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Despite Patent Settlement, Apple Pulls Bose Merchandise From Its Stores
Apple has long sold Bose headphones and speakers in its retail stores, including in the time since it acquired Bose-competitor Beats Audio, and despite the lawsuit filed by Bose against Apple alleging patent violations on the part of Beats. That's come to an end this week, though: Apple's dropped Bose merchandise both in its retail locations and online, despite recent news that the two companies have settled the patent suit.
I imagine Beats/Apple isn't too happy with Bose's shenanigans regarding telling NFL players they can't wear their Beats headphones until 90 minutes after the end of the game.
Of course the players do it anyway, and Beats apparently pays the fines for them... but still.
Incidentally, the NFL isn't doing very well with regards to their endorsement deals - first Microsoft, and now Bose.
#DeleteChrome
It's plain and simple: now that Apple owns Beats, it makes no sense to sell their competitors products. It just isn't done.
Audiophiles—at least the ones who competently seek ways to improve quality, as opposed to the pseudoaudiophiles that spend $200 on a power cord—often listen to a wide range of music. For us, flat is a virtue, because any accentuation of frequency ranges that makes one style of music sound better invariably makes another style of music sound worse.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Flat" relating to headphones usually means a flat frequency response, unless you are talking to people who don't have a clue (which is a very real possibility). A flat frequency response is the goal of a high fidelity system, the very word "fidelity" means trueness to the original source, which is what you get with a flat frequency response. The idea that a speaker needs to distort the sound because it "sounds good" is absurd, and in fact it's the exact same rationale audiofools have for preferring vinyl. Vinyl inherently has an uneven frequency response (among other things) and it is those characteristics that give it is distinctive sound, leading some to prefer it. It is distinctive but it is low fidelity, just like a poor set of speakers. Besides, if you want the treble or bass jacked up or some other frequency band notched, that's what equalizers are for. Although it should be noted they are called equalizers because the intent is to bring an equal loudness to all frequency bands - aka, a flat frequency response. To compensate for speakers that are not already flat.
So 3 companies, all of whom make electronics that consist of about 99% hype and about 1% tech, sue each other?
What's funny is Bose has been at this a very long time. Don't buy Bose people! It's a scam, it's always been a scam. There are plenty of good stereos and speakers out there, Bose doesn't make any of them. And beats? That's literally the cheapest Chinese headphones they could find this month and they slap a Dr Dre sticker on it.
"Invest" in this case is a venerable old metaphorical usage (see "to make use of for future benefits or advantages" in Merriam-Webster), meant in this case to express my outlay of a considerable amount of money in the expectation that these particular headphones would provide me with such long listening enjoyment that the initial purchase price would hardly seem excessive.
I live in Romania, where the headphones I mention cost around half the average monthly salary. There's a wide range between Third World poverty and your presumably US income, and many Eastern Europeans would balk at spending so much for headphones.
> I have a feeling that Bose' CFO is not happy but not unhappy. It's business.
I have a feeling that setting the lawyers on an effective retail outlet for your goods is really bad for business.
If someone sued me, I'm certainly not going to do business with them in the future.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
That's like saying you prefer to look at photos that haven't had any work done in photoshop because it's more true to the source or some shit. Sort of like how audiofools never seem to have a problem wacking off to lossy jpegs but put on an mp3 and you'll never hear the end of it.
No, it is like saying you prefer to look at photos that haven't had any extra photo filters applied after the artist has already completed and distributed the image. Yes, of course the artist uses photoshop; just like the recording professionals use distortion!
The reason you want a flat frequency response from the speakers is because the sound has already been properly distorted by the artist. Just like, a computer monitor with accurate color will reproduce the colors the artist chose in photoslop!
And so is Apple.
Actually, as many review comparisons have noted over the years, Apple's products are priced only a very little bit higher than what other PC manufacturers offer given the exact same hardware.
Further, that slight price difference is fully justified, given the engineering research Apple puts in to ensure that the hardware all works together in complete harmony; most PC manufacturers rely on Microsoft to do that job via drivers and software bridges.
The result is a machine that takes very good advantage of the hardware you do get, and the physical engineering is seldom matched by rivals at anything like the same price point.
So say what you will. Yes, Apples tend to be a bit spendy. But what you get for the price is very fine indeed.
AND -- before I forget -- Macintoshes make some of the best Windows PCs on the market! Without needing VMWare or any third-party VM, Apple (unlike Windows or Linux) fully supports dual-boot out-of-the-box. Just install your favorite version of Windows in Bootcamp, and you have the best of both worlds. Boot into OS X, or Windows. (I know you can do that with other OSes, but they all require 3rd-party VM software to do it. Apple builds it in.)
So when I want to run a game, FPS for example that isn't on Mac... I just restart, and I get the FULL Windows performance... not bogged down via some VM.
But wait! There's more!
I can ALSO install VMWare on the Mac, and if I don't need full performance, I can load THE SAME Bootcamp Windows install via VMWare without rebooting... and while I don't get the same performance as booting Windows, it's not a separate install, it's the same one. I can run all the less-resource-intensive Windows apps all I like, without rebooting.
So it's the best of three worlds. I've got OS X, which is a great OS in many ways, plus I can boot straight into Windows and get full Windows performance, plus I can run less-intensive Windows programs anytime I want via VMWare, without having to install 2 different copies of Windows. It's the same in VM as it is in native boot... down to the very last file.
Nobody else does that.
Long and short: my Mac can kick your PC's ass in most ways (same build date and price range), at being a PC, AND be a Mac as well, with all that comes with that.
If you don't think that justifies a SMALL increase in price for the very same hardware, you haven't tried doing it.
And so is Apple.
Apple products are expensive, but generally have good design and performance.
Bose and Beats have good design, but have always been deemed to have poor performance by people who actually review them for their sound qualities.
I'm not hating... check the reviews.
Without needing VMWare or any third-party VM, Apple (unlike Windows or Linux) fully supports dual-boot out-of-the-box.
That's a function of the bootloader, not the OS. GRUB, the default bootloader for most Linux distros of any popularity, supports dual-boot, tri-boot, quad-boot, however-the-fuck-many-boot, right out of the box. In fact, the Windows bootloader supports this, as well, though it's a bit more work to set up.
I'm sitting here typing this on a Mac, because the platform does have its advantages, but dual-boot isn't something unique to the Mac.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Apple's products are priced only a very little bit higher than what other PC manufacturers offer given the exact same hardware
Actually, the high-end Mac Pro is currently cheaper.
I know you can do that with other OSes, but they all require 3rd-party VM software to do it. Apple builds it in.
This has nothing to do with VMs.
Bootcamp is little more than a setup and partition tool. You can have multi-boot (keyword: bootloader) on all PCs including Macs, but you can't just go ahead and install OS X on most of the ones not designed in Cupertino.
Every time I've priced them out against something like Sony, that's correct.
However, against Asus, who IMO makes better products, they are much more expensive. Let's do it now.
Holy shit, the only Apple laptop that doesn't use Intel Integrated, is the 15" Macbook Pro with Retina display. It's come along a lot, but still sucks if doing anything 3D that actually uses the graphics card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
Differences: +.1GHz Lenovo
256GB SSD (Lenovo) vs 512GB SSD (Apple)
Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (Lenovo) vs 2880 x 1800 (Apple)
Screen size: 15.6 (Lenovo) vs 15.4 (Apple)
Graphics: 860M (Lenovo) vs 750M (Apple)
Weight: 5.29 (Lenovo) vs 4.46 lbs (Apple)
Apple lacks a built in Gigabit Ethernet port. It has 2 Thunderbolt ports (basically can be considered proprietary, given usage at the moment)
Cost?
$1,269.99 vs $2499
So 2 laptops with almost all specs, exceeding the Apple's specs for the same price. (~230 for a 512GB SSD, if you want to increase storage that way, which still puts it at 60% of the cost)
it's part of the OS
When was the last time YOU wrote a fuckin' bootloader? Last time I did that was oh, about... a week ago. It most certainly IS a separate piece of code--maybe bundled with other bits of the OS, but it isn't the same binary. A bootloader needs to be SMALL. A kernel can be quite LARGE (and that is the OS *proper*).
Citation, because I fully expect you to be a dumb shit and claim I'm wrong:
BootX (/System/Library/CoreServices/BootX) is the default bootloader on Mac OS X.
BootX is also the name of an open source bootloader (different from Apple's BootX) that allows dual-booting Mac OS and Linux on "Old World" machines.
At this point, BootX draws the Apple logo splash screen, and starts the spinning cursor. If booting from a network device, a spinning globe is drawn instead.
Depending on various conditions, BootX tries to retrieve and load the kernel cache file.
The next step is to "decode" the kernel. If the kernel header indicates a compressed kernel, BootX tries to decompress it (typical LZSS compression is used, as you compress this kind of data once but expand it many times). Since the kernel binary can potentially be a "fat" binary (code for multiple architectures residing in the same binary), BootX checks if it indeed is (fat), and if so, "thins" it (figures out the PowerPC code).
BootX attempts to decode the file (possibly "thinned") as a Mach-O binary. If this fails, BootX also tries to decode it as ELF.
If the above fails, BootX gives up, draws the failed boot picture, and goes into an infinite loop.
If BootX is successful so far, it saves filesystem cache hits, misses and evicts, sets up various boot arguments and values (such as whether this is a graphical or verbose boot, whether there are some flags to be passed to the kernel, the size of installed RAM), and also calls a recursive function to flatten the device tree.
Finally, BootX "calls" the kernel, immediately before which it "quiesces" Open Firmware, an operation as a result of which any asynchronous tasks in the firmware, timers, or DMA get stopped, etc.
If you mean bundled the same way OS X is, then GRUB is part of the OS too, since distros package it up with the kernel.
You fail. Please do not ever write system software because it would be worse than The Poettering. This comment is on par with you claiming that iOS is part of the "Linux theme". FFS, you keep showcasing how ignorant you are about system dev, so please do us all a favor and SHUT THE FUCK UP.
The worst part is that you make some pretty intelligent comments--until you get into talking shit out of your ass about things you clearly don't know diddly about. So again, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
You are an idiot.
I was using the same NT 4 install as a native boot and under VMWare, under the original VMWare beta. Back before it was Workstation, back before Player or any of the server products existed. Back when you had to build the kernel modules by hand after tweaking the kernel. Back when the only VMware version available outside the company was for Linux. Back before OS X was released.
I make my living as a writer and editor
Use your skills where they make a difference, then. Hint: in many cases a "grammar train wreck" is fine as long as the meaning is not ambiguous. Conversations and comments on slashdot are two such cases.
Actually, as many review comparisons have noted over the years, Apple's products are priced only a very little bit higher than what other PC manufacturers offer given the exact same hardware.
So what? Apple makes their decisions on a different basis than I do. They choose parts based on maximum availability and profit. I choose parts based on price:performance ratio. I can build much more machine for significantly less money. Who cares if some other corporations are also trying to milk me?
I can ALSO install VMWare on the Mac
Yeah, I can also install vmware on my PC, and run MacOS in it, because some people have worked around the roadblocks that Apple put in the way to prevent users who pay for their software from doing that. How odd that Microsoft will permit me to virtualize their OS, but Apple won't. It's almost like they're bigger assholes than Microsoft. No, wait. It's exactly like that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But mainly, as I clearly stated above, what you are missing with other products is that you don't have the option of dual-booting AND, at the same time, running the SAME foreign OS install in VMWare or the like. If you want to do that you are stuck with 2 different foreign OS installs, and your files won't be in sync.
I didn't say dual-booting was unique to Mac. Read it again. What I wrote was that it's BETTER. Especially if you have VMWare. While that's a third-party product, it enables you to do what other OSes won't do, even with VMWare.
Without specifying which VMWare product it is a bit difficult to see what you are getting at - workstation or full ring-0 hypervisor like ESX ?
If you mean just the option of booting a virtual disk (vhd) which you can also use in an emulator, Windows has had that for 5 years (since 7) without needing a third party emulator (VirtualPC from MS).
If you mean having the option of booting a vhd and having also a full hypervisor that can run that vhd as a virtual machine, built into the OS, Windows has had that for six years on the server OS versions, and two on client (Windows 8) - Hyper-V is built in along with native-boot-from-vhd.
There are also Linux options for both boot-native-from-vhd and built in hypervisors.
So, struggling a bit to see what it is you think other OSes can't do ?
Seriously, why the hell would a company sell their competitor's stuff in their own store when they had just been sued by them? Even if they weren't sued, apple have their own line of audio gear now. It's just stupid to promote your competitor's product in your own store.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Whether or not the OP was a train wreck, the correction was wrong. Those are separate issues.
Also, English is proscriptive, not descriptive (yes, I know the Grammar Nazis hate that), so if the meaning is clear and unambiguous, and likely to have been used by a native speaker, then it's "correct". His train wreck was correct enough, and more correct than the wrong correction issued after.
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