Life's full of risks. Only a idiot would somehow think they can remove all potential for bad things to happen. Sony fucked up, and they're fixing it. That's all you can expect from someone. It's absolutely absurd to demand they never make a mistake (I guess you're perfect?), the real measures are: how often do they make mistakes, and what do they do about the mistakes they make?
Even the most diligent person or organization is going to make some huge, retrospectively obvious mistakes now and then.
And yes, if millions of accounts are compromised, and only 100 actually end up with fraudulent activity, that would very much be a good thing. Just like if a tornado goes through a city, and a relatively small number of people are hurt or killed. It's a thing that happened, you know there is a potential for bad outcomes, so you hope for minimal fallout. When you get minimal fallout, things worked out better than expected and that's a good thing.
Nerds, gotta love their ability to logic. If something is "possible", it's treated as "inevitable". But somehow only for things that are bad.
TwitPic isn't going to sell your family pictures for use in a Viagra ad. If they did, people would actually have a reason to leave TwitPic, instead of the currently imaginary reason. On the other hand, right now someone can take your pictures to sell Viagra. At least this way TwitPic can better deal with such a misuse, and would in fact have a monetary incentive to do so.
Also, this helps TwitPic make money. Do you think you should get to use their service, and they shouldn't be allowed to make money in the process? If you don't like the terms, you can move on to someone else, but really, these terms don't seem bad for what you get.
There is no good reason why a person or company should get to make money off something another person created
As long as the arrangement is voluntary, I see no reason why someone should *not* be allowed to make money off of someone else's work. In fact, that's pretty much the point of having money in the first place, as a way of facilitating the exchange of goods and services, including creative goods and services.
No, I'm just not stupid enough to think that Apple bringing improvements to Lion from iOS means that they are going to turn Mac OS X into iOS. The mere notion is absurd.
You are seeing parallels where they don't exist. That's one of the biggest problem with being a nerd. You can often see connections that other people miss, but you have a hard time discerning real connections from imaginary ones.
"We've partnered with organizations to help us combat this and to distribute newsworthy content in the appropriate manner."
What plausible interpretation of this sentence can you give that doesn't involve selling content?
The problem is how it's being framed. It's being framed as, "TwitPic is taking your shit, selling it, and fuck you."
The most plausible explanation (based solely on what I've read on Slashdot so far) is:
Right now, people are taking photos from TwitPic and using them however they want. TwitPic is partnering with a company to be the official method by which you can commercially use pictures from TwitPic. This certainly does involve money going to TwitPic (so, yes, they are selling your photos and not paying you, so the fact is true, but the way it's presented as a big "Fuck You" is not).
Anyway, the value to the TwitPic user is that their pictures are now no longer simply being grabbed by whoever, but have a more official means by which they can be used. This helps pay for TwitPic (a reasonable expectation), protects the user more than is protected now, and provides a more apparent legal means to combat people commercially using photos without attribution or permission.
So, it's better for all parties than it is now, but it's definitely a bit unfair if you intend to sell your photos, but then again, if you were intending to sell them, throwing them up on TwitPic for free seems a bit idiotic in the first place. If the idea of TwitPic making money off of the photos you voluntarily put onto their site bothers you, don't put them there. However, it does bring up an issue of hypocrisy. After all, if TwitPic doesn't have the right to make money from your use of their site, what right do you think you have to use their site for free in the first place? You don't inherently deserve something for nothing. Their new terms seem fairly reasonable, benefit everyone involved, and are completely voluntary. It's hard to see a problem.
So, as a fact, the headline is correct. But the way it's being presented is absurd.
Well, this is Slashdot after all, the land of ideology, fantasy, and paranoia. In a place like this, any sliver of a fact can easily be "proven" to be the result of nothing less than the most evil possible thing it could lead to.
I was pointing out the iOS functionality that they are starting to put into the Mac OSX.
Exactly. Features that are being *added* to *Mac OS X*. You've not demonstrated what this has to do with the topic at hand.
And this whole thread is moronic anyway.
Then you are a moron for participating in it.
Perhaps, but only if trying to put forth a rational argument in a sea of idiocy is moronic.
The iPad is a computer, it's just not a PC. The PC is just one type of computer. For all their talk of "openness" and "choice", nerds sure are an overly conservative bunch who seem to think there is only One True way to do something. They derided the PC when it came out, then the GUI, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad...
Notice a trend here? In each one of these, Apple was at the forefront, and in each one of these, the reactionary nerds were on the losing side.
Psst, your "I heart Steve Jobs" tattoo is showing.
I notice your posts are completely devoid of content or relevance. If what I've written is so wrong, it should be easy to rebut it. But clearly it's not so easy. When you simply resort to some lame ad hominem, you really show how much confidence you have in your argument.
Exactly which iOS device is SUPPOSED to be a computer? There are phones. There are iPods. There are tablets. Not a single iOS device is marketed as a computer.
Well...not yet anyway, but you can see where it's headed..
Yeah, holy shit, Apple is making Mac OS X better in their next version! Is that what you mean by "where it's headed"? Because the "it" the OP was referring to was iOS, and the "it" you mentioned is Mac OS X. Two distinct, but related, its.
And this whole thread is moronic anyway. The iPad is a computer, it's just not a PC. The PC is just one type of computer. For all their talk of "openness" and "choice", nerds sure are an overly conservative bunch who seem to think there is only One True way to do something. They derided the PC when it came out, then the GUI, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad...
Notice a trend here? In each one of these, Apple was at the forefront, and in each one of these, the reactionary nerds were on the losing side.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If this thing is supposed to be a computer, I expect it to behave like one.
Yes, it's supposed to compute arbitrary data, and have human-centric input and output, such as an on-screen keyboard, multitouch interface, and full color, high resolution display, audio playback and audio/video input. It should have a web browser, email, games, photo and video editing software, as well as many tens of thousands of programs available for it, along with a full SDK available, with an OS that provides absolutely everything you'd expect from a desktop system, except replacing the mouse input and windows with a multitouch input method and interface.
Sounds like a computer to me.
Can you imagine if HP, Dell, Asus, etc tried to tell you you are only allowed to install apps through their app stores on a computer you buy from them?
Yes, nobody would buy them.
But they are buying iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads by the tens (and hundreds) of millions. Why is that? Because if HP, Dell, or Asus tried to only allow apps from their own stores, people would just buy the exact equivalent computer from someone else. For one of the commodity PC makers to pull something like this off, they'd have to provide a significant value to the consumer. That's exactly what Apple does, and is why they are so successful.
well not you because you're probably too much of a self-righteous douchebag to actually own the device you're complaining about
Wait... so you'd prefer GP be a hypocrite than a "self-righteous douchebag"? Think about that for a moment.
I can't speak for the OP, but I generally find hypocrites more pleasant than self-righteous douchebags. Besides, every single person on the planet is a hypocrite about something (well, maybe not babies or people in comas, but once you are able to hold and communicate sufficiently complex concepts, it's pretty much impossible to be without contradiction).
But that's a straw man argument anyway. The impression I got was that the OP was simply calling him a self-righteous douchebag, not that he wanted him to buy anything from Apple.
Unfortunately, Apple is trying to make it a legal issue, and they also seem to be trying to move their desktop OS towards the same walled garden.
That's unsubstantiated bullshit. Apple is *not* trying to make it illegal, and they are not moving their desktop OS towards the same "walled garden". Nothing Apple is doing today indicates they will *ever* remove the ability to run arbitrary software from Mac OS X.
And while the easy-bake oven is almost a decent analogy, the existence of relatively more open Android devices kills it.
Aside from the fact that analogies are, by their very nature, not required to be completely 100% equivalent to the thing they are compared to, how does Android "kill it"? There can't be two different ways to do the same general thing? Clearly there can.
You can't say an Android phone isn't intended for the same things
Sure you can. Android is intended to make Google money via ad revenue by offering the OS for "free" and enticing users by being generally more open (but not even remotely as open as some people seem to think) and being on a wider variety of devices and carriers, while iOS is intended make money to Apple primarily by direct sale and enticing the consumer to buy from Apple by being more secure and user friendly, by being of higher quality, having greater features, and all while being less expensive.
both Android and iOS are targeting the exact same users, use cases, etc.
Not really. Android is more targeted at nerds and handset manufacturers, iOS is more targeted at normal people.
It's much more like the difference between two otherwise-identical toasters, one of which can have the temperature and cooking-time adjusted, and the other always produces toast of precisely the shade of brown Steve Jobs favors.
You far overstate the difference. iOS isn't so much about only allowing what Steve Jobs wants, but disallowing a small subset of things Steve Jobs doesn't think the consumer wants.
Now, I don't think anyone is saying that people should be prevented from making such a device, but it is a very odd situation where the device with less functionality actually has a higher price point, and I do think that this sort of locked-down device is harmful to everyone except the manufacturer.
Yes, it is odd Android devices are often more expensive and often locked-down, and often more targeted at the manufacturer's (as well as the carrier's and Google's) needs than the end user's needs. But it's completely rational that the less functional device is also the less popular. iOS is far more functional than Android for far more people, and thus more popular with more people. Android is only more functional for the small subset of users who can and wish to take advantage of what to most people is merely latent potential.
1. Apple doesn't "shove DRM down your throat". Apple offers iOS products with DRM. No one is forced to buy them. But hundreds of millions voluntarily do.
2. The iPad is a computer, but it's not a generic PC. Generic PCs are Intel compatible devices which are generally operated via mouse and keyboard with a WIMP GUI. It's possible to deviate a bit from this and still be called a "generic PC" (for example, one could make an ARM-based computer than runs Windows and reasonably call it a generic PC, or take a generic PC, and run it as a HTPC without a mouse and keyboard), but the iPad differs from the idea of a generic PC too much to be reasonably called one.
But you're right that it's a turing complete computer. But so is an iPod, a WiFi router, a super computer, a programmable calculator, and some of the fancier birthday cards, but none of these are "generic PCs".
Yes, but your oven should be able to bake bread that doesn't use Walmart yeast even though you bought your oven from Walmart.
And if your oven doesn't use yeast from sources other than Wal-Mart, and you voluntarily buy the oven, what's the big deal? My printer only works with ink from the manufacturer (it, like my iPhone, can be hacked to remove this restriction, but the restriction itself is what's being discussed here), and I'm completely fine with it. It works well, and the ink is a good quality at a price I am happy with. Same with my iPhone.
Why is it so difficult for slashdot nerds to understand that people aren't terribly bothered by this sort of thing?
If you buy platform object A from store B, you should be able to use add-on item C (which was made for object A) even if you buy it from store D, but store B puts up a special lock that won't let anything that wasn't bought from store B into platform object A. Why do you think that's fair, right, or just.
It's "fair, right, and just" because it's 100% voluntary. Not a single person on the planet is forced to buy an iOS device. It's done voluntarily. If people found the App Store restriction offensive, they'd stop buying from Apple, and Apple would have to change their model. But people don't find it offensive, just a handful of irrelevant nerds. The silly thing is these nerds tend to bandy about words like "evil", and think *their* opinion is the only valid opinion, when not only is it *not* the only valid opinion, it's actually an extremely minor opinion.
There are a number of legal terms for this kind of lock-in, and all the ones I know of are considered illegal. No idea why there isn't an investigation, but then again, the DOJ can be really stupid and blind at times.
It's funny you seem to have a "number of legal terms", yet chose conveniently to not name them. Probably because you know absolutely none of them apply here. Apple's iOS App Store is not illegal. It's not evil. It's not unjust or unfair or wrong. It's 100% voluntary, it's not a monopoly or a trust.
So, tell me, since you are such a legal genius, are chipped ink cartridges illegal? Are Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 games illegal? Are sim-locked phones illegal? Are CSS-encrypted DVDs illegal? Seriously, not only is Apple's App Store model *not* illegal, it's extremely difficult to see how anyone can think it *is* illegal.
Not just wal-mart, but an evil wall mart. If walmart doesn't want to sell yeast, they don't prevent me from buying yeast from a third party. Apple has DRM'ed thier platform so that it is forboden to load apps except through a store they controll.
Apple doesn't prevent anyone from buying apps from a third party.
Additionally, Wal-Mart often undercuts local businesses, driving away the third party yeast stores (from your analogy). And you spelled Wal-Mart three different ways in your post, all right next to each other (among other misspellings which I normally ignore, but that was especially humorous).
Anyway, it's like Wal-Mart not carrying the yeast you want, but still being completely free to shop at the next store down if you want the yeast. There isn't a single person on the planet being forced by Apple to buy apps from Apple's App Store. Not one. All of their customers are voluntarily so. How is that even remotely "evil"?
A final little note to all those complaining about the CCC: Perhaps as hackers you just have a different definition as to what is good? Because right now I've got a hot little seller in the Cruz Micro 4Gb tablet. While most here would think it is shitty for running Android 2.0 with just 256Mb of RAM and 4Gb of space, frankly my customers love the thing. It started when I ordered one for a neighbor and mushroomed as she has gone around showing off the thing. Sure it isn't an iPad but who gives a shit? For reading eBooks, playing tunes, and light web surfing it works just fine and at $150 while making me a little profit it is turning out to be quite popular. Hell watching her play with the thing I might get one myself just for playing with.
You said the same thing a year ago about netbooks compared to the iPad, that your customers were snapping up netbooks, and no way they'd want an iPad, etc., etc.
When are you going to learn your customer base is not representative of the market as a whole? This should be extremely obvious, because if your customers were normal, then these $150 4GB crap tablets would be easily besting the iPad in the market. But they're not.
You also seem to think people will spend $150 on a shit tablet, but not $499 on a great tablet. Maybe you should understand that the people buying the iPad don't come to you, they go to Apple or Best Buy. You only see the cheapskates because you cater to them. It's a self-selecting group, not an average sampling of the market as a whole. You're like a cobbler saying "Nike? Bah, all my customers bring in their old leather shoes for me to work on, it's quite popular these days."
Yeah, those people who are voluntarily choosing to buy products that best serve their needs. What assholes!
Here's a clue: Apple doesn't invade your privacy, and they don't "lockdown and control" except in order to make their products more appealing and more powerful to more people. By voluntarily choosing Apple's products, consumers *are* taking an active stance in creating the world they want to see. It's just not the world *you* want to see. Who are you to dictate to them the world they should wish for?
Apple isn't a government and they aren't a monopoly. They aren't the biggest, most profitable technology company in the world by force, but by the completely voluntary actions of the consumers.
Um, where in your purchase did Sony promise to keep PSN running without outage? If you bought your products in the last 30 days, you can probably get a refund from your retailer, otherwise you are taking a risk that the service will remain up indefinitely. Same goes for Xbox Live.
Sony (and Microsoft, and Steam, etc.) have to keep their services up in order to keep customers and draw new ones. The idea that you are due a refund is absurd. The idea that Sony has to get things back up as quickly as possible is not. They know you, and millions of other people, are pissed. They know Microsoft is probably seeing a spike in sales right now. They know the clock is ticking here.
There's nothing you can do to speed things up, and you can't do anything about what Sony will offer in recompense, and they surely will offer something (they already have made some promises in this regard, they may have to up it a bit now though, although I don't really expect them to), all you can do is either wait it out, or play games on your Wii or 360.
Or, I guess, bitch on slashdot, and make silly demands.
What's amazing is that you and every other back-seat nerd here on slashdot seems to think *YOU* could fix this mess in like two days easy. Well, shit man, call Sony right now and offer your services. You could literally write your own ticket. I bet Sony would gladly pay you a few million to have everything fixed and patched by Friday.
If you're as smart as you think you are, what are you doing gabbing away on Slashdot? You don't like easy money or something?
Or, maybe, shit like this is hard, and deep down you know that. It's a wonder, there is no shortage of nerds out there saying things like, "all you have to do is..." about any and every problem they see, but somehow there's a vast shortage of people who actually seem able to *actually* do these things.
No shit they screwed up. Where do you get the idea I said otherwise? The only thing I'm specifically saying they've done right is not bringing PSN back up until it's fixed, and in fact delaying their restoration of service once they found out the damage was worse than they thought. That's the right thing to do.
Nowhere ever did I say they didn't screw up.
Acting like people don't have the right to be upset about it makes no sense at all.
Acting like I said that makes no sense at all. What also makes no sense at all is giving Sony shit for doing something right.
For one, I'm not aware of any past cases of Debian (or any other distro) repositories going down for two and a half weeks to clean up the mess. But at least with repos it's actually explainable - the attackers could have inserted malicious code into packages, so you need to audit or roll back to last backup. What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!
So what exactly do you think is Sony's motivation for keeping PSN down for so long if it's not to make sure they are no longer compromised or vulnerable to compromise?
As for re-imaging the servers, if they did that, then they would just be rehacked. This is a big fucking mess for Sony, and they can't let it happen again.
Another thing is that Debian users don't pay anything to access the repos, nor for Debian themselves. In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.
Not sure what being paid has to do with how much effort is involved in fixing their service. Computers don't operate differently based on whether they generate revenue or not.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not Sony keeping their service down for this long is right or not. I can't even fathom why the collective slashdot nerd-mind seems to think Sony would be deliberately keeping their services offline. It's utterly moronic. Sony is losing a lot of money and public image each day this continues.
Why hasn't Sony halted sales of products which require the PSN to work at all like the PSP go? If the PSN is indefinitely down, it is impossible to load games to play offline making them guilty of fraud for continuing to sell it.
It's hard to say they're doing the right thing when they're continuing to sell gaming systems that can't play games.
Well, your post lives up to your name.
As to this very different point, if you think Sony is committing fraud, I'm sure there will be a class action suit in no time. Lawyers love this shit. Also, perhaps you should contact your local district attorney's office. If Sony is committing mass fraud in your state, that would be pretty serious.
Although this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's right for Sony to keep their servers down while they fix them.
Wow, this is a new low for Slashdot. I'm a "shill" for not being a fucking moron who thinks it's impossible for Sony to ever do anything right? When your shit gets hacked, you take it offline until you can put it back up safely. This isn't being a "shill", it's just being rational and not being a whiny little bitch just because we are supposed to hate some company.
Slashdot Mirror
Life's full of risks. Only a idiot would somehow think they can remove all potential for bad things to happen. Sony fucked up, and they're fixing it. That's all you can expect from someone. It's absolutely absurd to demand they never make a mistake (I guess you're perfect?), the real measures are: how often do they make mistakes, and what do they do about the mistakes they make?
Even the most diligent person or organization is going to make some huge, retrospectively obvious mistakes now and then.
And yes, if millions of accounts are compromised, and only 100 actually end up with fraudulent activity, that would very much be a good thing. Just like if a tornado goes through a city, and a relatively small number of people are hurt or killed. It's a thing that happened, you know there is a potential for bad outcomes, so you hope for minimal fallout. When you get minimal fallout, things worked out better than expected and that's a good thing.
How is that going to happen from a stolen credit card number?
Nerds, gotta love their ability to logic. If something is "possible", it's treated as "inevitable". But somehow only for things that are bad.
TwitPic isn't going to sell your family pictures for use in a Viagra ad. If they did, people would actually have a reason to leave TwitPic, instead of the currently imaginary reason. On the other hand, right now someone can take your pictures to sell Viagra. At least this way TwitPic can better deal with such a misuse, and would in fact have a monetary incentive to do so.
Also, this helps TwitPic make money. Do you think you should get to use their service, and they shouldn't be allowed to make money in the process? If you don't like the terms, you can move on to someone else, but really, these terms don't seem bad for what you get.
Ah yes, the "it's only bad when someone else does it, but not when I do it" defense.
There is no good reason why a person or company should get to make money off something another person created
As long as the arrangement is voluntary, I see no reason why someone should *not* be allowed to make money off of someone else's work. In fact, that's pretty much the point of having money in the first place, as a way of facilitating the exchange of goods and services, including creative goods and services.
No, I'm just not stupid enough to think that Apple bringing improvements to Lion from iOS means that they are going to turn Mac OS X into iOS. The mere notion is absurd.
You are seeing parallels where they don't exist. That's one of the biggest problem with being a nerd. You can often see connections that other people miss, but you have a hard time discerning real connections from imaginary ones.
"We've partnered with organizations to help us combat this and to distribute newsworthy content in the appropriate manner."
What plausible interpretation of this sentence can you give that doesn't involve selling content?
The problem is how it's being framed. It's being framed as, "TwitPic is taking your shit, selling it, and fuck you."
The most plausible explanation (based solely on what I've read on Slashdot so far) is:
Right now, people are taking photos from TwitPic and using them however they want. TwitPic is partnering with a company to be the official method by which you can commercially use pictures from TwitPic. This certainly does involve money going to TwitPic (so, yes, they are selling your photos and not paying you, so the fact is true, but the way it's presented as a big "Fuck You" is not).
Anyway, the value to the TwitPic user is that their pictures are now no longer simply being grabbed by whoever, but have a more official means by which they can be used. This helps pay for TwitPic (a reasonable expectation), protects the user more than is protected now, and provides a more apparent legal means to combat people commercially using photos without attribution or permission.
So, it's better for all parties than it is now, but it's definitely a bit unfair if you intend to sell your photos, but then again, if you were intending to sell them, throwing them up on TwitPic for free seems a bit idiotic in the first place. If the idea of TwitPic making money off of the photos you voluntarily put onto their site bothers you, don't put them there. However, it does bring up an issue of hypocrisy. After all, if TwitPic doesn't have the right to make money from your use of their site, what right do you think you have to use their site for free in the first place? You don't inherently deserve something for nothing. Their new terms seem fairly reasonable, benefit everyone involved, and are completely voluntary. It's hard to see a problem.
So, as a fact, the headline is correct. But the way it's being presented is absurd.
Well, this is Slashdot after all, the land of ideology, fantasy, and paranoia. In a place like this, any sliver of a fact can easily be "proven" to be the result of nothing less than the most evil possible thing it could lead to.
I was pointing out the iOS functionality that they are starting to put into the Mac OSX.
Exactly. Features that are being *added* to *Mac OS X*. You've not demonstrated what this has to do with the topic at hand.
And this whole thread is moronic anyway.
Then you are a moron for participating in it.
Perhaps, but only if trying to put forth a rational argument in a sea of idiocy is moronic.
The iPad is a computer, it's just not a PC. The PC is just one type of computer. For all their talk of "openness" and "choice", nerds sure are an overly conservative bunch who seem to think there is only One True way to do something. They derided the PC when it came out, then the GUI, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad...
Notice a trend here? In each one of these, Apple was at the forefront, and in each one of these, the reactionary nerds were on the losing side.
Psst, your "I heart Steve Jobs" tattoo is showing.
I notice your posts are completely devoid of content or relevance. If what I've written is so wrong, it should be easy to rebut it. But clearly it's not so easy. When you simply resort to some lame ad hominem, you really show how much confidence you have in your argument.
Exactly which iOS device is SUPPOSED to be a computer? There are phones. There are iPods. There are tablets. Not a single iOS device is marketed as a computer.
Well...not yet anyway, but you can see where it's headed..
http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/
Yeah, holy shit, Apple is making Mac OS X better in their next version! Is that what you mean by "where it's headed"? Because the "it" the OP was referring to was iOS, and the "it" you mentioned is Mac OS X. Two distinct, but related, its.
And this whole thread is moronic anyway. The iPad is a computer, it's just not a PC. The PC is just one type of computer. For all their talk of "openness" and "choice", nerds sure are an overly conservative bunch who seem to think there is only One True way to do something. They derided the PC when it came out, then the GUI, then the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad...
Notice a trend here? In each one of these, Apple was at the forefront, and in each one of these, the reactionary nerds were on the losing side.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If this thing is supposed to be a computer, I expect it to behave like one.
Yes, it's supposed to compute arbitrary data, and have human-centric input and output, such as an on-screen keyboard, multitouch interface, and full color, high resolution display, audio playback and audio/video input. It should have a web browser, email, games, photo and video editing software, as well as many tens of thousands of programs available for it, along with a full SDK available, with an OS that provides absolutely everything you'd expect from a desktop system, except replacing the mouse input and windows with a multitouch input method and interface.
Sounds like a computer to me.
Can you imagine if HP, Dell, Asus, etc tried to tell you you are only allowed to install apps through their app stores on a computer you buy from them?
Yes, nobody would buy them.
But they are buying iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads by the tens (and hundreds) of millions. Why is that? Because if HP, Dell, or Asus tried to only allow apps from their own stores, people would just buy the exact equivalent computer from someone else. For one of the commodity PC makers to pull something like this off, they'd have to provide a significant value to the consumer. That's exactly what Apple does, and is why they are so successful.
well not you because you're probably too much of a self-righteous douchebag to actually own the device you're complaining about
Wait... so you'd prefer GP be a hypocrite than a "self-righteous douchebag"? Think about that for a moment.
I can't speak for the OP, but I generally find hypocrites more pleasant than self-righteous douchebags. Besides, every single person on the planet is a hypocrite about something (well, maybe not babies or people in comas, but once you are able to hold and communicate sufficiently complex concepts, it's pretty much impossible to be without contradiction).
But that's a straw man argument anyway. The impression I got was that the OP was simply calling him a self-righteous douchebag, not that he wanted him to buy anything from Apple.
Unfortunately, Apple is trying to make it a legal issue, and they also seem to be trying to move their desktop OS towards the same walled garden.
That's unsubstantiated bullshit. Apple is *not* trying to make it illegal, and they are not moving their desktop OS towards the same "walled garden". Nothing Apple is doing today indicates they will *ever* remove the ability to run arbitrary software from Mac OS X.
And while the easy-bake oven is almost a decent analogy, the existence of relatively more open Android devices kills it.
Aside from the fact that analogies are, by their very nature, not required to be completely 100% equivalent to the thing they are compared to, how does Android "kill it"? There can't be two different ways to do the same general thing? Clearly there can.
You can't say an Android phone isn't intended for the same things
Sure you can. Android is intended to make Google money via ad revenue by offering the OS for "free" and enticing users by being generally more open (but not even remotely as open as some people seem to think) and being on a wider variety of devices and carriers, while iOS is intended make money to Apple primarily by direct sale and enticing the consumer to buy from Apple by being more secure and user friendly, by being of higher quality, having greater features, and all while being less expensive.
both Android and iOS are targeting the exact same users, use cases, etc.
Not really. Android is more targeted at nerds and handset manufacturers, iOS is more targeted at normal people.
It's much more like the difference between two otherwise-identical toasters, one of which can have the temperature and cooking-time adjusted, and the other always produces toast of precisely the shade of brown Steve Jobs favors.
You far overstate the difference. iOS isn't so much about only allowing what Steve Jobs wants, but disallowing a small subset of things Steve Jobs doesn't think the consumer wants.
Now, I don't think anyone is saying that people should be prevented from making such a device, but it is a very odd situation where the device with less functionality actually has a higher price point, and I do think that this sort of locked-down device is harmful to everyone except the manufacturer.
Yes, it is odd Android devices are often more expensive and often locked-down, and often more targeted at the manufacturer's (as well as the carrier's and Google's) needs than the end user's needs. But it's completely rational that the less functional device is also the less popular. iOS is far more functional than Android for far more people, and thus more popular with more people. Android is only more functional for the small subset of users who can and wish to take advantage of what to most people is merely latent potential.
1. Apple doesn't "shove DRM down your throat". Apple offers iOS products with DRM. No one is forced to buy them. But hundreds of millions voluntarily do.
2. The iPad is a computer, but it's not a generic PC. Generic PCs are Intel compatible devices which are generally operated via mouse and keyboard with a WIMP GUI. It's possible to deviate a bit from this and still be called a "generic PC" (for example, one could make an ARM-based computer than runs Windows and reasonably call it a generic PC, or take a generic PC, and run it as a HTPC without a mouse and keyboard), but the iPad differs from the idea of a generic PC too much to be reasonably called one.
But you're right that it's a turing complete computer. But so is an iPod, a WiFi router, a super computer, a programmable calculator, and some of the fancier birthday cards, but none of these are "generic PCs".
Yes, but your oven should be able to bake bread that doesn't use Walmart yeast even though you bought your oven from Walmart.
And if your oven doesn't use yeast from sources other than Wal-Mart, and you voluntarily buy the oven, what's the big deal? My printer only works with ink from the manufacturer (it, like my iPhone, can be hacked to remove this restriction, but the restriction itself is what's being discussed here), and I'm completely fine with it. It works well, and the ink is a good quality at a price I am happy with. Same with my iPhone.
Why is it so difficult for slashdot nerds to understand that people aren't terribly bothered by this sort of thing?
If you buy platform object A from store B, you should be able to use add-on item C (which was made for object A) even if you buy it from store D, but store B puts up a special lock that won't let anything that wasn't bought from store B into platform object A. Why do you think that's fair, right, or just.
It's "fair, right, and just" because it's 100% voluntary. Not a single person on the planet is forced to buy an iOS device. It's done voluntarily. If people found the App Store restriction offensive, they'd stop buying from Apple, and Apple would have to change their model. But people don't find it offensive, just a handful of irrelevant nerds. The silly thing is these nerds tend to bandy about words like "evil", and think *their* opinion is the only valid opinion, when not only is it *not* the only valid opinion, it's actually an extremely minor opinion.
There are a number of legal terms for this kind of lock-in, and all the ones I know of are considered illegal. No idea why there isn't an investigation, but then again, the DOJ can be really stupid and blind at times.
It's funny you seem to have a "number of legal terms", yet chose conveniently to not name them. Probably because you know absolutely none of them apply here. Apple's iOS App Store is not illegal. It's not evil. It's not unjust or unfair or wrong. It's 100% voluntary, it's not a monopoly or a trust.
So, tell me, since you are such a legal genius, are chipped ink cartridges illegal? Are Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 games illegal? Are sim-locked phones illegal? Are CSS-encrypted DVDs illegal? Seriously, not only is Apple's App Store model *not* illegal, it's extremely difficult to see how anyone can think it *is* illegal.
Not just wal-mart, but an evil wall mart. If walmart doesn't want to sell yeast, they don't prevent me from buying yeast from a third party. Apple has DRM'ed thier platform so that it is forboden to load apps except through a store they controll.
Apple doesn't prevent anyone from buying apps from a third party.
Additionally, Wal-Mart often undercuts local businesses, driving away the third party yeast stores (from your analogy). And you spelled Wal-Mart three different ways in your post, all right next to each other (among other misspellings which I normally ignore, but that was especially humorous).
Anyway, it's like Wal-Mart not carrying the yeast you want, but still being completely free to shop at the next store down if you want the yeast. There isn't a single person on the planet being forced by Apple to buy apps from Apple's App Store. Not one. All of their customers are voluntarily so. How is that even remotely "evil"?
A final little note to all those complaining about the CCC: Perhaps as hackers you just have a different definition as to what is good? Because right now I've got a hot little seller in the Cruz Micro 4Gb tablet. While most here would think it is shitty for running Android 2.0 with just 256Mb of RAM and 4Gb of space, frankly my customers love the thing. It started when I ordered one for a neighbor and mushroomed as she has gone around showing off the thing. Sure it isn't an iPad but who gives a shit? For reading eBooks, playing tunes, and light web surfing it works just fine and at $150 while making me a little profit it is turning out to be quite popular. Hell watching her play with the thing I might get one myself just for playing with.
You said the same thing a year ago about netbooks compared to the iPad, that your customers were snapping up netbooks, and no way they'd want an iPad, etc., etc.
When are you going to learn your customer base is not representative of the market as a whole? This should be extremely obvious, because if your customers were normal, then these $150 4GB crap tablets would be easily besting the iPad in the market. But they're not.
You also seem to think people will spend $150 on a shit tablet, but not $499 on a great tablet. Maybe you should understand that the people buying the iPad don't come to you, they go to Apple or Best Buy. You only see the cheapskates because you cater to them. It's a self-selecting group, not an average sampling of the market as a whole. You're like a cobbler saying "Nike? Bah, all my customers bring in their old leather shoes for me to work on, it's quite popular these days."
Yeah, those people who are voluntarily choosing to buy products that best serve their needs. What assholes!
Here's a clue: Apple doesn't invade your privacy, and they don't "lockdown and control" except in order to make their products more appealing and more powerful to more people. By voluntarily choosing Apple's products, consumers *are* taking an active stance in creating the world they want to see. It's just not the world *you* want to see. Who are you to dictate to them the world they should wish for?
Apple isn't a government and they aren't a monopoly. They aren't the biggest, most profitable technology company in the world by force, but by the completely voluntary actions of the consumers.
Um, where in your purchase did Sony promise to keep PSN running without outage? If you bought your products in the last 30 days, you can probably get a refund from your retailer, otherwise you are taking a risk that the service will remain up indefinitely. Same goes for Xbox Live.
Sony (and Microsoft, and Steam, etc.) have to keep their services up in order to keep customers and draw new ones. The idea that you are due a refund is absurd. The idea that Sony has to get things back up as quickly as possible is not. They know you, and millions of other people, are pissed. They know Microsoft is probably seeing a spike in sales right now. They know the clock is ticking here.
There's nothing you can do to speed things up, and you can't do anything about what Sony will offer in recompense, and they surely will offer something (they already have made some promises in this regard, they may have to up it a bit now though, although I don't really expect them to), all you can do is either wait it out, or play games on your Wii or 360.
Or, I guess, bitch on slashdot, and make silly demands.
What's amazing is that you and every other back-seat nerd here on slashdot seems to think *YOU* could fix this mess in like two days easy. Well, shit man, call Sony right now and offer your services. You could literally write your own ticket. I bet Sony would gladly pay you a few million to have everything fixed and patched by Friday.
If you're as smart as you think you are, what are you doing gabbing away on Slashdot? You don't like easy money or something?
Or, maybe, shit like this is hard, and deep down you know that. It's a wonder, there is no shortage of nerds out there saying things like, "all you have to do is..." about any and every problem they see, but somehow there's a vast shortage of people who actually seem able to *actually* do these things.
No shit they screwed up. Where do you get the idea I said otherwise? The only thing I'm specifically saying they've done right is not bringing PSN back up until it's fixed, and in fact delaying their restoration of service once they found out the damage was worse than they thought. That's the right thing to do.
Nowhere ever did I say they didn't screw up.
Acting like people don't have the right to be upset about it makes no sense at all.
Acting like I said that makes no sense at all. What also makes no sense at all is giving Sony shit for doing something right.
Right, because this is making Sony look so good.
For one, I'm not aware of any past cases of Debian (or any other distro) repositories going down for two and a half weeks to clean up the mess. But at least with repos it's actually explainable - the attackers could have inserted malicious code into packages, so you need to audit or roll back to last backup. What is it about PSN that warrants such a long downtime? Just re-image all servers running the thing, one by one, to ensure no backdoors remain, and bring it all back up. It doesn't take two weeks!
So what exactly do you think is Sony's motivation for keeping PSN down for so long if it's not to make sure they are no longer compromised or vulnerable to compromise?
As for re-imaging the servers, if they did that, then they would just be rehacked. This is a big fucking mess for Sony, and they can't let it happen again.
Another thing is that Debian users don't pay anything to access the repos, nor for Debian themselves. In this case we have an army of paying customers locked out of a major feature of the product.
Not sure what being paid has to do with how much effort is involved in fixing their service. Computers don't operate differently based on whether they generate revenue or not.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not Sony keeping their service down for this long is right or not. I can't even fathom why the collective slashdot nerd-mind seems to think Sony would be deliberately keeping their services offline. It's utterly moronic. Sony is losing a lot of money and public image each day this continues.
Why hasn't Sony halted sales of products which require the PSN to work at all like the PSP go? If the PSN is indefinitely down, it is impossible to load games to play offline making them guilty of fraud for continuing to sell it.
It's hard to say they're doing the right thing when they're continuing to sell gaming systems that can't play games.
Well, your post lives up to your name.
As to this very different point, if you think Sony is committing fraud, I'm sure there will be a class action suit in no time. Lawyers love this shit. Also, perhaps you should contact your local district attorney's office. If Sony is committing mass fraud in your state, that would be pretty serious.
Although this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's right for Sony to keep their servers down while they fix them.
Wow, this is a new low for Slashdot. I'm a "shill" for not being a fucking moron who thinks it's impossible for Sony to ever do anything right? When your shit gets hacked, you take it offline until you can put it back up safely. This isn't being a "shill", it's just being rational and not being a whiny little bitch just because we are supposed to hate some company.