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Want iCloud With Windows? Ditch the XP
halfEvilTech writes "Microsoft isn't the only company denying equal online footing to Windows XP users. Apple will not give PC users access to iCloud – its great digital locker in the sky – if their machines are running Microsoft's aging but still popular Windows XP. Tucked at the bottom of the iCloud announcement, Apple says you'll need a PC running Windows Vista or Windows 7 to jump into Steve Jobs' version of the interwebs."
It's a 10-year old operating system. It was all Windows users had for a long time, and Vista was a flop, but Windows 7 is really good and has a strong adoption rate.
Someone explain to me why I would want to use iCloud? Or anything from Apple for that matter?
I'm not a Windows fanboy. I just hate Apple more.
If Wine worked perfectly, I'd switch to Linux in a second.
Technoli
We need to start getting away from XP anyway. It's ancient and insecure compared to other, not-ten-years-old OSs. It annoys me every time I have to work on an XP machine for someone, since I haven't used XP myself in four years, and it's damn near impossible to walk someone through OS related tasks over the phone at this point.
that expansion pack for Chip's Challenge is still nowhere to be seen. Move along!
In before the war starts.
Please keep in mind people, they're just computers. Your choice isn't wrong, neither is the "other side's."
The only phrase stupider than "Drug War" is "OS Wars."
This is a bad decision on their part.
Granted XP is ancient and not very supported, but its still heavily used. If we're talking about end-users, its more likely to go:
"Aww, not supported. I guess I'll use something else"
instead of
"Aww, not supported. Let me pay a few hundred euros to upgrade my OS (and maybe need to improve my hardware) to use this product/service."
Is this "Windows 7 or above"? Because I'm 91 versions ahead.
Hardly, Apple has a habit of only supporting things back so far. Them supporting a 10 year old OS is a great achievement in their books. Both my iPhone and MacBook Pro have been left in the dust after even 2 years because they don't support that hardware/software/configuration anymore. To say we didn't see this coming, would be a joke.
I was wondering the same thing, but I'd guess it's because iCloud requires iTunes or something, and the new version of iTunes doesn't support XP.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Just say NO to Apple, and you and your computer will be much happier! No one looking over your shoulder...no one "verifying" your files. No one to "protect" you from the twin evils of pornography and Adobe Flash. Just say NO to "Big Brother" Jobs and his "magical" crap!
Speaking as a Mac user, are there really that many people who (1) Are still using WinXP and (2) Are at all interested in iCloud?
I doubt it.
Is anyone else getting sick of iEverything? I mean, I hate Apple regardless, but this crap is just annoying.
Not only do they not support 98, or 2000, or XP, they also don't support any OS X older than 10.5 (example: Safari and iTunes).
It is simply part of Apple culture not to supply software to older OSes. It forces the user to upgrade (i.e. spend money), and I'm not surprised Apple applies the same tactic to PCs that has worked so well for Macs.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Not that I care remotely about icloud(more proprietary bs), but the reason Windows XP is so popular is because it just runs so well. Now I stay a few years behind on hardware anyway to not throw money away as I once did, but take my current laptop with a T4200 chip, 3gb ram. It came with windows 7, and ran slower, it also used nearly a gig of ram just to startup. Now it's available for my use more where it's needed.
It's my opinion 'now' the only thing the industry is doing is adding token features(that could easily be added to XP) and BLOAT to encourage upgrading. If we stuck with an OS for 10 years think of how much better the 'computer world' would be, Standards resolved and holes/bugs patched, new AND old computers would 'actually be faster'. As time progressed it would be more and more optimized...
Oh darn, I guess I won't be jumping on the cloud bandwagon since 50% of my computers (lappy Core 2 Duo [woe unto him who does not get the lappy reference]) are still on XP. I was looking forward to... well, I'm not really sure what iCloud does, but I'm sure it must be exciting since I see mention of it (but very little explanation) all over the place. Maybe it involves BitCoins?
I'd rather keep the last good OS from Microsoft than be ripped off by Apple and, funnily enough, Microsoft.
Windows Vis7a is a freak child of an OS that is undecided as to whether it is a desktop OS or a tablet OS. (note the 7, 7 IS VISTA)
Security system is just as laughable as XPs, in fact, more so because it enforces "CLICK ANYTHING TO GET THIS SHIT WINDOW AWAY" mentality.
The only decent new things are a few UI features (peek, easy window management), better symlink support, new start menu, slightly better control panel.
But those can all be added to XP very easily. Hell, half of them already existed in OSes before XP was even thought up, never mind Vis7a.
So keep your iCrap, Apple. I'd rather use many other, better, internet digital lockers and a good... well, not good, but decent Windows OS.
Might try out Win8 if they fixed all the terrible crap in Vis7a, but no doubt they will wreck that too.
I'm actually really loving the interface prototypes they had up. But whether they make those good to use for a mouse&keyboard is another question.
Besides, the only reason I'd ever upgrade is for games. (only reason I use Windows)
At least most Linux distros don't shoot themselves in the foot. And they have decent support for web browsers too. All I need.
I'm an apple 'fanboy'. But when Vista came out, I thought - maybe I should give MSFT another chance - after all, AAPL was getting big.
That lasted a very short time, and one totally useless and expensive Sony Vaio with built-in Vista later, I went back to AAPL.
Lots of other people went back to XP, I hear.
Since then, AAPL have become richer than MSFT. I'm not surprised. Vista was an unmitigated commercial disaster. I wonder if MSFT will ever recover. Unfortunately for me, and probably many others, Windows 7 was way too late.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
...but I love him for this.
I'm sick and tired of jumping through hoops for people with a god damn old as dirt OS.
Upgrade or don't ask me for help.
...Granted I can't say that at work, no matter how much I want to.
I honestly doubt anyone running something with iOS 5 in the fall would also have Windows XP. I have to use it at work, but that's a different issue.
I love how little credit The Register gives Apple when they say "According to the latest stats, this means that almost half of all PC users will not be able to access iCloud." Given that Apple has usage statistics of the people who use iTunes, I am willing to bet they know exactly how many of their customers with iCloud compatible devices are running on XP and made a very educated decision that dropping XP support wouldn't alienate that many users.
As others have already pointed out, XP is a decade old OS now, and two versions back. It is OK to start phasing our support. First for apps that run primarily in peoples homes, and then eventually to what runs in business environments.
What do you know I wrote a novel
And I mean specific -- "In order to interact with iCloud, we need OS function calls DoFooBarian and MangleDataButGood and built-in networking service XMLSmell" and not some generic "its older and less secure".
Whatever Apple is doing with iCloud probably is more in their code and less in Windows and probably has no real dependency on Windows 7.
My gut instinct is this is less about some technical need of iCloud on Windows but more about Apple making a cost benefit decision that providing the broader support (end users, installer packaging, etc) wasn't worth it.
At least now I have more motivation to replace my otherwise trusty Q6600 XP system.
Why use such services as iCloud when you can buy a good synology with a few HDD and get ultra fast speed on your LAN and good support through the internet (including smartphones... My android has he official Synology audio application installed for easy and secure access to music streaming)
No big brother to watch what you're storing on your system, shared folders which work under PC, Mac and unix systems, dlna server, ...
If you're still on Windows XP (and you're a home user) than you are an idiot. Update and move on for the love of god. The majority of Windows XP users will be corporate sheep anyway -- and they don't need to be using iTunes/iCloud anyway.
Times like these I wish I was more active here and had the points to spend to send your post into troll/flamebait oblivion.
People like you are the embodiment of that "your laptop/phone/tv is already outdated" tv commercial.
We don't need to ditch perfectly working computers simply to be on the latest-and-greatest side of things. I have XP at home, I play some older games on it, some stuff from Steam, and stream Netflix. It does what I want it to do, and I'm quite certain many others would say the same. Why should people spend money that they don't need to, just to appease some twitchy teenager on the internet who does the "OMG OLD" shtick?
Apple is fully aware of the fact that they might help Microsoft to accelerate the switch to Windows 7, but their concern lies in the many security flaws XP has to offer. Apple simply does not want to get blamed for hacked iCloud accounts only because some dude used an infected XP machine to access his clouded data.
Some reason this story also makes me think of this:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-05-04/
See, that's exactly the problem.
When you switch off an OS you have to examine the entire ecosystem effect. Because XP was the only sane choice for EIGHT YEARS that's what Windows computing grew up with.
Suddenly Win7 hasn't really been out that long, and the early reports of Windows 8 are dubious, so it does suddenly seem like they're trying to make continued use of XP painful like a Pavlov experiment.
I won't switch off XP until the upgrade path through *Windows 9* has shaken out. MS is thrashing pretty badly lately, so I don't want to get caught in the Zune of OS decisions until MS figures themselves out again.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Update to what? And how? I don't think there's a free XP -> something else update available anywhere. Except to linux, obviously, but that doesn't meet my main requirement. XP, crappy though it may be, does meet my main requirement.
Even an OEM copy of Windows 7 Ultimate doesn't cost that much.
According to this page, an OEM copy of Windows isn't intended to be sold to people who build their own PC for themselves to use. OEM copies are only for people who build PCs to sell.
You can buy an entire nettop for not that much more than that
I mentioned this once to a Mac salesman at Best Buy, and he told me that running Windows in a virtual machine on any current Mac would be far faster than running it on the bare hardware of a nettop.
Going from XP to Win7, you basically have to format and re-install all the applications. Over the life of my XP install I have collected hundreds of productivity applications I am dependent on for business use. I could not afford the down-time to install, and buggy behavior of the crap that is Vista, and I similarly cannot afford the week of full time or more it would take to get everything set up again under Win7, all iCloud hoopla aside.
This really sucks.
Thanks....just wanted to rant about that so mod me down to the magma for being off-topic
then i am not going forward after xp
...but it's time to move on. Frankly, I'm amazed XP has remained viable this long.
For those that have no reason to move on to Windows 7, more power to them. I know lots of people that won't. But honestly, I don't see this as something to be up in arms about. How many other times could someone be running a 10 year old OS and still access the latest and greatest in terms of software and services?
I paid $200 for XP back in 2001 and I still use the same license on my media center PC today (and will as long as I can squeeze use out of it). I'm happy with what I got for my $200.
You could always keep your current computer for business and buy a new one with current hardware/software...
I mean, this isn't 1994 when a new PC cost $2,000. You can get a laptop at BestBuy perfectly capable of accessing the iCloud and anything else for like $300 on sale. You can build a tower yourself with 4 times the power for only twice the cost. Throw in a KVM for like $50-$80 dollars and you don't even need to buy new peripherals (provided you're not using a PS/2 mouse and keyboard).
So no big loss that I'm running xp.
-Styopa
Microsoft Windows Live Mesh 2011 is Microsoft's very similar product and it has the exact same system requirements.
If you can't afford to do this, your business is not viable. I see this every once in a while, usually about two years before bankruptcy.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
I'm unsure what your point is. Apple of course wants to monetize the cloud and if they don't have some "lock in" then they can't support a low cost of entry. It's not a new idea. Give away the shavers and sell the blades, as it were. Apple has always sold ecosystems more than individual things. So it's hardly worth damning them for that. You certainly do get what you pay for when you buy apple. I get a total laugh everytime I see some dope try to argue that a dell with "simmilar features" is less expensive. it might well be, but then there's that whole "just works" ecosystem that isn't costed in. The whole flop of all the cheap Android tablets sort of makes it really clear.
Apple's sync cloud seems like a pretty good value. I certainly waste more than $25 of my time every year fucking around trying to keep devices synced. If they can fix that and I can just count on it working then I'm certainly going to go that way rather than screw around experimenting with some cheaper solution that is "just as good" (or maybe not). What I want is reliable and good enough, not some overly tricky unreliable solution.
Of course the cost of that decision is that I will very likely predicate my future device purchases on how well they work with the devices i've already invested in. So it's the whole ecosytem lock in.
Milo Minderbinder would be proud. We all win, especially Milo.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Because it's fairly clear that you don't understand what it is. Among other things, it syncs mail, contacts, calendars (Outlook/Exchange or Apple apps), music (if it's in iTunes), and photographs (probably only from iPhoto) with "the Cloud", and from there to your mobile devices. How is it even conceptually possible for a browser to do all that? Open API? Seems doubtful. Only work with proprietary Apple software? Mostly, but again, understand what the thing is before asking these questions. Clearly, if you use a Linux box at home, a Window box at work, and your phone is an Android, iCloud is not for you. If you use mostly Apple products, but you need to pull an odd Windows machine into the mix, iCloud is most definitely for you. The entire point is to sell more Apple products by producing an ecosystem where once you have iCloud set up, you never again have to think about where some piece of media is resident, because it's everywhere. That's going to be pretty attractive to a lot of people, although obviously not all of them. Independence from specific desktop software is not at all the point.
... just never upgrade your computer, ever? If you can't afford to take the time to upgrade it without going bankrupt, what happens when your computer dies? I guess you go out of business. And dude, seriously, "hundreds" of productivity applications? I'm calling BS there. If you're really using hundreds of applications every week, you'd have no time to do anything but start up and shut down applications. I have maybe 6 I use every day: the Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook, Adobe Reader, and Firefox. Then there are another handful I use a couple times a month: Cygwin (well, various Linux tools inside of Cygwin), GIMP, various utilities (WinZip, disk defraggers, etc). Then there are another few I use rarely (OpenOffice - which is surprisingly good at cleaning up corrupted MS Office files, a few others). Sure, some people will need a few more than that, but freaking nobody uses hundreds of applications continually.
To all you people complaining about having to spend a couple hundred dollars to upgrade your operating system, I have one thing to say to you.
Have you ever used the Internet before?
You can get a copy of Windows 7 Pro for under $70 at Pricegrabber.
And yes it is real. I bought a copy of Windows XP Pro X64 for $64.
Seriously people have you never used the Internet to buy stuff before?
OH and MAKE SURE to click SORT BY PRICE on Pricegrabber or else you'll see expensive listings first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brand new product (announced this week & not even available yet) doesn't run on 10 year-old version of competing OS!
In other news:
Apple Desktops stop working during power cut!!!
10-year-old PowerBook won't run Portal 2!!!
$3000 Apple laptop can be damaged by hitting repeatedly with a hammer!!!
7" tablet smaller and lighter than 10" iPad!!!
Apple has teenager arrested <font size="4pt">for ram-raiding Apple store.</font>
Steve Jobs once said "Fuck"
Independent <font size="4pt">Microsoft</font> report questions Apple's "Bears shit in woods" claim
Pope passes within 1000m of a synagogue - is he still a catholic?
ANY STATEMENT WRITTEN IN BLOCK CAPS - should you be worried?
So can we stop importing over-the-top Apple-bashing from The Register and stick to the (comparatively) intelligent, civilized debate on the relative merits of Apple vs. other platforms that we usually enjoy on Slashdot?
(Like, how the fuck am I supposed to upgrade 10 mac users at work to Lion without asking them all to buy it via their personal iTunes accounts?)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
dollars to doughnuts, the reason XP isn't going to be compatible with iCloud is the lack of: PVP and PUMA
People who insist on XP because of their hardware should be running Linux.
who cares.
Apple is smart. If you think that their customer base has any members among those who still run XP, you are mistaken. Oh a few iPod nano's might be owned by XP users, a few of them got iPhones "second hand" but nobody with the cash that Apple needs customers to have still runs XP.
You are basically selling that a seller of top end sports cars makes a bad business decision by not choosing a location near a bus stop.
Know your audience, it is business 101.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're assuming I want that iCloud bullshit!
When xp users are faced with the possibility of having to "upgrade" to vista 7 they overwhelmingly prefer to switch to MAC OS. There are only 4 scenarios where this is not the case.
1. The consumer is too poor to afford a macbook. (This individual will hold on to xp as long as possible because everyone knows cheap vista 7 notebooks run like trash)
2. Desktop pc. Mac desktop offerings are somewhat weak, but the desktop market is shrinking. Most people will have at a notebook (macbook) in addition to their peripheral computing devices.
3. Corporate usage. (this is basically the same as scenarios 1 and 2 just in a different context, and with the addition of lock in)
4. Windows fanboy "OMG ultimate 7 is best I get cool avatar on xbox gold live with mah cool zune playes for sure"
The people that post here generally are able to work around things like this 0 support for XP, and even if they aren't there are alternatives to "iCloud", if you look very closely at what Apple has done in the last 5 years, and the direction are moving currently, Apple truly want to take it all out of your hands, from over the air updates and storage, to complete store services all out of your hands, and that is not a good thing.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
My Wife's Macbook is first generation Intel hardware and it runs Snow Leopard just fine. There's been no indication that she won't be able to run Lion too.
If your wife's Macbook is "first generation" Intel hardware then it is running either an Intel Core Solo or Intel Core Duo chip and Apple has repeatedly made clear announcements that Lion will not be supported on Intel-based Macs which shipped with either of those chips. Your wife's Macbook can only boot OSes in 32-bit mode and Lion is dropping support for that.
Wait, what has Apple to gain from greatly limiting their audience? I could understand this from Microsoft, who would benefit from adding reasons to purchase new Windows versions, but the only reason I can currently think of for Apple to do this is that they are simply too lazy to make their application compatible with a still widely used OS.
People running XP aren't interested in Apple Products.
Apple aren't interested in people who insist on running XP.
I don't see the problem
If you do insist on running XP and are interested in Apple Products, maybe you should reassess your life choices.
I'm not being snarky, in fact, I'm currently guiding someone through upgrading from XP to Windows 7. It's opening up a new world for her and she is finding that most of her workflows can be much more efficient with a liberal helping of new technologies.
Microsoft Support for Windows XP Professional SP3 ends in 1033 days. My thanks to Apple for giving users another reason to upgrade their Operating System or replace that old PC.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
I suspect that most of the readers of this site are more than
20 years old.
Even in 21th century we still use knives and stones
like we did 10K years ago.
Windows XP is the most reliable OS Microsoft created.
Every time I wonder why slashdot hates Windows so much I am reminded that most of Slashdot is still basing their comparisons to Windows from 13 years go.
1) "Windows is terrible."
2) "There is no reason to upgrade my 23 year old release."
If you can't confidently upgrade to at least the version before the current one, you're already betting on the wrong platform.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518 To answer a simple question there you ran from like the troll you are.
Hopefully it'll be better than that ponderous overgrown music player that is iTunes.
The only thing magical about iTunes is that it (sort of) works at all.
I am sorry by that logic MSDOS is the most reliable OS ever created, and there isn't a lot os support for that these days. More importantly, however, people aren't software; and 10 years is a very long time for a version of an operating system.
Computers, as we think of them, are less than a century old, and the hardware and software are far from stable or mature. Knives and masonry went through a very long period of primitive change before they got to anything like what was in use a few thousand years from now. So we should not be shocked that technology becomes outdated faster than other more established technologies?
Nor are your right when you claim that "Windows XP is the most reliable OS Microsoft created." Long lived sure, but both Vista and Windows 7 are better when it comes to reliability, stability, and security. And Windows 7 has a very good track record when it comes to installing it on older hardware. If you look at the minimum requirements for running iTunes, they match the minimums needed for Windows 7. So they can upgrade.
Which they should do, because Windows XP is no long available for mainstream support from Microsoft. So it is not outrageous for a software company to say they aren't going to support it either, if it doesn't affect a significant number of their customers.
So what was your point again?
PS: You misspelled mirror
What do you know I wrote a novel
Windows 8 is not even in beta yet and the video is just a demo of an unfinished product. My hope is the tile interface will be inside the explorer. Right now it is seperated because the Tile UI is not finished and it keeps changing as the UI team tweeks it. Windows Vista alpha's looked more like Windows XP until the team cooked aero to be more dark and black. It is far away and still a work in progress. I would not worry.
Waiting for WIndows 9 will be a long time and you are crippling a modern computer with Windows XP while you wait. My AMD' phenom II have nice features that modernly compiled operating systems like Windows 7 use that would be disabled or not well done with an Windows XP kernel compiled with VC 6. Not to mention it is a 6 core unit, which would get another hit with the XP kernel due to obsolete SMP support, add lack of accelerated web browsing and flash video, and I might as well save my money for a crappier computer as it will perform like one that is worse.
In the last decade people switched from Dos to an NT kernel and that was very radical. It didn't kill the ecosystem did it? Before that was Windows 31 16 bit with DOS to win32 in Windows 95 with a radically different UI. That was a radical change in the MS ecosystem effect but it was not the end of the world and it was a great upgrade.
All this is becoming is a return to pre XP verison upgrades that happen ever 2 - 4 years that coincide end of life cycling. If MS wants to stay in business they need people to upgrade again. I would get Windows 7 if you have an older system soon and not worry. Windows 98 had the annoying activedesktop too which is what Windows 8 is retrying. It was very easy to disable as no one used it and it failed. It wont be like Gnome-Shell or Unity where a feature is taking functionality so you have to use a product their way or the highway. Microsoft is not that stupid.
http://saveie6.com/
I just visited one. They couldn't understand why we didn't support it. Then I told them we were planning to drop WinXP support soon as well. They were catatonic at that point.
No, I am adding my voice to the cacophany at having spent 50 hours doing tech support to a typical underpowered Vista laptop, and then I paid for a copy of Win 7 out of my own money and suddenly stuff started working for him.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Thanks for the measured response.
While I am certainly beyond newbie range, I have less interest in OS exploration than I used to. I plan to do more content-side research for a few years so there's still tons of XP-version stuff I can dig around in. I am concerned over the 2-year upgrade then end-of-life process though, if MS gets another miss on Win8. Paul Thurrott, among the strongest MS proponents there, posted a note lately that he was so excited in 2003 at demo tech, then felt let down when it all vanished into vaporware.
Meanwhile I am leisurely keeping my eye on the Linux side, because on of these years someone might get traction with a distro. (Ubuntu almost had it, but they might be slipping.)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Suddenly Win7 hasn't really been out that long...
Wow. I hear this a lot, and it always makes me wonder what kind of 'are you crazy?' looks people would have gotten if they had said 'Windows XP hasn't really been out that long' near the end of 2003. Before XP, versions of Windows were typically replaced every couple of years.
Win7 has been around for long enough to adopt over XP. In 3 years it won't matter anyways, because those with XP will be all alone, stuck living in the past. If you are really going to wait till 9, but that time 7 will be the new XP.