Are they also going back and wiping any reference to earthquakes and tsunamis? So far, tens of thousands have been confirmed to have died to those events, but we don't feel the need to be sensitive about that. But a nuclear accident that hasn't killed anyone is worth rewriting history of a comedy cartoon? It's not like the jokes were made at the expense of the current situation, being that they have existed for years.
I never did understand the removal of the twin towers from things either. Do we really want to show our respect to those that passed by trying to erase any mention or footage of the buildings?
EFI has nothing to do with it, as all Macs use the BIOS compatibility later to support and run Windows. Microsoft requires EFI 2.0 to use the EFI boot feature of Windows Vista and 7, and Apple has stuck with version 1.1.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1846 has a list of hardware Apple officially supports 64 bit Windows on. If it's a 2008 MacBook Pro, it might be supported. If it's the standard MacBook, just 32 bit, but that should be fine for his wife to use based on the needs put forth in the question.
Haven't really felt the need for USB 3 for hard drives, as I bought an enclosure with USB 2, Firewire 800 and eSATA a while back. Really a shame Firewire didn't take off, since it brought most of the benefits of USB 3 to machines ages ago. Lower CPU usage, device to device transfers, and the spec was prepared to jump to 1600mbit then 3200mbit using the same 800 connector. 1600 (200MB/s) would have been plenty of headroom for hard drives. USB 3 speeds that outpace FW3200 are only useful once you have a newer SSD in the mix, or a decently sized RAID of hard drives.
Looking farther back, I always figured USB would remain in the realm of low speed peripherals (keyboards, etc), and Firewire would be the high speed bus. USB (until 3) is just so CPU heavy at times to be really annoying.
The difference here is that historically, Google has released the source in a somewhat timely manner. This has then allowed people to grab the source and begin working on custom ROMs for older devices to bring them up to speed. A Galaxy Tab owner could in theory bring their device up to 3.0 and continue to use the new apps. But because of this delay, those users will be stuck both officially and unofficially.
It's not a FOSS product, so some people will call it proprietary for that reason alone. It's also proprietary in the way it stores photos, using a custom database for organization. The DB part doesn't bother me much, since there isn't a "standard" for photo management, but some people may prefer date stamped folders or something more hands on with the files.
In a way, yes. If a developer writes an app targeting the specific Tablet Android SDK (aka 3.0), then the 2.2 owners get hosed with access to actual tablet apps. The people I feel really bad for are the ones who were suckered into buying a Galaxy Tab with a contract for 2 years of service. They may not see anything new just 6 months after the device came out.
I'll admit I haven't paid close attention to the previous release delays between when Google and a partner ships Android on a phone, and when it hits their open source repository. If this is a normal trend of theirs, then overall I'd say it's not very open. Palm/HP seem to be doing a better job with WebOS being open as far as ship/source release, and they don't beat people over the head with "Open" messages.
As far as release early and often vs waiting for something more stable, I just want Google to stay consistent with their messaging. If they want to claim Android is open, the source should have been available when the Google experience Xoom shipped. If Honeycomb wasn't ready, the Xoom shouldn't have shipped, and then they could have kept the source close to improve it.
My personal feelings is that a device marketed towards consumers should ship when it's ready, especially ones that tie people to contracts if they take a subsidized version. I think if Google moved away from the early and often mentality, it would help the Android image greatly. The G1 was a joke, and abandoned early, with official updates never bringing it beyond 1.6. I'm betting the same fate for the Samsung Tab, and Google willingly let Samsung ship it with the Marketplace for some reason. Even if they want to keep Android open and let anyone use it, they could exercise more control over the Marketplace and other Google apps, to ensure that "with Google" devices are always known to the consumers as the premiere products to go for.
Your comments do pretty much sum it up. There is nothing wrong with a corporation looking out for their best interests. But when they enjoy bashing their competitors over the head with "open" frequently, they better back those insults up with actions on their side. Keeping Honeycomb closed well over a month after the first tier tablets shipped with it isn't "open".
WebOS is also "open", and 2.1.0 was released on March 14th. The source code is also available, not sure when it's posted, but already thats sooner then people have their hands on shipping Honeycomb code.
Google really needs to decide then how they want to proceed, instead of sending mixed signals. They enjoy beating their competitors over the head with "Open", and decide not to be open. This to me wouldn't be such a big deal had Google not made it such a big deal in the past.
Honeycomb, aka Android 3.0 is shipping, and has been for over a month now. There is no excuse in the proper "Open" spirit for this at all. If Google wants to start closing down Android and taking more control, then they should say as much and do so. I'll take this move as the first step down that path, and hopefully Google stops using "Open" as a description of Android in the future to reflect the change.
This move also shows how Honeycomb was indeed rushed to production just to try and beat the new iPad. Competition is good, up until the point you harm your own product in a clear money grab attempt. The long term damage to the Android image isn't worth that initial rush, but they went for it anyhow. Every review I read about the Xoom mentioned numerous app crashes and hangs.
Yes, I mean iPhoto. Been using it since version 1 from January 2002. Back when cameras all hadn't standardized on ways to transfer photos to a computer, and most people were doing all the file management by hand. I plug in a camera, iPhoto launches, and offers to import. I can organize them into albums, and over time events, places, faces and smart albums were added to make it better. Features have also been added to let me share the photos to web sites, via e-mail, Facebook, and other places. All without ever having to manage the files directly.
And at any time I can extract out all my initial jpeg imported images out of the library this "bit of proprietary software" created and move to another program if I need to. So far that hasn't happened. I have poked at Picassa and had fun with the face movie feature, and I am glad to see the competition. It's just not quite enough to move me away from the solutions I have now that work for me.
iPhoto was one of the programs that helped me understand "The Mac way" early on, and I've come to appreciate it. With iLife apps, Spotlight, and other features, I don't manage files. I manage my content. In doing so, it's helped me realize what a proper consumer based system should look like. While the free software folks have been busy over the past decade arguing over licenses and what free and open mean, I've been bringing the joys of computing to my family members, including my elderly grandparents thanks to the consumer nature of OS X. I've given up on caring about using proprietary vs open software long ago, and instead pick what works well. In some cases it's FOSS software, in others it's free but closed software, and other times it's paid closed software.
I'm still a supporter of Linux, and continue to use it as a server OS. But I'm not prepared to switch to it as a desktop OS, nor would I even think of switching my family over. Ultimately practicality wins out for me these days over idealism.
"year of the Linux Desktop" is what pushed me to OS X 10 years ago. Red Hat was touting that line, while Apple was providing their first attempt at a Unix desktop. I wanted to get off Windows, and Apple provided the better path for me when I compared it side by side to Linux desktops of the time. 10 years later, the Linux desktop has gotten better, but not enough to sway me away from OS X.
Definitely don't regret the decision. I have out of the box IPv6 based secure tunneling between all my machines now by check marking a box, all my photos in an app that lets me organize them well, a decent selection of games (still not as big as Windows, but it has gotten much better in recent years), and all the unix tools I want waiting for me in Terminal.app. All in a powerful, quiet and well built hardware platform too.
iTunes is bundled with every Mac. It's not bundled with anything else though. When you buy an iPod, iPhone or iPad, you have to manually download iTunes if you use something other then OS X. A number of years ago, iTunes was also bundled with HP computers via a mutual business agreement to allow HP to sell HP branded iPods. iTunes sued to be bundled with iPods as well, via a CD in the package.
Keep in mind bundling is different in this case though vs when Microsoft was doing it. Apple iTunes has only been bundled with Apple products or with a company they had an agreement with. Microsoft IE was forced to be bundled with Dell computers, or Compaq, etc due to their agreement to buy OEM copies of Windows. If the OEM (Dell/Compaq etc) didn't want IE, or wanted to hide it and instead bundle Netscape Navigator, Microsoft penalized the OEM. And this was after Microsoft had already been in trouble for forcing OEMs to buy a copy of Windows for every machine they shipped, even if it was loaded with a different OS such as OS/2 Warp.
That problem exist today already with T-Mobile and AT&T if you have a smartphone. They use incompatible 3G frequencies, and only now after years of 3G is there hope of a unified cellular chip to run on both frequency sets. So even if you did want to switch to another GSM provider, you still had to look at new hardware.
LTE requires SIMs too. Currently, Verizon's LTE network is data only, with voice still going over their CDMA network. This will change in time to have voice also going over LTE.
I gave up hope on the mobile industry in the US long ago. When T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't even use compatible frequencies for 3G, the hope of cross carrier compatibility died a long time ago. GSM is only great when you can buy an unlocked phone, choose a provider and pop in a SIM, then change on a whim while paying lower monthly prices due to the lack of a subsidy. This is one of the many benefits Europeans enjoy, along with good roaming agreements to ensure they can make a call even if their own provider doesn't cover the area well. I still look back to 2004 when I had an unlocked Sony Ericsson phone from T-Mobile that I used in Europe for a bit. Bought a SIM in London, traveled into the Netherlands, around Germany and a bit into Switzerland. At one point, my phone saw 9 different providers it was willing to use for emergency calls, and 4 or so of those it was willing to roam on for everything else.
Since none of those benefits ever came to the US, I hold some hope in that this merger will bring some good. AT&T is pledging a bigger LTE rollout, including to rural parts of the US. This is desperately needed, as many rural areas have dial up and satellite based options only. Dialup is near unusable these days, and satellite adds too much latency, negating benefits from Web 2.0 based sites, and conferencing/communication software. Low caps also prevent rural users from taking advantage of services like Netflix.
Once iOS gains WebKit 2, this issue should go away. Development activity is pretty rapid right now, so there may be a big push to have this done for iOS 5. A story on Ars indicates bugs about web apps not using the new Nitro engine were closed with "not to be fixed by exec order". Based on that, I'm guessing the following occurred:
Apple execs wanted web browsing to be faster on iOS, by taking advantage of the same tech that is being used to accelerate browsers on the desktop. They also wanted to maintain the secure environment in iOS, and bring more security to the OS X side. WebKit 2 had been in development internally for a little while, and was opened up to the public for contributions in April 2010. Google, and others have been making major contributions to it, and development is proceeding.
Apple also had plans to release the iPad 2, along with an eventual iPhone 5 and new iPod Touch featuring dual core processors. iOS 5 is too far out, so iOS 4.3 had a lot of development effort spent on making MobileSafari faster. Because WebKit 2 wasn't ready, security wasn't ready to open it up to the world, and the decision was made to do what they could in the time frame allowed, and make it open to other developers later.
The "not to be fixed by exec order" is likely in place to prevent engineers from wasting time on trying to bring new improvements to old frameworks, and instead keeping engineers focused on finishing iOS 5, possibly with WebKit 2 in time for the iPhone 5 release this summer.
Apple is a hardware company (as far as where the majority of their profits come from), and so software development relating to iOS will always be driven by hardware release cycles. They may slip features from software, but key pieces have to be in place to meet the hardware cycle. It's looking like March will be new iPad time, June for iPhones, then September for iPods. iPads will debut new CPUs, iPhones will debut new major iOS releases and some other features (gyroscope, possibly NFC, etc), and iPods will just be a phoneless iPhone. Each release comes with a new iOS, iPad being a final point release of the previous iOS, iPhone being the new one, then iPods gaining the first point release of the new OS.
Re:Good non hype link, now do that for more storie
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Lets see, Chernobyl was an accident where the entire reactor blew open, and threw nuclear fuel all over the site. The building was also on fire for days, and the Russian government was trying to hide the accident until radiation detectors in Sweden detected a problem. Yeah, it spread a ton of really bad radiation and particles around because of it, and it was the worst nuclear power disaster in history, behind the disasters of intentionally setting off bombs.
In Japan, only the outer containment buildings have blown up, and yes there is some damage to the inner building and reactors inside. The nuclear fuel is still well contained, even in the storage pools, isn't active at the levels the Chernobyl fuel was, and fires at the site have been short lived.
Huge difference. And yes, as of today, a full week after the initial earthquake, and several days after spikes in radiation, very minute readable amounts have made it to the US. This radiation is not harmful in the quantities present, as it has long since dispersed, and doesn't contain any of the particles really dangerous to human health. Those iodide pills people are taking are still doing 0 good, but to present health risks for other reasons to those using them.
Odds are today you will encounter more radiation by simply driving in the smog covered city, or walking by a microwave then you would from the incident in Japan. Radiation is a fact of life, and would be even if we didn't have any technology or industry. There is a difference between radiation and deadly radiation.
And this whole panicked response from ZDRuX sadly proves my point about the echo chamber.
If you want to do some honest research, instead of looking at the worst power disaster and extrapolating, start here:
http://mitnse.com/page/2/ - Scroll to the bottom and read the oldest, then read the newer stories. It's constantly being updated, and has been a great source of non hyped, overreaction based news about the situation.
Re:Good non hype link, now do that for more storie
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For California residents near the two nuclear plants (of which I am), it makes sense as a precaution. Flyers were even sent in the mail about it last spring, offering free tablets to stash in emergency kits. But this is all for being prepared in case of a local disaster, not one hundreds of miles across a vast ocean.
Something tells me the surgeon general hasn't been properly briefed on the situation, especially considering her comments about being unaware that people are stocking up. Yes, it's bad, but it's not at a scale where anyone should be concerned on the western US coast. There are already people not only buying the tablets, but making use of them. Doing so brings zero benefit, but can cause side effects, some far more harmful then any potential risk from Japan.
The OS X desktop doesn't have menu animations for the exact reason you pointed it out, they slow things down. It does have animations in places where it makes sense and helps interaction. Take the minimize effect. It "sucks" the window into the new position into the dock. It's quick, and it also shows you were the window went, so you have a reference on where to go to get it back.
About the only true "showy" eye candy I can think of in OS X is the Time Machine star field. That is a bit over the top. Beyond that, all the animations on OS X and iOS exist for a logical reason, none of which are meant to slow you down. Instead they provide you proper visual queues to help speed things up.
The eye candy I've seen on Linux and Windows does point to it being mostly showy eye candy with little though of a practical use. Once I started studying where and why eye candy was in OS X, I came to appreciate it. It's one of those main differentiators between Apple and their competitors. Apple has a much better track record of thinking things through to their logical conclusion to build well designed, functional products.
Good non hype link, now do that for more stories
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Would be nice if more stories here included a non hyped, rational explanation of the situation. Definitely appreciated the writeup from securosis.
The recent Android browser vs iOS browser test could have used one, since the test was flawed, and there is a rational explanation for the difference between Mobile Safari and 3rd party apps tapping WebKit.
Same for all the hyped stories out of Japan causing people to run for iodine tablets on the west coast of the US.
In general I've become so skeptical of anything these days due to the echo chamber of the internet bouncing around hyped, panicked stories with no followup.
One big hole in your argument, any Apple Store can replace batteries inside these devices without user replaceable ones.
The sealed in battery is there for one reason. It provides a higher capacity power source then a phone of identical size with a removable battery. Removable batteries require space for easily pluggable connections, space in the case to allow for clips to hold a battery door on, and must have a thicker case to survive impacts from objects to avoid punctures if the battery is outside the device. A built in battery that is not user replaceable doesn't have to have as large of a connector, and a much thinner case since the entire phone body becomes the battery puncture protection.
In general, iPhones have had longer run times compared to similar smart phones on the market. It's a combination of many factors, including the sealed in battery. Many users new to smartphones do rank the battery as poor initially, as they are used to non smart phones with much longer run times. This applies to the entire industry, and isn't a complaint unique to an iPhone. It's just the price we pay for carrying around so much computing power in a handheld device.
From experience, iOS will skip frames or otherwise cut the eye candy animations if it needs to. They have never slowed down the system, as they only use otherwise idle power. It's much harder to see this happen on the newer phones, but I saw it plenty of times back on the iPhone 3G as the OS became more complex. Apple does put a lot of effort into this, complete with dedicated system frameworks to drive the eye candy. Apple's view on the eye candy is that it is there to bring attention to what is occurring when transitioning states, and helps provide that "smoother" feeling when using their devices. This applies to both the OS X and iOS sides.
It's also why input latency and audio latency is something Apple pays a lot of attention to, more so then most of the competition. When you touch an iOS device to scroll, it feels like your moving the content on the screen with your finger. Other systems tend to have a larger time difference between touch input and display action, making the experience feel a bit disconnected. While highly technical people might not mind the lack of smoothness, the general populous is going to go with what feels better. It's not a separation between "Apple Users" and the rest of us, it's a separation between those who know and care about the little minute details behind the scenes and those who don't.
Windows Phone 7 on the other hand did seem to put a priority on the animations, to the point they would slow down and frustrate me when trying to do basic things. IE took over two seconds to recover from an orientation switch, and every time it would always play the animation. Orientation corrections in other areas were much faster.
The issue is that XCode isn't a new product. XCode 4 is an upgrade to XCode 3, and revenue for XCode 3 was already recognized on Apple's books under Snow Leopard. Apple has always bundled dev tools with the OS, so they can't just randomly change that practice in the middle of a quarter. They would have needed to unbundle XCode from OS X prior to version 4, then moved forward with releasing XCode 4 for free.
Accounting is a messy situation for businesses that are public companies. Shareholders have a right to have accurate reports, and can be sue happy if they think there is a discrepancy that might impact their precious share value.
It's not a lie, it's due to that act, and how Apple runs their books. Yes, all the companies you mentioned give things away for free, and so does Apple, depending on what it is. XCode is classified as part of the OS, a paid component that Apple either sells as a standalone disc for upgrades, or part of the price of a new Mac. If Microsoft claimed Visual Studio was part of Windows and distributed it with every version of Windows 7, then they would have to deal with how to account for a "free" upgrade from VS 2008 to VS2010. They could either claim VS 2010 is simply a bugfix release (not likely to hold up in courts if they were ever challenged on it), or defer the revenue recognition of Windows 7 over a period of time that covers when VS2010 was released. OS X is not a deferred revenue product for Apple, so they already recognized the income before XCode 4 came out. Accounting wise, they can't say that XCode 4 dev time (salary money, etc) was a cost component of the currently released version of OS X.
If you listen to financial reports from pretty much any major company, they report revenue in GAAP and non GAAP terms. GAAP tends to have all the "subscription" and deferred revenue crap, while non GAAP represents exactly what came in that precise quarter. If you want to read more on the details, refer to these Wikipedia articles:
Slashdot Mirror
Are they also going back and wiping any reference to earthquakes and tsunamis? So far, tens of thousands have been confirmed to have died to those events, but we don't feel the need to be sensitive about that. But a nuclear accident that hasn't killed anyone is worth rewriting history of a comedy cartoon? It's not like the jokes were made at the expense of the current situation, being that they have existed for years.
I never did understand the removal of the twin towers from things either. Do we really want to show our respect to those that passed by trying to erase any mention or footage of the buildings?
EFI has nothing to do with it, as all Macs use the BIOS compatibility later to support and run Windows. Microsoft requires EFI 2.0 to use the EFI boot feature of Windows Vista and 7, and Apple has stuck with version 1.1.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1846 has a list of hardware Apple officially supports 64 bit Windows on. If it's a 2008 MacBook Pro, it might be supported. If it's the standard MacBook, just 32 bit, but that should be fine for his wife to use based on the needs put forth in the question.
Haven't really felt the need for USB 3 for hard drives, as I bought an enclosure with USB 2, Firewire 800 and eSATA a while back. Really a shame Firewire didn't take off, since it brought most of the benefits of USB 3 to machines ages ago. Lower CPU usage, device to device transfers, and the spec was prepared to jump to 1600mbit then 3200mbit using the same 800 connector. 1600 (200MB/s) would have been plenty of headroom for hard drives. USB 3 speeds that outpace FW3200 are only useful once you have a newer SSD in the mix, or a decently sized RAID of hard drives.
Looking farther back, I always figured USB would remain in the realm of low speed peripherals (keyboards, etc), and Firewire would be the high speed bus. USB (until 3) is just so CPU heavy at times to be really annoying.
The difference here is that historically, Google has released the source in a somewhat timely manner. This has then allowed people to grab the source and begin working on custom ROMs for older devices to bring them up to speed. A Galaxy Tab owner could in theory bring their device up to 3.0 and continue to use the new apps. But because of this delay, those users will be stuck both officially and unofficially.
It's not a FOSS product, so some people will call it proprietary for that reason alone. It's also proprietary in the way it stores photos, using a custom database for organization. The DB part doesn't bother me much, since there isn't a "standard" for photo management, but some people may prefer date stamped folders or something more hands on with the files.
In a way, yes. If a developer writes an app targeting the specific Tablet Android SDK (aka 3.0), then the 2.2 owners get hosed with access to actual tablet apps. The people I feel really bad for are the ones who were suckered into buying a Galaxy Tab with a contract for 2 years of service. They may not see anything new just 6 months after the device came out.
I'll admit I haven't paid close attention to the previous release delays between when Google and a partner ships Android on a phone, and when it hits their open source repository. If this is a normal trend of theirs, then overall I'd say it's not very open. Palm/HP seem to be doing a better job with WebOS being open as far as ship/source release, and they don't beat people over the head with "Open" messages.
As far as release early and often vs waiting for something more stable, I just want Google to stay consistent with their messaging. If they want to claim Android is open, the source should have been available when the Google experience Xoom shipped. If Honeycomb wasn't ready, the Xoom shouldn't have shipped, and then they could have kept the source close to improve it.
My personal feelings is that a device marketed towards consumers should ship when it's ready, especially ones that tie people to contracts if they take a subsidized version. I think if Google moved away from the early and often mentality, it would help the Android image greatly. The G1 was a joke, and abandoned early, with official updates never bringing it beyond 1.6. I'm betting the same fate for the Samsung Tab, and Google willingly let Samsung ship it with the Marketplace for some reason. Even if they want to keep Android open and let anyone use it, they could exercise more control over the Marketplace and other Google apps, to ensure that "with Google" devices are always known to the consumers as the premiere products to go for.
Your comments do pretty much sum it up. There is nothing wrong with a corporation looking out for their best interests. But when they enjoy bashing their competitors over the head with "open" frequently, they better back those insults up with actions on their side. Keeping Honeycomb closed well over a month after the first tier tablets shipped with it isn't "open".
WebOS is also "open", and 2.1.0 was released on March 14th. The source code is also available, not sure when it's posted, but already thats sooner then people have their hands on shipping Honeycomb code.
Thats one of the potential downsides to being "Open". Google either needs to live with it, or stop calling Android open.
Google really needs to decide then how they want to proceed, instead of sending mixed signals. They enjoy beating their competitors over the head with "Open", and decide not to be open. This to me wouldn't be such a big deal had Google not made it such a big deal in the past.
Honeycomb, aka Android 3.0 is shipping, and has been for over a month now. There is no excuse in the proper "Open" spirit for this at all. If Google wants to start closing down Android and taking more control, then they should say as much and do so. I'll take this move as the first step down that path, and hopefully Google stops using "Open" as a description of Android in the future to reflect the change.
This move also shows how Honeycomb was indeed rushed to production just to try and beat the new iPad. Competition is good, up until the point you harm your own product in a clear money grab attempt. The long term damage to the Android image isn't worth that initial rush, but they went for it anyhow. Every review I read about the Xoom mentioned numerous app crashes and hangs.
Yes, I mean iPhoto. Been using it since version 1 from January 2002. Back when cameras all hadn't standardized on ways to transfer photos to a computer, and most people were doing all the file management by hand. I plug in a camera, iPhoto launches, and offers to import. I can organize them into albums, and over time events, places, faces and smart albums were added to make it better. Features have also been added to let me share the photos to web sites, via e-mail, Facebook, and other places. All without ever having to manage the files directly.
And at any time I can extract out all my initial jpeg imported images out of the library this "bit of proprietary software" created and move to another program if I need to. So far that hasn't happened. I have poked at Picassa and had fun with the face movie feature, and I am glad to see the competition. It's just not quite enough to move me away from the solutions I have now that work for me.
iPhoto was one of the programs that helped me understand "The Mac way" early on, and I've come to appreciate it. With iLife apps, Spotlight, and other features, I don't manage files. I manage my content. In doing so, it's helped me realize what a proper consumer based system should look like. While the free software folks have been busy over the past decade arguing over licenses and what free and open mean, I've been bringing the joys of computing to my family members, including my elderly grandparents thanks to the consumer nature of OS X. I've given up on caring about using proprietary vs open software long ago, and instead pick what works well. In some cases it's FOSS software, in others it's free but closed software, and other times it's paid closed software.
I'm still a supporter of Linux, and continue to use it as a server OS. But I'm not prepared to switch to it as a desktop OS, nor would I even think of switching my family over. Ultimately practicality wins out for me these days over idealism.
"year of the Linux Desktop" is what pushed me to OS X 10 years ago. Red Hat was touting that line, while Apple was providing their first attempt at a Unix desktop. I wanted to get off Windows, and Apple provided the better path for me when I compared it side by side to Linux desktops of the time. 10 years later, the Linux desktop has gotten better, but not enough to sway me away from OS X.
Definitely don't regret the decision. I have out of the box IPv6 based secure tunneling between all my machines now by check marking a box, all my photos in an app that lets me organize them well, a decent selection of games (still not as big as Windows, but it has gotten much better in recent years), and all the unix tools I want waiting for me in Terminal.app. All in a powerful, quiet and well built hardware platform too.
iTunes is bundled with every Mac. It's not bundled with anything else though. When you buy an iPod, iPhone or iPad, you have to manually download iTunes if you use something other then OS X. A number of years ago, iTunes was also bundled with HP computers via a mutual business agreement to allow HP to sell HP branded iPods. iTunes sued to be bundled with iPods as well, via a CD in the package.
Keep in mind bundling is different in this case though vs when Microsoft was doing it. Apple iTunes has only been bundled with Apple products or with a company they had an agreement with. Microsoft IE was forced to be bundled with Dell computers, or Compaq, etc due to their agreement to buy OEM copies of Windows. If the OEM (Dell/Compaq etc) didn't want IE, or wanted to hide it and instead bundle Netscape Navigator, Microsoft penalized the OEM. And this was after Microsoft had already been in trouble for forcing OEMs to buy a copy of Windows for every machine they shipped, even if it was loaded with a different OS such as OS/2 Warp.
That problem exist today already with T-Mobile and AT&T if you have a smartphone. They use incompatible 3G frequencies, and only now after years of 3G is there hope of a unified cellular chip to run on both frequency sets. So even if you did want to switch to another GSM provider, you still had to look at new hardware.
LTE requires SIMs too. Currently, Verizon's LTE network is data only, with voice still going over their CDMA network. This will change in time to have voice also going over LTE.
I gave up hope on the mobile industry in the US long ago. When T-Mobile and AT&T couldn't even use compatible frequencies for 3G, the hope of cross carrier compatibility died a long time ago. GSM is only great when you can buy an unlocked phone, choose a provider and pop in a SIM, then change on a whim while paying lower monthly prices due to the lack of a subsidy. This is one of the many benefits Europeans enjoy, along with good roaming agreements to ensure they can make a call even if their own provider doesn't cover the area well. I still look back to 2004 when I had an unlocked Sony Ericsson phone from T-Mobile that I used in Europe for a bit. Bought a SIM in London, traveled into the Netherlands, around Germany and a bit into Switzerland. At one point, my phone saw 9 different providers it was willing to use for emergency calls, and 4 or so of those it was willing to roam on for everything else.
Since none of those benefits ever came to the US, I hold some hope in that this merger will bring some good. AT&T is pledging a bigger LTE rollout, including to rural parts of the US. This is desperately needed, as many rural areas have dial up and satellite based options only. Dialup is near unusable these days, and satellite adds too much latency, negating benefits from Web 2.0 based sites, and conferencing/communication software. Low caps also prevent rural users from taking advantage of services like Netflix.
Once iOS gains WebKit 2, this issue should go away. Development activity is pretty rapid right now, so there may be a big push to have this done for iOS 5. A story on Ars indicates bugs about web apps not using the new Nitro engine were closed with "not to be fixed by exec order". Based on that, I'm guessing the following occurred:
Apple execs wanted web browsing to be faster on iOS, by taking advantage of the same tech that is being used to accelerate browsers on the desktop. They also wanted to maintain the secure environment in iOS, and bring more security to the OS X side. WebKit 2 had been in development internally for a little while, and was opened up to the public for contributions in April 2010. Google, and others have been making major contributions to it, and development is proceeding.
Apple also had plans to release the iPad 2, along with an eventual iPhone 5 and new iPod Touch featuring dual core processors. iOS 5 is too far out, so iOS 4.3 had a lot of development effort spent on making MobileSafari faster. Because WebKit 2 wasn't ready, security wasn't ready to open it up to the world, and the decision was made to do what they could in the time frame allowed, and make it open to other developers later.
The "not to be fixed by exec order" is likely in place to prevent engineers from wasting time on trying to bring new improvements to old frameworks, and instead keeping engineers focused on finishing iOS 5, possibly with WebKit 2 in time for the iPhone 5 release this summer.
Apple is a hardware company (as far as where the majority of their profits come from), and so software development relating to iOS will always be driven by hardware release cycles. They may slip features from software, but key pieces have to be in place to meet the hardware cycle. It's looking like March will be new iPad time, June for iPhones, then September for iPods. iPads will debut new CPUs, iPhones will debut new major iOS releases and some other features (gyroscope, possibly NFC, etc), and iPods will just be a phoneless iPhone. Each release comes with a new iOS, iPad being a final point release of the previous iOS, iPhone being the new one, then iPods gaining the first point release of the new OS.
Lets see, Chernobyl was an accident where the entire reactor blew open, and threw nuclear fuel all over the site. The building was also on fire for days, and the Russian government was trying to hide the accident until radiation detectors in Sweden detected a problem. Yeah, it spread a ton of really bad radiation and particles around because of it, and it was the worst nuclear power disaster in history, behind the disasters of intentionally setting off bombs.
In Japan, only the outer containment buildings have blown up, and yes there is some damage to the inner building and reactors inside. The nuclear fuel is still well contained, even in the storage pools, isn't active at the levels the Chernobyl fuel was, and fires at the site have been short lived.
Huge difference. And yes, as of today, a full week after the initial earthquake, and several days after spikes in radiation, very minute readable amounts have made it to the US. This radiation is not harmful in the quantities present, as it has long since dispersed, and doesn't contain any of the particles really dangerous to human health. Those iodide pills people are taking are still doing 0 good, but to present health risks for other reasons to those using them.
Odds are today you will encounter more radiation by simply driving in the smog covered city, or walking by a microwave then you would from the incident in Japan. Radiation is a fact of life, and would be even if we didn't have any technology or industry. There is a difference between radiation and deadly radiation.
And this whole panicked response from ZDRuX sadly proves my point about the echo chamber.
If you want to do some honest research, instead of looking at the worst power disaster and extrapolating, start here:
http://mitnse.com/page/2/ - Scroll to the bottom and read the oldest, then read the newer stories. It's constantly being updated, and has been a great source of non hyped, overreaction based news about the situation.
For California residents near the two nuclear plants (of which I am), it makes sense as a precaution. Flyers were even sent in the mail about it last spring, offering free tablets to stash in emergency kits. But this is all for being prepared in case of a local disaster, not one hundreds of miles across a vast ocean.
Something tells me the surgeon general hasn't been properly briefed on the situation, especially considering her comments about being unaware that people are stocking up. Yes, it's bad, but it's not at a scale where anyone should be concerned on the western US coast. There are already people not only buying the tablets, but making use of them. Doing so brings zero benefit, but can cause side effects, some far more harmful then any potential risk from Japan.
The OS X desktop doesn't have menu animations for the exact reason you pointed it out, they slow things down. It does have animations in places where it makes sense and helps interaction. Take the minimize effect. It "sucks" the window into the new position into the dock. It's quick, and it also shows you were the window went, so you have a reference on where to go to get it back.
About the only true "showy" eye candy I can think of in OS X is the Time Machine star field. That is a bit over the top. Beyond that, all the animations on OS X and iOS exist for a logical reason, none of which are meant to slow you down. Instead they provide you proper visual queues to help speed things up.
The eye candy I've seen on Linux and Windows does point to it being mostly showy eye candy with little though of a practical use. Once I started studying where and why eye candy was in OS X, I came to appreciate it. It's one of those main differentiators between Apple and their competitors. Apple has a much better track record of thinking things through to their logical conclusion to build well designed, functional products.
Would be nice if more stories here included a non hyped, rational explanation of the situation. Definitely appreciated the writeup from securosis.
The recent Android browser vs iOS browser test could have used one, since the test was flawed, and there is a rational explanation for the difference between Mobile Safari and 3rd party apps tapping WebKit.
Same for all the hyped stories out of Japan causing people to run for iodine tablets on the west coast of the US.
In general I've become so skeptical of anything these days due to the echo chamber of the internet bouncing around hyped, panicked stories with no followup.
One big hole in your argument, any Apple Store can replace batteries inside these devices without user replaceable ones.
The sealed in battery is there for one reason. It provides a higher capacity power source then a phone of identical size with a removable battery. Removable batteries require space for easily pluggable connections, space in the case to allow for clips to hold a battery door on, and must have a thicker case to survive impacts from objects to avoid punctures if the battery is outside the device. A built in battery that is not user replaceable doesn't have to have as large of a connector, and a much thinner case since the entire phone body becomes the battery puncture protection.
In general, iPhones have had longer run times compared to similar smart phones on the market. It's a combination of many factors, including the sealed in battery. Many users new to smartphones do rank the battery as poor initially, as they are used to non smart phones with much longer run times. This applies to the entire industry, and isn't a complaint unique to an iPhone. It's just the price we pay for carrying around so much computing power in a handheld device.
From experience, iOS will skip frames or otherwise cut the eye candy animations if it needs to. They have never slowed down the system, as they only use otherwise idle power. It's much harder to see this happen on the newer phones, but I saw it plenty of times back on the iPhone 3G as the OS became more complex. Apple does put a lot of effort into this, complete with dedicated system frameworks to drive the eye candy. Apple's view on the eye candy is that it is there to bring attention to what is occurring when transitioning states, and helps provide that "smoother" feeling when using their devices. This applies to both the OS X and iOS sides.
It's also why input latency and audio latency is something Apple pays a lot of attention to, more so then most of the competition. When you touch an iOS device to scroll, it feels like your moving the content on the screen with your finger. Other systems tend to have a larger time difference between touch input and display action, making the experience feel a bit disconnected. While highly technical people might not mind the lack of smoothness, the general populous is going to go with what feels better. It's not a separation between "Apple Users" and the rest of us, it's a separation between those who know and care about the little minute details behind the scenes and those who don't.
Windows Phone 7 on the other hand did seem to put a priority on the animations, to the point they would slow down and frustrate me when trying to do basic things. IE took over two seconds to recover from an orientation switch, and every time it would always play the animation. Orientation corrections in other areas were much faster.
The issue is that XCode isn't a new product. XCode 4 is an upgrade to XCode 3, and revenue for XCode 3 was already recognized on Apple's books under Snow Leopard. Apple has always bundled dev tools with the OS, so they can't just randomly change that practice in the middle of a quarter. They would have needed to unbundle XCode from OS X prior to version 4, then moved forward with releasing XCode 4 for free.
Accounting is a messy situation for businesses that are public companies. Shareholders have a right to have accurate reports, and can be sue happy if they think there is a discrepancy that might impact their precious share value.
It's not a lie, it's due to that act, and how Apple runs their books. Yes, all the companies you mentioned give things away for free, and so does Apple, depending on what it is. XCode is classified as part of the OS, a paid component that Apple either sells as a standalone disc for upgrades, or part of the price of a new Mac. If Microsoft claimed Visual Studio was part of Windows and distributed it with every version of Windows 7, then they would have to deal with how to account for a "free" upgrade from VS 2008 to VS2010. They could either claim VS 2010 is simply a bugfix release (not likely to hold up in courts if they were ever challenged on it), or defer the revenue recognition of Windows 7 over a period of time that covers when VS2010 was released. OS X is not a deferred revenue product for Apple, so they already recognized the income before XCode 4 came out. Accounting wise, they can't say that XCode 4 dev time (salary money, etc) was a cost component of the currently released version of OS X.
If you listen to financial reports from pretty much any major company, they report revenue in GAAP and non GAAP terms. GAAP tends to have all the "subscription" and deferred revenue crap, while non GAAP represents exactly what came in that precise quarter. If you want to read more on the details, refer to these Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_GAAP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_recognition
Beyond understanding the basics, there are tons of articles out there that talk about how SOX impacted revenue recognition.