Sorry, but you're the one not making sense. You think Apple got strong armed by a carrier? Apple? When releasing one of the most anticipated phones in history? You think that carriers weren't beating down Apple's door to support this phone? Thinking that Apple was forced to pick one is, well, just naive. To think that it was Apple bending to the demands of a carrier is just foolish. Apple was the one with the power, they were the one releasing a hot new product that people were going to go nuts waiting for. The one with the power is the one that makes the demands, not the other way around.
I know all you Apple fans want to believe that they could never do anything this...MIcrosofty, but as has been said, they are a company and they are out to make money.
Well, I've only been using Safari for an hour or so and have found that it can't play the videos at http://arresteddevelopment.msn.com/
This is a site that works in both Firefox and IE. I'm not trying to suggest that things like e-bay wont work, it will be things like embedded video or Media Player integration that will get people. Or smalltime sites for local businesses that are too lazy to check that their style sheets work in IE and everything else.
I have to say, the ability for Mac fans to deny reality constantly amazes me.
Keep something in mind; windows users don't have a hard-on for Apple. If they start using Safari they will almost certainly, and quickly, come across web sites that render wrong in any non-IE browser. They will say "Screw this" and go right back to IE. It doesn't matter to them that the reason the site is rendered wrong is that IE is often non-standards compliant and developing for IE often means that your page wont look right in standards compliant browsers without a LOT of work. All the average user sees is that it works in IE and not Safari.
"They're doing exactly what Microsoft has always wanted to do -- dominate an entire ecosystem from desktops to laptops to mobile to the television."
Dominate doesn't seem like quite the right word for what Apple does. Barely exist seems to fit much more.
"This is what Bill Gates has been trying to do for the past 20 years, and Apple has done it in just about 5. It's an incredibly smart move on Apple's part, and a major blow to Microsoft's hegemonic ambitions."
Done what exactly? Release products that the vast majority of the computing population will never use? Getting more widespread use only benefits you when you have a superior product. Like I said before, the problems the average user will have with Safari will only confirm that they are making the right choice by sticking with Microsoft. Also, considering that the iPhone hasn't even been released yet I would say that it's a little early to make the statement that they are dominating that market. Personally, I don't know a single person planning to buy one.
All these people may *say* they wont upgrade to vista but what they mean is that they wont go to the store and buy vista. That's not a big surprise, I'm betting most users *never* buy an OS at the store, they use what comes on their computer. By the time the OS that comes with their computer is no longer supported by MS it's time for them to buy a new computer anyways. For the people that just bought a computer they probably wont get Vista because they wont need something new for years, for those that are still sporting Win2k or an XP system that's years old they will be getting Vista pretty soon. Surveys like this don't reflect how many people will be using Vista at all, it doesn't really reflect much of anything, kinda pointless.
"is anyone else disturbed that unwavering belief in the theory of evolution has become a litmus test for intelligence?"
Not really, mostly because I've never encountered this. In the world of science, you know...*real* science, unwavering belief is generally looked down upon. If you can bring actual reasons to the table to call evolution into question people will generally listen to them, and I think that the crowd that believes in evolution has been more than accommodating when it comes to listening to cock and bull crackpot refutations of evolution (no matter how long you shake a box of electrical components you'll never get a radio to fall out...) However when it comes down to it I've never once heard a real reason that evolution can't exist. Keep in mind that God may well have created everything and evolution can still be possible. So, in conclusion the litmus test you describe really only applies to people that argue non-reasons for why evolution can't work, people that have no idea what they're talking about and talk as if they've studied the subject and have come to solid conclusions.
Lets be frank, the state of the majority of open source projects doesn't even come close to commercial software in terms of end-user eye candy and ease of use. Not to mention that interoperability with Microsoft software is spotty at best (anyone that's had to support OpenOffice users knows what I'm talking about). There's just as much chance that people are going to fire up the open source counterpart to apps they use, find that their documents don't display correctly in it, and conclude that OSS is a waste of their time.
This has always been the big problem with Linux and OSS in general, usability and eye-candy is always something for later. It's always put off and never made a real priority. Then when non-computer nerds see OSS apps they see things that look like throwbacks to Windows 95, or hell, even 3.1. Remember, average users aren't impressed by things like a small memory footprint, a non-restrictive EULA, or even the fact that the software is open source (they don't even know what the hell that means). They see the fact that free programs can't open their documents correctly, drag and drop doesn't always work like it should, the icons normally look ugly...
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Riker selling some software...
Sorry, but you're the one not making sense. You think Apple got strong armed by a carrier? Apple? When releasing one of the most anticipated phones in history? You think that carriers weren't beating down Apple's door to support this phone? Thinking that Apple was forced to pick one is, well, just naive. To think that it was Apple bending to the demands of a carrier is just foolish. Apple was the one with the power, they were the one releasing a hot new product that people were going to go nuts waiting for. The one with the power is the one that makes the demands, not the other way around. I know all you Apple fans want to believe that they could never do anything this...MIcrosofty, but as has been said, they are a company and they are out to make money.
Well, I've only been using Safari for an hour or so and have found that it can't play the videos at http://arresteddevelopment.msn.com/
This is a site that works in both Firefox and IE. I'm not trying to suggest that things like e-bay wont work, it will be things like embedded video or Media Player integration that will get people. Or smalltime sites for local businesses that are too lazy to check that their style sheets work in IE and everything else.
I have to say, the ability for Mac fans to deny reality constantly amazes me.
Keep something in mind; windows users don't have a hard-on for Apple. If they start using Safari they will almost certainly, and quickly, come across web sites that render wrong in any non-IE browser. They will say "Screw this" and go right back to IE. It doesn't matter to them that the reason the site is rendered wrong is that IE is often non-standards compliant and developing for IE often means that your page wont look right in standards compliant browsers without a LOT of work. All the average user sees is that it works in IE and not Safari.
"They're doing exactly what Microsoft has always wanted to do -- dominate an entire ecosystem from desktops to laptops to mobile to the television."
Dominate doesn't seem like quite the right word for what Apple does. Barely exist seems to fit much more.
"This is what Bill Gates has been trying to do for the past 20 years, and Apple has done it in just about 5. It's an incredibly smart move on Apple's part, and a major blow to Microsoft's hegemonic ambitions."
Done what exactly? Release products that the vast majority of the computing population will never use? Getting more widespread use only benefits you when you have a superior product. Like I said before, the problems the average user will have with Safari will only confirm that they are making the right choice by sticking with Microsoft. Also, considering that the iPhone hasn't even been released yet I would say that it's a little early to make the statement that they are dominating that market. Personally, I don't know a single person planning to buy one.
All these people may *say* they wont upgrade to vista but what they mean is that they wont go to the store and buy vista. That's not a big surprise, I'm betting most users *never* buy an OS at the store, they use what comes on their computer. By the time the OS that comes with their computer is no longer supported by MS it's time for them to buy a new computer anyways. For the people that just bought a computer they probably wont get Vista because they wont need something new for years, for those that are still sporting Win2k or an XP system that's years old they will be getting Vista pretty soon. Surveys like this don't reflect how many people will be using Vista at all, it doesn't really reflect much of anything, kinda pointless.
"is anyone else disturbed that unwavering belief in the theory of evolution has become a litmus test for intelligence?"
Not really, mostly because I've never encountered this. In the world of science, you know...*real* science, unwavering belief is generally looked down upon. If you can bring actual reasons to the table to call evolution into question people will generally listen to them, and I think that the crowd that believes in evolution has been more than accommodating when it comes to listening to cock and bull crackpot refutations of evolution (no matter how long you shake a box of electrical components you'll never get a radio to fall out...) However when it comes down to it I've never once heard a real reason that evolution can't exist. Keep in mind that God may well have created everything and evolution can still be possible. So, in conclusion the litmus test you describe really only applies to people that argue non-reasons for why evolution can't work, people that have no idea what they're talking about and talk as if they've studied the subject and have come to solid conclusions.
Lets be frank, the state of the majority of open source projects doesn't even come close to commercial software in terms of end-user eye candy and ease of use. Not to mention that interoperability with Microsoft software is spotty at best (anyone that's had to support OpenOffice users knows what I'm talking about). There's just as much chance that people are going to fire up the open source counterpart to apps they use, find that their documents don't display correctly in it, and conclude that OSS is a waste of their time. This has always been the big problem with Linux and OSS in general, usability and eye-candy is always something for later. It's always put off and never made a real priority. Then when non-computer nerds see OSS apps they see things that look like throwbacks to Windows 95, or hell, even 3.1. Remember, average users aren't impressed by things like a small memory footprint, a non-restrictive EULA, or even the fact that the software is open source (they don't even know what the hell that means). They see the fact that free programs can't open their documents correctly, drag and drop doesn't always work like it should, the icons normally look ugly...