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Apple's $1 Billion Data Center Mystery
1sockchuck writes "One of year's most tantalizing technology secrets involves Apple's $1 billion investment in a new data center in North Carolina. Is it the Death Star in Apple's plan for galactic domination? Some Apple watchers predict it will be the hub for a 21st century broadcasting network. Other enthusiasts are doing flyovers to film videos of the 500,000 square foot facility. There's also an unofficial FAQ about the new data center. What is Apple up to with this huge facility?"
Apple has already started moving to cloud based services, so most likely the data center will be for those. It will also mean that the future iPhones, iPads and Mac computers will be even more locked down than previously. For example if you take a picture, it's directly uploaded "to the cloud". This is a huge privacy violation and means you don't really own your data anymore. It's almost funny who is alone in still giving you the change to own your data. Google, Apple and BlackBerry all want to move as much data and information as possible out of your devices, while the only phone models still giving privacy and ownership over your data is Windows Phone 7 phones. Seriously, look at how the things are going - it's not good. And the only reason the bad guys look like good guys now is that they have masked themself. Apple has it's cool and hippy image going, Google is catching geeks because it's supposedly open source (even while you can't even build Android for your phones) and BlackBerry is for businesses. Microsoft is the only one giving you choice, but on slashdot they're supposedly always the bad guy.
Other enthusiasts are doing flyovers to film videos of the 500,000 square foot facility.
Jesus Christ on a crutch... is there anything Apple fanbois *won't* do?
Apple, kings of marketing that they are, have you all fooled.
Its just Apple's version of Walmart.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Is the Death Star really the technology to which you want to compare this data center? How well did that work out for the empire?
Personally, I think it's the computational center for Steve's worldwide reality distortion field. You need to really crunch the data to figure out how to bend people to your will.
Don't take it personally, but I'm not going to read your pithy response to my post.
Obviously this facility will house the thousands of centrifuges necessary to purify enough U-235 to implement the final phase of Operation Apple Core Takeover.
memorabilia, the biggest show on earth.
They listened and now you got a real walled garden to go to and be protected by Supreme Commander Jobs.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
manned by a 100 or so employees.
The end. No great mystery.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
They're trying to build a simulator for Steve Jobs ego before he kicks the bucket.
The center's purpose isn't clear, but it apparently sports many catwalks, large video displays, and exercise facilities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
It's 'The Cloud' that everyone is talking about.
No, not really. They just bought some acreage to grow Macintosh, of course. Apple is officially going in to the juice business.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I mean, what could a large tech company want with a huge data center?
The mind just boggles at the thought of a huge company that has and uses an enormous amount of data actually wanting a place for it.
Next you'll tell me that Microsoft has huge data centers.
I'll be first in line to get my data!
The CB App. What's your 20?
For a long time, the Wintel monopoly ruled the roost, and people suffered under it with malware, spyware, bloatware, unneeded complexity, and so on.
For the first time probably in the history of personal computing, we have a chance at a better world now. By vetting applications in the app store, Apple has created a situation where people no longer have to live in a world where there machine is pwned by malware. Getting apps from the app store is a very good (not perfect, but very good) way to ensure a minimum level of safety. Consumers are flocking to it by the millions, and it's starting to worry the Wintel side of the world. They're losing relevance as commodity PCs become less and less important to modern computing, and iPad type devices running ARM processors and iOS operating systems become more important.
It's the start of the first major change in personal computing since the 1980's. It's an exciting time to watch what happens: the Wintel monopoly is going to go away before long. Most slashdotters should appreciate that, given the hate spewed towards Microsoft over the years. They're at the end of their line now, and they know it.
That would be like 4 Macbook Pros, 6 of their servers and the rest on an all white building.
Amazingly, this looks a lot like Black Mesa to me.
Same thing we do every night Pinky, try to take over the world!
...for employees who leak info...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The problem that makes Windows a virus hell isn't that you can run whatever you want, it's that other people can run whatever they want on your PC without your explicit permission. The solution isn't corporate lockdown in which you need Apple's permission to load stuff, it's personal lockdown in which it takes more than a hidden PDF to recruit you into a botnet or install a fake 'antivirus' program.
this hasn't been suggested yet: CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS. It's the beginning of the end...
Steve Jobs is using it as a warehouse to store his massive shuriken collection. As you recall, he threw an enormous shit fit when Tokyo airport security wouldn't allow him to board his own private jet with a couple particularly rare specimens.
His raging tantrum over a couple throwing stars doesn't seem so childish now does it?
In the unofficial FAQ, is that a dirt racin' track in the background of the picture?
After a few decades in the telecom industry, I've seen remote pops having all kinds of crazy neighbors. It kind of makes sense, its not as if a bunch of hardware would contain about the noise, and most of the time, there would certainly be plenty of parking... Not many other facilities would want to locate next to a racetrack, beyond the obvious tow truck, autoparts and hotel types.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The high cost is easy to explain -- they're going to fill it with Apple Macs rather than normal 1U servers. 10x cost -- after all, they _ARE_ Apple :)
Big technology company builds big datacenter.
Without having ever seen it, I'll tell you what it's for. It'll be hosting Apple's iTunes digital media store and MobileMe cloud service, as well as any other internet services Apple rolls out in the future. Any questions?
Similarly, when Google builds a new datacenter, it'll house servers that power Search, Gmail, Google Apps, YouTube, and other services Google rolls out in the future. When Microsoft builds a new datacenter, it'll be for Windows Update, Bing, Windows Live, etc. etc. Åny more questions?
It's Apple's new factory for mass-producing the Steve Jobs Bobble-Head dolls!
They will be using IBM servers. Also no environmentaly friendly power generation yet.
You can't see it yet on Google Maps yet, but the Data Center is listed as located at 45.725613, -113.622258, or at 6081 Startown Road, Newton, NC 28658
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
Does Apple give the pretence of privacy? If you only used the default Apps that came with the iPhone, you would probably be at little risk of losing your personal data (excluding the included Google apps of course).
IMO I think Apple has always cared about user's security, just look at how secure Mac OS X is --- sure there are exploits, but it's nothing like what the typical windows user faces.
TIMO the greater danger is the loss of Net Nutrality under the pretence of anti-terrorism measures around the world. Even Blackberry had to beg on their knees to foreign governments to allow them to keep operating if they gave them access to their data.
IMO I'm serious about my Identity - I have no Facebook or Twitter, and use aliases and bogus info for all my login accounts.
How many Bothans have died to bring us this information?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Maybe they're going to put computers in it? Like lots and lots of them?
what's google doing building a huge facility in Pryor Oklahoma? So they will have 3 huge facilities soon... West coast, east coast (Manhattan) and midwest... Maybe apple has paid for some lessons...
this is obviously the Royal Tomb.
Apple employees: I have some distressing news about the company Retirement Plan...
Search engine + maps app, to get rid of Google ?
Apple has been working on some new technology... They did not hav ethe space for it so they bought a large warehouse. they worked night and day on it and finally in September of 2011 they were ready and turned it on.. It was the greates computer ever built... but within moments things went wrong. It became sentient and started asking questions and taking control. Only after they gave it the URL to 4chan did it stop doing anything.
"It just stopped", said head researcher Bill Ginamous. "It just stopped and sits there consuming about 8 bonded OC3 data pipes worth of data 24/7. we have no idea what is happening, we cant turn it off, it will not respond."
Congress will be meeting later today to discuss what steps need to be taken next.
Now that they've taken the Xserve out back and given it the 'ol' yeller treatment', what exactly is humming away in that fancy new datacenter of theirs?
Are they actually taking their own risible advice, and packing the place floor-to-ceiling with the "3 mac-pros-per-12U-shelf-what-is-this-'LOM Card'-you-speak-of?" server configuration?
Will this facility be the world's largest collection of hackentoshes? Is this going to be the most humiliating "Get The Facts" microsoft ever gets to do? Will somebody actualy be running Darwin for reasons other than perverse experimentation?
is there anything Apple fanbois *won't* do?
Ah, a challenge! Let me think, what won't apple fanbois do?
My top ten list of things apple fanbois won't do:
10) Mix plaid and polka dots.
9) Take a calculus class
8) Pay too much for that muffler.
7) Pay anything for that music.
6) Drink fucking Merlot.
5) Listen to Country and Western music in a non-ironic way.
4) Move to a flyover state.
3) Charge a reasonable rate for their "Graphic Design" skills
2) Tip a waiter
And the number one thing apple fanbois won't do?
1) Date a member of the opposite sex.
Badump-CHA! Thank you, I'll be veal all night, and be sure to try the waitress.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
the steve jobs reality distortion field came from the turtle neck, did you?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Apple is trying to construct a structure large enough to contain Steve Jobs' ego. I predict failure.
why they need to build such a huge building to hold a cloud. Surely they could have condensed it?
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
The high cost is easy to explain -- they're going to fill it with Apple Macs rather than normal 1U servers. 10x cost -- after all, they _ARE_ Apple :)
Actually, it's even easier than that: since Apple doesn't make servers anymore, it'll be filling the center with Oracle/Sun hardware.
Really.
(Yup, there is stuff even more expensive than a rackfull of Apple desktops.)
Heh, they have everyone snookered into trying to figure this place out so they won't be trying to get the inside scoop on the latest iPad/iPhone/iwhatever device update. They also have all of the Apple engineers sequestered until July.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Man, there is irony so thick you can take a knife to it: Somebody, with an apparently straight face, has actually just said that Apple's Information Purification Directives will create for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths...
Slashdot ran the idea of an Apple broadcast network back in June: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/06/05/219214/The-Apple-Broadcast-Network?from=rss
You are really mis-informed, Microsoft bought Danger, who owns the Sidekicks, they never had local storage, guess where your pictures and information went? Yep to "the cloud" before that was a term. And the sidekick defined "locked down". And guess who lost every sidekick owners data all at once? Yep Microsoft! Guess how much local storage the Microsoft Kin had, yep ZERO, it got uploaded to "the cloud", for the very brief time it was on sale, guess why? The bat shit insane prices they were charging for data rates on the Kin, so it made it useless without a data plan! For them to own your data in a locked down server storage as well.
Actually it's a prison camp. After Gitmo is closed he's going to have all the prisoners shipped to NC where they will be kept alive for one purpose: to provide replacement livers and pancreases for Steve to keep his HIV at bay and produce more Apple products with increasingly more draconian DRM schema.
Do you guys think iTunes downloads, Genius calculations, MobileMe, AppStores, GameCenter and whatnot all just exist for free? I wouldn't be half surprised if the datacenter wasn't, at least partially, to consolidate existing stuff.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Its what I have been telling everyone all along. Skynet. Why won't anyone listen to me? It's the beginning of the end! Bleached white skulls! All of us!
Joshua 24:15
> a garden of pure ideology.
Paranoid much?
The reason people are moving to Apple in droves is because they are tired of Windows malware. When they install apps from the app store, they have a basic measure of trust that what they install won't put their PC on a botnet or spew spam out to the world. Apple actually takes steps to keep them safe, unlike Windows. That's a strong selling point for most people.
That's why iOS is taking off and iPads are the hot gift this Christmas.
The high cost is easy to explain -- they're going to fill it with Apple Macs rather than normal 1U servers. 10x cost -- after all, they _ARE_ Apple :)
Actually, Macs probably don't cost Apple very much at all...
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Specifically, it is a high-speed, state-of-the-art rumor mill.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
They are obviously trying to determine if it is possible that a swallow (either African or European) would be able to carry a coconut to Britan.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The real stuff is underground!
But I would think that Apple is going to use it for the App store they are about to launch. In my mind apps are going to take up a bit more space than music files. That and their current offerings in media continue to grow.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"Apple has created a situation where people no longer have to live in a world where there machine is pwned by malware."
Stop drinking that kool-aid, fan boy.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
It's the beowolf cluster that everyone here has been going on about for YEARS. Oh boy - Santa arrived for Slashdot this year! Woo hoo!
Beowolf cluster! Beowolf cluster! Beowolf cluster!
Beowolf! Beowolf! Beowolf
Cluster! Cluster! Cluster!
!!!BEOWOLF CLUSTER!!!!!
steps to keep them safe? you mean by having a smaller market share than microsoft which makes them a smaller and less inviting target? Sure. they lack the gaping hole that is flash. Oh wait that only applies to iPod/Phone/Pads. Fact is Macs are no more secure than Windows is. There just any viruses for them... YET.
insert funny sig here
My post was half joking allusion to the fact that the company who was going to save us from IBM's truly sinister plan to overcharge for cube-drone PCs is now the largest and most popular distributor of cryptographically crippled general purpose computers in the entire consumer space and half "ha ha, only serious" allusion to the number of App store restrictions and application removals that have had nothing whatsoever to do with protecting users...
The fact that the Windows user experience is pretty dismal does not change the fact that where there are walled gardens, there will be rent-seeking landords with their own interests...
...if a few months ago. It sought a gifted https web engineer for a revolutionary project that would make the world sit up and go wow again. (Not quoted verbatim.) Further, there have been rumors, most based on patents and other developments of a system to turn iDevices into wondering terminal access systems, so you jack you iPhone into a Mac somewhere, and the Mac boots up as if you had just logged into it at home or at your desk. However, I see massive flaws in this concept, which goes against the Sun Microsystems 1990s model (The Network Is The Computer) and more recently, Google's. However, Apple may well have some hidden magic that no one has thought of, so here's to OS X 12, being 11 (Lion) is really a merging of iOS and OS X not so much a multitouch driven cloud marvel.
As a Christian, I find that phrase offensive. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Where is this $1 billion price tag coming from? I've seen facotries go up twice that size for under $20 million, so unless the thing is filled with solid gold doorknobs I'm doubting that pricetag. Also, all these "sources" are random apple fanboi tech sites. It's apple rather well known for spawning their own viral mysteries to help build up suspense for their next big thing? To me that looks like your standard manufacturing plant, look at the water towers... why would you need those in a data center? Maybe they're sick of the bad press from china and might start offering an american made version of some of their hardware? It's clear their customers don't care about price.
It will be as if a million Google servers cried out in terror.
Horrible place to use this but it applies in lesser circumstances as well as greater..... Those who would trade freedon for security deserve neither. Learn to secure your own damn box.
Stop drinking that kool-aid, fan boy.
Seriously, a link to a Sophos website as evidence for MacOS X malware?
Observing the resource usage of one iTunes client under Windows, and assuming that client and server iTunes are written with similar efficiency, my calculations show that the NC datacenter building should be sufficient to support nearly 1,000 concurrent iTunes downloads.
"Learn to secure your own damn box."
Most people don't WANT to learn all the skills the geeks have to "secure their own box". They just want to use the computer without having to become an expert at every little facet of it. Your elitist attitude is exactly the problem: computers are *tools* and if they aren't designed for people to use without arcane knowledge, then they have been badly designed and we need to do better. That's what Apple is doing.
Solutions that help the common person are going to win in the end. Computers are here to serve us, we are not here to serve computers. The sooner you realize that, the happier you're going to be. To most people computers are a means, not an end. The elitists are going to be marginalized because they aren't a big enough market to matter. That's for the best, because it means more people can do more things in greater safety.
The reason people are moving to Apple in droves
Methinks you are getting a little ahead of yourself.
There’s no evidence that the marketplace is abandoning Windows to any significant degree. The overall share of Internet traffic from Windows PCs has dropped slightly in the past two-and-a-half years, from 95.4% to 91.1%. But that’s true across the board for competing desktop OSes as well. Linux usage is down dramatically in 2010, to 0.85% from an all-time high of 1.08% in early 2009. Interestingly, OS X usage is also down, dropping by roughly a quarter of a percentage point since a year ago, from 5.26% to exactly 5.00%. In relative terms, that’s almost exactly the same overall drop as the Windows platform has seen in the same period.
MS has never had much of a presence in the mobile world and Apple has never been a significant threat in the desktop/laptop world.
This hasn't changed.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
We still have over 10% statewide unemployment here.
Actually it's probably a lot worse than that - your national average is well above 20% and it'll only get a lot worse. And pleeeease don't expect apple or anyone else (god?) to save you - you guys and your rotten economy are about to swirl down the toilet.
Perhaps that'll learn ya for electing a series of criminals (from Reagan onwards) and for buying into the filthy lie that is capitalism, and taking it to the next level - i.e. waging countless wars around the world to protect your selfish economic interests.
Can i take the opportunity to say a big "good riddance" from the rest of the planet - we are all laughing out loud as this all pans out (no pun intended).
It's not elitism to expect that someone could run proper security software. If you use M$ products they even provide a nice security suite for free. I honestly don't believe it's too much to ask of people to be involved in learning the basic maintenance of their possessions. I don't know alot about cars but I do know how to do an oil change. I don't work in construction but I have learned to do some of my own home repairs. What you are advocating for is company sponsored intellectual laziness. Sorry I can't support that.
If you touch the side of the data center in just the wrong place it will shut down
This is clearly a response to Google's Android. They're going to launch an 'Apple Search' and host it here. Undercutting Google's bread-and-butter will curtail their ability to lose money on free software.
Has there really been no one who guessed this thus far??
That was just the first one google returned. Your going to tell me Apple has no virus problems? Seriously?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
"Sorry I can't support that."
That's fine, but in the end it doesn't matter if you support it or not. The trend towards safer computing environments is clear, and it's only going to grow stronger over time. Again, to most people it is a key feature that they can browse an app store and select from a set of safe software.
What you consider "laziness" the vast majority of the world considers "creating a useful tool that they don't have to micro-manage or learn arcane things to keep running well". You cannot change this trend by "not supporting" it, because for every person like you, there are tens of thousands who want it to "just work".
I think you're purposefully ignoring the point. It isn't that "Apple" has no malware, it's that the vetting process of the app store for iPad software creates a tremendously safer software ecosystem than one has on Windows. By and large, people's iPads are not jacked into botnets, but people's windows machines ARE. OSX has the same intrinsic problem as Windows here, which is why it's going away in favor of the more restricted iOS environment.
Again: iOS, *NOT* OSX. OSX is going to become more like iOS in the future in order to remove the attack vectors that are common to such wide open platforms.
iPads are simply a safer environment than a Wintel PC. If you don't acknowledge that, then you're simply living in an alternate reality.
NC is the home of outlet malls. Looking for a iTune of "Oops!... I Did It Again" for a discount? Of course it could be a returned item, have damaged packing, be discontinued or be off color, but hey it'll be there for .49 Surprising y'all never heard of drive thru's either - the next step in outlet shopping.
your post is pure brilliance. It's short and funny. It even makes weird if whimsical sense. A billion would be cheap to apple if it could perpetuate steve jobs, and that's not an exaggeration.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
In reality, you are right. However, reality has nothing to do with corproate accounting. The Mac division would transfer the PCs to the DC at full MSRP. That way it shows a needed profit.
No, you're wrong, because if you were right that would mean that Apple PCs and gadgets suck, or that they're constantly owned by malware, is not the case, I gotta tell you that you fail at IT and please leave the internet for Us, intelligent owners of iPhones and iPads who don't want our data to be tainted by your rootkit data. This windows fanboys...
They will shoot you down!
LOL Of course not, there's no simulator big enough for that!
But joking aside, I've been keeping up on this for a fair while, and amongst the more credible insiders, a lot of information has been released...
Steve Jobs is designing a new kind of Apple training facility, initially for a few people who work for Apple, but eventually it will be opened to certain segments of the public.
It's supposed to be revolutionary. Someone said it's the final solution to all our training problems. The original idea was developed by a German doctor, who specialized in a certain type of brain training, like Dr Kawashima.
The test facilities were developed in Poland due to their tax incentives, and due to the advantageous location. Though they are a lot smaller, they provide a good idea of what's to come.
Apple apparently has a severe ADD problem in their company, and its known to afflict many programmers. This results in many of their programmers being unable to concentrate, which is a HUGE productivity loss for them.
While certain concentration drugs do help for a limited time, Apple really needed a more effective final solution, which they can use to cleanse these problems. So before any higher training happens, the first stage will be concentration training.
Apparently the Jewish community is afflicted with this disproportionately when compared to the more Nordic or Indo-European races. So I believe they'll be helping them first.
Either way, I'm excited! We're not sure what it's going to be called, but I'm thinking Camp Concentration, or maybe iConcentration? Who knows, either way it's really exciting! For the opening, Apple is apparently renting a pile of trains to cart the first lucky Jews to the facility.
Apple fanboi's that don't get picked, will be so jealous!
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I know there are a lot of big data centers in Winston-Salem, Charlotte, and the Raleigh area. But are there enough tubes going anywhere near there?
Perhaps Apple is getting into subscription music business? The available bandwidth, network ubiquity and reliability are now getting to the point where this is conceivable. With such a large user base, the ZunePass model might actually work for Apple.
Apple will be hosting content for the iProducts, including enterprise applications for next years' iPad Pro.
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
Apple's bite of Data General Corp's development park?
You know, unless your goal is to perpetuate the stereotype of Christians as humorless and judgmental, you may want to reconsider the way you respond to irreverent people.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
What is Apple up to with this huge facility?
King's Tutankhajobs' tomb, of course...
$1 billion investment
500,000 square foot facility
What is Apple up to with this huge facility?
It's obviously a cover for researching alien technology!
With the death of the Mac 1U rack server, what are they filling the racks with? Maybe the centre is so huge because they have a dozen or more Mac Pro towers in there??
I think if you pulled your head out of your ass you'd realize that many of the things listed on their that affect Mac OS X were proof of concept malware that required access to the physical machine, and they were all developed and widely disseminated through the press by. . . . wait for it. . . . anti-virus companies like SOPHOS!
Seriously? Are you that dumb? Do you not see the conflict of interest in Sophos and other anti-virus peddlers announcing "the sky is falling" and you must buy their POS bloatware to protect you? These same companies have been predicting for 5 years now that a serious Mac virus will be released within 12 months, and I still haven't seen anything.
Listen, you have an anti-Apple bias, that's fine, but try to at least think things through before posting a scare article from Sophos as evidence.
Oh please, your sad devotion to APPLE is shytte. The point is APPLE != MALWARE FREE. Pull your own head out of your own dumb ass.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I geo tagged them on the 24th when driving up 321
35.587167,-81.257167 (Apple)
35.900167,-81.546167 (Google)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=35.587167,-81.257167+(Apple)&daddr=35.900167,-81.546167+(Google)&hl=en&geocode=FV8EHwIdMR0o-w%3BFQfLIwIdSbQj-w&mra=ls&sll=35.900296,-81.545989&sspn=0.046861,0.064802&ie=UTF8&ll=35.752085,-81.401138&spn=0.713277,0.567856&z=11
Anyone else think this has anything to do with Apple's Lala acquisition? Lala was about storing your music in the cloud. When Apple acquired it, Apple promptly shut down Lala. Maybe this data center will help users store their music in the cloud.
and so what happens when something like the pdf exploit ruins their "just works" atmosphere. Problem is in many cases they are still fucked and now have to overpay to get a fix instead of having eduscated themselves on how to avoid the problem. It really doesn't matter how you frame it, it is intellectual laziness and i have no sympathy for those who fall victim to it. The security of those platforms are an illusion the sooner you realize that and get on with educating yourself the better.
How to be a Slashdot user:
Any time Apple comes up, do the following:
1: Snarkily insult Steve Jobs
2: Snarkily insult Apple users, and characterize them as "fanbois"
3: ???
4: Profit! (In karma if not in life)
Hahaha, your entire point is based on proof-in-concept "malware" that requires installation at the physical location of the machine itself. Apple-haters will use ANYTHING to bash Apple.
You embarrassed yourself. Stop before you dig the hole even deeper.