Want iCloud With Windows? Ditch the XP

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Want iCloud With Windows? Ditch the XP

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 9, 2011 @03:06AM from the what-about-linux dept.

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."

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Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by Mr_eX9 · 2011-06-09 03:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
1. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-09 03:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Heck. Apple does not support their own OS after about two days. Why not XP too?
  But the point is, would windows user ditch their still working fine enough desktop/laptop to buy new shiny windows 7 just to get icloud? I think non-Apple land is little different, and people tend not to buy toys just because the master asked them to.
2. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by cpu6502 · 2011-06-09 03:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  >>>Agreed, but will these small nudges to get users away from XP be enough to get them to change their OS?
  No. Rather than spend $200 or whatever upgrading to Windows 6.1, my operating system will remain stagnant until my P4 machine dies (which should be soon). In the meantime I'm perfectly happy to use older programs (Office97) or free alternatives for my software addons. Most of it is better than what MS or Apple offers anyway - like VLC or Winamp or Utorrent - and supports stuff as old as 98.
  
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3. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by jo_ham · 2011-06-09 03:32 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Oh come on, I hear this all the time but it's seriously FUD.
  This is a company that took great pains to put in emulation software (Rosetta) when they switched to Intel, and had their IDE set up to profile different versions of the OS going back several (target a build for 10.3, 10.4, 10.5 etc), and kept the Classic environment around for years after the shift away from OS 9 (and I *still* have OS 9 plugins running in Photoshop on OS X 10.6 that still work - my scanner), and did the same thing earlier when going away from 68k.
  The company that tried to make each transition as smooth as possible "ditching support after about 2 days" (obvious hyperbole, but not even remotely rooted in even a thin shred of truth).
4. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by Old97 · 2011-06-09 03:59 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  With iCloud and iOS5, Grannie can buy an iPad and toss the PC she never learned how to use or manage. iOS5 will use iCloud instead of depending on an iTunes client running on a Mac or Windows PC.
  
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5. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by dbrueck · 2011-06-09 04:09 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Please don't take this as being rude, but... are you a software developer? Doing what you ask isn't easy at all - it requires a ton of work. And then to on top of that support not only multiple operating systems, but really old versions of said operating systems is a huge, huge chunk of work. And then you have to test it and support it as well. Ditching support for a 10 year old version of an OS is hardly news.
  I don't think anybody said that the whole point of "the cloud" is to be independent of specific desktop software - that's something you added.
  Your question about an open API is beside the point - some bit of software running on the user's computer has to call the APIs, and that bit of software has to be written for the operating system it's running on, and some versions of that operating system will be deemed too old to support.
  As for what you can do in a browser and its sandboxed environment, there probably are some iCloud things that could be made to work, but those things will be a subset of a much larger set of things iCloud (or something simular) supports.
  It's software and that's how it works.
6. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by cpu6502 · 2011-06-09 04:41 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  >>>"ditching support after about 2 days" (obvious hyperbole, but not even remotely rooted in even a thin shred of truth).
  My G5 Mac won't run the latest versions of Safari or iTunes or iWork. And it's not that old... 3 years? So yes two days is an exaggeration, but not hyperbole. Apple is quick to dump old OSes, because they want users to buy new Macs or upgrades. Planned obsolescence. - Now compare that 3-year-old G5 to my 8 year old XP which still operates and runs everything I throw at it.
  
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7. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by UnknowingFool · 2011-06-09 04:53 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  No it isn't. The point is not to support any operating systems, but to support an API.
  One of the dependencies of an API is the OS. Did Java or Perl automatically run on every OS when conceived? No someone had to put in the effort to ensure that APIs work on different computer configurations. In the case of Windows programs one of the problems is the plethora of hardware and software differences. Heck there is a large set of Windows API frameworks over the years. Should Apple only write .NET 4.0? Do all users have it installed? What if they don't? Apple has to decide the minimum they will support. Going forward, it won't be XP.
  
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8. Re:Lack of XP support isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-09 05:07 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  No it isn't. The point is not to support any operating systems, but to support an API.
  He's not talking about the cloud's API but an operation system's. OS APIs change from version to version of an OS; some get deprecated and others get added. Being a Mac developer, developing from Leopard to Snow Leopard and even to Lion is pretty easy with one executable. The sheer amount of work involved to get Tiger support, also, would make a grown man cry.
  
  It's the best definition of "the cloud" that I've come across so far. Otherwise, what kind of meaning does that word have, beyond "something on the internet"?
  I suspect you have an assumption that any application that utilizes "the cloud" is a thin client app. iTunes is by no means a lightweight application, even on Windows. Anything and everything that uses "the cloud" needs to be written for a platform, even if said platform is "the cloud" itself.
  
  But anyone can do that. At least, if it's open enough to not be completely useless.
  You're missing the OP's point. The cloud APIs are the easy part, wether it be REST or SOAP or whatever technology being used. What the application will do with the information it sends/receives can be dependent on the platform. Openness has nothing to do with this part of the problem.
Re:I have Windows 7 by Nerdfest · 2011-06-09 03:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Not rewarding companies that do things that people don't like is more important to some than having the latest toys.
Stupid Decision. by Haedrian · 2011-06-09 03:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

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."
No surprise - it's Apple's modus operandi by cpu6502 · 2011-06-09 03:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:I have Windows 7 by Yvan256 · 2011-06-09 03:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

http://www.apple.com/apple-events/wwdc-2011/
It's not "cloud computing", it's automatic online synching done right. It's called iCloud simply because "cloud" is today's buzzword.
There is nothing wrong with running XP now by axl917 · 2011-06-09 03:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?
Re:I have Windows 7 by Yvan256 · 2011-06-09 03:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

From the demos done on stage, it syncs everything in real time. Photos taken on an iPhone were sent immediately to the iPad and the Mac, documents edited on one device were pushed to the other devices, etc.
"It just works" comes to mind.
Re:I have Windows 7 by saider · 2011-06-09 04:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

Apple is a vertically integrated company. Its products work with each other pretty well as long as you follow the Apple way of things. Apple has a vested interest in making sure that has equivalents to compelling new products, like Amazon's music and books service. By controlling it themselves, they can focus on making sure that it works together with other Apple products.
Compare that with the Microsoft way, where they write a big part of it, but rely on partners to fill in the blanks. You have all these independent companies running around doing their own thing without a cohesive vision of what the whole system should be doing.
For people who don't want to mess with their computers and music players and websites etc., Mac is a natural choice. Windows offers a fractured broken system, and Linux is great for those who do like to mess with their computers and music players and websites, etc.
I use all three systems, and the Mac seems to have the fewest problems with Mac stuff working together, as long as you are adhering to the "Mac Way of Doing Things".
Easy to use, consumer stuff - Mac
Can do what you want - Linux
Corporate or Engineering software - Windows

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