Flash apps are ok, Flash video in a browser plug-in is the only thing Apple won't allow. I have several Flash apps that I've developed and sold to customers. We used Air packager to turn our existing training content into an app that you can run on the iPad. (The design is too big to run on a phone, but we're reworking that now).
My industry (rapid e-learning and software simulation training) is nearly 100% Flash. There really is no other option. Even the rapid e-learning powerpoint plug ins are all Flash based.
And this isn't even a bad thing, because it's a great tool for this use.
Meanwhile buried in all the media hyperbole about anything iPhone, Adobe has released an updated Adobe Air packager for iOS4 that not only allows you to play Flash content on an iPhone/iPad, but is also sanctioned by Apple.
Granted, it's not a Flash video plug in player, but the myth that Flash content is not available on iOS is just that. Also granted that you have to attach the compiler to your content AND run it through the App Store goat-rope-circus...
I have Baby3.0 (20 month old). His alarm works flawlessly.
My first two versions where heavily flawed. I suffered as an early adopter of Baby1.0 back in 1995. Then Baby2.0 came out in 1999...had the same broken features (notably more stuff comes out than goes in).
I guess none of you guys actually work in software development or have any idea how program management works.
You don't just hire more people (well, you do in the long run, but not for the short term).
And you DO steal devs from one team and put them on another. Companies are always trying to get more production out of the same number of employees. It sucks, but it's reality.
I didn't say they didn't have "enough" resources. I said that single player will suffer at the hands of PvP development....software engineering tradeoff.
To put it another way, if they used the slice of resources they are putting on PvP ALL on single player, the single player experience would be that much better. Companies don't replace people they put on side projects with new people. They just lose those resources, make due with what they have, and end up with two watered down projects instead of one solid project.
I was interested in this game for the single player campaigns. I'll probably still play it, but I get the feeling that the single player campaign will suffer at the hands of PvP development resources being used instead.
The iPods and iPhone have a little to do with this, but it has been this way since I first enrolled in college....in 1988.
It's more of a "I don't have time to mess around with my computer so I'll get a Mac" than a "iPods are really cool, so I'll get a Mac" thing.
It's also a "my parents have enough money to send me to college so they obviously have enough money to buy me a Macbook" thing.
Then there's the whole, "most of my friends will also have a Mac, and most of the campus infrastructure is set up for Macs" thing.
Universities have always had a skewed proportion of Macs, just like Macs are over represented amongst educated people (in comparison to the general population).
Let's rewind. I'm merely suggesting there are grounds to be skeptical about the claim that Win 7 is the "fastest selling OS ever" at the CONSUMER level (which is what this entire discussion was about, I thought). My post is also an indictment of the lazy headline journalism that is so prevalent.
I suggest so because nobody provided any evidence to contradict my claim that consumers are not lining up en mass to purchase Win 7. Call me skeptical, but if it is the fastest selling OS, then it would stand to reason that I should know at least ONE person who has purchased Win 7 on their own. I don't. I work for a software company that employs 500 people and at a community college (I teach tech products). I'm not saying 0 people have purchased Win 7, I'm just saying the claims seem to be overstated and skewed by corporate sales.
Sure enough, when I google Win 7 sales, they all mention the "fastest selling" or whatever, but none of the articles cite individual sales. I am to assume, based on history, that the sales are based on Microsoft selling a billion licenses to Dell, for example. Or hell, 500 copies to my small company, then multiplied by the thousands of companies just like mine. It stands to reason that many companies skipped Vista due to it not being very good, so obviously more companies are buying a MS OS now (especially with the death of XP support looming).
So no, I don't have my head in the sand. Indeed, the sales figures for Win7 are cooked to appear more "popular" than it really is and/or people are misconstruing the numbers to fit their desires (hey, I want Win7 to be really popular too because it's really good. i would go so far to consider myself an advocate and encourage everyone on a PC to upgrade). Corporate sales are just that, and not an indication of consumer popularity.
And sorry, your last link is blocked at work. Perhaps it has some definitive sales figures that I keep asking for, but am not getting.
I'm asking simply...have a quarter of a billion stand alone versions of Win7 been sold, or is the majority of that sales number is OEM/bundled licenses?
Surely 250 million people have not paid $150+ dollars just to get a copy of Win7.
And that makes sense, because it's engineering. My question is why does everyone claim that their Run-of-the-Mill-State-Liberal-Arts-University runs Windows, when my experience is the exact opposite. Just sayin', most people haven't spent as much time in and working for Universities as I have, so it is an odd claim to make. (Yes, I understand the logical flaw of appeal to authority I just made, but it's a valid one).
By "niche" product, I mean most people don't have a need for an Xbox360. It's a solid product in its niche, however. Your iPhone comment is irrelevant.
"Fastest selling OS ever?" That is news to me. Might well be true, but I'm not sure the global explosion of sales of PCs (due to historic low prices) pre-bundled with Win7 is any indication of Win7's success. How many people ran out to Best Buy to get their copy of Win7 when it came out? How many are doing so now? I bet, at the consumer level, more people have purchased Leopard/Snow Leopard than all versions of Win7 (not purchased a computer with a Win7 license already on it). I could be wrong...it's happened before. Too lazy to find sources.
Personally I think Win7 is great, and would upgrade in a heartbeat if I used Windows computers.
And plopping in your Wordstar file from the 1980s is EXACTLY what is wrong with Microsoft. You have to cut your losses and start from scratch at some point. Otherwise you get an unwieldy beast of new and old technologies...none of which work well because of it. How much money can you make supporting legacy software, compared to the amount of innovation you lose while trying to support the legacy stuff?
Our product at work was developed for WinXP (and worked in NT and 2000 and 95/98). It broke in Vista so we made a Vista version. Now it's broke in Win7. So much for backwards compatibility.
No, there are people who's PERCEPTION is that the market dictates it. I made lots of money for 1995-2005 using zero Microsoft products in the tech industry (Macs and Macromedia + Adobe).
The market dictates you need a tool to access email, write a document, or produce a spreadsheet. Consumers dictate which product they THINK they have to have.
Just curious as what kind of Universities you people hang out at? I've graduated from three Universities (Penn State in 1998, Manchester in 2005, then Texas in 2009) and they all were overwhelmingly (9 of every 10 computers) Mac OS based (at least in the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, and Education, respectively)
The community college system that I work in uses Windows for some administrative stuff, but the academic side is nearly 100% OSX as well. Ditto for Texas State University down the road.
And before you dismiss this as Hoidy-Toidy Mac-usin College Folk...this is Texas, after all.
How different is iOS from OSX at the guts level? I think they are different, but where Apple is smarter than Microsoft, they developed a desktop OS that would be easy to scale down to a phone or tablet.
Microsoft is too deathly afraid to cut ties with old and outdated technologies for fear of losing their legacy customer. Sometimes you have to drop everything and start from scratch. You have to take risk (something Microsoft seem averse to) and take temporary hits in order to reap greater rewards later. Think of OSX in 2001 compared to now. They played lip services to OS9 users, but then pretty much set a drop-dead date. People move on and it's not a big deal, even though Microsoft seems to think it is. You have to spend money to make money.
Microsoft only wants to keep making money of the money they spent 20 years ago. I imagine in 20 years when everyone has moved on to hydrogen cell cars, Microsoft will be the lone producer of petrol-based cars. But they will be the sole provider of gasoline as well, so they'll still be rich.
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Flash apps are ok, Flash video in a browser plug-in is the only thing Apple won't allow. I have several Flash apps that I've developed and sold to customers. We used Air packager to turn our existing training content into an app that you can run on the iPad. (The design is too big to run on a phone, but we're reworking that now).
http://labs.adobe.com/technologie/packagerforiphone/
My industry (rapid e-learning and software simulation training) is nearly 100% Flash. There really is no other option. Even the rapid e-learning powerpoint plug ins are all Flash based.
And this isn't even a bad thing, because it's a great tool for this use.
Flash videos could not and still cannot be played on iOS devices.
This is not true. You can run Flash videos on all iOS devices, just not in a browser:
We do want to point out that Apple’s restriction on Flash content running in the browser on iOS devices remains in place.
However, you can run Flash on the iPhone with the Air packager using any Flash project written with Action Script 3.0:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/packagerforiphone/
Meanwhile buried in all the media hyperbole about anything iPhone, Adobe has released an updated Adobe Air packager for iOS4 that not only allows you to play Flash content on an iPhone/iPad, but is also sanctioned by Apple.
Granted, it's not a Flash video plug in player, but the myth that Flash content is not available on iOS is just that. Also granted that you have to attach the compiler to your content AND run it through the App Store goat-rope-circus...
The SCROTUM will be out in full force voting today (shudder)
I have Baby3.0 (20 month old). His alarm works flawlessly.
My first two versions where heavily flawed. I suffered as an early adopter of Baby1.0 back in 1995. Then Baby2.0 came out in 1999...had the same broken features (notably more stuff comes out than goes in).
No, I don't know anything about this stuff. I just know how to use Google and Wikipedia.
Which commonly results in the most insightful and well constructed arguments around these places! Well played, sir.
I am not an engineer, but is it commonly accepted for "engine" to mean "internal combustion" or "petrol"-driven motor?
Can't an engine run on a fuel source other than petroleum based products, or does "engine" imply exactly that?
Thanks,
Not-an-engineer, Stewbacca.
I guess none of you guys actually work in software development or have any idea how program management works.
You don't just hire more people (well, you do in the long run, but not for the short term).
And you DO steal devs from one team and put them on another. Companies are always trying to get more production out of the same number of employees. It sucks, but it's reality.
I didn't say they didn't have "enough" resources. I said that single player will suffer at the hands of PvP development....software engineering tradeoff.
To put it another way, if they used the slice of resources they are putting on PvP ALL on single player, the single player experience would be that much better. Companies don't replace people they put on side projects with new people. They just lose those resources, make due with what they have, and end up with two watered down projects instead of one solid project.
Why the emphasis on PvP??
I was interested in this game for the single player campaigns. I'll probably still play it, but I get the feeling that the single player campaign will suffer at the hands of PvP development resources being used instead.
I don't think I'm in the minority here when I saw that ending coming about 10 episodes out.
Still loved the series and was surprised that they made such an obvious ending.
The iPods and iPhone have a little to do with this, but it has been this way since I first enrolled in college....in 1988.
It's more of a "I don't have time to mess around with my computer so I'll get a Mac" than a "iPods are really cool, so I'll get a Mac" thing.
It's also a "my parents have enough money to send me to college so they obviously have enough money to buy me a Macbook" thing.
Then there's the whole, "most of my friends will also have a Mac, and most of the campus infrastructure is set up for Macs" thing.
Universities have always had a skewed proportion of Macs, just like Macs are over represented amongst educated people (in comparison to the general population).
Failed Sustainability of the Cable Model?
How about the failed sustainability of a bad spin-off of a great series?
Woah...no need to be argumentative.
Let's rewind. I'm merely suggesting there are grounds to be skeptical about the claim that Win 7 is the "fastest selling OS ever" at the CONSUMER level (which is what this entire discussion was about, I thought). My post is also an indictment of the lazy headline journalism that is so prevalent.
I suggest so because nobody provided any evidence to contradict my claim that consumers are not lining up en mass to purchase Win 7. Call me skeptical, but if it is the fastest selling OS, then it would stand to reason that I should know at least ONE person who has purchased Win 7 on their own. I don't. I work for a software company that employs 500 people and at a community college (I teach tech products). I'm not saying 0 people have purchased Win 7, I'm just saying the claims seem to be overstated and skewed by corporate sales.
Sure enough, when I google Win 7 sales, they all mention the "fastest selling" or whatever, but none of the articles cite individual sales. I am to assume, based on history, that the sales are based on Microsoft selling a billion licenses to Dell, for example. Or hell, 500 copies to my small company, then multiplied by the thousands of companies just like mine. It stands to reason that many companies skipped Vista due to it not being very good, so obviously more companies are buying a MS OS now (especially with the death of XP support looming).
So no, I don't have my head in the sand. Indeed, the sales figures for Win7 are cooked to appear more "popular" than it really is and/or people are misconstruing the numbers to fit their desires (hey, I want Win7 to be really popular too because it's really good. i would go so far to consider myself an advocate and encourage everyone on a PC to upgrade). Corporate sales are just that, and not an indication of consumer popularity.
And sorry, your last link is blocked at work. Perhaps it has some definitive sales figures that I keep asking for, but am not getting.
I never said MS was in trouble.
If you'd like to point me to some facts that there will MILLIONS of pre-orders, I'd happily accept them. I seemed to have missed this massive launch.
So instead of just saying its the fastest selling of all time, how about giving us skeptics something to go on?
I'm asking simply...have a quarter of a billion stand alone versions of Win7 been sold, or is the majority of that sales number is OEM/bundled licenses?
Surely 250 million people have not paid $150+ dollars just to get a copy of Win7.
Since most people don't upgrade their OS by buying Windows in a box they will move to Win7 when their hardware dies.
Exactly. Which is why I have a hard time accepting the other guy's contention that Win7 is the fastest selling OS ever.
And that makes sense, because it's engineering. My question is why does everyone claim that their Run-of-the-Mill-State-Liberal-Arts-University runs Windows, when my experience is the exact opposite. Just sayin', most people haven't spent as much time in and working for Universities as I have, so it is an odd claim to make. (Yes, I understand the logical flaw of appeal to authority I just made, but it's a valid one).
By "niche" product, I mean most people don't have a need for an Xbox360. It's a solid product in its niche, however. Your iPhone comment is irrelevant.
"Fastest selling OS ever?" That is news to me. Might well be true, but I'm not sure the global explosion of sales of PCs (due to historic low prices) pre-bundled with Win7 is any indication of Win7's success. How many people ran out to Best Buy to get their copy of Win7 when it came out? How many are doing so now? I bet, at the consumer level, more people have purchased Leopard/Snow Leopard than all versions of Win7 (not purchased a computer with a Win7 license already on it). I could be wrong...it's happened before. Too lazy to find sources.
Personally I think Win7 is great, and would upgrade in a heartbeat if I used Windows computers.
And plopping in your Wordstar file from the 1980s is EXACTLY what is wrong with Microsoft. You have to cut your losses and start from scratch at some point. Otherwise you get an unwieldy beast of new and old technologies...none of which work well because of it. How much money can you make supporting legacy software, compared to the amount of innovation you lose while trying to support the legacy stuff?
Our product at work was developed for WinXP (and worked in NT and 2000 and 95/98). It broke in Vista so we made a Vista version. Now it's broke in Win7. So much for backwards compatibility.
Until the day I dont see the windows logo every time I boot my PC, then I will consider Microsoft dead
I dont see that happening in many years
If that's the criteria, then Microsoft has been dead since 1993 for me.
No, there are people who's PERCEPTION is that the market dictates it. I made lots of money for 1995-2005 using zero Microsoft products in the tech industry (Macs and Macromedia + Adobe).
The market dictates you need a tool to access email, write a document, or produce a spreadsheet. Consumers dictate which product they THINK they have to have.
Just curious as what kind of Universities you people hang out at? I've graduated from three Universities (Penn State in 1998, Manchester in 2005, then Texas in 2009) and they all were overwhelmingly (9 of every 10 computers) Mac OS based (at least in the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, and Education, respectively)
The community college system that I work in uses Windows for some administrative stuff, but the academic side is nearly 100% OSX as well. Ditto for Texas State University down the road.
And before you dismiss this as Hoidy-Toidy Mac-usin College Folk...this is Texas, after all.
How different is iOS from OSX at the guts level? I think they are different, but where Apple is smarter than Microsoft, they developed a desktop OS that would be easy to scale down to a phone or tablet.
Microsoft is too deathly afraid to cut ties with old and outdated technologies for fear of losing their legacy customer. Sometimes you have to drop everything and start from scratch. You have to take risk (something Microsoft seem averse to) and take temporary hits in order to reap greater rewards later. Think of OSX in 2001 compared to now. They played lip services to OS9 users, but then pretty much set a drop-dead date. People move on and it's not a big deal, even though Microsoft seems to think it is. You have to spend money to make money.
Microsoft only wants to keep making money of the money they spent 20 years ago. I imagine in 20 years when everyone has moved on to hydrogen cell cars, Microsoft will be the lone producer of petrol-based cars. But they will be the sole provider of gasoline as well, so they'll still be rich.
Or more likely, Microsoft stopped paying them mention them in their ads.