What Apple needs to do is start figuring out how to get themselves enterprise-friendly without losing their consumer market.
In engineering, EVERYTHING is about tradeoffs. You simply can't have a good enterprise experience AND a good consumer experience, so Apple (thankfully for me as a consumer) has leaned towards consumer. Sure there are some positive aspects of the consumer brand that could be incorporated into the enterprise environment, but for the most part, the two are mutually exclusive. This is why, in my opinion, Windows + x86 sucks as a consumer product. The money Microsoft makes from businesses is way more than their measly $300 here and there for Windows upgrades and Microsoft Office for the few dolts who haven't figured out you can be quite productive with a computer that uses neither.
A good example would be the continuum of security vs. usability. Somebody who thinks security is important, probably devalues usability, because you can't really have both.
Seems like a pretty large section of the populace to dismiss! They may be the only ones upgrading computers on a frequent basis, but I've noticed they are the only ones even using computers AT ALL anymore.
Haha, I'd be worried about the chance of success for anyone who uses their computer to "impress the chicks". That's right up there with "using my Magic the Gathering card collection to impress the chicks", or "using my Marvel comics collection to impress the chicks", or "using my sick calculus skills to impress the chicks".
But on a serious note, I've never felt the urgency to buy my personal computer based on my work/professional needs. The last thing I want to spend my own money on is something for work. That, in a nutshell, is why I've been a Mac user for a long time (even though my current company uses Macs exclusively...first time in 20 years of Mac using that I've had one at work, and it is great for all the reasons normally cited by users, multiplied 10-fold for all the additional quirks work requirements add). You know what I've NEVER had to do with my Mac at work? That's right, get up and walk over to the printer to see why my page didn't print. I've also never been locked out of my account because of a dumbass admin who can't manage Active Directory. The list is long.
I am an education professional with a graduate degree in Education Technology. Based on my review of the literature, and my own research, Bill Gates is absolutely correct in saying:
Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.
This part, however, is 100% opinion, and lacks the data to back his assertion:
And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input.
He's applying old paradigms from his comfort zone to modern learning. "Never" is a long time, Bill.
Until I personally suffer from any of those issues I'll continue to hold Apple products in high regard. There isn't enough evidence to support your claims (outside of they run hot and their server performance, which isn't important to me). I'm not saying your claims aren't true, only that they might be anecdotal and/or biased. I think anytime you work with massive quantities of something, you are bound to encounter the negatives you otherwise wouldn't have. Like having 50 Ferraris in my garage and two of them have intake manifold problems...doesn't detract from the awesomeness of the other 48 Ferraris.
Personal dislike of the OS is perfectly fine and a legitimate complaint. I have a feeling that 15 years of Windows indoctrination is really hard for many people to kick. (Not you per se, but in general).
I work in an environment of roughly 5000 Macs after years of working with Dell Shitbox 9000s. I don't know a single IT person here, but I knew the entire IT staff at Dell Shitbox company by first name. I've never been locked out of my AD account and my roaming profile has never become busted because of shitty admins not knowing what they are doing on top of questionable Windows OSes on dubious Dell commodity hardware.
The wording changed because of the recently added "sandboxing" built into the OS since Lion. This is not a step to distance the "Doesn't get PC Viruses" claim, it's updated marketing to advertise new features of the OS. So in addition to still not getting all those nasty viruses that PCs get (ostensibly), there are "built-in defenses" as well.
I think the slashdot hatesourcing is overthinking this (not you, per se, the comments in general.)
First Google search result: "Intel Looking Toward Retina Display PCs by 2013". Second result find HTC phone with similar display resolution (no mention of pixel density however) available now...only in Japan.
So...yes? Not saying PC or Android phones exist with "retina display" resolutions, just that they are doing a pretty bad job at making the consumer aware (if they do exist). See, that's where Apple get's it and the others are pretty bad. Apple is good at advertising, which pisses most of us off on slashdot, because we live in our mom's basement and don't have any money.
Bad comparison. Think of it like this: what if Toyota's slide off the road in unintended acceleration on a weekly/monthly/semi-annual basis (my anecdotal PC experience) and Ford's slid off the road....once...in 25 years...and the fix was simple...
The platform is great (or not) irrespective of what idiot fan boys think. This is what I hate most about any conversation about Apple ever. I too am a Mac user (think they are great) and accept that malware is not impossible to get. I, however, am not the stereotypical hyper-logical binary slashdotter who doesn't realize that marketing is marketing and exists to try to get people to buy your stuff.
Whether a bunch of fanboi hipsters buy Macs or not, I'm still going to like my Mac, regardless what others think. People who hate Macs, for whatever reason, think I am trying to tell them how awesome my Mac is (really don't care what you think), or even worse, that I'm trying to IMPRESS you by purchasing something anyone else can also buy. Again, I don't really care what you think about my computer. I'm using it a public space, because, a) I have it with me, and b) there's free wi-fi. Not c) to try and impress all the chicks with my Macbook...but this is slashdot, so maybe that's the logical conclusion.
I have a feeling discussing technology with someone who wants to dismiss Apple's contributions is a bit pointless. If you think Apple copied Archos, you have some serous judgment issues. You can cite your Archos all you want, but I'll point you to 10+ years of consumer advocacy reviews that consistently put iPod, iPhone, iMac, and now iPad at the top of their respective categories. Not ALWAYS the best, but usually at the top. Feel free to dismiss Apple as well engineered, but overpriced tech if you want, but to claim there stuff isn't any good, detracts from your credibility, in my opinion.
No, I'm not saying "Droid is a cheap knock-off". I'm saying there are hundreds of cheap knock-offs trying to capitalize off Apple's innovations. Unless, of course, all those companies in the late 90s were furiously coming up with colored translucent plastics at the same time Apple were, and were just slower to market. Or all those laptops on the market that look strikingly like the Macbook Pro, but without the uni-body design or the thin and lightweight form-factor...cheap knock-offs, right down to the awful chiclet keyboards and awful trackpads that are nothing like the Macbook Pros.
No they weren't the first (not a point I was making or even arguing), but like the TS Elliot quote above, they didn't cheaply copy anyone...they made great products off of ideas that already existed and not just cheap knockoffs. Now everybody is making cheap knock-offs of Apple products (have you seen the iMac competition?).
I think your piece is even more relevant now than it was the first time you posted it. In the context of TS Elliot's quote, just look at all the "bad artist" imitators Apple has caused since the original iPod. Most anti-Apple folks will say Apple copied this or that, but if you stop and look back to the start of the iPod/OS X era, you find many more people copying Apple and very few examples of Apple copying the competition. The only area where Apple has dropped the ball in that regard is with iOS 4 to iOS 5. There were a LOT of features in iOS 5 that Android had had for well over a year. But, as you have eloquently suggested, there are a finite amount of implementations, and when "the best" implementation is discovered, you should implement some version of it. Microsoft, for example, sees other's implementations and decide to try to be different, instead of just being good. They have become the "different for different's sake" company and they are failing. People don't want different, they want good.
It's not really a judge's job to make a statement about law he (or we) doesn't agree with. His job is to rule on the law AS IT EXISTS. Frankly I tire of the arguments (for and against) about US copyright. The laws are written. If you don't like them, get them changed. A judge is not the way to change the law.
Uhhh, yeah, sure. All I said was young people have grown up in an era of easy and simple electronic gadgets and don't care about how the backend works. Thanks for the philosophical public flogging, though.
Well you asked "what kind of person cares what a telephone looks like", and I was merely providing and answer...pretty much everyone. Sure it's a strange priority, but sales folks don't go on perceived priorities, they go on actual priorities.
I didn't say anything about how it works...I was merely responding to your contention that people don't care about what their gadgets look like. Your works great. Fine. Personally I've never seen one in the wild, and I know their sales numbers where smoked by iPods of the same time, so it seems pretty clear that people don't want ugly gadgets, regardless of how well they work.
I'm not denying the technology--I'm telling you the technology only helps in collecting and storing data, which, without human analysis, is not doing anything against your privacy. The speech recognition software simply isn't good enough because artificial intelligence is not good enough. People have been saying it will be any day now, since about 1988, when I first started.
People who haven't done the job don't understand (just like all the NSA middle management), that you can't just "buy more computers and stuff" and the problem solves itself and we don't need all those expensive humans and their nasty overhead. It takes human analysis. The computers are just make a more convenient storage and retrieval system for those humans.
That, plus where's my flying car, and isn't this the year of Linux on the desktop? So, tell me what's wrong with being jaded and underestimating the inevitability of technology again?
Slashdot Mirror
What Apple needs to do is start figuring out how to get themselves enterprise-friendly without losing their consumer market.
In engineering, EVERYTHING is about tradeoffs. You simply can't have a good enterprise experience AND a good consumer experience, so Apple (thankfully for me as a consumer) has leaned towards consumer. Sure there are some positive aspects of the consumer brand that could be incorporated into the enterprise environment, but for the most part, the two are mutually exclusive. This is why, in my opinion, Windows + x86 sucks as a consumer product. The money Microsoft makes from businesses is way more than their measly $300 here and there for Windows upgrades and Microsoft Office for the few dolts who haven't figured out you can be quite productive with a computer that uses neither.
A good example would be the continuum of security vs. usability. Somebody who thinks security is important, probably devalues usability, because you can't really have both.
No, Eric Clapton is dead...try to follow the conversation, sheesh.
The robust and established ecosystem of x86 applications provides the best customer experience at this time.
The exact opposite position all the other major players are taking. Well differentiation is ONE market strategy I suppose.
You can't opt out of ever getting sick or injured or otherwise needing medical attention for your entire lifetime.
Compelling reason for requiring health insurance, if you ask me.
This *is* the role of government. Fund the welfare of all its citizens. Fund it how? Taxes. Not sure they are in the business of charitable donations.
My wife does not approve of your post. I, on the other hand, am open to further exploration of the topic.
It existed, kinda, in XP, but it's much more flexible (and useful) in Windows 7.
"When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar.
Windows 7 is the first MS OS I like for this exact reason. Too bad it took 10 years to copy OS X.
"Other than gamers and office workers..."
Seems like a pretty large section of the populace to dismiss! They may be the only ones upgrading computers on a frequent basis, but I've noticed they are the only ones even using computers AT ALL anymore.
Haha, I'd be worried about the chance of success for anyone who uses their computer to "impress the chicks". That's right up there with "using my Magic the Gathering card collection to impress the chicks", or "using my Marvel comics collection to impress the chicks", or "using my sick calculus skills to impress the chicks".
But on a serious note, I've never felt the urgency to buy my personal computer based on my work/professional needs. The last thing I want to spend my own money on is something for work. That, in a nutshell, is why I've been a Mac user for a long time (even though my current company uses Macs exclusively...first time in 20 years of Mac using that I've had one at work, and it is great for all the reasons normally cited by users, multiplied 10-fold for all the additional quirks work requirements add). You know what I've NEVER had to do with my Mac at work? That's right, get up and walk over to the printer to see why my page didn't print. I've also never been locked out of my account because of a dumbass admin who can't manage Active Directory. The list is long.
I am an education professional with a graduate degree in Education Technology. Based on my review of the literature, and my own research, Bill Gates is absolutely correct in saying:
Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.
This part, however, is 100% opinion, and lacks the data to back his assertion:
And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input.
He's applying old paradigms from his comfort zone to modern learning. "Never" is a long time, Bill.
Until I personally suffer from any of those issues I'll continue to hold Apple products in high regard. There isn't enough evidence to support your claims (outside of they run hot and their server performance, which isn't important to me). I'm not saying your claims aren't true, only that they might be anecdotal and/or biased. I think anytime you work with massive quantities of something, you are bound to encounter the negatives you otherwise wouldn't have. Like having 50 Ferraris in my garage and two of them have intake manifold problems...doesn't detract from the awesomeness of the other 48 Ferraris.
Personal dislike of the OS is perfectly fine and a legitimate complaint. I have a feeling that 15 years of Windows indoctrination is really hard for many people to kick. (Not you per se, but in general).
I work in an environment of roughly 5000 Macs after years of working with Dell Shitbox 9000s. I don't know a single IT person here, but I knew the entire IT staff at Dell Shitbox company by first name. I've never been locked out of my AD account and my roaming profile has never become busted because of shitty admins not knowing what they are doing on top of questionable Windows OSes on dubious Dell commodity hardware.
The wording changed because of the recently added "sandboxing" built into the OS since Lion. This is not a step to distance the "Doesn't get PC Viruses" claim, it's updated marketing to advertise new features of the OS. So in addition to still not getting all those nasty viruses that PCs get (ostensibly), there are "built-in defenses" as well.
I think the slashdot hatesourcing is overthinking this (not you, per se, the comments in general.)
First Google search result: "Intel Looking Toward Retina Display PCs by 2013". Second result find HTC phone with similar display resolution (no mention of pixel density however) available now...only in Japan.
So...yes? Not saying PC or Android phones exist with "retina display" resolutions, just that they are doing a pretty bad job at making the consumer aware (if they do exist). See, that's where Apple get's it and the others are pretty bad. Apple is good at advertising, which pisses most of us off on slashdot, because we live in our mom's basement and don't have any money.
Because it's easy to exploit the registry in both Windows and Mac OS X! Oh wait...
Bad comparison. Think of it like this: what if Toyota's slide off the road in unintended acceleration on a weekly/monthly/semi-annual basis (my anecdotal PC experience) and Ford's slid off the road....once...in 25 years...and the fix was simple...
The platform is great (or not) irrespective of what idiot fan boys think. This is what I hate most about any conversation about Apple ever. I too am a Mac user (think they are great) and accept that malware is not impossible to get. I, however, am not the stereotypical hyper-logical binary slashdotter who doesn't realize that marketing is marketing and exists to try to get people to buy your stuff.
Whether a bunch of fanboi hipsters buy Macs or not, I'm still going to like my Mac, regardless what others think. People who hate Macs, for whatever reason, think I am trying to tell them how awesome my Mac is (really don't care what you think), or even worse, that I'm trying to IMPRESS you by purchasing something anyone else can also buy. Again, I don't really care what you think about my computer. I'm using it a public space, because, a) I have it with me, and b) there's free wi-fi. Not c) to try and impress all the chicks with my Macbook...but this is slashdot, so maybe that's the logical conclusion.
I have a feeling discussing technology with someone who wants to dismiss Apple's contributions is a bit pointless. If you think Apple copied Archos, you have some serous judgment issues. You can cite your Archos all you want, but I'll point you to 10+ years of consumer advocacy reviews that consistently put iPod, iPhone, iMac, and now iPad at the top of their respective categories. Not ALWAYS the best, but usually at the top. Feel free to dismiss Apple as well engineered, but overpriced tech if you want, but to claim there stuff isn't any good, detracts from your credibility, in my opinion.
No, I'm not saying "Droid is a cheap knock-off". I'm saying there are hundreds of cheap knock-offs trying to capitalize off Apple's innovations. Unless, of course, all those companies in the late 90s were furiously coming up with colored translucent plastics at the same time Apple were, and were just slower to market. Or all those laptops on the market that look strikingly like the Macbook Pro, but without the uni-body design or the thin and lightweight form-factor...cheap knock-offs, right down to the awful chiclet keyboards and awful trackpads that are nothing like the Macbook Pros.
No they weren't the first (not a point I was making or even arguing), but like the TS Elliot quote above, they didn't cheaply copy anyone...they made great products off of ideas that already existed and not just cheap knockoffs. Now everybody is making cheap knock-offs of Apple products (have you seen the iMac competition?).
I think your piece is even more relevant now than it was the first time you posted it. In the context of TS Elliot's quote, just look at all the "bad artist" imitators Apple has caused since the original iPod. Most anti-Apple folks will say Apple copied this or that, but if you stop and look back to the start of the iPod/OS X era, you find many more people copying Apple and very few examples of Apple copying the competition. The only area where Apple has dropped the ball in that regard is with iOS 4 to iOS 5. There were a LOT of features in iOS 5 that Android had had for well over a year. But, as you have eloquently suggested, there are a finite amount of implementations, and when "the best" implementation is discovered, you should implement some version of it. Microsoft, for example, sees other's implementations and decide to try to be different, instead of just being good. They have become the "different for different's sake" company and they are failing. People don't want different, they want good.
It's not really a judge's job to make a statement about law he (or we) doesn't agree with. His job is to rule on the law AS IT EXISTS. Frankly I tire of the arguments (for and against) about US copyright. The laws are written. If you don't like them, get them changed. A judge is not the way to change the law.
Uhhh, yeah, sure. All I said was young people have grown up in an era of easy and simple electronic gadgets and don't care about how the backend works. Thanks for the philosophical public flogging, though.
Well you asked "what kind of person cares what a telephone looks like", and I was merely providing and answer...pretty much everyone. Sure it's a strange priority, but sales folks don't go on perceived priorities, they go on actual priorities.
I didn't say anything about how it works...I was merely responding to your contention that people don't care about what their gadgets look like. Your works great. Fine. Personally I've never seen one in the wild, and I know their sales numbers where smoked by iPods of the same time, so it seems pretty clear that people don't want ugly gadgets, regardless of how well they work.
I'm not denying the technology--I'm telling you the technology only helps in collecting and storing data, which, without human analysis, is not doing anything against your privacy. The speech recognition software simply isn't good enough because artificial intelligence is not good enough. People have been saying it will be any day now, since about 1988, when I first started.
People who haven't done the job don't understand (just like all the NSA middle management), that you can't just "buy more computers and stuff" and the problem solves itself and we don't need all those expensive humans and their nasty overhead. It takes human analysis. The computers are just make a more convenient storage and retrieval system for those humans.
That, plus where's my flying car, and isn't this the year of Linux on the desktop? So, tell me what's wrong with being jaded and underestimating the inevitability of technology again?