Well, the "why" in this case is apparently her daughter's love of widgets. My assumption, though, is that there were clear reasons she went back to XP...Those aren't captured here. I'm really not arguing your point about the general adoption of Vista, but rather lamenting the fact that these specific complaints weren't brought into the conversation with Ballmer, or, if they were, they didn't make the cut for the article.
What I'm struck by in this article is a lack of the specific detail in her complaints. Was it too hard to install? Did it crash? Were the drivers lacking? Was there something baffling about the new interface to her? TFA makes it sound like she spent money, installed it, then said "Bah, XP was fine" before uninstalling it again. It's rather obvious that she installed it for skin-deep reasons driven by her daughter's preferences, but surely the reasons she uninstalled it were more considered.
This would've been a lot more interesting if she'd challenged him about the actual problems she encountered...Perhaps she did, and it just wasn't captured? Ah well.
from a development perspective it is far far easier to say no third party apps than to put in place the stuff needed to protect the rest of the system from them. No question! I guess my point really is about customer expectation rather than technical difficulty-- Symbian and Windows Mobile Smartphones are not closed ecosystems and this one is. As reasonable as that choice may seem, particularly since it was something they broadcast prior to launch, that leads to people trying to put their 3rd party apps/anyway/. You wind up with a snafu as the vendor tries to lock things back down again, particularly if that choice winds up breaking expensive hardware.
'Course, the apparent fact that the recent hacks are going in via a well-known Safari issue that's been resolved elsewhere somewhat invalidates their choice if security was their main concern. It'll be interesting to see if we see any iPhone-targetted virii...
Hm. I've not done much Windows Mobile Development either...You could well be right about the signing-process-as-security. At the least, you'd expect some pieces of the hardware to have extremely limited accessibility(or configurability) to user apps...Though most Windows users may run as root, I seriously doubt that's the case in the Mobile world. All that understood, for the other two platforms, you've got clear pathways to app development, even if certain features/are/ inaccessible without signing.
You may be right-- the rush to market may've been the reason for some of these choices. It seems in-character for the company to me, though, to keep this locked down.
Apple made a conscious choice to/not/ support third party apps when they failed to provide a development API for the iPhone. Most companies are "greedy", in that they need to make money to satisfy investors, and Apple's no exception. However, I'm not sure that's their primary focus here...Apple likes to maintain a user experience monopoly with its own devices...That "Experience" factor(it just works, etcetc) is key to their whole marketing strategy. In the OS world, they can't compete without supporting 3rd party apps...Computers are expected to be extensible. Phones, however, are a completely different story, and many are, in fact, locked down.
The trap they've fallen into, of course, is that their direct competition at the price point typically/does/ allow 3rd party apps, so people are understandably resentful.
One thing that I think is particularly interesting about all of this is the tendancy for people to point a finger at AT&T about this particular issue. Based on some of the other smartphones on their network, I'd be surprised if the lack of supported 3rd party apps at this stage is/really/ attributable to them, although it's certainly the excuse that's been given out from a PR perspective. AT&T clearly supports 3rd party apps on other phones...Why not this one?
AT&T clearly has every reason in the world to care about whether or not these phones stay locked to their network, of course...That's money in their pockets. That may in fact be why these phones are actually being bricked. But the third party app thing? That's a little more complicated, imo.
Yeah, I'm on my third, but I know many people who play more regularly who're still on their first. My first was a launch console(not bought then, but apparently it'd been in a CostCo warehouse) and broke within 7 days-- ouch-- so it was taken back to the store, but my second made it most of a year. The replacement time was only about 2 weeks, and they sent me one of the new 'fixed' boxes rather than a refurb, so...Not that terrible an experience, presumably this latest one will last longer.
Hopefully, you'll get a new-new one as well...That seems to be their current pattern(along with a note informing you that they've done this rather than making you wait for the repairs).
I agree with you on many points, but I've had a related concern knocking in my brain for the last few years...Does the internet make writers less hungry, and thus less likely to grow?
The internet is the ultimate matchmaker for even the most outlandish fringe groups. It's therefore very possible to find yourself a very receptive audience of, say, 100 people who'll rave about your work if it's targeted properly. It can be very affirming, and that's wonderful, but it also presents a problem...Writers grow through acknowledgement of strong criticism, and, based on many of the workshops I did in school, not all who have talent recognize that dependency without actually experiencing its benefits first hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that you can't find a good, critical audience online. It's quite possible...But I do worry that easy affirmation of worth may stunt the artistic growth of some. For some writers, success == praise. There's no source of cheap praise that is greater than the internet once one moves beyond one's blood relatives.
Actually, they do mention the term open source(well, with a hyphen...In the context of saying "no, this is not open source". But hey, the blogger got a bunch of hits by suggesting otherwise, eh?
This parallels my recent experience...A relative's line, not my own(no FIOS in my neighborhood, I'm a whole 2 blocks north of the cutoff point-- huzzah)-- they left the copper, stating that it was not policy to remove it.
That said, this city was a test market for FIOS, and I know a number of people who did have their copper removed when the service was installed, in some cases despite their specific request that it be left intact. My sense is that the bad publicity associated with the removal of the copper caused a policy shift...Verizon has other reasons to want people to use FIOS, after all, and in this area their main competition is cable rather than alternate DSL providers. FIOS is the superior service, so improving uptake pays even if they don't reclaim the legacy last mile.
You could make a very strong case that the Mac could be an ideal gaming platform since they utilize a limited number of configurations-- it's a closer analog to a console than to a Windows PC that way./That's/ why it boggles the mind.
There're different kinds of gamers, and those that hack around with their boxes/upgrade the hardware themselves are not the only ones that drive the gaming market. Given that 'l33t rig' warehouses seem to be doing fine, it seems clear that there're even hardcore gamers that buy their config pre-tweaked.
Yes, WOW works just fine on the Mac(and under Linux), and that's/not/ because Apple has in any way facilitated its development. Rather, Blizzard recognizes that volume is king when you're talking about an MMO, so they've worked hard to support as many available platforms as possible. Good for them.
"But it doesn't play games" is the typical argument against purchasing a Mac/using OSX. Sure, you can use Boot Camp and dual boot, but in that case you're buying a Windows license/and/ installing your own operating system, putting this outside of the comfort zone for many potential users. Your average end user is not going to want to mess with a boot loader, period.
Maybe, but one important distinction here is that that "kludge" is a priority of Microsoft's(and of some elements of the Linux community as well). Microsoft views games as a key part of their consumer-adoption strategy and are constantly working with the community to improve the development experience-- see XNA, as an example of something they've done that's pretty interesting.
By contrast, the company that 'gets it' about everything else doesn't seem to see any worth in trying to make their platform more game developer friendly...It's always been an afterthought, and that's strange if you think about it. Here's a company that's winning sales by making the use of their platform more fun/enjoyable than their competitors, yet somehow, they always ignore games? It's almost like they think that magically game devs will target their platform/solve the problems for them, which I suppose is possible if they get enough market share, but seriously-- how many more Macs would sell if gaming on a Mac was really something you could do? It boggles the mind.
I agree with you-- I think the problem with the PS3 having a single 'killer app' pull people into the console is its price point. $600(plus another $60 for the game) is a huge hit to the typical family budget. Basically, they've set the pricepoint so high that they're probably going to have to have a library in order to find buyers this generation.
One could argue that the vendor lock-in that defines Apple's business model is actually more restrictive than the Microsoft model. In the Apple world, you are expected to purchase both Apple software and Apple hardware...You can't have OSX without whatever pimptastic hardware Apple is pushing at the moment.
If you recall your history, this isn't exactly a new trend at Apple, it's elemental to their business strategy. As bad as Microsoft's monopoly is, imagining a world dominated by Macs is a little more scary-- no more home grown/hand selected hardware, strong lock-in to Apple developed software...Your choices might be between an iBook and a MacBook Pro, rather than a huge variety of notebooks from a plethora of vendors.
The main reason to cheer for Apple(if you're not a fanboy) is simply because they're the ones in the position to fight the monopoly. They're the underdogs, and they're helping to loosen things up. It's certainly not because of their philosophy.
On what grounds? They made the choice to install an update that they were warned would brick their phones. I suppose they/could/ sue, but it sounds baseless to me. It's not like we're talking about an auto update scenario here.
Most of the other phone providers are pretty crappy too...Who would you prefer tethering it to? I wouldn't consider buying an iPhone unless it actually was officially SIM-unlockable, myself. It's too much money invested to be tied to any vendor, and there're too many risks associated with having an unpatched internet appliance for my taste, so the hacking's right out.
The thing is, vendor lock-in isn't necessarily the reason these iPhones are being bricked. Apple is clearly striving for 'experience lock-in', hence the aversion to proper 3rd party software installations. Without more details about which hacked phones are affected(tfa was a little light that way), I think it's difficult to know how much we should lay this on AT&T's doorstep...After all, Apple produced the patch. In the best case, they're complicit rather than the instigator.
Not that you aren't right-- AT&T is teh evils and whatnot.
Visio == part of the Office suite. It's tied to other parts of office both from a conceptual and technical standpoint(insert office integration marketing bullet points that I don't care about here). How does this translate to 'spying on anything else'? Activation is lame in general, but it's not like I installed Mechwarrior 4 and Office started screaming that it needed to be reactivated. Rather, I installed an additional, optional Office component.
That's the thing that bothers me-- it really is/the exact same story/, yet a) people react like the sky is falling every time and then b) it gets patched to the level of usability, at which point the drama ends until the next release.
I think you could make a pretty strong case that Vista's launch is actually one of the/least/ disasterous Microsoft launches in terms of basic stability and usability(anybody remember the BSOD in Gates' demo of 95? anyone? Bueller?), which is not to say that it isn't sucky, but rather that it started at a different point in the arc of repetative suckitude.
Virtually every major Microsoft OS release has been plagued with issues(I think Win2K was relatively smooth). XP was plagued with issues prior to SP1(my boss-at-the-time managed to totally toast his laptop with it, as I recall). It had serious system requirements for its day, and chugged if you didn't have an appropriately potent machine. Now, XP is being touted as the 'good' Microsoft OS by many pundits, which seems tinged with irony to me.
That's not to say that Microsoft couldn't suffer losses in this generation, but it would be more about the presence of strong alternatives than their failure to adopt a 'move on' strategy.
What's really interesting about this/particular/ FUDy article is how quibbly it is. He appears to have three major complaints: the pricing scheme, specifically of the Ultimate edition, the UAC(and specifically, that it doesn't like a specific unnamed third party app which we're assured is from a 'well-known software company'), and DRM. We're not talking about blue screens and security holes here.
There is no compelling reason to move to Vista, and it seems obvious that waiting for SP1 is probably the right move for anyone who wants to upgrade. That doesn't mean that this OS won't succeed, however, and it's shown marked improvement on many counts since launch. Can we just call this FUD and "move on"?
Wait, wait wait. Doom's plot involved Hell breaking out on earth. Your main opponents were demons, some of which did distinctly fantasy-esque things like throwing fireballs, and the deepest bit came in a showdown at the end with a GIANT demon that you pretty much just shot a lot until it died. Perhaps you're talking about Doom 3, where I suppose there're more things lurching out of shadows than hurling fireballs, and you're, like, on/MARS/(dude, that's BACKSTORY), but you're not really talking about much in the way of narrative at all, nevermind an engaging one. Doom's always been about being a tech demo.
Halo involves two factions struggling over a titanic artifact that turns out to be a weapon of massive(possibly universal) destruction, a mutual threat that subsumes all life it contacts that said weapon is intended to defeat. It contains, you know,/dialog/. Recurring characters. Occasional surprising things. I can understand not thinking it's the bees knees, because the gameplay in the first two was pretty repetative in spurts(fight through identical corridor the eightieth-- ooh, look, more guys with bubble shields), but come on-- credit where credit's due here.
You may well be right about the firmware restore tool, though I can't find any reference to how well it functions with either the iPod Touch or the iPhone(this page doesn't seem to help, at any rate). It seems to me, given the whole vendor lockin thing, that you might have to take it to either an Apple or AT&T store, but that's just speculation on my part.
Of course, the firmware actually is incompatible with the hack, your phone is either stuck with a known buffer overflow security hole or must be reverted to its factory state. I guess it really depends on which subset of iPhone hacks are actually problematic and how important said hacks are to the continued usefulness of your very expensive toy(for those with hardhacked phones using non-AT&T SIMS, that could be really bad news).
I think different people interact with places like SL for different reasons. While I personally don't find it engaging at all, several of my artier friends find it an interesting medium for expression...One, who makes in-game wings, has actually made several thousand dollars doing so, so I suppose that's another reason it's appealing to some-- commerce.
Seriously, though, what's the difference between play on Second Life and any other form of escapism? Many people around the world spend a large quantity of time staring at a television...Are their lives inherently pathetic? What about people who put up various styles of vanity web pages(blogs, fan forums, etc)-- do their lives necessarily "suck"?
I think that's the conceit that bothers me in what you're saying, the presumption that interacting with people socially in an online setting == a stunted real life. The two don't necessarily equate, as I'm sure you'd have to agree understanding that you're taking the time to comment/about/ such people's lives on an inherently geektastic online forum.
I'm with you so far as buying the 'not meaning to' line-- while it's conceivable that a company might intentionally do something like that, 'wrong headed' wouldn't even begin to describe it. Bad PR and no more money for the company? Not a good move. *Indifference* to bricking the modded iPhones is fairly likely.
I do wonder about some of your other assumptions, however. Most unlocked iPhones have undergone a hardhack(and there're apparently several different techniques, so it's probably bad to generalize here). I'd imagine this could conceivably make them incompatible with the current firmware...I'm not sure how likely I find that, but I'd be very reluctant to flash a modded iPhone with such firmware regardless of its software state.
More on point, however, to the issue of 'real' bricking-- firmware flashes can be dangerous. I've had a mboard or two bricked by doing a flash, as have many(which is why there're all sorts of warnings associated with new BIOS releases). Depending on the actual issue encountered, your device may be totally unresponsive. I'd imagine it could be resolved by replacing the involved chips, but it seems unlikely that Apple's going to help you out there.
Well, it's violent in that it has guns and death. It's not particularly graphic-- that's actually why I compared it to the Darkness specifically, since that game/is/ very graphic, actually sold pretty well, but isn't from a big franchise...So it isn't even on Thompson's radar.
The post I was replying to seemed to imply that somehow Microsoft must be funding Thompson in some sort of wacky marketing scheme...I find that idea pretty ludicrous. Then again, most of Thompson's stated positions are pretty ludicrous, so perhaps I shouldn't be so dismissive.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the "why" in this case is apparently her daughter's love of widgets. My assumption, though, is that there were clear reasons she went back to XP...Those aren't captured here. I'm really not arguing your point about the general adoption of Vista, but rather lamenting the fact that these specific complaints weren't brought into the conversation with Ballmer, or, if they were, they didn't make the cut for the article.
This would've been a lot more interesting if she'd challenged him about the actual problems she encountered...Perhaps she did, and it just wasn't captured? Ah well.
Yep. Guilty. Bad me.
'Course, the apparent fact that the recent hacks are going in via a well-known Safari issue that's been resolved elsewhere somewhat invalidates their choice if security was their main concern. It'll be interesting to see if we see any iPhone-targetted virii...
You may be right-- the rush to market may've been the reason for some of these choices. It seems in-character for the company to me, though, to keep this locked down.
The trap they've fallen into, of course, is that their direct competition at the price point typically /does/ allow 3rd party apps, so people are understandably resentful.
One thing that I think is particularly interesting about all of this is the tendancy for people to point a finger at AT&T about this particular issue. Based on some of the other smartphones on their network, I'd be surprised if the lack of supported 3rd party apps at this stage is /really/ attributable to them, although it's certainly the excuse that's been given out from a PR perspective. AT&T clearly supports 3rd party apps on other phones...Why not this one?
AT&T clearly has every reason in the world to care about whether or not these phones stay locked to their network, of course...That's money in their pockets. That may in fact be why these phones are actually being bricked. But the third party app thing? That's a little more complicated, imo.
Hopefully, you'll get a new-new one as well...That seems to be their current pattern(along with a note informing you that they've done this rather than making you wait for the repairs).
The internet is the ultimate matchmaker for even the most outlandish fringe groups. It's therefore very possible to find yourself a very receptive audience of, say, 100 people who'll rave about your work if it's targeted properly. It can be very affirming, and that's wonderful, but it also presents a problem...Writers grow through acknowledgement of strong criticism, and, based on many of the workshops I did in school, not all who have talent recognize that dependency without actually experiencing its benefits first hand.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing that you can't find a good, critical audience online. It's quite possible...But I do worry that easy affirmation of worth may stunt the artistic growth of some. For some writers, success == praise. There's no source of cheap praise that is greater than the internet once one moves beyond one's blood relatives.
Actually, they do mention the term open source(well, with a hyphen...In the context of saying "no, this is not open source". But hey, the blogger got a bunch of hits by suggesting otherwise, eh?
That said, this city was a test market for FIOS, and I know a number of people who did have their copper removed when the service was installed, in some cases despite their specific request that it be left intact. My sense is that the bad publicity associated with the removal of the copper caused a policy shift...Verizon has other reasons to want people to use FIOS, after all, and in this area their main competition is cable rather than alternate DSL providers. FIOS is the superior service, so improving uptake pays even if they don't reclaim the legacy last mile.
You could make a very strong case that the Mac could be an ideal gaming platform since they utilize a limited number of configurations-- it's a closer analog to a console than to a Windows PC that way. /That's/ why it boggles the mind.
There're different kinds of gamers, and those that hack around with their boxes/upgrade the hardware themselves are not the only ones that drive the gaming market. Given that 'l33t rig' warehouses seem to be doing fine, it seems clear that there're even hardcore gamers that buy their config pre-tweaked.
Yes, WOW works just fine on the Mac(and under Linux), and that's /not/ because Apple has in any way facilitated its development. Rather, Blizzard recognizes that volume is king when you're talking about an MMO, so they've worked hard to support as many available platforms as possible. Good for them.
"But it doesn't play games" is the typical argument against purchasing a Mac/using OSX. Sure, you can use Boot Camp and dual boot, but in that case you're buying a Windows license /and/ installing your own operating system, putting this outside of the comfort zone for many potential users. Your average end user is not going to want to mess with a boot loader, period.
By contrast, the company that 'gets it' about everything else doesn't seem to see any worth in trying to make their platform more game developer friendly...It's always been an afterthought, and that's strange if you think about it. Here's a company that's winning sales by making the use of their platform more fun/enjoyable than their competitors, yet somehow, they always ignore games? It's almost like they think that magically game devs will target their platform/solve the problems for them, which I suppose is possible if they get enough market share, but seriously-- how many more Macs would sell if gaming on a Mac was really something you could do? It boggles the mind.
I agree with you-- I think the problem with the PS3 having a single 'killer app' pull people into the console is its price point. $600(plus another $60 for the game) is a huge hit to the typical family budget. Basically, they've set the pricepoint so high that they're probably going to have to have a library in order to find buyers this generation.
If you recall your history, this isn't exactly a new trend at Apple, it's elemental to their business strategy. As bad as Microsoft's monopoly is, imagining a world dominated by Macs is a little more scary-- no more home grown/hand selected hardware, strong lock-in to Apple developed software...Your choices might be between an iBook and a MacBook Pro, rather than a huge variety of notebooks from a plethora of vendors.
The main reason to cheer for Apple(if you're not a fanboy) is simply because they're the ones in the position to fight the monopoly. They're the underdogs, and they're helping to loosen things up. It's certainly not because of their philosophy.
IANAL.
The thing is, vendor lock-in isn't necessarily the reason these iPhones are being bricked. Apple is clearly striving for 'experience lock-in', hence the aversion to proper 3rd party software installations. Without more details about which hacked phones are affected(tfa was a little light that way), I think it's difficult to know how much we should lay this on AT&T's doorstep...After all, Apple produced the patch. In the best case, they're complicit rather than the instigator.
Not that you aren't right-- AT&T is teh evils and whatnot.
Visio == part of the Office suite. It's tied to other parts of office both from a conceptual and technical standpoint(insert office integration marketing bullet points that I don't care about here). How does this translate to 'spying on anything else'? Activation is lame in general, but it's not like I installed Mechwarrior 4 and Office started screaming that it needed to be reactivated. Rather, I installed an additional, optional Office component.
I think you could make a pretty strong case that Vista's launch is actually one of the /least/ disasterous Microsoft launches in terms of basic stability and usability(anybody remember the BSOD in Gates' demo of 95? anyone? Bueller?), which is not to say that it isn't sucky, but rather that it started at a different point in the arc of repetative suckitude.
That's not to say that Microsoft couldn't suffer losses in this generation, but it would be more about the presence of strong alternatives than their failure to adopt a 'move on' strategy.
What's really interesting about this /particular/ FUDy article is how quibbly it is. He appears to have three major complaints: the pricing scheme, specifically of the Ultimate edition, the UAC(and specifically, that it doesn't like a specific unnamed third party app which we're assured is from a 'well-known software company'), and DRM. We're not talking about blue screens and security holes here.
There is no compelling reason to move to Vista, and it seems obvious that waiting for SP1 is probably the right move for anyone who wants to upgrade. That doesn't mean that this OS won't succeed, however, and it's shown marked improvement on many counts since launch. Can we just call this FUD and "move on"?
Halo involves two factions struggling over a titanic artifact that turns out to be a weapon of massive(possibly universal) destruction, a mutual threat that subsumes all life it contacts that said weapon is intended to defeat. It contains, you know, /dialog/. Recurring characters. Occasional surprising things. I can understand not thinking it's the bees knees, because the gameplay in the first two was pretty repetative in spurts(fight through identical corridor the eightieth-- ooh, look, more guys with bubble shields), but come on-- credit where credit's due here.
You don't pay taxes on your water or electricity bills?
Of course, the firmware actually is incompatible with the hack, your phone is either stuck with a known buffer overflow security hole or must be reverted to its factory state. I guess it really depends on which subset of iPhone hacks are actually problematic and how important said hacks are to the continued usefulness of your very expensive toy(for those with hardhacked phones using non-AT&T SIMS, that could be really bad news).
Seriously, though, what's the difference between play on Second Life and any other form of escapism? Many people around the world spend a large quantity of time staring at a television...Are their lives inherently pathetic? What about people who put up various styles of vanity web pages(blogs, fan forums, etc)-- do their lives necessarily "suck"?
I think that's the conceit that bothers me in what you're saying, the presumption that interacting with people socially in an online setting == a stunted real life. The two don't necessarily equate, as I'm sure you'd have to agree understanding that you're taking the time to comment /about/ such people's lives on an inherently geektastic online forum.
I do wonder about some of your other assumptions, however. Most unlocked iPhones have undergone a hardhack(and there're apparently several different techniques, so it's probably bad to generalize here). I'd imagine this could conceivably make them incompatible with the current firmware...I'm not sure how likely I find that, but I'd be very reluctant to flash a modded iPhone with such firmware regardless of its software state.
More on point, however, to the issue of 'real' bricking-- firmware flashes can be dangerous. I've had a mboard or two bricked by doing a flash, as have many(which is why there're all sorts of warnings associated with new BIOS releases). Depending on the actual issue encountered, your device may be totally unresponsive. I'd imagine it could be resolved by replacing the involved chips, but it seems unlikely that Apple's going to help you out there.
The post I was replying to seemed to imply that somehow Microsoft must be funding Thompson in some sort of wacky marketing scheme...I find that idea pretty ludicrous. Then again, most of Thompson's stated positions are pretty ludicrous, so perhaps I shouldn't be so dismissive. :)