Apple Implements the CalDAV Standard For MobileMe

Vermyndax writes "Apple announced the new MobileMe Calendar beta on July 6th. The mainstream press picked up the story and plugged the gorgeous new iPad-like interface for all devices. It seems, however, that they missed the real story: MobileMe's new Calendar application is an implementation of CalDAV, the proposed calendaring standard. This may be the same implementation that exists in Snow Leopard Server and is open sourced. The hidden gem in all of this is that Apple plans to bring this CalDAV connectivity to Outlook users on MobileMe. Where might they take it next?"

Comments

Unpossible

[Rational]

As everybody knows, Apple is a closed and evil company, therefore the headline is misleading and the story inaccurate. QED.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

(Bitches.)

Re:Unpossible

[Goaway]

Pointing out that Slashdot is full of anti-Apple fanboys means your "braiin was washed in Apple juice"?

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is equally full of Apple fanbois and apologists. Ever seen a comment by the user named jo_ham? It was most likely Apple propaganda.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at the editor who approved the summary, you very well may be right.

Re:Unpossible

[Goaway]

Slashdot is equally full of Apple fanbois and apologists.

That's ridiculous. The Slashdot user base is heavily biased against Apple. The fact that you name a single name of someone who is supposedly an "apologist" is pretty telling.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Microsoft has done some decent things. But a few small islands of niceness in the immense sea of dickishness that is the broader attitude of the corporation doesn't really change anything.

Re:Unpossible

[cheesybagel]

Try pointing out any negative trait on Apple products. Then do the same for Microsoft products. Then for Linux. Then watch how you get moderated. The results are... interesting.

Re:Unpossible

[Unordained]

He named one apologist. You named zero bashers. I don't see how that proves that he's wrong and you're right.

Re:Unpossible

[bonch]

You're an idiot. Nearly every Apple story gets flooded with Apple haters invented melodrama where there is none, because it's such a horrible thing for a company to approve what runs on its device (even though every console manufacturer does exactly the same thing).

Re:Unpossible

[Goaway]

Why bother naming names, when I can just open any story whatsoever about Apple, and get a face full of angry bashing?

Re:Unpossible

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Try pointing out any negative trait on Apple products. Then do the same for Microsoft products. Then for Linux. Then watch how you get moderated. The results are... interesting.

Speaking of mods, the person to whom you are replying was modded down as flambait, despite clearly being anything but. It kind of refutes your assertion about unfair moderation, no?

Anyway, I regularly point out negative traits about Apple products and Microsoft product and Linux. Linux is the least fairly modded (as would be expected) with negative comments routinely modded down for no reason other than that people don't like hearing about the areas where Linux still needs work. Similar comments about flaws in OS X or the iPhone regularly get modded up.

Re:Unpossible

[leamanc]

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

You just proved the AC right, fanboi!

Re:Unpossible

[Gilmoure]

You mean every Apple story is full of lots of Apple Worshiping. Slashdot is filled with Apple lovers who do nothing but fill up the forums, going on and on and on about how great Apple products are.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

A phone used for other purposes than making a remote call is as much a toy as a video game console is. The fact that you use it to check your email or post to your blog only reinforces this image.

To balance my post: OSX blows (so I don't develop for the iPhone) and the Android is half-broken garbage. You're all idiots.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

If there was a fairy that allowed me to abolish Apple with the cost of getting rid of these products, I'd hit it.

We should really develop a new standard printing system. Hopefully the google cloud printing one will turn out to bewarthwhile. As for webkit - I love Chrome, but I could live with the new firefox.

Re:Unpossible

[dr.newton]

It kind of refutes your assertion about unfair moderation, no?

No, since he made no such assertion. His only assertion was that the results were... interesting.

Re:Unpossible

[mean pun]

Agreed.

Re:Unpossible

[icebraining]

even though every console manufacturer does exactly the same thing

Yes, because Microsoft and Sony never get bashed on /.

Re:Unpossible

[UnknowingFool]

So you'd get rid of products that actually work and are all Open Source just because Apple is involved. Does your hatred of Apple run that deep? Did you print on Linux before CUPS? It wasn't easy. Apple purchased CUPS and hired the developer. And CUPS hasn't really changed at all. Did you ever use KHTML before Apple forked it into WebKit? KHTML is nothing compared to WebKit, and Apple has done a tremendous job of extending it.

Re:Unpossible

[DJRumpy]

A year ago I would have agreed with you, as things tended to be pretty balanced, and pretty fair, with initial flambait, troll mods balanced out after a few hours. One of the most recent posts about Apple tells a different story with any positive posts about Apple all being modded down as troll or flamebait regardless of content.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/07/06/1839240/More-Trouble-In-Apples-App-Store

Look at the above link, at what's being modded 'Insightful', 'Informative', and on the opposite side, trolling and flamebait.

Claiming that things are pretty even handed looks a little ridiculous. The above link is about a story where someone hacked an iTunes account and bought his own app. It immediately turned into a slew of Apple is Evil, the Walled Garden doesn't work, the app store is a failure, all modded insightful and informative, when it had nothing to do with apps other than the guy hacking the accounts bought his own app.

Slashdot has become a haven for anti-Apple trolls. Look through that link and tell me that the posts deserved Insightful, and that the trolls deserved the bashing. It's pointless anymore to even enter an Apple thread as it is immediately filled with FUD, "Apple Sucks +Insightful", and "Evil + Informative".

I particularly like the one stating "WTF, did you suck Steve's dick or something" being modded Insightful and Informative.

Re:Unpossible

[Guy Harris]

Yeah, I know because Apple never gives anything back to the open source community at all!

To be fair, "developed by Apple" in "CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems." in the CUPS home page means "Apple hired the guy who created CUPS, and it's now an Apple project", not "Apple were the original developers of CUPS".

Re:Unpossible

[smash]

For values of "interesting" == "predictable".

I am an unapologetic apple fanboy at the moment. I've "been there" and "done that" with regards to using Linux, FreeBSD and Windows.

I still DO use all of the above.

I use/admin Windows because I have to. I use FreeBSD and Apple products because I want to.

Re:Unpossible

[Gilmoure]

Oops, sorry. Forgot my /sarcasm tag.

Re:Unpossible

[nine-times]

I've done that, and I have to say that I think people misjudge the bias on Slashdot. I've posted positive/negative comments about Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Linux, and I'll tell you that the response can be fairly random. You can get modded up for posting positive things about Windows and you can get modded down for posting positive things about Linux.

Beyond that, the trends aren't what most people assume. In my experience, interesting and insightful comments about any of these companies/products can get you modded up, but annoying snide cliched complaints will probably get you modded down.

If there is a bias, I think it's most heavily anti-Apple, but in a specific way: irrational and ignorant complaints against Apple are more likely to get modded up than irrational and ignorant complaints against anything else (at least within the sphere of computing. Irrational complaints about religion are probably most likely to get modded up (no, I'm not religious)). I think the reason (if I had to guess) is that there are still a fair amount of Windows/Linux/Android users who are so anti-Apple that they won't give the products a fair shake and never really use them or learn what the situation is. On the other hand, most Apple users have used other operating systems.

As a result, complaints against the one-button mouse get modded insightful and complaints against WGA/WAT get modded overrated (I guess because people think you're just piling on).

That's my interpretation, but I guess you could accuse me of being biased.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this talk and nobody mentions the subject title - Unpossible? Really?

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

And to be fair: no one gives a shit but you.

Ask the CUPS guy. He is tremendously happy that the work was recognized as valuable and that his actual full time job became working on a project he loves. He recognizes, like you cannot or will not, that Apple purchasing CUPS was not some trivial development, but required the a) money, and b) forward thinking that neither you nor any of your preferred corporations possessed.

Re:Unpossible

[mdwh2]

If that's true, I wonder why we need daily stories (or more) on the Iphone and Ipad, along with every possible rumour about Apple.

But you must be reading a different Slashdot to me. Any criticism of Apple almost always get modded down. The days when this was a site geared towards open source are long gone.

The reality I suspect is there's no bias against Apple, rather most people just don't care (again, it's the Apple spin that not liking Apple implies there must be some "bias" against them). But there's a vocal minority who think we need to hear endless news about what Apple do.

Re:Unpossible

[mdwh2]

Nearly every Apple story gets flooded with Apple haters

Classic tactic - if someone doesn't like or use Apple, it must be out of irrational "hatred".

for a company to approve what runs on its device (even though every console manufacturer does exactly the same thing).

If Apple wants to do that, it's fine. But it's also fair game for people to criticise that, just as other people criticise Windows for things. And if you're only response is to say it's like locked down toys and games machines, well that says it all about where the Ipad and Iphone fit in the scheme of things.

People don't hate these devices, they'd just rather use other products. Other products that hardly ever get coverage on the Slashdot that is allegedly biased against Apple (what with it's three stories a day on covering the Iphone/Ipad).

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why EVERY SINGLE PRO-APPLE POST is moderated 5 here. You guys are so full of shit, your breath probably smells like a toilet.

Re:Unpossible

[bonch]

Actually, you had no counterargument to my point, so you were forced to resort to a strawman involving toys. Grats on -1 Flamebait.

Re:Unpossible

[MrHanky]

You should look up the definition of the word strawman, moron. Congrats on your "insightful" apologetics.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, four mentioned OSS products. Just 4?

For a multi-billion dollar company, I guess I should be impressed.

Re:Unpossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here's a few more then:
http://opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1064/

iCal

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Apple was one of the three companies that wrote the CalDAV RFC and they implemented it immediately in iCal in 2007. (iCal is the built in calendaring app in OS X.) Previous to that that iCal already used WebDAV. They offer an OSS CalDAV server in OS X server. Why would anyone find it surprising that the rewritten WebApp version of iCal is using CalDAV?Apple has already been pushing it as hard as possible as an open standard alternative to Exchange.

Re:iCal

[Bryansix]

My only question is "Why did it take so long?".

Re:iCal

[ZERO1ZERO]

Apple always seems to 'take ages' to implement stuff. This applies in hardware, software, services etc. The upshot is that when they do it's usually implemented properly, in a nice easy to use way, with a shiny interface layer on top. Look at Ipod. When they firstbrought it out people said it was lame and it had less space than current competing mp3 players. But what they did have was solid. And there wasn't even an itunes store at that point. A few revisions later and they dominate the mp3 player space. iPad will be the same. Look at some of there software offereings and it's the same story.

Re:iCal

[kabloom]

It's worthwhile to have someone point out that the protocol behind this service is CalDAV, because that lets us Evolution users know how to synchronize with it.

Re:iCal

[Mononoke]

Look at Ipod. When they firstbrought it out people said it was lame and it had less space than current competing mp3 players.

NO WAY! Someone really said that? In public?!? ^_-

Re:iCal

[Bryansix]

This was before it was cultural suicide to say anything negative about the iPod.

Re:iCal

[abigor]

This is such a good troll that it deserves a +1, just to show other trolls how it's really done.

Re:iCal

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Ipod. When they firstbrought it out people said it was lame and it had less space than current competing mp3 players.

[citation needed]

Re:iCal

[Miseph]

The "people" he is referencing includes, most notably CmdrTaco.

Of course, you could just read the Wikipedia entry for yourself, it would inform you AND quench your clear lust for the Wikipedo way.

Re:iCal

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it would have been a half decent troll if he had put a period after - "useful for marketing". AC blew it with the rest of the sentence.

Re:iCal

[Mononoke]

Welcome to Slashdot

Re:iCal

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has ported software to OSX or worked extensively with the included "Unix" environment will recognize the truth in the parent's post. While I can't enumerate them offhand, there have been a number of occasions where I have come across fundamental Unix tools which are clearly broken in some aspect or other. Hell, even something as fundamental as fsync() semantics are broken on OSX.

The problem is exactly that Apple uses the Unix label as nothing more than an advertising bullet. Even their IPv6 support is just the same, where mDNSresponder is severely broken; try running IPv6 only and see how that works. (Something as fundamental as the resolver should not be broken.) This applies to just about everything Apple though; as long as everything mostly works, it is considered good enough. That philosophy isn't acceptable for the foundation of a *nix system though; to build upon it, the individual pieces must be reliable.

They customize all sorts of things with Apple-specific hacks. Meanwhile, they introduce severe bugs which never get fixed, since there is so little attention to the Unix environment. (Which is itself composed of ancient tools which are rarely updated.) Among the worst offenses are the home-grown Apple utilities which very much do not conform to the Unix philosophy, and can't be depended upon to work properly outside of the exact ways in which the GUI uses them.

I have had extensive experience with nearly every Unix platform of the years, and Darwin truly is the red-headed stepchild among them.

Re:iCal

[dgatwood]

In order to use the name UNIX, an operating system is required to pass a strict set of conformance tests. Therefore, Mac OS X is UNIX in far more than just a trademark sense.

Re:iCal

[Maury Markowitz]

> since there is so little attention to the Unix environment

Which is the interesting point here, IMHO. Given the "its so easy to fix" implications you've used with these problems, then the fact that they're not fixed says a whole lot about how important these are to the target market. Basically, not at all.

And why would they? Can you imagine the average computer user getting upset about "fsync() semantics are broken"? Geez.

Maury

Re:iCal

[UnknowingFool]

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the Single Unix Specification. OS X Leopard (Intel) and Snow Leopard are certified as UNIX 03 compliant. Same as Solaris 10, AIX 5L V5.2 and HP/UX 11i v3.

syncml

[Werrismys]

I'd rather have syncml support in osx calendar and iphone. The only reason to hang on nokias...

Re:syncml

[metamatic]

Yeesh. SyncML? Have you ever looked at that standard? Ghastly.

Besides, converting CalDAV to SyncML on the server side shouldn't be hard, since CalDAV is iCalendar files in a set of directories on a WebDAV server, and SyncML is iCalendar files wrapped in XML and sent to a SyncML server across whatever protocol the vendor chooses. In fact, a quick Googling suggests that there are already numerous SyncML to CalDAV gateways, including open source ones.

Re:syncml

[Anonymous Coward]

Does SyncML go over HTTP pipes?

One of the big deals of using CalDAV and CardDAV is that it can go over more common HTTP/HTTPS ports. More and more free wifi spots and corporate proxies are only allowing HTTP/HTTPS, and these protocols can punch through those proxies and firewalls more easily.

Re:syncml

[Werrismys]

Yeesh. SyncML? Have you ever looked at that standard? Ghastly.

Yes it's horrible and obsolete, technically speaking. It's still used in lots of collaborative calendar software. Having syncml clients for OSX and iPhone would help me and lots of other people too to get rid of horrible nokias etc.

Re:syncml

[icebraining]

Yes, it does.

Re:syncml

[Rubinstien]

Hrrrm. I've had a SyncML client on my iPhone for around 2 years now. I just checked the App Store and find at least 13 of them to choose from, ranging from free to around 15 bucks.

Actually, I should toss it off my phone. I haven't needed it since work switched us from Lotus Notes to Exchange (backward move in my opinion, Notes was rock-solid reliable, and indexing actually worked well).

Where might they take it next?

[thodelu]

iDONTKNOW. In any case this is incompatible with my lunar calendar.

Does it matter?

[jsebrech]

As long as you have to pay for mobileme, it doesn't really matter. One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

Re:Does it matter?

[gyrogeerloose]

In fact, as mac.com, MobileMe was free for a few years. I tried the paid service for a while but didn't find enough value in it to make re-upping worth it. Besides, "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

Re:Does it matter?

[HumanEmulator]

One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

Back when it was known as iTools, it was a loss leader. They gave that up after 2 years so there was a probably a good reason. Perhaps because people are willing to pay?

Re:Does it matter?

[Skuld-Chan]

A lot of these features I get for free with google/android - if I didn't have them for free I'm certain I'd probably shell out for it these days :(.

Re:Does it matter?

[IANAAC]

Because I don't use MobileMe (or mac.com), I don't know... this is an honest question:

What does MobileMe offer that the free options out there don't? What's the feature that would make me want to pay?

Re:Does it matter?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Google supports CalDAV which they give away for free.

Exchange support on Google accounts, Dropbox and Wordpress makes MobileMe worthless, unless you want to find your lost iPhone.

Re:Does it matter?

[darrylo]

There is one reason to get MobileMe: contact groups

MobileMe is the only big name to support automatic/bidirectional syncing of contacts in multiple groups. I like keeping my friends, family, co-workers, and business numbers separate. The only big question here is whether multiple groups is worth the price. I think it is, but others won't.

Google's idea of contact sync is to shovel all of your contacts into one big steamy pile (on the iPhone, since we're talking about MobileMe -- I think multiple groups are supported on the android). I imagine that they'll fix this someday, but I think "someday" is still years off. Until then, I'm stuck with MobileMe (although there are one or two alternatives on the horizon).

Re:Does it matter?

[maxume]

Shiny integration and a Christmas card that supposedly comes from Steve Jobs.

Re:Does it matter?

[e4g4]

"MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

No argument there - I'd put it one step down from the "iPad" as far as bad product names go. You do have to admit, though, that me.com is a pretty good domain for an email address.

Re:Does it matter?

[BitZtream]

If you want features, you won't pay for it and you'll be disappointed when you see it.

Its strength is actually, imo, its lack of features.

It does have a pretty interface that works reasonable well for standard email client, web host/photo album, but its not particularly impressive. Its simple and elegant.

The MobileMe photo browser that gets created or whatever when you upload an album from iPhoto to MobileMe is surprisingly pretty for something so plain.

I only have an account for the Find My iPhone feature, I wouldn't buy one without that feature. I'm a douche who leaves his phone in random places and its been really useful for tracking it down. It has paid for itself, but I doubt most people would need the same feature, my wife for instance has never seen it and I think its probably only been accessed for her when I set it up.

I would not pay for the service without Find My iPhone

Because I have the MobileMe account I also do the following:

Secondary, over the air backup of the various things the iPhone syncs with mobileme. I have this all backed up elsewhere, but since I have it I turned it on here too. More backups are not a bad thing.

A backup copy of my ITMS music that I can easily keep synced across machines using iDisk, its just easier than bothering with an rsync or something since I already have this.

I used to use it for push email since Google's exchange support didn't support push, now that it does however I no longer check my email at all at the me.com address.

Its a bridge to chat with some people on AIM without creating another AIM account since I never seem to remember my old ones. I don't even do that anymore.

Other than Find My iPhone I could do everything else free in another way, probably a technically better way, but since I have an account, using it for some things is just easier than setting something up somewhere else, free or otherwise.

Its up for renewal in a month and I'm not sure I'll renew it, depends on if I bother to upgrade to an iPhone 4 or not, probably won't do either.

Re:Does it matter?

[iluvcapra]

A lot of these features I get for free with google/android

As with all of these things, when you pay for something it means that the party you're buying from has an actual interest in delivering what they say they will, as opposed to the other model, where they let you sharecrop a corner of their server in order to funnel your eyeballs to the highest bidder.

The nice thing about paying directly for things is it eliminates that fundamental conflict of interest that the service provider has between the end users, who want all their data completely private, and his revenue-generating partners, the advertisers, who want as much timely and specific information about the end users as possible.

Re:Does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd pay for Finding your Phone? Most other mobile platforms that have GPS can read an incoming SMS and report back the GPS coordinates, or remotely trigger the ringer, etc, etc. It's just a simple program on the phone that sits there idly. Most of the time, there's at least one that's free.

Oh wait, that's right. The Fruit only recently added background services, and even then, would probably ban all the apps that competed with their own service. /don't have any Fruits.

Re:Does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's entirely possible that Google CAN'T do anything *BUT* shovel all your contacts into one big steamy pile. It's entirely possible Google didn't bother trying either.

Remember, you can't duplicate built-in functionality on an i.Product without getting your app rejected or banned from the store (even if the feature is only being planned, as per the on-device podcast download app). Updating your contacts from Google Contacts does NOT duplicate functionality, but assigning them to groupings does match what MM does.

Re:Does it matter?

[afabbro]

One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

Particularly since you can do everything it offers for free.

• "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. In sync on all your devices." My work and mail/contacts/calendar are already perfectly in sync. For contacts and calendar, I sync with Google (from my home, from my work Outlook, etc.) and then my iPhone syncs with that. Works just great. My mail has been accessible from all my computers and phone for a long time.
• "Create a beautiful web gallery of your photos and share them in just a few clicks. Store and share even large files online with iDisk. And access it all on the go with the MobileMe Gallery and iDisk apps." As if there weren't dozens of sites on which one could create a "beautiful web gallery". Store and share large files? Dropbox or SugarSync. $100/year gets me 20GB of files on iDisk, but actually less because my mail eats some of that up. On the other hand free gets me 2GB on either Dropbox or Sugar, and $10/month on Dropbox gets me 50GB. And I can access it on all the same places.
• "Me.com. Your home base on the web." Just what I need - another email address. It's 2010 - email addresses are free with virtually unlimited storage. And of course, the more you use your me.com email address, the less iDisk space you have...
• "Find your lost iPhone or iPad.". They're already a bajillion ways to do this.

MobileMe is a ridiculous ripoff.

Re:Does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I don't use MobileMe (or mac.com), I don't know... this is an honest question:

What does MobileMe offer that the free options out there don't? What's the feature that would make me want to pay?

Integration and a slick interface.

Basically, the same answer that you get to "What does $_APPLE_PRODUCT offer that $_OSS_PROJECT doesn't?"

Re:Does it matter?

[sean.peters]

You do have to admit, though, that me.com is a pretty good domain for an email address.

No I don't... I have a MobileMe account and I've stuck with the "mac.com" domain, which still works. "me.com" is too weird for words.

Re:Does it matter?

[Painted]

One of the worst? Sure. I'd say "PowerTalk" was probably the worst name Apple ever trotted out- they used to have Power* and *Talk lines of products, so someone decided that they should be combined!

Re:Does it matter?

[Americano]

I am a subscriber; could I replace it with equivalent "free" alternatives? Probably... but - having one service to handle the calendar syncing (and syncing to my iphone), the contact syncing, bookmark syncing, as well as the easy web mail interface, plus the easy online storage & gallery functionality - I prefer that to having to find ways to integrate flickr/picasa, delicious (or another bookmark sync service), gmail, google calendar, together.

Plus, for me one of the killer apps here is the ability to sync system settings between my laptop & desktop. It requires a little management to make it work, but in general, it's wonderful to be able to rebuild my laptop (I've had to do this 2 times over the past 3 years, once with a hard drive failure, and once with a rebuild to free up a fair amount of space for a new bootcamp partition) and know that the first mobileme sync will put my system settings back the way I want them, plus the "find my iphone" feature, which I've used a couple times.

There are certainly other ways to get the functionality of mobileme, but for me it's more the 'one-stop shopping' and the fact that most of these things are built right into the apps & os that make me pay for it. I prefer the simplicity and integration to rolling my own.

Google and Apple

[Irick]

People seem to forget these two companies actually press open standards above proprietary formats. For two companies that are pitted against each other so much by the media and marketing, they really do remain nearly seamlessly interoperable. I have no problems switching between Apple's default software to alternative applications just because of how standardized it is. Mail, iCal, etc.

Re:Google and Apple

[Itninja]

Are they pitted against each other? Other than the Android (which Google only makes the OS for) vs iPhone, what else is there?

Re:Google and Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

iAd is a direct attack against google's advertising business. Unfortunately for Apple, the iPhone4 hasn't really killed Android as everyone was predicting, so iAd is not likely going to hurt google very much in the long term.

Re:Google and Apple

[ducomputergeek]

Apple became the white knights of Opensource by adopting a BSD-based userland (It wasn't Linux but it gave the Linux fans the ability to say "See, Apple is doing it we can too"). Then Apple embraced and extended CUPS. But it's been how many years and they've not extinguished it. CUPS is used by every Linux distro I've tried and Apple has done nothing to stop them. Same with all their other technologies, they embraced the open standards and contributed a lot to different projects, but still held parts to be propitary. They were "open" but not "open enough" for some people. But largely the early appeal of OSX was to the geek crowd. Every LAMP developer I knew at the time left Linux for OSX as their desktop (usually laptop) of choice. I was one of them after spending 2 years trying to get printers and my sound card to work with Linux I got tired and just wanted something that worked. So I bought an iBook and never looked back.

Then things changed when Apple forked KHTML. For some reason, that was seen as suspicious by the /. crowd. I'm not sure why. Eventually Apple created Webkit and offered it back to the community with the KHTML folks eventually adopting it (iirc). But that's when the negativity began and then continued with the iPods.

But then, there was iTunes and the iTMS. Apple was against DRM, but added just enough DRM to get labels to sign up. And the DRM they added never once got in my way. If I wanted to burn to CD to listen in my car, I could. I could copy to a number of computers and iPods and listen to what I had purchased and the biggest factor was I could buy the couple tracks I wanted from a CD and not the entire album for $.99. It didn't mesh with some peoples idea of "freedom", but to the masses it became having cake and eating it too. Apple was the first company that was able to put it all together in a package the average person could use.

And because Apple was for the masses now and no longer aimed for the "geeks", the /. crowd began hating Apple as Apple found more and more success with more people. It was OSX that was becoming the *iux of the masses, not Linux. This continued with the iPhone. Although at first it was more of a shrug, then came the iPhone 2 with the App Store and it was full on rabid hatred. Mainly I think because, again, Apple developed a product that went over extremely well for the masses, but ignored what the "geeks" might want.

And so the Geeks went to Google. What was not to love about google, lots of geeks, lots of geeky tools made by geeks for geeks. And so, Google is now the company that replaced Apple about 2007 as the great "white knight". It will last another 3 - 5 years, and then Google will become the new "Evil company that must die" replaced by someone else. Who knows, maybe by that time the new white knight will be Microsoft. Stranger things have happened.

Re:Google and Apple

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Of which, both iPhone and Android both use CalDAV for Google services. They are not "pitted against each other" in any way when it comes to calendar services.

Re:Google and Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need a white knight. I'm not a techo-bigot. I can accept that everyone puts out good products and bad products and I don't need to hide that fact behind witless memes and outright lies. I don't give a fuck if your OS can beat up my OS. It works for me and no amount of political banter or shit coming from fanboi's mouths is going to change that.

Re:Google and Apple

[thePsychologist]

Even in a seemingly anti-apple place like this, I don't think there's much negativity towards OS X. It started with the iPod and continued with the iPhone/iPad because they're not open enough.

I dislike the iPortables because without modding I can't open a terminal and browse the filesystem, install arbitrary software, and look at the source. I suspect a lot of geeks want something that 'Just Works' AND is open. The anger comes from the thought that IF only Apple opened the iDevices then geeks could finally have this.

IMO the n810 which I am typing on now (and similarly the n900) is pretty damn close if only more developer efforts were directed towards it. Sadly few people care about open source so right now devices like the n810 show promise and the fade away into obscurity.

Hopefully Nokia with MeeGo will come a bit closer.

Re:Google and Apple

[PaulMeigh]

They're both aiming at Microsoft, the company that makes all the money in this space. You don't see the same level of love and happiness in their core businesses.

Re:Google and Apple

[Renderer of Evil]

The love/hate relationship Slashdot has for Apple that's been going on since early 2000's is really fascinating. I think there is a bit of resentment from the rabid F/OSS crowd, to which I once belonged. These days I just can't bring myself to care that much about twisting my daily habits 5 different ways just for "The Cause." Above all I want shit that works. The option to spaz out in the command line is always couple of keystrokes away so I don't feel like I'm in the wilderness such as Windows where you have bolt-on idiotic things like cygwin or gui apache installers.

It doesn't help that lots and lots of alpha geeks jumped ship from Linux to OSX on a count of "it just works." For better or worse, it sort of exposed the glaring problems with blind "Open Über Alles" ideology and made the point that a bit of a benevolent dictatorship isn't that bad.

Hence you have this schism in geeklandia -- the "I just want the fucking thing to work so I can focus my efforts more efficiently" versus the "I want to control every aspect of my computing experience" purists. With the release of the iPad this rift is ever more pronounced.

Re:Google and Apple

[RocketRabbit]

I disagree that Apple has somehow taken a downturn in the last few years. Unless you are a frothing rabid GPL advocate or fall into a number of other very small pigeonholes, Apple has been on a 10 year upswing and it's only looking rosier for them. Even with the negative sides with Apple, their focus on the customer is keener than any alternative, especially Google. Ever try to talk to somebody from Google? It's fucking impossible. You are not Google's customer, you are their product.

Other than advertising supported search, email, and other services, all of which are ultimately just vectors for ads, what has Google done for me in my life? Apple was there for me in the 80s with BASIC, in the 90s for Pascal and C, and now with my GNU tools.

Re:Google and Apple

[pandrijeczko]

Look, I'm no OS zealot and I believe people should use computing devices that they find the easiest to use, whether that's Windows, Linux, OS X or whatever.

However, here's what annoys me.

If someone wants to stop using Windows but still wants "simplified" computing (and, again, I have no problem with people who just want to surf the Internet, write a few documents and edit a few photos without worrying about how a computer works), then they're probably going to go with a Mac and OS X.

But then the Apple people start touting on about the wonders of a BSD core to OS X and this strikes me as a complete contradiction - after all, how many of those people know how to use tools like grep or awk, how many of can edit in vi, how many can do complicated text manipulation using complicated regular expressions?

Yes, BSD is stable, but so is Windows XP in my experience (and I am, by far, more Linux than Windows user) and I don't use Linux just because it's "cool or hip", I use it because it's the most appropriate tool for what I need a computer to do and because I want as much of my computing as possible to be open computing using open, not proprietary standards.

I'm sorry but these days, far too many people are far too self-conscious and seem to spend their lives trying to impress everyone around them by turning everything into a fashion accessory. Apple has capitalised on this by paying a lot of attention by creating a host of computing devices that "look nice" with a premium price to make them exclusive.

Again, if someone needs a gadget to be a fashion accessory then good luck to them - but please don't expect me to take them seriously when it comes to deeply technical discussions here on Slashdot, because clearly, as an Apple user, that person places how something looks as being at least equally as important as its functionality - otherwise, a PC platform running BSD or Linux is a much cheaper way of getting the same UNIX power and reliability than buying an Apple product.

Re:Google and Apple

[donstenk]

Interesting read.

Jawn. Who cares where geeks go? Particularly which multinational corporation they 'love', 'prefer' or 'adore'?

These companies make products and services, if they are good value people will use them, if not they have to come up with something else.

The only company I distrust is Microsoft, and I stopped using their products years ago due to shoddy quality, unreliability and terrible security.

Re:Google and Apple

[indiechild]

Wow, that was a great post. I think you're spot on.

The rough edges are already showing on Google.

Re:Google and Apple

[indiechild]

Wow, you're completely and utterly brainwashed. You actually sincerely believe that people buy Apple products merely because they're cool and shiny, and not because they work well and are easy to use?

Re:Google and Apple

[pandrijeczko]

I find a PC works well and is easy to use - and much cheaper.

Apple do not have exclusivity on products that work well and are easy to use - else why isn't *EVERY* Joe Sickpack with an Internet connection these days using a Mac?

Re:Google and Apple

[Maury Markowitz]

> Unfortunately for Apple, the iPhone4 hasn't really killed Android

Was anyone outside the US's tech boiler-room really expecting this?

Here in the GWN all of the major carriers, and their fighter brands, carry the iPhone. That's been true since Bell and Telus switched to the GSM stack late last year, just as Android was really coming out.

Since then I have seen exactly three Android devices in use, and one of them lies dormant in a drawer for 99.9% of its life. I don't believe this is a particularly biased sample. RIM and Apple completely own the mobile market here. I have not seen a single one in use in the UK, although that is a slightly more biased sample (two weeks does not make for a strong numbers base).

Does anyone really think that Android would have got the foothold it has if the iPhone was available on CDMA? I don't. It's different now that it's out there in the wild, but I don't believe it's success is anything other than Apple's failure to get onto Verizon.

Maury

Re:Google and Apple

[Maury Markowitz]

> else why isn't *EVERY* Joe Sickpack with an Internet connection these days using a Mac

Ummm, because..

> I find a PC works well and is easy to use - and much cheaper

It's the "much cheaper" part, which YOU used as a point.

Really, your sophistry needs some work.

Maury

Re:Google and Apple

[pandrijeczko]

It's a combination of a number of things:

1. Windows is everywhere, at the home and in the office. People are accustomed to it, albeit it has limitations (as does _EVERY_ OS, BTW), most of them would find it difficult to change to anything else, whether that's Linux or OS X.

2. Most Joe Sixpacks don't care about viruses and malware because the odds are nothing will ever happen to them as a result. Many people don't change until something happens to them, but with millions and millions of infected PCs out there, there's not enough malicious crackers out there to go through all the information sent to them from these machines - besides which, crackers are after notoriety so want high profile targets for the fame, not Joe Sixpacks.

3. Yes, PCs are cheaper - cheap enough that a lot of people don't see a point to keeping their machines running fast or reinstalling it. They just buy another one every two years and throw the old one away.

4. Most people know someone who can fix a Windows PC problem so there's a sense of security about being a Joe Sixpack and buying one.

5. Linux PCs and Macs are not seen as machines that can play games.

6. Most people see computers as tools, not fashion accessories. If I said that the total of all Alienware gaming PCs and brightly coloured laptops sold were 1% of the total PC sales market, I'm sure that would be an over-estimate.

7. PCs are seen as platforms on which it's easy to get a lot of "free" software on - no, not Open Source but pirated stuff, copied disks and using corporate license keys for home installations.

The primary purpose of buying a Mac is elitism - and if you say otherwise then I challenge you to remove the little Apple logo from your box(es) to prove that it's not display of that logo is unimportant to you.

Re:Google and Apple

[Americano]

Unfortunately for Apple, the iPhone4 hasn't really killed Android as everyone was predicting, so iAd is not likely going to hurt google very much in the long term.

Little too early to say that the iPhone 4 won't take a chunk of Android's market share, when it's only been out what, 3 weeks, wouldn't you say champ?

That's like saying "Unfortunately for Google, Android 2.2 hasn't killed iOS as everyone was predicting." FFS, the technology has just been released, give it 6 months and see how things look.

Re:Google and Apple

[Americano]

But then the Apple people start touting on about the wonders of a BSD core to OS X and this strikes me as a complete contradiction.

Your argument confuses "simplicity" with "lack of depth".

For general use, OS X is extremely simple to use, aesthetically pleasing, consistent, and quite stable. I have experience with Windows (3.1 through 7), Linux (Fedora, Red Hat, and Ubuntu), and Solaris (their x86 workstation) "desktop" environments - none of them have matched OSX in the desktop space, in my experience. They all lacked a degree of usability, consistency, attractiveness, and stability - this is not to say that OS X is without it's flaws, as it certainly is not, but in my opinion, it beats all of the other alternatives when it comes to being a usable, reliable, attractive desktop system for casual web browsing, mail, photo/video editing, and the like.

And yet, when I want to see what's happening in the guts of the thing, 7 keystrokes gets me there: Command-Space (invoke Quicksilver), type "term" (Quicksilver determines that I want to invoke the Terminal), press "enter" - I'm in bash, with a full complement of UNIX tools to work with.

This is what Apple gets right: The simplicity for general users, with the ability to dive MUCH deeper with very little effort. I know how to use sed, awk, find, grep, vi, and a host of other command line tools - I've been using them for 13 years professionally, and rather love the ease of scripting large tasks that Unix provides. What I don't like is the fact that Linux GUIs in my experience are inconsistent, fairly ugly, and offer a "kitchen sink" approach - EVERY possible option is exposed in the GUI, and frankly that's annoying and counterproductive to me. If I want the deep options, I'll drop into bash and access them. If I want to get something done quickly, I don't want the 3 million possible options presented to me across 17 tabs of options, I want the 15 or so that 99% of what I'm doing will require.

"People think it's this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." -- Steve Jobs (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-new-machine.html)

And for many people, the "how it works" is exactly why they choose Apple over Linux when the choice is offered to them. It's why I do, and why many of my very smart, very unix-savvy fellow software engineers have, as well. Yes, a plain old white tower running BSD or Linux is cheaper - and you sacrifice the design quality as well. For some people, that's an acceptable tradeoff. For others, it's not. You use what you prefer, I'll use what I prefer, and we'll both be happy. But don't you dare suggest that I don't "understand" how to work with Unix when it's what's paid my bills for the last 13 years, and the very reason I chose Mac OS X - I wanted a usable desktop that would have the depth and power of Unix under it, and Linux frankly took far too much of my time to get running and keep running, and proved no more reliable than the Windows box I rejected as being too much effort to maintain.

Re:Google and Apple

[Americano]

The primary purpose of buying a Mac is elitism - and if you say otherwise then I challenge you to remove the little Apple logo from your box(es) to prove that it's not display of that logo is unimportant to you.

I would, but mine is covered already by this: http://www.gelaskins.com/store/skins/laptops/15.4_inch_MacBook_Pro/Keep_Calm

I rather like the decal because it helps protect the surface of the laptop from scuffs and scratches, and I rather like the design because it tickles my interests in world war 2 history, as well as reminding me of the Hitchhiker's Guide, with it's advice to, "Don't Panic". I don't give a shit who sees me using my Macbook, or who knows it's an "APPLE" computer - if they ask, I'll tell them, and relate my positive experiences with it. If they don't, they're welcome to continue using their Dell / Lenovo / HP / other laptop, and I don't really care.

You see, to YOU, the aesthetics of a product mean nothing, and the raw power and stats are all. And that's fine, but your choices and standards of value are not universal, and some people do place value on clean, thoughtful design, and aren't so interested in "being able to render a 90 minute long HD movie in 45 seconds or less using the POWAR OF LINUX!!!"

apologist?

[Gary W. Longsine]

The user jo_ham doesn't seem like an apologist, just somebody else who is annoyed at this phenomenon. See this discussion: jo_ham on Slashdot moderation of non-negative Apple comments. So, the score appears to be zero to zero, which means they're both untested, and you're wrong.

Re:apologist?

[Anonymous Coward]

The user jo_ham doesn't seem like an apologist, just somebody else who is annoyed at this phenomenon.

Good catch, I see the motherfucker was still at +1. Where are my mod points when I need them...

Where might they take it next?

[geekoid]

where ever they want you to go.

Close

[copponex]

As everybody knows, Apple is just another company and pursues open standards when it suits them. They favor closed ecosystems, censorship, top-down control, and form over function.

If you want to open yourself up to legal liability for running the software of your choice on your own hardware, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay 200% markup on parts for your computer, or for hard drives for your server farm, Apple is the company for you. If you want to pay extra for dismal 3D application performance, Apple is the company for you.

And if you want to develop brand loyalty for an organization whose primary purpose is profit - and be admired for such an empty gesture - my friends, there is no better choice than Apple.

Re:Close

[abigor]

In all fairness, no platform is perfect, let's face it. You seem to be commenting on OS X (hard drives, 3d performance, etc.), so let's see:

If you want non-working cut and paste (the general case is it only works for text), no 3d performance at all, barely any wireless support, no commercial software support including de facto standards like MS Office and Photoshop, no games, amateurish and inconsistent guis, etc. ad infinitum, then run desktop Linux.

If you don't mind a pretty substandard operating system in return for all the software you could ever want and you don't need Unix, run Windows.

If you want a usable, well thought-out desktop Unix with lots of commercial software (though much less than Windows), good open source and open standards support, and you don't care about games, run OS X.

As cliche as it sounds, it's all about what works best for you.

Re:Close

[copponex]

As cliche as it sounds, it's all about what works best for you.

I totally agree. I've been vocal about the shortcomings about Windows and Linux (no Quickbooks alternative!?) for a depressing amount of time. Though I wouldn't exactly put Windows in the "substandard OS" category if I wasn't throwing OS X and Linux in the same box as well.

The issue I have with Apple is that the pride has turned to arrogance. Now you're buying "magical and revolutionary devices" that "change the world" and people are actually believing the bullshit. I mean, their phones suck at making phone calls, but good news! You can edit movies instead. And if video chat is a revolution, don't tell the Japanese consumers who have been doing it for years. Or anyone who's used Skype.

I guess it taps into the same disappointment I have with people in general when it comes to propaganda. But maybe the only thing worse than someone who thinks a phone or an iPod Touch XL is going to change their life is the guy with so much free time he decides to complain publicly about it...

Re:Close

[atmurray]

Which is why I run: 1) Ubuntu Linux on my home server/gateway 2) Mac OS on my laptop for day-to-day use 3) Windows inside my vm for running e-Tax (Australian Gov. tax return software - only runs under Windows/Wine)

Re:Close

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never used 'magical' to describe my iDevices, although I've used revolutionary when the first gen iPhone came out. It was revolutionary and it changed the smartphone market. Sometimes the term is deserved. Look at the interface of the HTC/Android, and the newer touch RIM devices.

"Magical" I agree is total bullshit, and the only folks who should be saying that are marketing reps. I don't think I've ever heard an Apple 'fanboi' claim their device was magical. It's PR speak and just something you ignore.

You point out some of the 'cool' features on the iPhone and then proceed to ignore the perks. Sure people have been using skype on phones for years. Of course the person you're calling also has to use skype, have a phone that supports it, and have it running to get a call. Easy enough among geeks, but not so much among the 'non-geek folk'.

Apple took existing open standards, and made it easy in a nice wrapped up package. No accounts necessary, you don't have to have something running, other than your phone. It's what they do. They take a neat feature and make it user friendly, and that is their strength. Was it Revolutionary? No. Was it evolutionary? I think so. Time will tell. Trends on phones have shown video chat usage to actually be trending downwards. Why? Because it's gimmicky, and not something that grandpa, or your technically challenged parents could just click and go. Geeks may use it, but for day to day uses, it's just not all that commonly used by average Joe's. With Facetime, you don't have to know anything about video chat, other than clicking a button.

Time will tell if 3rd party hardware vendors run with it and incorporate it into home routers and whatnot. It has potential, just like the iPad. Geeks claimed for months prior to iPad release that tablets had tried and failed for a decade and the same fate awaited Apple. They were proved wrong. They still don't get them. They are simple appliances that aren't overly complicated, and they don't need to be. They do what they do well, and they changed the face of the tablet market, which was arguably on it's deathbed. Since iPad's release and success, there are a slew of new tablet devices coming out, or planned in the next year.

Re:Close

[Anonymous Coward]

You tried hard, but you still reek of naked fanboism. Stop pretending.

Re:Close

[E IS mC(Square)]

Insightful? wow.

I think the last time you tried linux was probably in 1852. It has improved a bit since. You should try it.

And you should believe in your own cliche - linux works for most of the people who are not as blind as some of the folks here on slashdot.

Re:Close

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the term is deserved. Look at the interface of the HTC/Android, and the newer touch RIM devices.

Why? Just look at pre-iPhone smartphones. Only a complete moron couldn't admit Apple is a mover and shaker.

Re:Close

[indiechild]

It's the same old arguments every time. Apple devices refine existing technologies and make them actually usable for the mass market. That's the "revolutionary" aspect. Before the iPhone came along, web browsers on mobile devices sucked. Now the bar has been raised. The same will happen with things like Face Time/video chat. The iPad wasn't the first tablet either, but it's the first tablet which actually makes sense for the mass market.

As for iPhones sucking for making phone calls, that's bullshit (to use your words). Never had a problem with reception on mine.

If you think Apple's marketing is a load of crock, you must live a pretty miserable life. They're not doing anything that any other advertiser isn't doing whenever you turn on the TV.

Re:Close

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad troll. Nvidia linux drivers have a lot better performance than on OS X :/

Re:Close

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you got a 5, insightful for writing something which isn't even remotely true about Linux. Cut and paste works fine in modern apps, with sound and image as well as text. Not to mention far better 3d hardware acceleration than OS X, for both ATI and nvidia.

Re:Close

[GrumpyOldMan]

Yes, it is definitely about what works best for you. I've been using *nix for about 20 years (SunOS, Ultrix, OSF/1, FreeBSD, Linux). I "switched" to MacOSX in 2006. In my experience, using MacOSX as a desktop OS was horribly painful, and I gave the Mac to my inlaws, switched back to Linux on a whitebox about a year later.

The main problem I had was that there was no way to configure the native window manager to my liking. I've spent 20 years with *TWM and KDE variants configured so that:
1) focus follows mouse
2) Meta-mouse1 moves a window, Meta-mouse2 resizes a window, and Meta-mouse3 moves a window
I'm so tied to these bindings that I even submitted a patch to KDE about 10 years ago when I switched from CTWM they would work with KDE (I also submitted a patch to Gnome, but they ignored me..)

Since I couldn't configure the native Aqua interface / window manager to do what I wanted, I ended up using CTWM and X for most of my work (xterms and emacs windows). The big problem I had was that when I wanted to switch from a native MacOSX app (like Mail) into an xterm, I'd forget to click on the xterm, and end up doing odd things because the Thunderbird mail window would still have focus. If I had a dollar for every email I accidentally deleted or replied to while typing in an xterm while Thunderbird still had focus, I'd be rich. I just could not train myself to work with a click to focus system.

I will say that lots of stuff that is a PITA in *nix worked quite well (suspend/resume, flash video, multimedia stuff, printing). But for me, not being able to customize the user experience to my liking forced me back to *nix. If I need commercial apps that don't run under linux, there is always a Windows VM..

"Where might they take it next?"

[nine-times]

Where might they take it next?

It'd be nice if they ported their fancy web interface over to OSX server. The webmail and other web interfaces are kind of weak points in Apple's server offerings.

Re:"Where might they take it next?"

[stiller]

Better webDAV support would be nice. Mac OS 10.6.4 finally works for me with 3rd party cardDAV servers. webDAV is the only thing left standing between me and full open-standards syncing of my user data.

default calendar with CalDAV?

[johnrpenner]

running an xserve, OD user configured, with their email address in the open directory 'info' pane. user receives .ics calendar invites - double-click - and these always get added to her default local calendar - any geeks out there know any way to get invites to default to a CalDAV calendar? i think its not a feature, but if you can ctrl-click to select which calendar to belong to - but is there no way to make the CalDAV calendar the default instead of a local calendar? any leads much appreciated.

j

sorry for the OT post - but i read the documentation, and its just not in therw -- and this is a functional mac calDAV question

Re:default calendar with CalDAV?

[curmi]

This has always been this way, and I have logged a bug with Apple over the issue. With 10.6.4 it seems that some of us have suddenly found the invites go in to the CalDAV calendar by default now, instead of the local calendar. This is great, but we aren't sure why, and we've seen it only occur on some machines. There does not seem to be an option to say which calendar should be the default, so it is all a little bizarre.

Re:default calendar with CalDAV?

[MarkCollette]

Just a guess, but try opening iCal, and clicking on the calendar that you want the events to go into. Now go back to Mail, and click on the invite.

Google and Apple compete in mobile advertising

[perpenso]

Are they pitted against each other? Other than the Android (which Google only makes the OS for) vs iPhone, what else is there?

Advertising on mobile devices.
http://advertising.apple.com/

Well gee

[Saint Stephen]

Well that's just great. Do you think this time it might be able to remind me of my appointments more than one time before it doesn't remind me anymore

  My Microsoft phone did a much better of scheduling my tasks and appointments that my iPhone

  Dictated on my iPhone using drag

Where could they take it next?

[Servaas]

To the moon?

PassMe, WiFiMe, FlashMe, sounds like DS

[tepples]

Besides, "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

But it does sound like a good name for a DS flash card product.

Re:PassMe, WiFiMe, FlashMe, sounds like DS

[gyrogeerloose]

It sounds like some weird cybernetic sexual come-on: "Hey, baby--mobile me!"

iCaramba...

While I can't speak for Windows...

[IANAAC]

If you want non-working cut and paste (the general case is it only works for text), no 3d performance at all, barely any wireless support, no commercial software support including de facto standards like MS Office and Photoshop, no games, amateurish and inconsistent guis, etc. ad infinitum, then run desktop Linux.

I do use Linux consistently (Ubuntu and Suse). The above statement tells me you've probably got a grudge of some sort against Linux (or really just don't know), as everything, with the exception of Photoshop, has been done for quite some time now on Linux.

Copy and paste - not just text - is doable. Ditto for 3d hardware performance (I assume you were referring to hardware acceleration). For commercial MS Office support, you may want to check out Softmaker - it's an excellent office suite. I'm not a gamer, but I know that there are commercial games available for Linux as well. The GUI, well, I suppose that's what you make of it - at least you can tweak it to your heart's content.

As you say:

As cliche as it sounds, it's all about what works best for you.

No need to sound bitter when describing something you don't use.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[ToasterMonkey]

Copy and paste - not just text - is doable. Ditto for 3d hardware performance (I assume you were referring to hardware acceleration). For commercial MS Office support, you may want to check out Softmaker - it's an excellent office suite. I'm not a gamer, but I know that there are commercial games available for Linux as well. The GUI, well, I suppose that's what you make of it - at least you can tweak it to your heart's content.

Let me guess, you found at least two applications that can copy and paste something non-text, you have an nvdia video card, you "don't need Office", and you found at least one commercial game for Linux, so everything he said is false.

Guy, if the bar was REALLY as low as you make it out to be, Linux would be on everyone's desktop by virtue of being free, and "good enough". Clearly, "good enough" is further out of reach than you would have us believe.

No need to sound bitter when describing something you don't use.

More current Windows and Mac users have Linux experience than you think. Your whole "you don't get it" attitude is so 2000. Any self respecting IT nerd has at least toyed with Linux at this point, and sorry if you feelings get hurt if we think Windows or Macs are worth the price. Linux has been in the mainstream long enough for plenty of people to have extensively been there, done that, and you're not fooling us.

P.S.
If case you still aren't convinced the whole world doesn't love Linux. There are still a lot of resentful UNIX server admins out there that appreciate the free tools and would happily shove all Linux outside the cross-platform GNU userland up your ass for you.

P.P.S.
If you mod me flamebait, you "just don't get it," and you're probably a Linux shill or something.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[MrHanky]

As a long time Linux user with an ATI card, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you don't know what you're talking about, and neither did the Mac fanboys who modded you "insightful". I can come with numerous examples of drag and drop that works (sound files from amarok into konqueror or chrome; image links dragging the entire linked document from chrome or konq into OO.o Writer with images and all, or into kate -- a pure text editor -- with image links instead of the images themselves; images from the web or the local file system into attachments in kmail.

Give an example of where drag and drop is sorely missing or accept that you're just another fraud.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[IANAAC]

Let me guess, you found at least two applications that can copy and paste something non-text, you have an nvdia video card, you "don't need Office", and you found at least one commercial game for Linux, so everything he said is false.

If I found *one* replacement for each of his examples (and in each case I found a commercial solution, with the exception of Photoshop), then yes, what he said is false. And because I only mentioned *one* commercial solution, that doesn't mean that there aren't other commercial solutions - there are for all his complaints, again, with the exception of Photoshop.

P.S.

Where did I say the whole world loves Linux?

P.P.S.

Can't moderate and reply in the same thread.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly
3d and accelerated Hardware with more that 1000 variables changing n times sec only run in Linux ( scientific research no games or graphical design). :)

Sorry to disappoint you.
I hope so you to be smart enough to catch up

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[jeremyp]

I haven't used Linux seriously for a while so I have no idea about the current state of drag and drop in its various GUIs, but phrases like

I can come with numerous examples of drag and drop that works

don't exactly convince me that you have got a good argument. Drag and drop is supposed to work consistently across all applications, not for mere "numerous examples".

This is the problem with Linux, or rather the GUIs associated with it. The developers are starting with lots of disparate applications and they are slowly pulling them together until they are in the state of having "numerous examples" of drag and drop working. Apple and Microsoft start with an overall GUI architecture and make the applications fit in to it from the word go. It's like climbing a mountain. It's an achievement to climb a mountain, but the guy hovering over the summit in a helicopter will get there first every time.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[MrHanky]

What do you mean "this" is a problem with Linux, when you readily admit that you don't at all know what you're talking about, and can't come up with a single example? Fact is, drag & drop and cut & paste, simply work in virtually all apps any new user would come across. Some ancient apps, perhaps not. The same apps wouldn't magically get functional if running on that other popular unix, Mac OS X.

The problem with "Linux", or rather Slashdot, is that a bunch of idiots repeat what other idiots on Slashdot say, and that a bunch of bigger morons think they are "insightful" because they've read the same complaints before. How about growing a fucking clue.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy and paste - not just text - is doable.

Yeah, "doable" - I guess that was his point.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[ToasterMonkey]

I can still safely say, you don't get it.

Re:While I can't speak for Windows...

[ToasterMonkey]

This speaks volumes for Linux.

Re:Where might they take it next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's one calendar that all the Cupertino employees will be subscribing to. Especially the ones that hang out in the Castro district.

Anyone want to talk about the article?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, lots of weird meta comments about the nature of Apple fanboy-ism and rabid Apple hatred, the intricacies of pro/anti Apple moderation, gayness, etc.

Haven't seen a comment about the actual STORY though. Or the CalDAV standard. Or anything pertaining to the article at hand.

I submit that you are all horribly short on critical thinking and long on free time.

Re:Anyone want to talk about the article?

[herojig]

There were one or two above, but I agree with you, it seems any article on /. with the word "Apple" in it invokes a geyser of penis rants, arguments about the iPhone, and fanboy am/am nots. I too would like to read something intelligent on the subject presented, as I am not sure that I even care. I use mobileme and iCal and everything works great on the web, on my machines, and on my phones. I'm guessing the issue at hand is about having an alternative to calendering for those now on exchange servers, but not sure. Should have known this is not the place to figure things out. Cheers!

The Actual Article(tm)

[mccalli]

I'm guessing the issue at hand is about having an alternative to calendering for those now on exchange servers, but not sure.

For me this is great. My usage: to have a family calendar which my wife and I can update and have appear on each other's devices in a reasonable amount of time. My wife is fairly heavily involved in local community things, and often has meetings in the evenings I need to know about (so I can be home to look after the kids). Meanwhile, I often have late occuring work things that mean I have to block out evenings at relatively short notice. A text is always sent, but a mark in the calendar is always best.

Sounds like a very formal and structured way to have a family life, but it really isn't. It's just a glorified 'notes pinned to the fridge' approach, only it works without either of us having to actually be near a fridge...

To achieve this, I've been running my own CalDAV server on a co-lo box. iCal, and the iPhone, handles it extremely well but setting it up and handling users/groups etc. was a fair amount of annoyance and required a few tricks (remounting the partition just to run a calendar server? Hmm), plus the UI and config files are very resource rather than user centric. A smooth way of doing that would be very welcome.

Cheers,
Ian

Sad

[Brannon]

> The primary purpose of buying a Mac is elitism

Just stupid and tone-deaf. The primary reason I use a Mac is because I debug deeply technical issues all day and when I come home I just want something that works and that I don't have to de-virus every week. I encourage all my friends and family to buy Macs because I'm the "one guy" they know who can fix up their PC and I got sick of doing it. It is obnoxious to reduce Mac-owners down to brand-fucking elitists--it's also just untrue.

> I challenge you to remove the little Apple logo from your box(es) to prove that it's not display of that logo is unimportant to you.

Obviously I'm not going to do this because (a) I don't care about your opinion of me, (b) I suspect I know far more about computers than you do--so I don't need to prove my geek-cred, (c) I don't care whether or not you *exist* at all, and (d) the logos on Apple products are nicely embossed or otherwise difficult to remove. Maybe you are used to cheap little stickers or something.

Read MobileMe cal into Google Calendar or vv

[Fjan11]

Has anyone got that to work yet? (I signed up for the beta two days ago but didn't get an invite yet). That would be really useful, I work with Google calendar people and need to check two calendars.

CalDAV, or a Microsoft protocol, for Outlook?

[Guy Harris]

To get this working in Microsoft Outlook, you have to install the MobileMe Control Panel for Windows. The hidden gem in all of this is that Apple plans to bring this CalDAV connectivity to Outlook users on MobileMe.

Did they explain how the first sentence necessarily implies the second?