I forgot to add some more thoughts about the distribution/sale of third-party apps through the iTunes store:
With the release of the new iPhone, the iTunes store will provide a distribution outlet for Apple and third-party applications for the iPhone. Developers will most likely be allowed to choose whether they sell their apps or distribute them for free through iTunes. This will drive many developers to create better and fancier apps than on other platforms.
Apple will surely take a cut (since they're providing the distribution), but it's such a great business proposition for an enterprising developer with a great product, I can see it attracting a lot of talent.
Google's Android (Open Handset Alliance) is expected to ship on phones by Q4 2008, from what I've heard.
Reliable sources tell me it will be cool and inexpensive, but probably not as sexy as the iPhone. It might get some interesting apps though.
Given the iPhone now has a developer's toolkit, I'm pretty excited to see the new apps that are going to be sold/distributed through the iTunes Store. This new feature will probably launch with the new iPhone, on June 9th.
They didn't sell them in January, from what I understand. They sold them between the original release date (June 2007?) and January 2008.
This being said, is the 10 million figure only for the U.S.? Because if not, given they've been signing deals with telcos across large parts of the world (most of Europe, China, South America, etc.), I wouldn't be surprised if they exceeded 10 million in 2008.
Also, I would not be surprised if the new release gets good sales in the U.S. alone:
1. Many current iPhone owners are likely to buy the new model. They're that type of customer.
2. Several people who were waiting for 3G will be interested in the new one.
3. Most importantly, given that support for Microsoft Exchange is on its way (likely for June 9th, otherwise shortly thereafter - it's been in testing for the past 2 months at least), I know several business users who will be convinced to switch from shitty Windows Mobile devices, and even from reliable Blackberries.
Incidentally, I can say I decided not to buy the first iPhone for reasons 2 and 3 above (no 3G, and no support for corporate email). I'm pretty certain I'll be getting the new one (given a few weeks for reviews). Also, I'm currently a Blackberry user: Blackberries are awesome for business, but the iPhone is just too sexy.
First, let's keep in mind that Apple pitched the iPhone to Verizon (I believe even before pitching it to AT&T). Verizon and Apple were unable to find an agreement.
It was obviously in AT&T's interest to secure an exclusivity agreement. Whether the iPhone deal would have fallen through without such an exclusivity clause, I don't know.
Now, let's remember that most of the world is GSM/HSDPA-based, and distributing a CDMA/EV-DO (Verizon) phone would require essentially the development of a new iPhone (to a certain extent).
Finally, let's remember that AT&T had to implement certain new network features for the iPhone, notably to support visual voicemail. I'm sure that Apple was happy to have an exclusive agreement in order to have more control over the services available.
In the end, distributing the iPhone through Verizon would certainly increase the addressable market (but if you consider the global market, only marginally). Nevertheless, I'm sure that AT&T compromised in order to obtain the exclusive deal and that both companies benefited from it.
There are jokes about how a thousand monkeys hammering on typewriters for a million years could recreate Shakespeare's whole life's work. Did a thousand monkeys with bionic arms post your comment?
It's not only "lack of support". It's also a question of liability. Who do you sue when things go wrong? It's much easier to hold a company liable when you paid for their product.
I was slightly confused at first, and from the comments I see I wasn't the only one. For those who didn't at first know what the post was referring to, it's not Cascading Style Sheets, but Content Scrambling System.
Content Scramble System (CSS) is a Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme used on almost all commercially produced DVD-Video discs. It utilizes a relatively weak, proprietary 40-bit stream cipher algorithm. The system was introduced around 1996 and has subsequently been compromised. CSS: Content Scrambling System
I don't know what jurisdiction you're in, but in Canada and the US, this is the rule:
A consumer who unknowingly purchases a stolen car has no recourse, and no way to get his or her money back. Insurance Bureau of Canada National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
It doesn't matter if you didn't know it was stolen. It was your responsibility to check that.
I can only speak for the US, so if you're in another country, this whole argument may be pointless.
1. I've been looking for evidence of this, but so far I haven't seen anything that says you have to disclose family history. What you have to disclose is medical history and pre-existing conditions for yourself and whoever is covered under your policy, but unless your parents and grandparents are under your policy, I have seen nothing that requires you to share their medical history. This might be in some providers' contracts, but I'm not even sure they're allowed to require it. Show me where it says that health care providers are allowed to require it (even though they may ask for it), and I'll be proven wrong.
2. In my experience... Our company has coverage with Harvard Pilgrim, and just 4 months ago, 3 employees (randomly selected) from our company had to take blood tests for insurance purposes (rates affected by these tests). I just talked to one of them to confirm. So yeah, I know first hand that this is true.
Agreed, I was specifically replying to the AC post, not making a point about copyright.
This being said, I'm not a supporter of copyright infringement. I don't think that, simply because the product can be reproduced at virtually no cost, it means it should be freely distributed. Someone still spent time, money and effort into creating it.
When it comes to movies and music, the traditional business model of a manufactured product does not apply, and you don't sell the product at slightly above the marginal cost of manufacturing an individual copy. But that doesn't mean that each copy is worth nothing.
Maybe the business model is antiquated, and a better model exists, such as perhaps an ad-supported one (but would you really want a 10 second ad at the beginning of each one of your songs, or advertising breaks in movies?).
In the end, it's up to the artist (read record company or producer) to decide how he wants to distribute his product. Some artists have decided to deliberately distribute their music for free, intending to make money on concerts. But what it comes down to is that just because you're not happy with the price doesn't mean you can take it without paying.
If you're not willing to pay anything for the product, then it's not worth anything to you, so you might as well not have it. Because nowadays, you don't have to buy a full album for that one song you really want. You can go on iTunes or wherever and buy just that song.
I know this post will be unpopular because Karma here depends on how much you bash the RIAA. And to be honest, their behavior is pretty terrible and they deserve their bad reputation (suing 10-year olds, etc.). But we also need to learn to be mature about these things.
1. If they can prove you knowingly had colon cancer when you signed up for insurance, they'll refuse to cover you. You're right about that. But if you were healthy at the time you signed up, they're under a contractual obligation to cover you.
However, several factors go into calculating your "risk" from which your insurance rate is derived: race, age, sex, are the basic ones. Any factor, including family history (not only your personal medical history) if available, will affect this rate. So if they accept to cover you when you're healthy, they have to take abide by that. But if they know both your father and grandfather had a specific type of cancer, they will give you a higher rate. So you're wrong.
2. Companies who provide insurance to their employees (through an insurance company) are subject to random tests, where only a sample of employees are given blood tests. The result of these tests will affect the rates. So you're wrong again.
We're slowly approaching an age where genetic profiling is becoming more widely available. I have a family member who got his genetic information mapped, and it's possible that this is going to become common practice within ten years.
At that point, your doctor will be aware of your genetic profile and will be able to better assess your risk of contracting specific diseases, which would improve your ability to prevent them. This is something we could all benefit from.
However, imagine if your insurance company got its greedy hands on your genetic information, and found out you were 50% more likely to get a specific kind of cancer. Think they'd give you the same insurance rates?
This being said, I believe laws have already been proposed to prevent this type of profiling.
Also, I'm not sure that girl you met the other day at a party would still be up for going on a date if a Google search of your name brings up "did you mean gonorrhea?".
Except if you bought a product and then found out it was stolen, it still wouldn't be yours. And you wouldn't be allowed to keep it. If you paid money for a stolen product (say a stolen car), that's a shame, because you won't get it back.
One thing however I'd like to point out is that -assuming you apply reason- you can't logically disprove the idea of a God. That certainly is not reason to believe in God, but it's no "scientific" evidence against him/her/them/me. As such, I'm an agnostic.
Nevertheless, you can be atheist towards a specific religion within the framework of how it is defined. Because of the logical inconsistencies in the Bible, you can safely say that some parts are not true. There are contradictions which prevent at least one side of the contradiction from being true (which one I don't know).
Actually... there are Christian churches in Iran... Christianity in Iran. In fact, according to Wikipedia [insert grain of salt here] there are Jews in Iran too, even represented in their parliament:
Iran's Jewish community is officially recognized as a religious minority group by the government, and, like the Zoroastrians, they are allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament. (from Wikipedia)
Not sure which particular intervention you're referring to with the others; perhaps you preferred Chile under Pinochet?
Hmmm, I think he meant that he preferred Chile with a democratically elected president, as opposed to a dictator installed by the U.S. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._intervention_in_Chile).
Sure, the situation in Chile is different now, but that's an example of U.S. involvement that went against democracy. Allende was Marxist and it was in our own best interest -at the height of the Cold War- to prevent communism from spreading. But that doesn't change the fact that we supported a coup against a democratically elected leader.
The claim that we (the U.S.) are morally superior and can fight wars of "good" against "evil" is pure propaganda. But what is true is that, in the end, our government has the responsibility to defend our interests. Pretending we're trying to help people is demagogy.
(I do not support our invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, but am for internationally sanctioned and coordinated efforts, such as the one in Afghanistan - the fact that we blatantly ignored what the rest of the world thought and invented fake pretexts to invade Iraq is a different story)
I don't know many regular jobs that pay you while you're sleeping. But it's true that removing 8 hours of sleep (so 16h workdays), you still only get about $11.80 per hour.
A CS teacher I had in college (and who might be reading this, "hi!"), always made strange D&D (?) references in the example code or partially coded assignments...
For instance, the most common comment was where we were supposed to complete the code: // Here be the dragons...
It was always somewhere between amusing and confusing.
Slashdot Mirror
I forgot to add some more thoughts about the distribution/sale of third-party apps through the iTunes store:
With the release of the new iPhone, the iTunes store will provide a distribution outlet for Apple and third-party applications for the iPhone. Developers will most likely be allowed to choose whether they sell their apps or distribute them for free through iTunes. This will drive many developers to create better and fancier apps than on other platforms.
Apple will surely take a cut (since they're providing the distribution), but it's such a great business proposition for an enterprising developer with a great product, I can see it attracting a lot of talent.
Google's Android (Open Handset Alliance) is expected to ship on phones by Q4 2008, from what I've heard.
Reliable sources tell me it will be cool and inexpensive, but probably not as sexy as the iPhone. It might get some interesting apps though.
Given the iPhone now has a developer's toolkit, I'm pretty excited to see the new apps that are going to be sold/distributed through the iTunes Store. This new feature will probably launch with the new iPhone, on June 9th.
They didn't sell them in January, from what I understand. They sold them between the original release date (June 2007?) and January 2008.
This being said, is the 10 million figure only for the U.S.? Because if not, given they've been signing deals with telcos across large parts of the world (most of Europe, China, South America, etc.), I wouldn't be surprised if they exceeded 10 million in 2008.
Also, I would not be surprised if the new release gets good sales in the U.S. alone:
1. Many current iPhone owners are likely to buy the new model. They're that type of customer.
2. Several people who were waiting for 3G will be interested in the new one.
3. Most importantly, given that support for Microsoft Exchange is on its way (likely for June 9th, otherwise shortly thereafter - it's been in testing for the past 2 months at least), I know several business users who will be convinced to switch from shitty Windows Mobile devices, and even from reliable Blackberries.
Incidentally, I can say I decided not to buy the first iPhone for reasons 2 and 3 above (no 3G, and no support for corporate email). I'm pretty certain I'll be getting the new one (given a few weeks for reviews). Also, I'm currently a Blackberry user: Blackberries are awesome for business, but the iPhone is just too sexy.
First, let's keep in mind that Apple pitched the iPhone to Verizon (I believe even before pitching it to AT&T). Verizon and Apple were unable to find an agreement.
It was obviously in AT&T's interest to secure an exclusivity agreement. Whether the iPhone deal would have fallen through without such an exclusivity clause, I don't know.
Now, let's remember that most of the world is GSM/HSDPA-based, and distributing a CDMA/EV-DO (Verizon) phone would require essentially the development of a new iPhone (to a certain extent).
Finally, let's remember that AT&T had to implement certain new network features for the iPhone, notably to support visual voicemail. I'm sure that Apple was happy to have an exclusive agreement in order to have more control over the services available.
In the end, distributing the iPhone through Verizon would certainly increase the addressable market (but if you consider the global market, only marginally). Nevertheless, I'm sure that AT&T compromised in order to obtain the exclusive deal and that both companies benefited from it.
Too bad your prosthetic leg is running Windows and you have to "reboot" it every few hours.
Let's not even talk about the viruses.
Good thing you don't have an English minor, because with that spelling... Beuity? ...seriously?
"beuity", "proove", "mathamatitions", porposly", "geomontry", "statitics", "appreate", "intimatly"...
There are jokes about how a thousand monkeys hammering on typewriters for a million years could recreate Shakespeare's whole life's work. Did a thousand monkeys with bionic arms post your comment?
And we could call it Team America: World Police!
Right, that was my point...
It's not only "lack of support". It's also a question of liability. Who do you sue when things go wrong? It's much easier to hold a company liable when you paid for their product.
Have they found Elvis yet?
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies
It doesn't matter if you didn't know it was stolen. It was your responsibility to check that.
On another note, but related to tfa, in the news:
Bush signs genetic discrimination bill
Not a huge surprise.
I can only speak for the US, so if you're in another country, this whole argument may be pointless.
1. I've been looking for evidence of this, but so far I haven't seen anything that says you have to disclose family history. What you have to disclose is medical history and pre-existing conditions for yourself and whoever is covered under your policy, but unless your parents and grandparents are under your policy, I have seen nothing that requires you to share their medical history. This might be in some providers' contracts, but I'm not even sure they're allowed to require it. Show me where it says that health care providers are allowed to require it (even though they may ask for it), and I'll be proven wrong.
2. In my experience... Our company has coverage with Harvard Pilgrim, and just 4 months ago, 3 employees (randomly selected) from our company had to take blood tests for insurance purposes (rates affected by these tests). I just talked to one of them to confirm. So yeah, I know first hand that this is true.
Agreed, I was specifically replying to the AC post, not making a point about copyright.
This being said, I'm not a supporter of copyright infringement. I don't think that, simply because the product can be reproduced at virtually no cost, it means it should be freely distributed. Someone still spent time, money and effort into creating it.
When it comes to movies and music, the traditional business model of a manufactured product does not apply, and you don't sell the product at slightly above the marginal cost of manufacturing an individual copy. But that doesn't mean that each copy is worth nothing.
Maybe the business model is antiquated, and a better model exists, such as perhaps an ad-supported one (but would you really want a 10 second ad at the beginning of each one of your songs, or advertising breaks in movies?).
In the end, it's up to the artist (read record company or producer) to decide how he wants to distribute his product. Some artists have decided to deliberately distribute their music for free, intending to make money on concerts. But what it comes down to is that just because you're not happy with the price doesn't mean you can take it without paying.
If you're not willing to pay anything for the product, then it's not worth anything to you, so you might as well not have it. Because nowadays, you don't have to buy a full album for that one song you really want. You can go on iTunes or wherever and buy just that song.
I know this post will be unpopular because Karma here depends on how much you bash the RIAA. And to be honest, their behavior is pretty terrible and they deserve their bad reputation (suing 10-year olds, etc.). But we also need to learn to be mature about these things.
1. If they can prove you knowingly had colon cancer when you signed up for insurance, they'll refuse to cover you. You're right about that. But if you were healthy at the time you signed up, they're under a contractual obligation to cover you.
However, several factors go into calculating your "risk" from which your insurance rate is derived: race, age, sex, are the basic ones. Any factor, including family history (not only your personal medical history) if available, will affect this rate. So if they accept to cover you when you're healthy, they have to take abide by that. But if they know both your father and grandfather had a specific type of cancer, they will give you a higher rate. So you're wrong.
2. Companies who provide insurance to their employees (through an insurance company) are subject to random tests, where only a sample of employees are given blood tests. The result of these tests will affect the rates. So you're wrong again.
I bet your insurance company would be interested.
We're slowly approaching an age where genetic profiling is becoming more widely available. I have a family member who got his genetic information mapped, and it's possible that this is going to become common practice within ten years.
At that point, your doctor will be aware of your genetic profile and will be able to better assess your risk of contracting specific diseases, which would improve your ability to prevent them. This is something we could all benefit from.
However, imagine if your insurance company got its greedy hands on your genetic information, and found out you were 50% more likely to get a specific kind of cancer. Think they'd give you the same insurance rates?
This being said, I believe laws have already been proposed to prevent this type of profiling.
Also, I'm not sure that girl you met the other day at a party would still be up for going on a date if a Google search of your name brings up "did you mean gonorrhea?".
Funny, I'm in Boston, and I'm also wearing a t-shirt saying "Ain't no party like a Boston party", with a tea bag drawn on it.
Except if you bought a product and then found out it was stolen, it still wouldn't be yours. And you wouldn't be allowed to keep it. If you paid money for a stolen product (say a stolen car), that's a shame, because you won't get it back.
Agreed, I think I fit the same exact description.
One thing however I'd like to point out is that -assuming you apply reason- you can't logically disprove the idea of a God. That certainly is not reason to believe in God, but it's no "scientific" evidence against him/her/them/me. As such, I'm an agnostic.
Nevertheless, you can be atheist towards a specific religion within the framework of how it is defined. Because of the logical inconsistencies in the Bible, you can safely say that some parts are not true. There are contradictions which prevent at least one side of the contradiction from being true (which one I don't know).
Hmmm, I think he meant that he preferred Chile with a democratically elected president, as opposed to a dictator installed by the U.S. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._intervention_in_Chile).
Sure, the situation in Chile is different now, but that's an example of U.S. involvement that went against democracy. Allende was Marxist and it was in our own best interest -at the height of the Cold War- to prevent communism from spreading. But that doesn't change the fact that we supported a coup against a democratically elected leader.
The claim that we (the U.S.) are morally superior and can fight wars of "good" against "evil" is pure propaganda. But what is true is that, in the end, our government has the responsibility to defend our interests. Pretending we're trying to help people is demagogy.
(I do not support our invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, but am for internationally sanctioned and coordinated efforts, such as the one in Afghanistan - the fact that we blatantly ignored what the rest of the world thought and invented fake pretexts to invade Iraq is a different story)
I don't know many regular jobs that pay you while you're sleeping. But it's true that removing 8 hours of sleep (so 16h workdays), you still only get about $11.80 per hour.
A CS teacher I had in college (and who might be reading this, "hi!"), always made strange D&D (?) references in the example code or partially coded assignments... For instance, the most common comment was where we were supposed to complete the code:
// Here be the dragons...
It was always somewhere between amusing and confusing.
Agreed. A Shadowrun game with GTA gameplay would be cool.