Sites like Sourceforge hosts downloads for free and you think Apple can't pay for hosting free apps???
All I said is that these things don't host themselves. Someone has to do it, and doing it costs money. You have a knack for writing things that agree with exactly what I wrote while pretending that you are proving me wrong.
Additional bandwidth and storage is dirt cheap these days. Are you living in the early nineties?
Dirt cheap != free. In other words, I'm correct.
There are hosting plans available for TBs of data for a few bucks a month.
You vastly underestimate Apple's bandwidth needs.
You also ignore all the rest of the work that goes into Apple's products, including their developer tools.
But the one thing that makes futile your entire argument is that, in the end, this all costs Apple money.
I really don't see the point of your posts, other than to publicly parade your ignorance.
Erm....isn't that what you just did?
Publicly paraded your ignorance? Yes, I suppose I did.
Developer tools don't write themselves, don't provide technical support for themselves, and don't host and provide bandwidth for themselves.
Ummm. This is Slashdot. Ever heard of the GNU toolchain? Even Apple uses big chunks of it, btw.
Oh, right. This is apple.slashdot.org. My mistake.
Apple not only uses it, but they contribute greatly to it (and now moving towards clang and LLVM).
But regardless, are you trying to make the point that GCC writes itself? Or that Apple only provides GCC, and not a full IDE like Xcode, with very well made documentation? That they don't provide multi-gigabyte downloads? That they don't host the software and discussion forums/mailing lists?
I really don't see the point of your posts, other than to publicly parade your ignorance.
For HTC, Motorola and RIM, #1 is the only way to make profit and they're still doing okay.
Nonsense. Google pays them to install Android (specifically, to include Google-specific features to Android).
Which has nothing to do with whether Apple is fleecing the consumer.
Read the 'fleecing' part and the entire post before rushing to comment?
Yeah, it's not like I went line by line and addressed his whole post or anything...
Unsure indeed. So where are all those hundreds of millions coming from? Straight from AT&T's profits? Or from iPhone users?
I know for a fact that I haven't paid Apple a single cent to stay exclusive to AT&T. I paid AT&T, and they voluntarily paid Apple. As for AT&T, presumably they make more by having more customers than they lose to Apple.
If the app store doesn't make a significant profit then why not open up software installing instead of wasting money on iron clad DRM and multiple TPMs?
Because they want to maintain a certain level of quality of the overall iPhone experience, and it's clearly working out well for them.
How many iPhone users know about how much of their money goes to Apple?
How many care?
AT&T are not fools, they know people buy the iPhone just because others have it and it's shiny and suffer with it even at locations where AT&T service sucks balls and other cell providers' signals are great.
No, they buy it because it's a fucking great phone. They "suffer" AT&T for the phone, not because it's "shiny and peer pressure".
Also, ad hominem much?
Two things:
1. You're a hypocrite to call out my name calling on you when you call iPhone users superficial victims of peer pressure (and the OP called them fools).
2. Ad Hominem is when you use an attack on the person as a means of diminishing their argument. Something like, "you don't bathe therefor your assertion that the sky is blue is false."
What did happen, is more Android phones were sold than iPhones, in the US. Notable, sure, but in no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is larger.
Actually, that's exactly the only thing it does mean.
No, it doesn't, but to be fair, I wasn't completely clear in my statement. Android only outsold the iPhone during the last quarter in the US. Both in the US and worldwide, there are still far more iPhones than Android phones.
In addition, this did not count iPod Touches. Last quarter, more iPhone OS devices were sold in the US than Android devices (in fact, I'd wager that more iPhone OS devices were sold in the US alone than Android devices worldwide).
So, no. In no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is bigger. Not even close.
Android: pick a phone you like, lots of selection to meet different size, keyboard, and price point preferences.
Yet people still overwhelmingly choose iPhone over Android. This also ensures that the iPhone will outsell any particular Android handset, even if Android overtakes iPhone in market share.
iPhone: any device you like, just so long as it is this one. Oh and fuck you if you want to use it with Linux.
Yes, Apple has ceded the Linux user market. I doubt this is much of an issue. For comparison, there are more iPhone OS users than total Linux end-users.
And Apple is doing that out of the good of their heart for free app developers who should be forever indebted to Apple for not charging for their free apps.
Who said anything like that?
Not.
Oh, I see. It was a straw man.
They do that so that the iPhone becomes attractive to users(because of free apps available) so that the users can be charged as per my #1, #2 and #3 in my post above.
In other words, they do it because serving the customer's needs and wants helps them make money later. The monsters!
4) Take $99 from every iPhone developer that submits to Apps store (even those who develop and distribute Apps for free, thus making the iDevices more attractive).
Developer tools don't write themselves, don't provide technical support for themselves, and don't host and provide bandwidth for themselves.
Very true. Look at how Apple fleeces the iPhone users:
1) Profit on selling the device itself (either unlocked to consumer or to AT&T)
As opposed to HTC, Motorola, RIM, etc., who sell their products at a loss? How do you suppose they make money? Volume?
2) A nice MONTHLY cut of around $18 from AT&T from the subscribers min. of $70/month. (This is the real reason iPhone is exclusive to AT&T inspite of shitty service all around, notice how this isn't mentioned much here on/.?).
Unsure how this fleeces the users. AT&T pays this to keep exclusivity (assuming the contract is still the same). If they didn't pay this, it's highly unlikely they'd lower the rate for iPhone users by $18.
3) A FORCED 30% cut of all third party software sales for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
No one is forced to do anything. Apple does take 30% for paid iPhone apps, but this pretty much covers the running of the store, including things like credit card transaction fees, bandwidth, servers, admins, and so on. Apple does not make a significant profit from the iTunes Store or the App Store. And again, hard to see how this fleeces the users.
No wonder Apple is wallowing in money, they found an almost perfect way to part fools with their money.
Of course, because the only person who would buy an iPhone is a fool? Because AT&T are fools for paying for exclusivity? Because developers are fools for voluntarily paying for Apple to provide a service?
There is a fool in this equation, all right, but from the sounds of it, it doesn't seem likely that you've sent any money to Apple.
Not in comparison to Android. Any "fragmentation" in the iPhone market is really easy to cover as a developer. The fragmentation in the Android market would be quite a challenge to stay on top of. We're talking orders of magnitude more difficulty.
So, no, relatively speaking, iPhones and iPad are not fragmented.
But that's OK because according to a recent news article Android is now a bigger market to shoot for anyway.
No, it's not. There are more iPhone OS devices out there than there are Android devices. Even limiting ourselves to the timeframe the article you've cited, more iPhone OS devices were sold in that time period.
What did happen, is more Android phones were sold than iPhones, in the US. Notable, sure, but in no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is larger. Even taking the mere notion that it is as serious is rather absurd when you consider the popularity of the iPhone.
See my reply to the post two above yours. One game bundle does not negate the general aversion of the Linux crowd from buying software.
Also, like the person who already made this point, you neglected to quote my very next sentence, where I said, "Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux."
Mac users are known for being willing to pay for software. Linux users, not so much.
This may have some relevance to the above comment.
Not really. It's not indicative of the norm.
It's worth noting that you didn't include my very next sentence, which reads:
"Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux."
In other words, games are one of the few things which might buck the trend of Linux users be averse to buying software.
I hope it runs better than previous attempts. I ran Cedega for years on Debian and yeah it "worked". Just like a sickle "works" for cutting grass. Kind of a let down to be honest compared to windows gaming. Maybe this will change that but pardon me if I don't hold my breath.
A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crop or cutting grass for hay.
So you're saying that it's going to work perfectly?! Nice.
Actually, you inadvertently described Linux gaming via WINE (Cedega, Cider, etc.) quite well. Sickles are easily made by anyone with a few tools and some know-how, are dirt cheap, but require somewhat continual maintenance, are far more manual and more of a pain to use, and don't tend to get things done as nicely or cleanly as a lawnmower, which is more expensive, costs money to operate, but gets the job done with less effort and better results.
Steam has a lot of potential to help here. If they can solve the issues of drivers and the various distros with various libraries and such, this has the potential to be more like a combine, although I suspect will end up more like just a mechanical sickle (which is often the sort of solution Linux users tend to prefer, it's just that games are somewhat unique in not being very well suited to the DIYer style).
AWESOME. If CS:S and HL2 run well in Ubuntu, I now have no reason to keep my Windows partition.
What I'd be interested in is to see how well Linux ports do on Steam if/when it comes to Linux.
I have a suspicion that Valve and other games that launch today for the Mac will see a notable spike in sales. Mac users are known for being willing to pay for software. Linux users, not so much. Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux. A successful Steam launch has a lot of potential upside for Linux in general. Either way, it will tell a lot about the Linux market as a whole. I hope it does well, but I'm not terribly optimistic. I know there's a good deal of desire for games among Linux users, but X11 OpenGL drivers, audio libraries, different package managers and repositories, etc., do pose technical challenges that are mostly absent on Windows and Mac. Fortunately, by going native with OpenGL, the Mac launch has covered the most significant hurdle, which is breaking reliance on DirectX. WINE/Cedega/Cider are far from being a sufficient solution to this (as the no doubt countless "I can finally ditch my Windows partition" posts to come from Linux users will attest to).
On the Mac side, I can't see how this will be anything but a success. There have always been more Mac games than people commonly make it out to be, but having a single "iTunes for games" type of thing is huge. This should make native ports much more numerous, as this will do a lot to allay fears that a developer might have about putting effort into porting a game yet failing to recoup the costs.
I think some people don't care at all about freedom and flexibility, and (like you) are ok with having a centralized dictation of what their computer is going to be.
Your deliberate soviet/communism wording betrays your biased view. Apple doesn't dictate the hardware any more than HP or Dell dictate theirs. As for the software, Apple doesn't dictate what I can do, they just prohibit a small number of things. I am absolutely free to do whatever I want with my iPad, and Apple cannot do anything about it.
Now, I believe that those same people don't care about freedom until it bites them in the ass. Case in point: all the people that buy Android-based phones because they don't want the iPhone lock in.
The number of people choosing Android because of "freedom" is miniscule. I'm sure thousands of Android units have sold for that reason, but that's out of millions of Android handsets, and millions more iPhones.
Case in point: Some people choose Linux for issues of freedom, but the market for Linux is also miniscule.
Your argument in your last sentence that people don't ask about freedom and flexibility is silly because nobody's going to ask that.
On the one hand you state that there are a lot of people that choose Android specifically due to freedom, on the other hand, nobody's going to ask about freedom because they don't know to ask. Which is it?
you're limited to a subsection of the internet because we don't really support the most common plugin on the internet".
Similar to how Firefox limits users to a subsection of the Internet because they don't support H.264?
The use of Flash on the Internet is vastly overstated. Something like "90% of pages use Flash" (or whatever), except that that statistic pretty much just means things like ads and videos, ads which are not really something you want, and videos are becoming more often available in H.264 than not.
The lack of Flash isn't a hinderance, unless you still rely on some specific site that requires Flash.
Also, you're completely missing the point of the Netflix/Unbox/Home Video -> iPad argument. I don't want to watch Netflix on a 10" screen at 1024x768 that's sitting in my lap unless I'm on the crapper for an entire weekend. I want to watch it on a large television, and netbooks have the peripheral support to do that. The same goes for the DVD player. It's not a shareable experience...it's pretty much just you sitting in a chair by yourself if you want to watch movies. Best case you might have a hot chick you "have" to snuggle up close to so that she can see too (advantage: iPad).
There are component, composite, and VGA adaptors for the iPad. Developers are free to support video out if they wish.
The iPad has far too many well-established competitors to last as it is for very long. There will surely be an iPad v2 that will be able to conquer these obvious flaws. Until then, I hold my view that it's too expensive for what you get.
What competitors would those be? There are none that yet exist, yet you compare the iPad against these imaginary products, so I have no doubt that when the iPad v2 comes out, you'll be comparing it to what you expect the round of Android tablets that aren't out yet to be like.
This is very much like the Android proponents gushing about Flash, when Android doesn't have Flash and the current state of the Flash beta on Android is horrible.
But no, the current iPad has to compete with their future competitors, so I very much doubt you will amend your opinion even if the iPad v2 covers every single complaint that you have, because you'll just move the goalposts.
Easy mate, ad-hominem attacks don't help your case.
And your Humpty Dumptyism doesn't help yours.
An iPad is not a personal computer because it doesn't run software that didn't get approved by a watchdog. That's a very basic requirement for a personal computer.
No, it's not. You don't get to define words willy nilly. If you want to continue down this line, what's the point in engaging with you, if you get to simply redefine words as you will?
Give me the iPad equivalents of Avidemux, Open Office Impress and Eclipse. Equivalents not only in functionality but also in price (zero) and in not requiring approval by a watchdog. Don't tell me I am playing with words here. Equivalent is pretty unambiguou
And give me the equivalent of the iPad YouTube app, the iPad photo app, the various multitouch games, Keynote, etc., on the PC. It's absurd to state that if you can't get the exact same app (same price, same exact features, etc.) that one computer isn't a PC while the other one is.
I don't get into how clumsy it would be to do those tasks on an iPad because that's indeed a matter of input devices, which vary across the PC universe.
Yeah, if only the iPad supported external keyboards. I mean, there's the keyboard dock, bluetooth keyboards, and USB keyboards, but it doesn't support PS/2 keyboards, so it's not a PC!
Or even more absurdity of your line of reasoning, Apple ]['s, Amigas, DOS computers, etc., aren't PCs? Or what about a Linux PC without X11 installed. Is that then not a PC?
Your argument is absurd, and based solely on your arbitrary definition of the term PC. Humpty Dumpty.
"Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh." Yet they piss on the personal computer world with their spiteful, denigrating, elitist marketing. What a lovely corporation they are these days, bless their cotton socks.
Nice try at attempting to skirt the issue that you think Apple somehow begrudgingly admitted that Macs are PCs. They've been saying that all along.
The difference between their Get A Mac campaign and their talking about PCs in the press releases is that the Get A Mac ads are using the colloquial term for Windows computers, and the press releases are using the technical term. Your third definition of a PC is just one you completely invented whole cloth.
Yeah jailbreaking not illegal. Whatever. That's not even the main issue with it. There shouldn't be a need to jailbreak at all.
Then why do you keep talking about it as being illegal or even possibly illegal?
Apple's approval requirement is an evil policy that enslaves programmers and puts some of the best developers off iDevices altogether.
If you don't wish me to engage in ad hominem, don't spout such stupid shit as this. Apple's policy is not "evil", and it enslaves not a single person.
By buying an iWhatever you add to Apple's revenue and encourage them to stick to that policy even if you jailbreak the thing.
Their policy works, why would I not wish to encourage it?
The 1 million sales included several weeks of preorder, so the 28 day record is a lie. You bought it though. No surprise.
Apple did not sell a single iPad before April 3rd. If you want to get super-pedantic, I suppose some of the shipped-to-home iPads were paid for during the week leading up to the 3rd. But pre-orders are not sales until at the very least the card is charged, and more reasonably, until the product has be delivered.
Regardless of how you specifically choose to draw the line, in no way whatsoever can it be called a lie. You're begging the question.
The curious thing is why you would think first month sales would project out to an irrational annual runrate? Even the most optimistic Apple projections for the iPad are nowhere near 40 million units.
I never said it would. Straw man, part one.
You have to be blind to think that initial sales tell a complete sales story.
I never said they did. Straw man, part two.
Keep sucking the Apple teet.
Throw in a little ad hominem.
iPads are not netbooks
Duh. How could iPads displace netbooks if they were netbooks? At least you finally made a factually indisputable statement.
there is no evidence to think anything is happening one way or another
Aside from sales numbers. And surveys. And online comments. And simply seeing them used on TV. And walking into an Apple Store. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find any evidence that that's not what's happening.
and netbooks will succeed or fail independent of the iPad.
Unlikely. People will choose between netbooks and iPads the same way they choose between cars and trucks. Some will buy both, some will buy neither, but it boggles the mind to think that the question of "should I get an iPad or a netbook" is to be thrown right out. Well, except maybe if people simply don't consider the netbook at all, but I'm being generous here, as netbooks have made an impact on the public's radar.
Netbooks came into existence because there was a demand for cheap notebooks.
No they didn't. They came into existence because there was a demand for really portable cheap notebooks.
They are vulnerable to market forces other than the iPad.
Not a terribly salient point, but true. However, I cannot think of a single other market force that the netbook is more vulnerable to than the iPad (excepting the absurd extremes, like if plastic became ultra-expensive all of a sudden, or Intel (and AMD, etc.) decided to stop making low-power processors.
In other words, iPad is netbook enemy #1. Unless, perhaps, you have something else in mind? I'd normally assume so, but given how prone you are to logical fallacy and the fact that you failed to provide an alternative scenario leads me to believe otherwise.
Could you explain then... You said "netbook sales are in freefall". What did you mean? I'm honestly interested because a growing figure cannot imply freefall for me.
Calculus. If you understand what that word means and took even a single semester of it, you'll have all you need to understand what I mean.
As I see it, what you call 'freefall' is the only thing that prevents us from drowning in netbooks.
You're talking about the reason exponential growth is unsustainable. E.g., bacteria start out growth exponentially, but their growth slows dramatically until equilibrium is reached, otherwise they'd quickly populate the entire universe.
This is not what has happened to netbook sales. The rate of growth has not slowed due to inundation and unsustainability. The rate of growth plummeted over the past year. In a sense, "freefall" is too mild a term. Netbook sales growth by the end of this year will be negative. We'll have to wait and see, of course, but that's what I'm referring to.
Or maybe you just made a small mistake with words and aren't man enough to admit it?
If you're going to start out a post by feigning "honest interest", it's probably not the best move to close by claiming you think I'm just lying to protect my pride.
Why do you assume this, and why do you assume the iPad will do well? Why do you assume the tablet market is viable at all? It's existed for over a decade with limited success. The iPad is not a new idea.
Walk into an Apple Store today and you'll have your answer.
Apple has a knack for entering a rudderless market and completely redefining it. iPod and iPhone both demonstrate this. Just as with the tablet PCs before the iPad, there were PMPs before the iPod and smartphones before the iPhone, but more than any other product, the iPod and iPhone completely altered those markets. The iPad is doing the exact same thing now. I would not be surprised in the least if Apple were to sell more iPads this year than the total number of tablet PCs ever sold. And that's *with* constrained supplies, only a partial year, and non-worldwide distribution.
All those tablets from the past 10 years may as well have never even existed.
Small, but decidely real on some. The more common "chiclets" are still better than on-screen by a mile.
Not really. No netbooks have "real" keyboards. They can't physically fit.
For a narrow set of Apple-blessed codecs. And it's still resolution-limited to 1024x768, unlike some netbooks (most are still 1024x600, but some do native 720p) and a lot of netbooks will handle 720p just fine (except with flash) if you use the right software. And yeah, having to use multiple media players (VLC for MP4, something windows-native either MPC or WMP for WMV/VC1 is kinda a pain, but at least you have a choice of media players.)
You can play all sorts of formats on the iPad. There are more media players available beyond just those that Apple ships on the iPad, just like there are more media players available for the Mac or Windows than ship with the OS.
SD flash video runs fine on most netbooks. HD, notsomuch. Many flash games run fine. A few lag badly.
Exactly. Even something like Hulu's 480p stream has trouble on most netbooks.
You sure do like making irrelevant points with no basis in how people are actually using computers.
Dude, this is exactly what you are doing. Your next sentence demonstrates this extremely well:
Clearly when people say "real" keyboards, they are talking about something with more than haptic touch response. Everybody knows this.
Netbooks don't have real keyboards. The "problem" with the iPad keyboard is that it's harder to type on than a "real" keyboard. It's actually not that bad, once you get used to it (this happens pretty quickly), but some people just can't ever quite get used to them.
These exact same works apply to netbook keyboards.
The "problem" with the netbook keyboard is that it's harder to type on than a "real" keyboard. It's actually not that bad, once you get used to it (this happens pretty quickly), but some people just can't ever quite get used to them.
You're making a distinction between on-screen and mechanical. While that's a real distinction, they both share the same problem of being more difficult to use from what are considered "real" keyboards (physical and full sized).
Your issue with pricing goes the other way. If I want more features, I can buy a better netbook or laptop.
Features that don't mean shit to most people.
So what's not cool about being able to browse Facebook normally, or showing my parents my kid over Skype, or browsing all of the WWW (or the whole internet, for that matter), or being able to type with a laptop in my lap,
What's not cool is having to do all this on a shit netbook. Nobody wants to carry a PC with them. Even worse is carrying a shit PC with them. If you *do* want to, you're a geek (or nerd or whatever), or a professional with specific needs.
or (for the nerdier among us) play videos from a home server or the internet that's not YouTube? Netflix, Unbox, and Hulu are really big forces in the netbook market.
Netflix and streaming from home servers both work perfectly well on the iPad. Hulu is coming, Slingbox has an iPhone app (iPad is coming). Most video sites are moving over to HTML5 or dedicated iPad apps.
That's why a lot of people buy them...like a DVD player on steroids that you can send emails and chat from too.
iPad is more like a DVD player on steroids that you can send emails and chat from too. Only it provides a much better overall experience.
Again, video chat and Flash are not crap on netbooks that are released within the last year or two. Apparently the last netbook you used was the OLPC or the prototype eeePC.
Contrary to what you seem to think, netbooks still have shit Atom chips, and the vast majority do not have Nvidia ION chipsets. Only the ION netbooks (and maybe the AMD Neo, I don't know much about it, except that it's even more rare than ION).
And you don't care about installing software from anywhere on the internet? It doesn't bother you that the iPad's only source of downloads is the App Store? What the hell is wrong with you?
What's "wrong" with me is that I don't suffer from the disease of caring more about meaningless things. Getting apps from multiple sources isn't inherently important. What's inherently important is getting apps. If the App Store serves this need better than having multiple sources (and it does, unless you wear a beanie or grow a grey beard), then the lack of other sources is not only meaningless to me, it's actually a benefit.
I wouldn't want this to be the situation on my MacBook Pro, but it works extremely well.
In conclusion, a lot of people will buy iPads and love them. Good for them. The iPad is a beautiful machine and it holds a certain appeal. However, people that want free
Every time I open a new window and the stupid thing does its bizarre slow animation of zooming out and zooming in, wasting 3 seconds of my time and not even starting to load the new page until it is finished I feel like throwing the thing at the wall.
Holy shit the iPad made me wait two whole seconds!!!
Seriously, it's not that much of a delay. And while I'm not big on unnecessary delays, the animation serves the purpose of showing that you've opened a new tab, shows you where it is, and shows you how many you have open. When I open a new tab in Safari (or Firefox or Chrome), I almost always open it in the background, which takes me time to hop over to it later (grab mouse, move to the tab, click). It's quicker, but not enough to bother me.
Then at some point I hit the maximum number of open windows and it won't open any more. It's just an exercise in frustration.
I have far too many tabs open in Safari right now, and I often don't get around to all of them. I use the tab limit on the iPad (and to a lesser extent, iPhone) to help keep me focused. When I hit the tab limit on the iPad, it's usually because I've got at least a few (often, quite a few) tabs from a while back that I really don't even want anymore.
So, sure, these are downsides, but they just don't bother me, and the convenience and tactile interaction of the iPad completely overshadows them for me. They certainly don't bother me enough to say something like:
The built in browser in the iPad is *horrible* for casual browser. It's basically unusable for me.
The most ironic thing is that your elaboration of your opinion basically states that the iPad's Safari is only good *as* a casual browser, and not a hard-core, mega-tabbing browser.
I actually prefer to use my Nexus One, even with it's tiny screen, over the iPad.
Seems silly to me, but whatever fits the bill for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Sites like Sourceforge hosts downloads for free and you think Apple can't pay for hosting free apps???
All I said is that these things don't host themselves. Someone has to do it, and doing it costs money. You have a knack for writing things that agree with exactly what I wrote while pretending that you are proving me wrong.
Additional bandwidth and storage is dirt cheap these days. Are you living in the early nineties?
Dirt cheap != free. In other words, I'm correct.
There are hosting plans available for TBs of data for a few bucks a month.
You vastly underestimate Apple's bandwidth needs.
You also ignore all the rest of the work that goes into Apple's products, including their developer tools.
But the one thing that makes futile your entire argument is that, in the end, this all costs Apple money.
I really don't see the point of your posts, other than to publicly parade your ignorance.
Erm....isn't that what you just did?
Publicly paraded your ignorance? Yes, I suppose I did.
For comparison, there are more iPhone OS users than total Linux end-users.
Not for much longer, if Android sales keep growing.
In other words, I'm correct.
Care for some castor oil? It'll make swallowing your words so much easier.
Are you an idiot?
Developer tools don't write themselves, don't provide technical support for themselves, and don't host and provide bandwidth for themselves.
Ummm. This is Slashdot. Ever heard of the GNU toolchain? Even Apple uses big chunks of it, btw.
Oh, right. This is apple.slashdot.org. My mistake.
Apple not only uses it, but they contribute greatly to it (and now moving towards clang and LLVM).
But regardless, are you trying to make the point that GCC writes itself? Or that Apple only provides GCC, and not a full IDE like Xcode, with very well made documentation? That they don't provide multi-gigabyte downloads? That they don't host the software and discussion forums/mailing lists?
I really don't see the point of your posts, other than to publicly parade your ignorance.
3) Since you can ONLY use that as a way to get your apps on iPhone,s it's pretty much forced.
Please cite one developer or one user who Apple has forced to buy an iPhone, or buy an app or buy an ADC iPhone membership, etc.
For HTC, Motorola and RIM, #1 is the only way to make profit and they're still doing okay.
Nonsense. Google pays them to install Android (specifically, to include Google-specific features to Android).
Which has nothing to do with whether Apple is fleecing the consumer.
Read the 'fleecing' part and the entire post before rushing to comment?
Yeah, it's not like I went line by line and addressed his whole post or anything...
Unsure indeed. So where are all those hundreds of millions coming from? Straight from AT&T's profits? Or from iPhone users?
I know for a fact that I haven't paid Apple a single cent to stay exclusive to AT&T. I paid AT&T, and they voluntarily paid Apple. As for AT&T, presumably they make more by having more customers than they lose to Apple.
If the app store doesn't make a significant profit then why not open up software installing instead of wasting money on iron clad DRM and multiple TPMs?
Because they want to maintain a certain level of quality of the overall iPhone experience, and it's clearly working out well for them.
How many iPhone users know about how much of their money goes to Apple?
How many care?
AT&T are not fools, they know people buy the iPhone just because others have it and it's shiny and suffer with it even at locations where AT&T service sucks balls and other cell providers' signals are great.
No, they buy it because it's a fucking great phone. They "suffer" AT&T for the phone, not because it's "shiny and peer pressure".
Also, ad hominem much?
Two things:
1. You're a hypocrite to call out my name calling on you when you call iPhone users superficial victims of peer pressure (and the OP called them fools).
2. Ad Hominem is when you use an attack on the person as a means of diminishing their argument. Something like, "you don't bathe therefor your assertion that the sky is blue is false."
I stand by my words.
So, no, relatively speaking, iPhones and iPad are not fragmented.
You're right, but 'owning' an iPhone app basically amounts to being in charge of a small potted plant in somebody else's walled garden.
Um... There are over 200,000 iPhone apps, and the entire web. It's also up to 32GB (and 64GB in iPod Touch and iPad variants).
So, "small potted plant in somebody else's walled garden" is rather absurd.
What did happen, is more Android phones were sold than iPhones, in the US. Notable, sure, but in no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is larger.
Actually, that's exactly the only thing it does mean.
No, it doesn't, but to be fair, I wasn't completely clear in my statement. Android only outsold the iPhone during the last quarter in the US. Both in the US and worldwide, there are still far more iPhones than Android phones.
In addition, this did not count iPod Touches. Last quarter, more iPhone OS devices were sold in the US than Android devices (in fact, I'd wager that more iPhone OS devices were sold in the US alone than Android devices worldwide).
So, no. In no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is bigger. Not even close.
Android: pick a phone you like, lots of selection to meet different size, keyboard, and price point preferences.
Yet people still overwhelmingly choose iPhone over Android. This also ensures that the iPhone will outsell any particular Android handset, even if Android overtakes iPhone in market share.
iPhone: any device you like, just so long as it is this one. Oh and fuck you if you want to use it with Linux.
Yes, Apple has ceded the Linux user market. I doubt this is much of an issue. For comparison, there are more iPhone OS users than total Linux end-users.
And Apple is doing that out of the good of their heart for free app developers who should be forever indebted to Apple for not charging for their free apps.
Who said anything like that?
Not.
Oh, I see. It was a straw man.
They do that so that the iPhone becomes attractive to users(because of free apps available) so that the users can be charged as per my #1, #2 and #3 in my post above.
In other words, they do it because serving the customer's needs and wants helps them make money later. The monsters!
4) Take $99 from every iPhone developer that submits to Apps store (even those who develop and distribute Apps for free, thus making the iDevices more attractive).
Developer tools don't write themselves, don't provide technical support for themselves, and don't host and provide bandwidth for themselves.
Very true. Look at how Apple fleeces the iPhone users:
1) Profit on selling the device itself (either unlocked to consumer or to AT&T)
As opposed to HTC, Motorola, RIM, etc., who sell their products at a loss? How do you suppose they make money? Volume?
2) A nice MONTHLY cut of around $18 from AT&T from the subscribers min. of $70/month. (This is the real reason iPhone is exclusive to AT&T inspite of shitty service all around, notice how this isn't mentioned much here on /.?).
Unsure how this fleeces the users. AT&T pays this to keep exclusivity (assuming the contract is still the same). If they didn't pay this, it's highly unlikely they'd lower the rate for iPhone users by $18.
3) A FORCED 30% cut of all third party software sales for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad.
No one is forced to do anything. Apple does take 30% for paid iPhone apps, but this pretty much covers the running of the store, including things like credit card transaction fees, bandwidth, servers, admins, and so on. Apple does not make a significant profit from the iTunes Store or the App Store. And again, hard to see how this fleeces the users.
No wonder Apple is wallowing in money, they found an almost perfect way to part fools with their money.
Of course, because the only person who would buy an iPhone is a fool? Because AT&T are fools for paying for exclusivity? Because developers are fools for voluntarily paying for Apple to provide a service?
There is a fool in this equation, all right, but from the sounds of it, it doesn't seem likely that you've sent any money to Apple.
and iphones and ipad arent fragmented?
Not in comparison to Android. Any "fragmentation" in the iPhone market is really easy to cover as a developer. The fragmentation in the Android market would be quite a challenge to stay on top of. We're talking orders of magnitude more difficulty.
So, no, relatively speaking, iPhones and iPad are not fragmented.
But that's OK because according to a recent news article Android is now a bigger market to shoot for anyway.
No, it's not. There are more iPhone OS devices out there than there are Android devices. Even limiting ourselves to the timeframe the article you've cited, more iPhone OS devices were sold in that time period.
What did happen, is more Android phones were sold than iPhones, in the US. Notable, sure, but in no way whatsoever does it mean that the Android market is larger. Even taking the mere notion that it is as serious is rather absurd when you consider the popularity of the iPhone.
See my reply to the post two above yours. One game bundle does not negate the general aversion of the Linux crowd from buying software.
Also, like the person who already made this point, you neglected to quote my very next sentence, where I said, "Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux."
Mac users are known for being willing to pay for software. Linux users, not so much.
This may have some relevance to the above comment.
Not really. It's not indicative of the norm.
It's worth noting that you didn't include my very next sentence, which reads:
"Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux."
In other words, games are one of the few things which might buck the trend of Linux users be averse to buying software.
I hope it runs better than previous attempts. I ran Cedega for years on Debian and yeah it "worked". Just like a sickle "works" for cutting grass. Kind of a let down to be honest compared to windows gaming. Maybe this will change that but pardon me if I don't hold my breath.
Sickle
A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crop or cutting grass for hay.
So you're saying that it's going to work perfectly?! Nice.
Actually, you inadvertently described Linux gaming via WINE (Cedega, Cider, etc.) quite well. Sickles are easily made by anyone with a few tools and some know-how, are dirt cheap, but require somewhat continual maintenance, are far more manual and more of a pain to use, and don't tend to get things done as nicely or cleanly as a lawnmower, which is more expensive, costs money to operate, but gets the job done with less effort and better results.
Steam has a lot of potential to help here. If they can solve the issues of drivers and the various distros with various libraries and such, this has the potential to be more like a combine, although I suspect will end up more like just a mechanical sickle (which is often the sort of solution Linux users tend to prefer, it's just that games are somewhat unique in not being very well suited to the DIYer style).
AWESOME. If CS:S and HL2 run well in Ubuntu, I now have no reason to keep my Windows partition.
What I'd be interested in is to see how well Linux ports do on Steam if/when it comes to Linux.
I have a suspicion that Valve and other games that launch today for the Mac will see a notable spike in sales. Mac users are known for being willing to pay for software. Linux users, not so much. Games, however, are one of the areas where the anti-proprietary sentiment is at its weakest, so it'll really be interesting to see how well Steam would do on Linux. A successful Steam launch has a lot of potential upside for Linux in general. Either way, it will tell a lot about the Linux market as a whole. I hope it does well, but I'm not terribly optimistic. I know there's a good deal of desire for games among Linux users, but X11 OpenGL drivers, audio libraries, different package managers and repositories, etc., do pose technical challenges that are mostly absent on Windows and Mac. Fortunately, by going native with OpenGL, the Mac launch has covered the most significant hurdle, which is breaking reliance on DirectX. WINE/Cedega/Cider are far from being a sufficient solution to this (as the no doubt countless "I can finally ditch my Windows partition" posts to come from Linux users will attest to).
On the Mac side, I can't see how this will be anything but a success. There have always been more Mac games than people commonly make it out to be, but having a single "iTunes for games" type of thing is huge. This should make native ports much more numerous, as this will do a lot to allay fears that a developer might have about putting effort into porting a game yet failing to recoup the costs.
I think some people don't care at all about freedom and flexibility, and (like you) are ok with having a centralized dictation of what their computer is going to be.
Your deliberate soviet/communism wording betrays your biased view. Apple doesn't dictate the hardware any more than HP or Dell dictate theirs. As for the software, Apple doesn't dictate what I can do, they just prohibit a small number of things. I am absolutely free to do whatever I want with my iPad, and Apple cannot do anything about it.
Now, I believe that those same people don't care about freedom until it bites them in the ass. Case in point: all the people that buy Android-based phones because they don't want the iPhone lock in.
The number of people choosing Android because of "freedom" is miniscule. I'm sure thousands of Android units have sold for that reason, but that's out of millions of Android handsets, and millions more iPhones.
Case in point: Some people choose Linux for issues of freedom, but the market for Linux is also miniscule.
Your argument in your last sentence that people don't ask about freedom and flexibility is silly because nobody's going to ask that.
On the one hand you state that there are a lot of people that choose Android specifically due to freedom, on the other hand, nobody's going to ask about freedom because they don't know to ask. Which is it?
you're limited to a subsection of the internet because we don't really support the most common plugin on the internet".
Similar to how Firefox limits users to a subsection of the Internet because they don't support H.264?
The use of Flash on the Internet is vastly overstated. Something like "90% of pages use Flash" (or whatever), except that that statistic pretty much just means things like ads and videos, ads which are not really something you want, and videos are becoming more often available in H.264 than not.
The lack of Flash isn't a hinderance, unless you still rely on some specific site that requires Flash.
Also, you're completely missing the point of the Netflix/Unbox/Home Video -> iPad argument. I don't want to watch Netflix on a 10" screen at 1024x768 that's sitting in my lap unless I'm on the crapper for an entire weekend. I want to watch it on a large television, and netbooks have the peripheral support to do that. The same goes for the DVD player. It's not a shareable experience...it's pretty much just you sitting in a chair by yourself if you want to watch movies. Best case you might have a hot chick you "have" to snuggle up close to so that she can see too (advantage: iPad).
There are component, composite, and VGA adaptors for the iPad. Developers are free to support video out if they wish.
The iPad has far too many well-established competitors to last as it is for very long. There will surely be an iPad v2 that will be able to conquer these obvious flaws. Until then, I hold my view that it's too expensive for what you get.
What competitors would those be? There are none that yet exist, yet you compare the iPad against these imaginary products, so I have no doubt that when the iPad v2 comes out, you'll be comparing it to what you expect the round of Android tablets that aren't out yet to be like.
This is very much like the Android proponents gushing about Flash, when Android doesn't have Flash and the current state of the Flash beta on Android is horrible.
But no, the current iPad has to compete with their future competitors, so I very much doubt you will amend your opinion even if the iPad v2 covers every single complaint that you have, because you'll just move the goalposts.
Easy mate, ad-hominem attacks don't help your case.
And your Humpty Dumptyism doesn't help yours.
An iPad is not a personal computer because it doesn't run software that didn't get approved by a watchdog. That's a very basic requirement for a personal computer.
No, it's not. You don't get to define words willy nilly. If you want to continue down this line, what's the point in engaging with you, if you get to simply redefine words as you will?
Give me the iPad equivalents of Avidemux, Open Office Impress and Eclipse. Equivalents not only in functionality but also in price (zero) and in not requiring approval by a watchdog. Don't tell me I am playing with words here. Equivalent is pretty unambiguou
And give me the equivalent of the iPad YouTube app, the iPad photo app, the various multitouch games, Keynote, etc., on the PC. It's absurd to state that if you can't get the exact same app (same price, same exact features, etc.) that one computer isn't a PC while the other one is.
I don't get into how clumsy it would be to do those tasks on an iPad because that's indeed a matter of input devices, which vary across the PC universe.
Yeah, if only the iPad supported external keyboards. I mean, there's the keyboard dock, bluetooth keyboards, and USB keyboards, but it doesn't support PS/2 keyboards, so it's not a PC!
Or even more absurdity of your line of reasoning, Apple ]['s, Amigas, DOS computers, etc., aren't PCs? Or what about a Linux PC without X11 installed. Is that then not a PC?
Your argument is absurd, and based solely on your arbitrary definition of the term PC. Humpty Dumpty.
"Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh." Yet they piss on the personal computer world with their spiteful, denigrating, elitist marketing. What a lovely corporation they are these days, bless their cotton socks.
Nice try at attempting to skirt the issue that you think Apple somehow begrudgingly admitted that Macs are PCs. They've been saying that all along.
The difference between their Get A Mac campaign and their talking about PCs in the press releases is that the Get A Mac ads are using the colloquial term for Windows computers, and the press releases are using the technical term. Your third definition of a PC is just one you completely invented whole cloth.
Yeah jailbreaking not illegal. Whatever. That's not even the main issue with it. There shouldn't be a need to jailbreak at all.
Then why do you keep talking about it as being illegal or even possibly illegal?
Apple's approval requirement is an evil policy that enslaves programmers and puts some of the best developers off iDevices altogether.
If you don't wish me to engage in ad hominem, don't spout such stupid shit as this. Apple's policy is not "evil", and it enslaves not a single person.
By buying an iWhatever you add to Apple's revenue and encourage them to stick to that policy even if you jailbreak the thing.
Their policy works, why would I not wish to encourage it?
HAHAHA.
It's always sad to see such an immature post get +5 Insightful.
There may be something wrong with your browser as that was not my complete post. Or is out of context all it takes to call something immature?
Somebody made an absurd assertion and I laughed at it. Sorry we can't all be as staid as you.
The 1 million sales included several weeks of preorder, so the 28 day record is a lie. You bought it though. No surprise.
Apple did not sell a single iPad before April 3rd. If you want to get super-pedantic, I suppose some of the shipped-to-home iPads were paid for during the week leading up to the 3rd. But pre-orders are not sales until at the very least the card is charged, and more reasonably, until the product has be delivered.
Regardless of how you specifically choose to draw the line, in no way whatsoever can it be called a lie. You're begging the question.
The curious thing is why you would think first month sales would project out to an irrational annual runrate? Even the most optimistic Apple projections for the iPad are nowhere near 40 million units.
I never said it would. Straw man, part one.
You have to be blind to think that initial sales tell a complete sales story.
I never said they did. Straw man, part two.
Keep sucking the Apple teet.
Throw in a little ad hominem.
iPads are not netbooks
Duh. How could iPads displace netbooks if they were netbooks? At least you finally made a factually indisputable statement.
there is no evidence to think anything is happening one way or another
Aside from sales numbers. And surveys. And online comments. And simply seeing them used on TV. And walking into an Apple Store. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find any evidence that that's not what's happening.
and netbooks will succeed or fail independent of the iPad.
Unlikely. People will choose between netbooks and iPads the same way they choose between cars and trucks. Some will buy both, some will buy neither, but it boggles the mind to think that the question of "should I get an iPad or a netbook" is to be thrown right out. Well, except maybe if people simply don't consider the netbook at all, but I'm being generous here, as netbooks have made an impact on the public's radar.
Netbooks came into existence because there was a demand for cheap notebooks.
No they didn't. They came into existence because there was a demand for really portable cheap notebooks.
They are vulnerable to market forces other than the iPad.
Not a terribly salient point, but true. However, I cannot think of a single other market force that the netbook is more vulnerable to than the iPad (excepting the absurd extremes, like if plastic became ultra-expensive all of a sudden, or Intel (and AMD, etc.) decided to stop making low-power processors.
In other words, iPad is netbook enemy #1. Unless, perhaps, you have something else in mind? I'd normally assume so, but given how prone you are to logical fallacy and the fact that you failed to provide an alternative scenario leads me to believe otherwise.
Could you explain then... You said "netbook sales are in freefall". What did you mean? I'm honestly interested because a growing figure cannot imply freefall for me.
Calculus. If you understand what that word means and took even a single semester of it, you'll have all you need to understand what I mean.
As I see it, what you call 'freefall' is the only thing that prevents us from drowning in netbooks.
You're talking about the reason exponential growth is unsustainable. E.g., bacteria start out growth exponentially, but their growth slows dramatically until equilibrium is reached, otherwise they'd quickly populate the entire universe.
This is not what has happened to netbook sales. The rate of growth has not slowed due to inundation and unsustainability. The rate of growth plummeted over the past year. In a sense, "freefall" is too mild a term. Netbook sales growth by the end of this year will be negative. We'll have to wait and see, of course, but that's what I'm referring to.
Or maybe you just made a small mistake with words and aren't man enough to admit it?
If you're going to start out a post by feigning "honest interest", it's probably not the best move to close by claiming you think I'm just lying to protect my pride.
Why do you assume this, and why do you assume the iPad will do well? Why do you assume the tablet market is viable at all? It's existed for over a decade with limited success. The iPad is not a new idea.
Walk into an Apple Store today and you'll have your answer.
Apple has a knack for entering a rudderless market and completely redefining it. iPod and iPhone both demonstrate this. Just as with the tablet PCs before the iPad, there were PMPs before the iPod and smartphones before the iPhone, but more than any other product, the iPod and iPhone completely altered those markets. The iPad is doing the exact same thing now. I would not be surprised in the least if Apple were to sell more iPads this year than the total number of tablet PCs ever sold. And that's *with* constrained supplies, only a partial year, and non-worldwide distribution.
All those tablets from the past 10 years may as well have never even existed.
Small, but decidely real on some. The more common "chiclets" are still better than on-screen by a mile.
Not really. No netbooks have "real" keyboards. They can't physically fit.
For a narrow set of Apple-blessed codecs. And it's still resolution-limited to 1024x768, unlike some netbooks (most are still 1024x600, but some do native 720p) and a lot of netbooks will handle 720p just fine (except with flash) if you use the right software. And yeah, having to use multiple media players (VLC for MP4, something windows-native either MPC or WMP for WMV/VC1 is kinda a pain, but at least you have a choice of media players.)
You can play all sorts of formats on the iPad. There are more media players available beyond just those that Apple ships on the iPad, just like there are more media players available for the Mac or Windows than ship with the OS.
SD flash video runs fine on most netbooks. HD, notsomuch. Many flash games run fine. A few lag badly.
Exactly. Even something like Hulu's 480p stream has trouble on most netbooks.
You sure do like making irrelevant points with no basis in how people are actually using computers.
Dude, this is exactly what you are doing. Your next sentence demonstrates this extremely well:
Clearly when people say "real" keyboards, they are talking about something with more than haptic touch response. Everybody knows this.
Netbooks don't have real keyboards. The "problem" with the iPad keyboard is that it's harder to type on than a "real" keyboard. It's actually not that bad, once you get used to it (this happens pretty quickly), but some people just can't ever quite get used to them.
These exact same works apply to netbook keyboards.
The "problem" with the netbook keyboard is that it's harder to type on than a "real" keyboard. It's actually not that bad, once you get used to it (this happens pretty quickly), but some people just can't ever quite get used to them.
You're making a distinction between on-screen and mechanical. While that's a real distinction, they both share the same problem of being more difficult to use from what are considered "real" keyboards (physical and full sized).
Your issue with pricing goes the other way. If I want more features, I can buy a better netbook or laptop.
Features that don't mean shit to most people.
So what's not cool about being able to browse Facebook normally, or showing my parents my kid over Skype, or browsing all of the WWW (or the whole internet, for that matter), or being able to type with a laptop in my lap,
What's not cool is having to do all this on a shit netbook. Nobody wants to carry a PC with them. Even worse is carrying a shit PC with them. If you *do* want to, you're a geek (or nerd or whatever), or a professional with specific needs.
or (for the nerdier among us) play videos from a home server or the internet that's not YouTube? Netflix, Unbox, and Hulu are really big forces in the netbook market.
Netflix and streaming from home servers both work perfectly well on the iPad. Hulu is coming, Slingbox has an iPhone app (iPad is coming). Most video sites are moving over to HTML5 or dedicated iPad apps.
That's why a lot of people buy them...like a DVD player on steroids that you can send emails and chat from too.
iPad is more like a DVD player on steroids that you can send emails and chat from too. Only it provides a much better overall experience.
Again, video chat and Flash are not crap on netbooks that are released within the last year or two. Apparently the last netbook you used was the OLPC or the prototype eeePC.
Contrary to what you seem to think, netbooks still have shit Atom chips, and the vast majority do not have Nvidia ION chipsets. Only the ION netbooks (and maybe the AMD Neo, I don't know much about it, except that it's even more rare than ION).
And you don't care about installing software from anywhere on the internet? It doesn't bother you that the iPad's only source of downloads is the App Store? What the hell is wrong with you?
What's "wrong" with me is that I don't suffer from the disease of caring more about meaningless things. Getting apps from multiple sources isn't inherently important. What's inherently important is getting apps. If the App Store serves this need better than having multiple sources (and it does, unless you wear a beanie or grow a grey beard), then the lack of other sources is not only meaningless to me, it's actually a benefit.
I wouldn't want this to be the situation on my MacBook Pro, but it works extremely well.
In conclusion, a lot of people will buy iPads and love them. Good for them. The iPad is a beautiful machine and it holds a certain appeal. However, people that want free
Every time I open a new window and the stupid thing does its bizarre slow animation of zooming out and zooming in, wasting 3 seconds of my time and not even starting to load the new page until it is finished I feel like throwing the thing at the wall.
Holy shit the iPad made me wait two whole seconds!!!
Seriously, it's not that much of a delay. And while I'm not big on unnecessary delays, the animation serves the purpose of showing that you've opened a new tab, shows you where it is, and shows you how many you have open. When I open a new tab in Safari (or Firefox or Chrome), I almost always open it in the background, which takes me time to hop over to it later (grab mouse, move to the tab, click). It's quicker, but not enough to bother me.
Then at some point I hit the maximum number of open windows and it won't open any more. It's just an exercise in frustration.
I have far too many tabs open in Safari right now, and I often don't get around to all of them. I use the tab limit on the iPad (and to a lesser extent, iPhone) to help keep me focused. When I hit the tab limit on the iPad, it's usually because I've got at least a few (often, quite a few) tabs from a while back that I really don't even want anymore.
So, sure, these are downsides, but they just don't bother me, and the convenience and tactile interaction of the iPad completely overshadows them for me. They certainly don't bother me enough to say something like:
The built in browser in the iPad is *horrible* for casual browser. It's basically unusable for me.
The most ironic thing is that your elaboration of your opinion basically states that the iPad's Safari is only good *as* a casual browser, and not a hard-core, mega-tabbing browser.
I actually prefer to use my Nexus One, even with it's tiny screen, over the iPad.
Seems silly to me, but whatever fits the bill for you.