Speaking of taking drugs, what exactly are you on? Lion is out of beta. The GM has been around for a few weeks and has no big issues. And in the astronomically unlikely event that I'm affected by some problem, I'm fully capable of restoring my system to exactly as it was before the upgrade with minimal hassle.
And who are you to tell others what software to install or not, or when? It's my computer, I'll run the beta, the final release, Debian Sid, whatever the hell I want. Like you said, life will go on for you no matter what choice I make for my own computer.
And some people (and by "some people", I mean "almost everyone") have no problem paying a fair price for something they want, even when there are "free" alternatives.
Apple don't need any help looking bad. There's no excuse for not making DVD an option for those unable to download, it's a very simple solution and one that everyone else is able to do. Make it available at a reasonable extra charge if you must.
They are offering it on a USB drive in a few weeks.
And the idea of going through the hassle of disconnecting and hauling your computer to an Apple Store (which may be god knows how far away) is such a ridiculous workaround it doesn't even deserve a response
The idea that this is going to be an even remotely common scenario doesn't even deserve a response.
Not all Macs are purchased at an Apple Store; some are purchased at Best Buy or at independent Apple authorized retailers.
100% irrelevant. Apple Stores will help you in their stores no matter where you bought your Mac. Also, third party stores will be able to give you access to a locally cached copy of Lion once you've purchased it.
You keep acting like this is a common situation. It's contrived, solely to find some reason to bitch about something that won't be a problem for most people.
And for those whom it is a problem, that's the way their life is. They can't watch Netflix, they can't buy TV shows from iTunes or watch Hulu, or buy games on Steam. Even YouTube is a pain. And OS updates that can exceed 1GB? Same issue. It's not like they are exactly the sort of people who are champing a the bit for the latest and greatest anyway. They can make for for a few weeks until physical media is available, assuming they can't avail themselves of the many other options until then.
Apple has multiple solutions for the small minority who will have problems. You are exaggerating the issue.
Why is it not unreasonable to force users to buy previous versions of the OS, if they aren't dependencies for the current version?
Because it's an upgrade. Upgrades usually have restrictions to what versions they can upgrade from. Lion requires Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard required Leopard, etc.
You can apparently just get the physical media or do it from the store to get the current version, but otherwise you have to pay for a version you won't use just to pay for the version you will use (from what I surmise from GP's post).
You *are* using the "version you won't use" for two things. First, to download Lion. Second, as a pre-requisite to get a legitimate Lion license for only $29.
My old laptop runs XP. Should I be forced to buy Vista to buy Windows 7?
That's up to Microsoft to decide. They also have license requirements, most of which are *much* worse than Apple has for Lion (for example, they are tied to one computer at a time, some are even tied to one computer only, never allowed to be transferred). And even the *cheapest* non-student license for Windows 7 is more expensive than buying Snow Leopard + Lion.
(Actually, the next step for it is probably Linux, but that's beside the point.) I don't see how this behavior is justifiable at all.
That explains a lot right there. Why do you not think companies have the right to decide the terms under which they sell their products? There's nothing especially onerous about Apple's terms. In fact, they are much better (and cheaper) than most other commonly used systems!
Not everybody has access to an affordable 18 Mbps connection at home.
And not everybody has shitty internet service either. Most people live in cities now. Not just in the US, but in the entire world. One would quite reasonably assume that high speed internet connections are even more prevalent among Mac owners, and even more so still among those with 64-bit Macs.
For the very few which are affected by your affected scenario, they have options, including a drive to the Apple Store, a friend's house with faster internet, or, horror of horrors, waiting for the USB key to become available next month!
It's a 4 gig download so you better not be in a hurry.
Yeah it takes a whopping 30 minutes. That's like...forever and stuff.
Exactly.
I started my download this morning and had Lion installed before any Apple Stores were open. I had Lion installed sooner than had it been released today on disc. The download and install was quicker than driving to a store and back and installing!
Also, if Apple were to have pressed the discs and boxed and shipped them, Lion's release date would have been later than today. So even for those with internet speeds so slow that 4GB will take "all day", you'll still have Lion up and running faster than you would have otherwise.
You guys act like you don't ever download large files or something.
Nah, the value to Apple in *not* having "solid media" is the fact that the aforementioned technologies are no longer useful to skirt paying them the $30 "fix whats broken" tax on all the shiny Apple toys out there.
What are you talking about? "Fix what's broken"? What's broken about Snow Leopard? "Tax"? It's $29, which is extremely low for an OS. It's also free with all new Macs (and recent purchases).
And as for skirting (by that, you mean piracy of course), you can "skirt" it just as easily as before.
Plus however much your ISP charges you to download the data that will be recorded on the disc. For those who live outside the coverage area of cable and DSL, a 4 GB download costs $48 (estimate based on $60/mo 3G or satellite service with 5 GB/mo transfer cap).
Or you can take your Mac to an Apple Store (or any place with fast internet) or wait and buy Lion on a flash drive next month or go to a friend's house and download and burn a disc or flash drive, etc.
As usual, you are using highly contrived scenarios to try to make Apple look bad.
... Yup. I was clearly talking literally about tonnes of people.
It was a joke, based on a pun. I will spell it out for you:
Very few people run Linux. Even fewer people have a Chromebook. We're already limiting ourselves to mere thousands here.
Of those, the number that will have flipped that switch and installed their own Linux distro cannot in any reasonable sense be called "tonnes", except by mass.
Though I don't share your definition of "fun". Last I checked, "fun" and "powerful" were not synonyms.
I never said they were.
You can define "fun" for yourself however you want, but your post was clearly about "tonnes of people" having "all sorts of fun". Unless you are talking mass, your post is unsupported by reality. On the other hand, had you said, "a few people do this, and they have all sorts of fun doing so", we'd have no argument.
That begs the question. He's asking why you'd want to work on such a computer. Netbooks aren't exactly a pleasure to use even for the simplest of tasks, and software development is far from being the simplest of tasks.
That's your opinion. I travel frequently and use my eee 900 for software development when I do. It's good enough for the task.
"Good enough" is hardly "a pleasure to use". It would appear that, in spite of the tone of your reply, our opinions aren't all that far apart.
That's why a C64 and a quad Xeon workstation are wholly interchangeable.
Those are both examples of entirely generic somputer systems. Sure, you wouldn't want to trade, but both are unrestricted and both can and have been used for software development.
Since this whole post is about "why you'd want to", these differences are quite important. One of those is the right tool for the job, and the other most certainly isn't.
You can't claim they are equivalent, then point out one is better than the other. To do so is to move the goalposts. They may both be turing machines, but when you choose a development platform, you don't simply ask the one question, "is this a turing machine?", and stop there.
And this point of view is theoretical. You quite simply *can't* develop software on a C64 that you can on a modern computer, because there is no software to allow it. In *theory*, you could emulate a modern PC (although unfixable storage limitations on the C64 may prevent this), but the software to do so does not exist, and even if it did, it would take an absurd amount of time to simply *boot* the machine, let alone compile a simple Windows (for example) program.
No, it's not a "fully featured laptop".
In terms of hardware it is fully features, albeit not terribly speedy.
In other words "in terms only of the features *I* choose, it's a fully-featured laptop". Storage is 16GB. That's not "full-featured" by today's standards. Atom CPU is not full-featured. ChromeOS is not full-featured.
But, it has a screen, keyboard, trackpad, cpu, ram and storage. Calling that a "fully featured laptop" is extremely dishonest. This device sounds more like "barely meets the requirements to be called a modern laptop".
And software *is* a spec.
For a generic computer, only in the loosest possible sense. I've never had a computer come with the software I want installed.
If by "generic computer", you mean, "computer for most people", then sure. I'm going to guess that you are a Linux user. If so, you can't really take the position that your software needs are even remotely common to talk about as though they are normal.
Is the Chromebook "artificially limited" if it can't read.doc files? No. An artificial limit (the way you seem to be using it) would be if it could, but that functionality has deliberately been disabled.
OK, I agree with you here. It souds like one can scrap the OS and install whatever one wants. So no artificial limitations.
What do you mean? This machine has plenty of limitations. The end-user can bypass some of them, but many are inherent to the hardware.
Your point is, rather, that Apple is above all criticism and that no one should ever do so.
No, my point is that the criticism Apple faces on Slashdot is absurd. "Apple is the biggest pusher of every concept that's ever been criticized on Slashdot."?
The *only* reason for the Apple-hate is the App Store lock-in, which no one cares about outside of Slashdot. Once Apple locked the iPhone, and Google opened theirs more (but not fully), the Slashdot Asperger's crew completely flipped. Now Apple is evil.
I gave numerous examples of Slashdot stupidity with regards to Apple. I left out quite a few, like that Apple is going to stop selling Macs.
The consumer is Apple's customer, and the consumer is Google's product
The buyer of these devices is a product for BOTH of them.
Nice try, but that's not what I wrote. iAds, and anything like it where the consumer is a product, not the customer, is extremely minor. The primary iPhone customer for Apple is the consumer, while the product is the iPhone itself. The primary customer for the Android OS for Google is the handset maker, and the primary product is the user who they sell to advertisers.
But hey, you assumed immediately that I am an Android/Google fan which means that you're as blind as you claim others to be.
Your premise is flawed. I never said you were an Android/Google fan, and even if I did, it would not make me just as blind as the anti-Apple crowd here. The anti-Apple nonsense here goes *way* beyond just mistaken identity. Your post goes way beyond it. It goes far into hyperbole-land. Hell, even just calling you an Android "fan" would have been so mild here as to be unnoticeable! Here, I get called *much* worse when I state simple, straightforward facts, like that iOS has outsold Android OS by around 2-to-1, and that the iPhone alone has outsold Android in its entirety, as of the most recent numbers (which are now only two months old).
They push DRM on everything but music.
Like everyone else! And their DRM is just about as invisible as can be.
They push their own implementation of "trusted computing" in its worst form (with the user marked as a hostile entity) with no ability to opt out.
"Worst form"? You mean, they implement it in a way that works? Because there's no malware for non-jailbroken iPhones, and has been plenty of malware for Android. And the user has *never* been "marked as a hostile entity". This is just inane Slashdot hyperbole.
They actively work with and support the RIAA and MPAA, who work very, very hard with their member companies to sue their own customers.
Nice try, but Apple does absolutely *nothing* to support the RIAA and MPAA with suing the customers (this is a variation on the theme of "will Apple turn you in for piracy on iCloud?"). On the other hand, they deal with those two organizations because they sell music and video. Apple isn't responsible for the system under which they must exist.
If you do *one thing* they don't like, you're evil, no appeal go directly to the 'we hate you' category. So as I said, you believe that Apple is above criticism and attack me instead of addressing my points.
No, Apple is not above criticism. But "criticism" does not mean vagaries "Apple is the biggest pusher of every concept that's ever been criticized on Slashdot."
It's extremely dishonest of you to say I "attacked" you (I guess *you're* above criticism, by your own logic here?) instead of addressing your points, when you didn't even make any specific point (but got +4, as of now, for a post solely for attacking Apple), just one very vague one (that Apple is the worst company in the eyes of Slashdot), and I addressed it very, very well. I also attacked the ignorance from which your post comes.
Your post was ignorant, lacking in content, and built on false premises. This post I'm replying to at least has content, so that's an improvement.
But the hardware sounds quite nice. Does it run a proper distro yet?
Yup. Tonnes of people do it.
I assume you are referring to people by mass and not by unit numbers.
There's a switch behind the battery to set it to developer mode, and it opens up the computer to all sorts of fun. IIRC, it's just an intel atom proc inside...
Atom is the bottom of the barrel. This thing is woefully underpowered to be called "fun".
You probably wouldn't want to compile things directly on it, but it does have a terminal you can use to SSH into a better dev environment.
But when someone suggests doing that on an iPad, they are a fanboy...
Why would you go with a Chromebook and SSHing into a text-only development environment over a proper solution? Oh, because it's from Google, so it's chic around here. Talk about the ultimate in form over function!
That begs the question. He's asking why you'd want to work on such a computer. Netbooks aren't exactly a pleasure to use even for the simplest of tasks, and software development is far from being the simplest of tasks.
It's called using the right tool for the job.
The tool in question is a generic CPU connected to all the usual laptop extras (screen, keyboard, mousr, USB, etc).
That's why a C64 and a quad Xeon workstation are wholly interchangeable.
In other words the machine is a fully featured laptop. This tool should be able to do anything that a similarly specced tool can do. If not, then it is artificially limited by poor software.
No, it's not a "fully featured laptop". And software *is* a spec. Is the Chromebook "artificially limited" if it can't read.doc files? No. An artificial limit (the way you seem to be using it) would be if it could, but that functionality has deliberately been disabled.
ChromeOS is a solution looking for a problem. Or, more specifically, a solution for a problem that *Google* has, but that their customers don't. ChromeOS is about getting people to see more Google ads, but there's no compelling reason to run such a lame device. Once you have the notebook form factor, you might as well run Windows or Mac OS X.
My reply to Microlith is part of a few I've made today pointing out that his nerd-centric view is not common. I don't recall a reply from you in recent times (well, ever really) that had any content other than calling me a fanboy of some type, generally involving childish sexual taunts. In fact, the one I'm replying to right now is, as far as I can tell, the most reasonable post you've ever made on Slashdot, and it's not exactly a post to aspire to (not even for Slashdot).
Just because most people won't care about it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate reason; legitimacy in no way requires or implies relevancy.
Actually, it does. If something isn't relevant, how can it be a legitimate example of anything apropos? Especially when the original statement was in response to the idea that this will drive people to Android (ha!).
That said while I don't own any Apple devices, I've not bothered to root my Android phone.
Exactly. That modding is "+5, I hate Apple", not "+5, this is a pertinent point".
The OP's point wasn't a logical claim where even one counter-example with even the most tenuous of connections disproves it. It was along the lines of "come on, what reasons are there really to jailbreak these days anyway?".
"Ownership" is not an answer. it's a nerd platitude.
After all, even most nerds *here* don't even care about this enough to practice it themselves, what relevancy do you think this could possibly have to the market in general?
Bullshit. There isn't a single example of Apple doing this. On the other hand, Apple, unlike SCO, has actually invented quite a lot over the years, and protects their inventions.
And this is Apple "suing HTC into oblivion", with "patent claims more ridiculous than SCO"? HTC will survive this, two of the patents have been ruled as being violated, and these are inventions that Apple actually did invent and use, not just SCO-like patent trolling.
What you are basically saying is that technology patents should not exist, or perhaps just that Apple shouldn't be able to have any, or Android should be granted unlimited, royalty-free licenses to any patents they need (from Apple, perhaps, but not Microsoft?), or something along those lines.
One of those patents dates back to the Newton, where it's pretty much impossible to argue Apple didn't invent something without needing a pair of strong, Slashdot-strength, anti-Apple, fanboy goggles.
That's a proposed part of HTML5, pretty much in reverse of what we are talking about. It's not Apple saying, "let's make this the standard, and we have a patent here", it's W3C saying, "let's make this a part of the standard, and let's take the patents away from Apple."
It's definitely worthy of discussion, but not an example of Apple doing something Eskarel is saying. It's also quite understandable that companies wouldn't just want to give up patents because someone else wants to use it for free. In fact, the idea is a bit absurd.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of taking drugs, what exactly are you on? Lion is out of beta. The GM has been around for a few weeks and has no big issues. And in the astronomically unlikely event that I'm affected by some problem, I'm fully capable of restoring my system to exactly as it was before the upgrade with minimal hassle.
And who are you to tell others what software to install or not, or when? It's my computer, I'll run the beta, the final release, Debian Sid, whatever the hell I want. Like you said, life will go on for you no matter what choice I make for my own computer.
And some people (and by "some people", I mean "almost everyone") have no problem paying a fair price for something they want, even when there are "free" alternatives.
Apple don't need any help looking bad. There's no excuse for not making DVD an option for those unable to download, it's a very simple solution and one that everyone else is able to do. Make it available at a reasonable extra charge if you must.
They are offering it on a USB drive in a few weeks.
And the idea of going through the hassle of disconnecting and hauling your computer to an Apple Store (which may be god knows how far away) is such a ridiculous workaround it doesn't even deserve a response
The idea that this is going to be an even remotely common scenario doesn't even deserve a response.
The great thing is that you can download it, put it on a flash drive or burn it to a DVD and install it on all your computers
Really!!1!! You can do all that now???? That's revolutionary and changes everything. Whoever said Apple does not invent, take that!
Really? Whoever said Apple invented those things? Sounds more like the usual contrivences of your highly misguided mind.
Not all Macs are purchased at an Apple Store; some are purchased at Best Buy or at independent Apple authorized retailers.
100% irrelevant. Apple Stores will help you in their stores no matter where you bought your Mac. Also, third party stores will be able to give you access to a locally cached copy of Lion once you've purchased it.
You keep acting like this is a common situation. It's contrived, solely to find some reason to bitch about something that won't be a problem for most people.
And for those whom it is a problem, that's the way their life is. They can't watch Netflix, they can't buy TV shows from iTunes or watch Hulu, or buy games on Steam. Even YouTube is a pain. And OS updates that can exceed 1GB? Same issue. It's not like they are exactly the sort of people who are champing a the bit for the latest and greatest anyway. They can make for for a few weeks until physical media is available, assuming they can't avail themselves of the many other options until then.
Apple has multiple solutions for the small minority who will have problems. You are exaggerating the issue.
Why is it not unreasonable to force users to buy previous versions of the OS, if they aren't dependencies for the current version?
Because it's an upgrade. Upgrades usually have restrictions to what versions they can upgrade from. Lion requires Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard required Leopard, etc.
You can apparently just get the physical media or do it from the store to get the current version, but otherwise you have to pay for a version you won't use just to pay for the version you will use (from what I surmise from GP's post).
You *are* using the "version you won't use" for two things. First, to download Lion. Second, as a pre-requisite to get a legitimate Lion license for only $29.
My old laptop runs XP. Should I be forced to buy Vista to buy Windows 7?
That's up to Microsoft to decide. They also have license requirements, most of which are *much* worse than Apple has for Lion (for example, they are tied to one computer at a time, some are even tied to one computer only, never allowed to be transferred). And even the *cheapest* non-student license for Windows 7 is more expensive than buying Snow Leopard + Lion.
(Actually, the next step for it is probably Linux, but that's beside the point.) I don't see how this behavior is justifiable at all.
That explains a lot right there. Why do you not think companies have the right to decide the terms under which they sell their products? There's nothing especially onerous about Apple's terms. In fact, they are much better (and cheaper) than most other commonly used systems!
Maybe you should stop living in some backwater shithole? I have middle tier cable service and 4 gig downloads are nothing.
Wow. You sir, represent every thing I despise. You think superior of yourself because of what you spend money on and where you live.
As bad as that may be, it's better than trying to hold everyone else back to the lowest common denominator.
Not everybody has access to an affordable 18 Mbps connection at home.
And not everybody has shitty internet service either. Most people live in cities now. Not just in the US, but in the entire world. One would quite reasonably assume that high speed internet connections are even more prevalent among Mac owners, and even more so still among those with 64-bit Macs.
For the very few which are affected by your affected scenario, they have options, including a drive to the Apple Store, a friend's house with faster internet, or, horror of horrors, waiting for the USB key to become available next month!
It's a 4 gig download so you better not be in a hurry.
Yeah it takes a whopping 30 minutes. That's like...forever and stuff.
Exactly.
I started my download this morning and had Lion installed before any Apple Stores were open. I had Lion installed sooner than had it been released today on disc. The download and install was quicker than driving to a store and back and installing!
Also, if Apple were to have pressed the discs and boxed and shipped them, Lion's release date would have been later than today. So even for those with internet speeds so slow that 4GB will take "all day", you'll still have Lion up and running faster than you would have otherwise.
You guys act like you don't ever download large files or something.
Leave it to Slashdot to bitch about a $60 operating system.
Nah, the value to Apple in *not* having "solid media" is the fact that the aforementioned technologies are no longer useful to skirt paying them the $30 "fix whats broken" tax on all the shiny Apple toys out there.
What are you talking about? "Fix what's broken"? What's broken about Snow Leopard? "Tax"? It's $29, which is extremely low for an OS. It's also free with all new Macs (and recent purchases).
And as for skirting (by that, you mean piracy of course), you can "skirt" it just as easily as before.
The value is about 12 cents a DVD-R nowadays
Plus however much your ISP charges you to download the data that will be recorded on the disc. For those who live outside the coverage area of cable and DSL, a 4 GB download costs $48 (estimate based on $60/mo 3G or satellite service with 5 GB/mo transfer cap).
Or you can take your Mac to an Apple Store (or any place with fast internet) or wait and buy Lion on a flash drive next month or go to a friend's house and download and burn a disc or flash drive, etc.
As usual, you are using highly contrived scenarios to try to make Apple look bad.
... Yup. I was clearly talking literally about tonnes of people.
It was a joke, based on a pun. I will spell it out for you:
Very few people run Linux. Even fewer people have a Chromebook. We're already limiting ourselves to mere thousands here.
Of those, the number that will have flipped that switch and installed their own Linux distro cannot in any reasonable sense be called "tonnes", except by mass.
Though I don't share your definition of "fun". Last I checked, "fun" and "powerful" were not synonyms.
I never said they were.
You can define "fun" for yourself however you want, but your post was clearly about "tonnes of people" having "all sorts of fun". Unless you are talking mass, your post is unsupported by reality. On the other hand, had you said, "a few people do this, and they have all sorts of fun doing so", we'd have no argument.
That begs the question. He's asking why you'd want to work on such a computer. Netbooks aren't exactly a pleasure to use even for the simplest of tasks, and software development is far from being the simplest of tasks.
That's your opinion. I travel frequently and use my eee 900 for software development when I do. It's good enough for the task.
"Good enough" is hardly "a pleasure to use". It would appear that, in spite of the tone of your reply, our opinions aren't all that far apart.
That's why a C64 and a quad Xeon workstation are wholly interchangeable.
Those are both examples of entirely generic somputer systems. Sure, you wouldn't want to trade, but both are unrestricted and both can and have been used for software development.
Since this whole post is about "why you'd want to", these differences are quite important. One of those is the right tool for the job, and the other most certainly isn't.
You can't claim they are equivalent, then point out one is better than the other. To do so is to move the goalposts. They may both be turing machines, but when you choose a development platform, you don't simply ask the one question, "is this a turing machine?", and stop there.
And this point of view is theoretical. You quite simply *can't* develop software on a C64 that you can on a modern computer, because there is no software to allow it. In *theory*, you could emulate a modern PC (although unfixable storage limitations on the C64 may prevent this), but the software to do so does not exist, and even if it did, it would take an absurd amount of time to simply *boot* the machine, let alone compile a simple Windows (for example) program.
No, it's not a "fully featured laptop".
In terms of hardware it is fully features, albeit not terribly speedy.
In other words "in terms only of the features *I* choose, it's a fully-featured laptop". Storage is 16GB. That's not "full-featured" by today's standards. Atom CPU is not full-featured. ChromeOS is not full-featured.
But, it has a screen, keyboard, trackpad, cpu, ram and storage. Calling that a "fully featured laptop" is extremely dishonest. This device sounds more like "barely meets the requirements to be called a modern laptop".
And software *is* a spec.
For a generic computer, only in the loosest possible sense. I've never had a computer come with the software I want installed.
If by "generic computer", you mean, "computer for most people", then sure. I'm going to guess that you are a Linux user. If so, you can't really take the position that your software needs are even remotely common to talk about as though they are normal.
Is the Chromebook "artificially limited" if it can't read .doc files? No. An artificial limit (the way you seem to be using it) would be if it could, but that functionality has deliberately been disabled.
OK, I agree with you here. It souds like one can scrap the OS and install whatever one wants. So no artificial limitations.
What do you mean? This machine has plenty of limitations. The end-user can bypass some of them, but many are inherent to the hardware.
Your point is, rather, that Apple is above all criticism and that no one should ever do so.
No, my point is that the criticism Apple faces on Slashdot is absurd. "Apple is the biggest pusher of every concept that's ever been criticized on Slashdot."?
The *only* reason for the Apple-hate is the App Store lock-in, which no one cares about outside of Slashdot. Once Apple locked the iPhone, and Google opened theirs more (but not fully), the Slashdot Asperger's crew completely flipped. Now Apple is evil.
I gave numerous examples of Slashdot stupidity with regards to Apple. I left out quite a few, like that Apple is going to stop selling Macs.
The consumer is Apple's customer, and the consumer is Google's product
The buyer of these devices is a product for BOTH of them.
Nice try, but that's not what I wrote. iAds, and anything like it where the consumer is a product, not the customer, is extremely minor. The primary iPhone customer for Apple is the consumer, while the product is the iPhone itself. The primary customer for the Android OS for Google is the handset maker, and the primary product is the user who they sell to advertisers.
But hey, you assumed immediately that I am an Android/Google fan which means that you're as blind as you claim others to be.
Your premise is flawed. I never said you were an Android/Google fan, and even if I did, it would not make me just as blind as the anti-Apple crowd here. The anti-Apple nonsense here goes *way* beyond just mistaken identity. Your post goes way beyond it. It goes far into hyperbole-land. Hell, even just calling you an Android "fan" would have been so mild here as to be unnoticeable! Here, I get called *much* worse when I state simple, straightforward facts, like that iOS has outsold Android OS by around 2-to-1, and that the iPhone alone has outsold Android in its entirety, as of the most recent numbers (which are now only two months old).
They push DRM on everything but music.
Like everyone else! And their DRM is just about as invisible as can be.
They push their own implementation of "trusted computing" in its worst form (with the user marked as a hostile entity) with no ability to opt out.
"Worst form"? You mean, they implement it in a way that works? Because there's no malware for non-jailbroken iPhones, and has been plenty of malware for Android. And the user has *never* been "marked as a hostile entity". This is just inane Slashdot hyperbole.
They actively work with and support the RIAA and MPAA, who work very, very hard with their member companies to sue their own customers.
Nice try, but Apple does absolutely *nothing* to support the RIAA and MPAA with suing the customers (this is a variation on the theme of "will Apple turn you in for piracy on iCloud?"). On the other hand, they deal with those two organizations because they sell music and video. Apple isn't responsible for the system under which they must exist.
If you do *one thing* they don't like, you're evil, no appeal go directly to the 'we hate you' category.
So as I said, you believe that Apple is above criticism and attack me instead of addressing my points.
No, Apple is not above criticism. But "criticism" does not mean vagaries "Apple is the biggest pusher of every concept that's ever been criticized on Slashdot."
It's extremely dishonest of you to say I "attacked" you (I guess *you're* above criticism, by your own logic here?) instead of addressing your points, when you didn't even make any specific point (but got +4, as of now, for a post solely for attacking Apple), just one very vague one (that Apple is the worst company in the eyes of Slashdot), and I addressed it very, very well. I also attacked the ignorance from which your post comes.
Your post was ignorant, lacking in content, and built on false premises. This post I'm replying to at least has content, so that's an improvement.
But the hardware sounds quite nice. Does it run a proper distro yet?
Yup. Tonnes of people do it.
I assume you are referring to people by mass and not by unit numbers.
There's a switch behind the battery to set it to developer mode, and it opens up the computer to all sorts of fun. IIRC, it's just an intel atom proc inside...
Atom is the bottom of the barrel. This thing is woefully underpowered to be called "fun".
You probably wouldn't want to compile things directly on it, but it does have a terminal you can use to SSH into a better dev environment.
But when someone suggests doing that on an iPad, they are a fanboy...
Why would you go with a Chromebook and SSHing into a text-only development environment over a proper solution? Oh, because it's from Google, so it's chic around here. Talk about the ultimate in form over function!
Why would you want to?
Because it looks like a pretty nice netbook.
That begs the question. He's asking why you'd want to work on such a computer. Netbooks aren't exactly a pleasure to use even for the simplest of tasks, and software development is far from being the simplest of tasks.
It's called using the right tool for the job.
The tool in question is a generic CPU connected to all the usual laptop extras (screen, keyboard, mousr, USB, etc).
That's why a C64 and a quad Xeon workstation are wholly interchangeable.
In other words the machine is a fully featured laptop. This tool should be able to do anything that a similarly specced tool can do. If not, then it is artificially limited by poor software.
No, it's not a "fully featured laptop". And software *is* a spec. Is the Chromebook "artificially limited" if it can't read .doc files? No. An artificial limit (the way you seem to be using it) would be if it could, but that functionality has deliberately been disabled.
ChromeOS is a solution looking for a problem. Or, more specifically, a solution for a problem that *Google* has, but that their customers don't. ChromeOS is about getting people to see more Google ads, but there's no compelling reason to run such a lame device. Once you have the notebook form factor, you might as well run Windows or Mac OS X.
His point is Apple is doing it less wrong than Google.
Specifically, you never hear a review of the iPad lamenting the lack of documentation. Yet that's one the issues the reviewer had with the Chromebook.
Um, what?
Steps you listed, for jailbreakers:
1. There is no step one.
Non-jailbreakers:
1. Wait for Apple
2. tether to computer
3. download a "large" file
4. reflash it
5. restore settings
You artificially expanded one set of steps, and collapsed the other. Why is that?
My reply to Microlith is part of a few I've made today pointing out that his nerd-centric view is not common. I don't recall a reply from you in recent times (well, ever really) that had any content other than calling me a fanboy of some type, generally involving childish sexual taunts. In fact, the one I'm replying to right now is, as far as I can tell, the most reasonable post you've ever made on Slashdot, and it's not exactly a post to aspire to (not even for Slashdot).
Just because most people won't care about it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate reason; legitimacy in no way requires or implies relevancy.
Actually, it does. If something isn't relevant, how can it be a legitimate example of anything apropos? Especially when the original statement was in response to the idea that this will drive people to Android (ha!).
That said while I don't own any Apple devices, I've not bothered to root my Android phone.
Exactly. That modding is "+5, I hate Apple", not "+5, this is a pertinent point".
The OP's point wasn't a logical claim where even one counter-example with even the most tenuous of connections disproves it. It was along the lines of "come on, what reasons are there really to jailbreak these days anyway?".
"Ownership" is not an answer. it's a nerd platitude.
After all, even most nerds *here* don't even care about this enough to practice it themselves, what relevancy do you think this could possibly have to the market in general?
Bullshit. There isn't a single example of Apple doing this. On the other hand, Apple, unlike SCO, has actually invented quite a lot over the years, and protects their inventions.
How about this one?
And this is Apple "suing HTC into oblivion", with "patent claims more ridiculous than SCO"? HTC will survive this, two of the patents have been ruled as being violated, and these are inventions that Apple actually did invent and use, not just SCO-like patent trolling.
What you are basically saying is that technology patents should not exist, or perhaps just that Apple shouldn't be able to have any, or Android should be granted unlimited, royalty-free licenses to any patents they need (from Apple, perhaps, but not Microsoft?), or something along those lines.
One of those patents dates back to the Newton, where it's pretty much impossible to argue Apple didn't invent something without needing a pair of strong, Slashdot-strength, anti-Apple, fanboy goggles.
Bullshit. Apple has not patented part of HTML5.
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13/1430232/W3C-Chastises-Apple-On-HTML5-Patenting
That's a proposed part of HTML5, pretty much in reverse of what we are talking about. It's not Apple saying, "let's make this the standard, and we have a patent here", it's W3C saying, "let's make this a part of the standard, and let's take the patents away from Apple."
It's definitely worthy of discussion, but not an example of Apple doing something Eskarel is saying. It's also quite understandable that companies wouldn't just want to give up patents because someone else wants to use it for free. In fact, the idea is a bit absurd.
I see you are still incapable of making an actual point, and just calling people names.