefits by am+2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sounds to me like you want a laptop, not an iPad. Due to this, I'd suggest getting a laptop, not an iPad, since the iPad doesn't seem to fit your use case.

      On the other hand, if somebody wants a small gadget with a streamlined user experience that's also adapted to the hardware (no dialog boxes that don't fit on your mini screen, no 5x5mm touch areas, ), the iPad might be the right buying decision.

      Incidentally, that's also what Steve Jobs (or whoever replied) said in those replies: Nobody is forcing you to get an iPad or develop for it. It's a free market. Just because you think you have no use case for it doesn't mean that nobody has one.

    5. Re:Benefits by Antisyzygy · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can build a PC that will wipe the floor with any Mac for 900 bucks.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    6. Re:Benefits by williamhb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And for the elevnty-hojillionth freaking time, MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER! Not EVERYONE needs to do EVERYTHING! Plenty of people CAN get by with a very limited device.

      Really? Have you ever tried even writing your resume and then printing it out on an iPad? Was it a nice experience for that large amount of editing, layout tweaking, and then hooking up to a $100 Epson printer that was the one you bought cheaply from KMart? (It's not exactly a specialist task.) Or keeping the 10s of GB of photos you've accrued? I'm pretty certain that there is NOBODY who only owns an iPad and does not also own a more traditional PC/laptop device. The iPad is not supplanting the PC market, it is growing a previously underserved market segment.

    7. Re:Benefits by Totenglocke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sounds to me like you want a laptop, not an iPad. Due to this, I'd suggest getting a laptop, not an iPad, since the iPad doesn't seem to fit your use case.

      And that's where my issue with Apple lies in regards to the iPad. IMO, Apple is blatantly misrepresenting the iPad as a computer, when in fact, it's not. They want to make it out to be a device that will do all of your computing needs when, even if you just browse the web, the lack of flash alone prevents it from doing that due to the prominence of flash on the internet (I'm not saying anything for or against flash, simply stating a fact that there are a LOT of sites that use flash, including youtube). I'm well aware that us nerds will research the iPad and make a decision to buy one - however, by their own admission for a long time, Apple's target audience is those who aren't too bright and sure as hell won't research a product before buying it. THAT is what irks me, is that they'll market the iPad to Technology-incompetent Tobi as being the device to do everything she could ever want and then she'll buy one, then find out after the fact that it DOESN'T do that (hell, without a COMPUTER to go with it, you can't even put movies / music on it that you don't download through iTunes because it has no usb / card reader).

      I may not like the iPad, but I'm not going around telling people not to buy one or that they're stupid for buying one. But I sure wish Apple would be more honest in their marketing, though that goes for a lot of companies....

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
    8. Re:Benefits by aralin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know plenty of people who have computer at work, they do work there and they come home and do not touch or own computer. They might buy an iPad though, to read books or browse web, read email, but they don't need to do anything else beside that. Just because you don't know anybody living without computers or using them just to read email at best doesn't mean that such people don't exist or even are hard to find.

      --
      If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
  10. Re:I rarely read ValleyWag. by maccodemonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "As much as I enjoyed watching SJ take that clown to school, it probably isn't a good idea for him to do so since there's likely to be litigation against his employer in the near future."

    Jobs was doing well until he brought up porn.

    Porn has been published in every medium known to man since the beginning of time. We have literally found porn cave paintings. Porn is nothing new, and will continue to exist. And as long as it's existed, kids have always gotten their hands on it.

    Steve acting as if it was some new fad that Apple is attempting to stem is disturbing. I'm not saying they need to start putting porn in the app store, but c'mon, Apple stopping sideloading so they can keep the iPhone free of porn? There are already ways of getting porn on the device (web), and kids can very easily jailbreak the thing to load on whatever they want. Apple is making a dumb stand on principle.

    He told the Gawker editor that he'd understand if he had kids. One has to wonder if this is a result of a bad experience Steve has personally had with his family, and not so much a business decision.

  11. Re:From: "PC Folk" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, -1 squared is 1. So, is woosh an uprate now, or are you just bad at math?

    Sent from my iPad.

  12. Re:Insomnia and stupidity by gavron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hari Seldon wrote all about it.

    E

  13. people don't want to fiddle by fermion · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I hate to keep bringing this up, but people don't want to fiddle with machines. They want them to work. Most people I know buy PCs because that is what they use at work and school. They get free software and often free support.

    If the iPad can provide the functionality they need, and contrary to the false statement, free p0rn(who wants to pay for an app to pay for p0rn anyway) and let the kids write papers with a bluetooth keyboard and not have updates fail because MS cannot verify via WGA an accuse the user of theft, then why buy anything else?

    I feel a little disturbed that I can't change batteries, add memory, or write my own programs like I can on my Mac, but then I don't fix my own car anymore either. The worlds moves on, and one either moves or gets run over. And just look at the unemployment rate in the US to see what happens to those that get run over. Sure you can hold rallies and complain about taxes and blame the immigrants, but you are still run over.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  14. What disappoints me... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is that the guy who decided to go up against Steve did such a tepid job of it.

    If you really feel like trying to piss Jobs off for his control-freakery and insistence on building Computers Where The Trains Run on Time, you don't just whine about "freedom", you throw his past as an ostensibly anti-establishment maverick in his face.

    "So, Steve, you finally got rid of those slots that Woz was always sneaking in to things, and have even managed to build a (walled) garden of pure ideology, where each user may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory runtimes and confusing languages..."

  15. Re:From: "PC Folk" by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Didn't we despise Microsoft because of how successful they were?

    Maybe you did, but my objection to them was for the multiple crimes they committed, and the dismal quality of their products.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  16. Ah, yes; "freedom from." by Millennium · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Negative freedoms: the biggest load of BS to infect pop sociology in the last century. When someone claims to offer or desire "freedom from" anything, run for the hills, because they are either too naive to understand the costs or too traumatized to care. Neither viewpoint is healthy.

  17. Re:I rarely read ValleyWag. by maccodemonkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Well, sure there's going to be porn on the iPhone too, but Apple's not going to be the company that delivers it."

    There is a difference between Apple delivering porn, and Apple attempting to stop everyone else from delivering it.

    I've worked for an organization that buys Apple products in several thousand batches (they're the biggest spenders on Apple products in education in their respective state. And the state in question is a west coast state that is very big on technology.) The major holdup with the iPad has been sideloading. It's very difficult for an organization to manage iPads en masse when they can't even manage the deployed software easily. The lack of sideloading was first blamed on mobile applications threatening cell networks (which everyone knows is a load of bull), and then more recently, porn.

    The organization in question currently runs off Macbooks. The kids have loaded porn on the Macbooks. Before that we had desktop machines. The kids loaded porn on those. Hell, I remember before we had computers and the kids brought porno magazines to school. Yes, we were concerned about porn, but it was nothing new.

    While Apple restricting the device makes it easier for us to enforce discipline, it also cuts us off at the knees and almost makes the iPad a non starter in enterprise. Yes, Apple does offer a private app store for your organization. But that doesn't really mean much when we need a way of loading software onto thousands of devices at once.

    Apple is supposedly sending engineers to my old employer to look at these issues. I hope it results in an improvement to the manageability of iPhone OS.

  18. Re:Insomnia and stupidity by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jobs' empire is falling down around him. All hail FOSS, Linux, Android, and no more closed-source.

    It is, after all, the 10th anniversary of the year of Linux on the desktop.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  19. Re:From: "PC Folk" by nacturation · · Score: 5, Funny

    sqrt(-1), Whoosh

    Well played. It's the all new iWhoosh.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  20. "Sent from my iPad" by ClosedSource · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why, did you do something with your iPad that was unauthorized by Apple?

  21. Future thinking is not decided on the exact 1st... by bussdriver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IF the iPad is the future; the future will NOT be iPads all over, it will an evolution of the concepts that made it so big that will change everything and people will point back to the source of that to the iPad; or for the technology, back to the Newton, PC Tablet, and iPhone - but mostly back to the iPad.

    Expect heavy bitching to create competitors and nudge apple into other directions. The ubuntu like app stores will continue to be popular - and the list will continue to be filtered to a select few to cut down on the bloat of crap software. Apple is protecting their experience by acting as a gateway now and it has proven effective; but at some point it could change.

    The 1st mac changed the world forever. It wasn't the 1st on all of it, they payed xerox for secrets that the public didn't know about. The computers today are quite different but they are BASED upon that early mac.

    The iPad could very well be the future of laptop computing for MOST of the world of the future and while the tablet PC was 1st (or arguably the Newton) and the others didn't win over the public; like the iPod came in late in the game; as well as the iPhone.

    I will not buy an iPad. Its not good enough or open enough for me yet.

    --
    Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
  22. One and the same by pizzach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Call me a heretic, but I like both Steve Jobs and Stallman. I would rather have both or none rather than just one. They each are both ballzy and push for what they want to see in their respective ecosystems. In the case of Stallman's ecosystem (GNewSense), flash doesn't exist either and all closed source blobs must die. You can't tell me this doesn't cause restrictions.

    Steve Jobs is a crazy man who has time and time pushed for things that people thought were ridiculous and would never fly. The thing I like the most about Jobs is he keeps getting Apple to do things against the corporate grain that makes the companies around them shat their pants. I wouldn't think investors in a publicly traded company would allow him to do things like not license patents on multitouch etc.

    My 5 cents anyway.

    --
    Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
  23. What the fuck is wrong with you people? by binary+paladin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously? This is easily one of the stupidest fucking discussions I have ever seen on this site. Every dumb ass analogy there is has been used. Every unnecessary soap box has been stood on.

    Hate the closed nature of the iPad and iPhone? Don't buy them. Do those devices simply not meet you business needs? Don't buy them. Think you know more about marketing a device than Apple? You're fucking deluded.

    Is Apple somehow preventing you from buying and using other devices and services? No.

    So what the fuck is the big deal?

    I own a Mac. I love it. All the best computers I have ever owned have been made by Apple. They meet MY needs and have done so better than any other computer. Will you have the same results? Honestly, I don't give a shit. I have an Android phone. I love it. It has a physical keyboard, I don't need iTunes to use it, the ssh client was free, it's an AT&T exclusive and I can currently run Pandora in the background. See what I did there? Apple's product in that space didn't do what I wanted it to so, instead of freaking out about it and crying about Apple's "stupid" policies, I bought something else. Until that choice no longer exists, the rest of this talk about closed versus open systems and censorship and walled gardens is utterly pointless.

    1. Re:What the fuck is wrong with you people? by lacoronus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only do I have the right to not buy iPads or iAnything, I also have the right to tell others why they should not buy them.

      This whole "if you don't like them, don't buy them, but for God's sake, don't tell anyone about your opinion" is pure BS. After all, if Apple and their supporters take the right to tell me why the iPad is superior to other products (that they presumably haven't bought), I should be able to do the same. I don't buy Microsoft Office, and I also tell people why using native Office formats is bad. I won't buy an iPad, and I'll tell people why.

  24. Bug Report by aaron+p.+matthews · · Score: 4, Funny

    Description:
    Transitory phrase for incidental topic is ineffective.

    Actual Result:
    By the way, what have you done that's so great?

    Expected Result:
    One more thing... what have you done that's so great?

  25. silly by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am no apple user (no iToys of any kind) but this is just silly.

    Talking about Freedoms with a corporation about a product they roll out as if those are real Freedoms.

    Carlin was right: It is all an illusion, an elaborate illusion of Freedom. You have no Freedoms. You have a Freedom to chose between Government parties, both of which will fuck you, the difference is that one will be Fucking you and enjoying it, the other will be Fucking you and probably bitching about how they really Love you.

    Freedom of choice is not about gadgets, it's not about the latest iFad bullshit. It is really about your economic and political Freedoms and in a world with real Freedoms you'll find a stupid PAD that you personally like from some company who will inevitably produce one.

    'Consumption Based Economy' - what a load of croak. Any retarded pissing himself idiot can consume. Production is the only way to generate wealth and the money is not wealth but only a medium of exchange. Wealth is in production. Consumption always comes as a response to production.

    What an amazing world we live in. People used to die for Freedom - as in dying for Freedom not to be fucked over by someone's idea of how to run their lives and today we are talking about a stupid fake computer with limited capabilities as if a company locking out applications on it is the most serious violation of Freedoms. I guess we have figured out all of the other Non-Freedoms, like the Governments printing money and taking away the value of it from everyone, like the Corporations buying the Governments and destroying competition and becoming gigantic Monopolies that run everything. Where is your iFreedom, is it in the Apple store? Don't they have an app for that?

    --
    You can't handle the truth.