It's no use trying to argue with people who hate anything with an Apple logo on it.
Probably, but hopefully there are those that will read posts like mine and be spared the insanity of becoming an anti-Apple fanboy.
Apple "locks" users into Apple products because Apple products just work. When these people try to use products from other companies, they find that the whole experience just plain sucks and go back to Apple by themselves. That's not locking users away, that's giving them what they want.
Well said. In the recent conference call, Jobs stated this as "fragmented vs. integrated". The crazies read that as "open vs. closed". They see, "closed and controlled" as Apple's end goals when their end goals are "integrated and usable". They fear a future (locked-in Mac App Store) which makes no sense because it goes counter to what Apple is trying to do.
Now that I've written that out, I can fully see how certain vocal types here will have trouble understanding it.
No, it doesn't. Because Apple's stores make perfect sense exactly as they are. Incrementalism implies some other end goals, but the way things work now already explain the current status.
What's worse, is your imagined end goal of Apple locking people into the Mac App Store completely contradicts Apple's current methodology. Locking people into the Mac App Store won't make Macs more appealing, it will make them far less appealing. So much so in fact that I'm quite certain that if they ever made it mandatory, people would leave Apple in droves.
In order to keep selling Macs, Apple has to make Macs more attractive than PCs. A locked-in store won't do this. It will do the exact opposite.
So your theory requires that Apple would give up on their core business (hardware) in order to force people into something that hardly makes any money. Something that can only exist as long as people buy their hardware in the first place!
I have an iPod full of music, and haven't bought a single thing from ITMS. I prefer buying tunes on CD and ripping them, because they can go on ANY device I want. I'm not locked into anything Apple.
Just a point of interest, all music on the iTMS is DRM-free. It is AAC, which may not be as universal as MP3, but it's still common enough to not locking you into "anything Apple".
They're not looking for 'superior' so much as they are looking to lock users into their App stores.
People say this as though the App Store is some sort of cash cow for Apple. They run their digital stores at mostly break-even. They aren't trying to lock their users into their App Stores (especially since you used the plural. they are absolutely *not* going to lock Mac OS X into their Mac App Store the way iOS is locked into the current App Store).
What you're missing is that they are going for superior, and the App Stores are part of that. Apple makes their money from hardware sales. App Stores make their hardware more appealing to consumers, which is superior than not having the App Stores (just like their music store makes iPods more appealing and is superior to not having a store).
I can't understand how someone can look at iMacs/Mac Pros, MacBooks/Pro/Air, iPads, iPods and iPhones and come to the conclusion that they are not going for 'superior'. I'm not saying they have to meet your needs in a superior way, but Apple's intentions are pretty obvious, and striving for superior hardware and software is key among them.
Over 14 million iPhones and 4 million iPads sold last quarter. It will take a *lot* of hipster-anecdotes for Samsung Galaxy or WP7 to reach numbers like those.
So the point is, right now, I don't think anyone is too late to the party, as it's just getting started.
You're right, but iOS has a huge head start, and Android is catching up to iOS. That doesn't leave a lot of room for WP7.
You, along with many others, liked Courier because it was a fantasy. It was never a real product, just a fake rendering of a very interesting idea. Its main purpose was to distract interest away from Apple's tablet, and it appears to have done its job for some (although not nearly well enough to keep the iPad from becoming a huge success).
But the truth also is that Microsoft has a huge dominance on computer market and that isn't going anywhere.
That's true, but not the point. The point is post-PC. MS is extremely weak on that front, and just like Sony losing their lead from the Walkman to the iPod, MS's huge lead in the PC world won't amount to much in the non-PC world.
Just bring me something that Courier was supposed to be. I want it, I need it!
It's not going to happen. I'd suggest you give up on it, at least for the time being. Otherwise you'll be in perpetual frustration. It's like wishing expectantly for wizard powers. By focussing too much on the non-real, you pass up on the real. MS teased you with the Courier, but what they gave you, later than promised, was a shitty Windows 7 slate from HP.
Say what you will about Apple, but at least they promote real products that they actually deliver. You say screw iPad, you want Courier. Well, sure, but iPad has the supremely important feature of actually existing.
Apple sold a record 14 million iPhones last quarter. If "antennagate" is a litmus test for fanboys, you'd think that number would be a bit lower.
The reason for this is that the antenna "problem" really isn't all it's made out to be by those looking for reasons to put down Apple or call someone a fanboy.
How does Apple hurt developers? By creating the world's most successful mobile app store? "Help! Apple's making it too easy for us to make money!" is the cry heard from developers far and wide?
They have done some things that don't help some developers. For example, the requirement of using Objective-C, C++, or C doesn't help Java programmers, but it doesn't hurt them. Refusing to carry buggy apps, or apps that run afoul of a limited number of guidelines, in their store doesn't help developers of such apps, but those developers knew going into it that the guidelines existed.
So, really, what has Apple done that can so generally be said to "hurt developers"? In fact, Apple does a lot to help them.
Apple sells hardware. All of this is non-revenue generating investment, it's just a way to consume profits.
No, but it's a way to create future profits by making their hardware more appealing through cloud services the way the App Store has made iPhones more appealing to consumers.
You're right, it's not. It's about supercomputers. The first one on the Top 500 list I could find information on regarding area was #4, Kraken. It's only 2,000 square feet. OP just needed an excuse to put down the iPad, lest he risk loosing the "leet" 3's in his his username.
Do iPads/Phones/Fish have the bandwidth to stream high-quality music anyway?
802.11n isn't high bandwidth?
I remember something about the iPad not getting a great wireless signal.
iPads get great wireless reception and they get poor wireless reception, just like pretty much anything wireless. Somebody who got poor wireless reception posted about it and you mistook that for a universally applicable anecdote.
This will give them control over your entire media collection.
No it won't. But that does fit the present Slashdot narrative regarding Apple.
In an instant they could wipe it from existence or do whatever they want with it.
Including the backup copy in my physical possession? And there's a huge difference between "could" and "would". If Apple ever did this deliberately, that would instantly decimate their user base as users leave that service in droves. Even if they did it accidentally, it would have a huge negative impact. I think it's fair to say Apple won't do something like that deliberately, and with a billion dollar datacenter and their technological skills, they should be able to keep from doing this accidentally as well.
You could promote the exact same fear about hosting photos on sites like Flickr and Picasa, or files on dropbox, etc. But you won't because it's a silly concern that's easily protected against. But because this is Apple, well shit, "worst case scenario" is synonymous with "most likely scenario" as far as many of the posters here are concerned!
I don't have any Apple devices, but if I did, I know that I would not upload my high-quality, offline available music to a server where it will most probably be re-encoded at a lower bitrate so they can stream it back to me.
802.11n is fast enough to stream HD video. Even a completely non-compressed surround sound 24-bit 192kHz would have no problem being streamed over 802.11g. Since you likely don't have your music in that format, let's assume by "high quality" you mean FLAC. Apple's lossless codec (ALAC) is similar. So, pretending for a moment you are talking about ALAC-encoded music, that's only about 700kb/s. You can even stream that over 3G. And if it's the more likely scenario of being 256k AAC or 128-256k MP3?
Maybe it'll be optional, but from what I've seen of Apple they will force their users to make use of it.
How the fuck do you think they will accomplish that? Do you think they will remove local storage of music from iPhones/iPods/iPads? Do you think they will stop allowing local storage in iTunes? If something like this comes to pass, it will be in addition to how the devices already work, and people who aren't all "Steve Jobs is an evil mastermind hell-bent on fascist world domination" will fucking love it.
I hate to break the new to ya, but PCs were starting to come with USB before Jobs ever "blessed" us with having Macs be USB only.
Do quote where I said otherwise. Please. For that to have been the case, the analogy would imply that I'm saying Apple was the first PC maker to include SSDs/flash storage altogether.
This whole "somebody else did it first" line is tired. No one is saying that. What they're saying is that Apple is the one to truly kick-start something. They usually aren't the "first ever", but they are quite often the "first to do it big/right". There were mp3 players before iPod, smartphones before iPhone, and tablets before iPad. But in all three cases, they were the first truly big hits, and completely redefined their respective markets.
When I use USB as an example, it's an example of Apple taking a hardware feature that already exists (SSD/flash storage) and kicking it up a notch from fairly obscure to commonplace.
While it is true many hung onto serial for legacy for quite awhile (which was understandable, as many corporate devices like high end routers needed serial for console) the parallel dropped off pretty quickly, especially in portables.
No it didn't. It took years after the first USB iMac for parallel to have mostly vanished from PCs, printers and scanners. Remember how common Zip drives were? They were primarily parallel on the PC for the longest time. The iMac came out in '98, PCs still predominantly used parallel, serial and PS/2 well into first half of the '00s. And PS/2, for some reason, remained dominant for bundled mice and keyboards up until fairly recently.
Even today I bet you see 1000 HP and Dell PCs sold for every Mac.
Um, more like 2.5. Apple is the third largest PC maker (in terms of units sold) in the US, and seventh or so worldwide. They are number one in the US if you count iPad as a PC (normally I wouldn't, but since you seem to love netbooks so much, it does seem only fair. BTW, have you noticed whose predictions, between us, about iPad vs netbooks has been most accurate these past six months?).
But even worldwide, where Apple's numbers are weakest, and *not* including iPads, just Macs, the numbers are:
HP: 15.4M Acer: 11.5M Dell: 10:8M... Apple: 3.9M
That puts HPs at 4x and Dells at 2.77x
That 20% they are citing is retailer sales, which even my clueless mother shops online now. After all it really ain't hard to type Dell.com into a browser, is it?
Apple sells Macs online too (less than one quarter of their Mac units sold last quarter were from their own retail stores). What's most interesting to me about retail vs online is that retail tracks more closely with consumers, not businesses.
it does not have the clout to direct the entire hard drive market.
One word: USB.
Apple won't change the hard drive market overnight. In fact, the vast majority of Macs have hard drives. But what is possible is they will have a huge impact in the change in momentum, which is what they usually do. The single biggest demand-side influence in the flash market today is Apple.
Well, I guess if you're going to be paranoid about something, Apple's as good a target as any. Be sure to keep an eye out for their operatives. They are hard to spot, but you can identify them by their white earbuds...
On a more serious note, you don't have to worry about Apple locking down the computing world. There is no way in the world that society would let any company do that. You will always have the choice of using Linux or something similar. As far as Apple is concerned, I'm trying to say that not only can they *not* do this, they don't even want to. They'd rather get you (John Q. Consumer) to buy their products because they are so awesome, and not because you begrudgingly have to. The former is a recipe for success, the latter is a recipe for long-term failure.
You say "the idea that Apple is going to, or even just wants to, lock down the Mac like iOS is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can't stress that enough." It's not abrasive, it's wrong.
...
I don't think Apple is trying to lock down the Mac *exactly* like iOS.
The post you replied to, I was responding to:
"One step closer to macos lockdown just like the iOS platform"
If you don't think Mac OS X is going to be locked down like iOS, then I don't see what your response has to do with the topic at hand. I'm calling the idea above stupid, not yours. We may not share the same opinion, but I'm not calling your opinion insane like I am the idea referenced above.
If I'm reading you right, you don't think Steve Jobs is some sort of evil super-villain, you just don't like the way they design the products. Fair enough. I don't really care all that much if people don't like iPads or whatever. It's just the absurd and borderline insane notion that Steve Jobs/Apple is hell-bent on soviet-style control of people's computers that I'm talking about. Apple is *NOT* going to lock down Mac OS X. If you mostly agree with this, then we agree on the main premise here, and mainly differ on the details. I'm content to leave it at that.
For fuck's sake, I claim calling something like this "evil" is indicative of either crackpot hyperbole or directly of some sort of mental disorder. Evil? Really?
Yes, absolutely. Jobs is basically engineering a situation whereby he totally controls people's computing lives against their own interests and he does it in order to increase his personal wealth and power. I see this as evil.
I see this as paranoid delusion, so I guess "indicative of some sort of mental disorder" it is.
And there will plenty of fuck-wads around to defend Apple's every move.
Hmm...
Anyway, admittedly my post is rather harsh, but only because it's in response to a mind-numbingly idiotic notion. One which you have also fallen victim to. I *could* sugar-coat it and say, "well, I disagree", and treat it like a reasonable point of view, but that would betray the fundamental lunacy of the idea I'm responding to.
The idea that Apple is going to, or even just wants to, lock down the Mac like iOS is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can't stress that enough. If that's abrasive, I don't know what to say. It's the truth and to me it only barely conveys how fundamentally absurd that notion is.
It's like the idea that Obama wants universal health care so that he can instate "death panels". It's so absurd it deserves no respect.
Partly because they have an excellent Google Voice web app (which Apple has no ability or desire to block), and partly because it works as a propaganda tool against iOS
Hmm, who's ascribing things to avarice now?
Do you even know what "avarice" means?
Do you have any idea how much it costs to go for that 30% cut? They have to run an extremely high-volume service.
Oh the poor darlings. Hosting a web server, it's a terrible burden, I mean, almost nobody manages to do that.
A high-volume, high-availability "website" like the various iTunes stores? Any profit from these stores, while I'm sure welcome, is not the primary reason for the stores, and a very minuscule fraction of Apple's profits. It's clear from this, from what they say about it, and how they act about it, that direct financial revenue is not the primary motivation behind decisions on how these stores work, but how they affect the desirability of Apple's hardware does.
Those stores exist primarily to add value to the hardware they selll, and looking at their quarterly report from Monday, it's delusional to say it isn't working.
You can't draw that conclusion because people don't have a choice about where they buy things.
I can't draw the conclusion that it's working? Do you realize how wildly successful iOS devices are? It's absurd to think the App Store doesn't contribute to the success of iOS devices. I've never said that it's impossible for even better configurations, just that Apple's iTunes stores have been wildly successful in providing value for their hardware.
And btw, I certainly don't claim this isn't successful. I claim it is evil.
For fuck's sake, I claim calling something like this "evil" is indicative of either crackpot hyperbole or directly of some sort of mental disorder. Evil? Really?
. Apple clearly believes that a certain level of consistency provides for a better user experience than a bunch of little hacks to the UI
No, they don't "clearly believe this". They deny highly useful apps (such as tethering) that absolutely nobody could claim are not useful. They do it purely for business reasons. Claiming this is in the user's interests is, to use your expression "Bullshit".
You constantly fail at logic. A few counterexamples do not disprove an overall trend. You're like a creationist who thinks he's disproved evolution because of the second law of thermodynamics.
Um, if you read his post, he was commenting about how it's not like how most Linux-based package managers work at all, since you aren't locked into those.
You aren't locked into the Mac App Store either.
Also, that's a bad analogy. Drinking water can lead to drowning in certain (yet very rare) physical circumstances, for the record.
You're wrong that it's a bad analogy, but you're right that I could have worded it to better fit exactly what the way zeroshade wrote his post. The fear that this will lead to a locked down Mac OS X is like worrying that drinking a glass of water might lead to drowning. Technically it's possible, but to worry about it is fundamentally absurd.
What the poster you should have responded to (which is a little higher up than this poster) said was that this makes us closer to the possibility of vendor lock-in
Which is exactly the point of my analogy. Drinking a glass of water does bring you "closer to the possibility" of drowning. Yet somehow you don't see people going ape-shit over the possibility.
which might happen considering Apple's record with iOS.
Not for any reasonable value of "might happen". iOS is different from Mac OS X. Macs aren't iPhones. Extrapolating from one to the other for something as outlandish as this is madness.
However, I think it's rather unlikely considering how other operating systems let you run "un-approved" code just fine and any person with a brain would just flock to those instead.
That implies that it's something Apple wants to do, but won't due to market pressure. The fact is that no one has shown a compelling reason for Apple to even want to do this in the first place. Until you can come up with a reasonable explanation for such a move other than "Apple wants to control you!!!", it's an entirely irrational concern.
They will make the Mac App Store, people will love it for the convenience it provides, developers will love it for the exceptional access to consumers it provides. As long as it rolls out without too many problems, it will quickly become *the* premiere way to buy Mac applications. There's no compelling reason for Apple to lock it down. None whatsoever.
You will always always always be able to download Firefox from firefox.com. You will always always always be able to import a source repository and compile your own software. Apple will never ever remove this functionality. That anyone can even entertain the notion beyond the level of a quickly-dismissed thought experiment boggles my mind.
Apple doesn't make choices based on these sorts of things.
By definition, Apple makes choices based on what will make them more money.
Agreed, but that's not what I said. The decisions behind the App Store are not about direct profits, but indirect profits by making the iOS devices just that much more valuable to consumers.
The fact is not about blocking any specific competitor, but blocking specific applications on no grounds other than it competes with (defined as "duplicates") some software Apple has created.
Again, that's not what was said. zuperduperman didn't say "some competing apps", but "competitors". And it's a bit disingenuous to equate "duplicate functionality" with "competing apps". That is a type of competition, but not what people mean by that. It's a term used to try to push monopolistic emotional buttons. Apple has no qualms about allowing competing apps, but they do not want apps that alter, replace, or duplicate certain types of functionality. This is not because they want to be the ones to make money on those things (and on iOS, the notion is absurd on the face of it, since you already bought the iPhone, so selling or giving away software that duplicates certain functions does not financially compete with Apple in the first place), but because they want their product to have a certain user experience.
I'm not saying it will definitely happen, I'm saying it's possible. That it would not surprise me to see in the next year or two, Steve Jobs at a keynote saying how beneficial it is for the next version of MacOS to only allow installation from "approved app stores".
And I'm saying it's not possible, for any reasonable value of "possible".
You call it absurd. I call it a nightmare. You say it could never happen. I pray that it never happens. This is not "Anti-Apple Fanboism". This is just me being wary of Apple achieving its dream of complete vertical control where not only will it control the hardware and operating system of its machines, but the rest of the software too, and call it a "feature".
Yes, I call it absurd because it is absurd. It's so absurd that it boggles my mind that people can even take it seriously enough to think it worthy of fearing.
You think that Apple is hell-bent on control. What they are is hell-bent on user experience, and only exert control when they think it will provide for a better user experience. They don't do this stupidly. They don't look around and think, "hey, there's still things we don't control, so what should we go after next?" They look at things and think, "how can we make this better?" The situations where the answer is, "I know, more control!" are few, and application installation on Mac OS X is not one of those situations.
What Apple will do here is just like they've done with iTunes. They will make it a great service, but they will do nothing to block other services. You can readily acquire MP3 and AAC music from any DRM-free store you want and import it into iTunes and use them on your iPod (or avoid iTunes altogether and use other jukebox software and mp3 players). It adds no value to limit this. Likewise, it adds no value to require software be from Apple's App Store, or some other set of approved sources. *Maybe* if there was to be some extreme and continuous outbreak of malware for Mac OS X, *maybe* Apple would consider requiring signed apps, but even then it seems absurd. They would just offer signing as a part of an ADC subscription, letting you distribute apps however you want, and still allowing users to run non-signed apps. Mac OS X is all about enabling people to do more with their computers and locking it down is the opposite of that.
Google voice was banned forever for no other reason than Apple didn't want to let Google in.
Absolutely false. Google functionality is built into iOS. There are other Google apps in the App Store, and there are even Google Voice apps in the app store. Apple did not approve the official GV app for specific concerns about it uploading a user's contacts to Google, and replacing a rather prominent core aspect of the iPhone. Google could easily update the app to address those concerns, but they won't. Partly because they have an excellent Google Voice web app (which Apple has no ability or desire to block), and partly because it works as a propaganda tool against iOS.
Their policy explicitly states that apps that "duplicate" (aka "compete with") built in functions will not be allowed.
Correct, but that's not what you said, and not "technically not what you said", but not even in the spirit of what you said.
Apple's policies are all about control, lockdown, and ensuring that nothing gets on a device without 30% going to Apple.
Bullshit. This doesn't even make any sense. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go for that 30% cut? They have to run an extremely high-volume service. Apple makes orders of magnitude more money on the hardware than they do on the app/music/video stores. Those stores exist primarily to add value to the hardware they sell, and looking at their quarterly report from Monday, it's delusional to say it isn't working.
They have nothing to do with the user experience, as evidenced by the fact that so many apps that enhance the user experience are banned with no reference to their quality or usefulness.
You fail at logic. "Nothing to do with" does not follow from not approving some apps that you think violate this. Apple clearly believes that a certain level of consistency provides for a better user experience than a bunch of little hacks to the UI. You don't have to agree with their assessment, but to ascribe avarice and control/lockdown to an honest difference in approach is to completely throw out rational thought and engage in Anti-Apple fanboyism.
what problems would a locked down Mac App Store solve
It solves two huge problems - the problem that Apple is not getting a 30% cut of all software sold for the Mac like it is for iOS, and the problem that Apple can't disadvantage competitors by keeping them out of its premier store for its own platform.
Apple doesn't make choices based on these sorts of things. The iOS App Store (and all iTunes stores in general) aren't primarily profit centers. They enhance the hardware that Apple sells.
As for locking out competitors, which competitor has Apple blocked from their store? Google, Microsoft, Adobe (the top examples) all have apps on the App Store.
So, no, those are not "problems" a locked down App Store would solve. You're mad if you think Apple will block Adobe Lightroom (for example) just because it competes with Aperture.
Slashdot Mirror
It's no use trying to argue with people who hate anything with an Apple logo on it.
Probably, but hopefully there are those that will read posts like mine and be spared the insanity of becoming an anti-Apple fanboy.
Apple "locks" users into Apple products because Apple products just work. When these people try to use products from other companies, they find that the whole experience just plain sucks and go back to Apple by themselves. That's not locking users away, that's giving them what they want.
Well said. In the recent conference call, Jobs stated this as "fragmented vs. integrated". The crazies read that as "open vs. closed". They see, "closed and controlled" as Apple's end goals when their end goals are "integrated and usable". They fear a future (locked-in Mac App Store) which makes no sense because it goes counter to what Apple is trying to do.
Now that I've written that out, I can fully see how certain vocal types here will have trouble understanding it.
No, it doesn't. Because Apple's stores make perfect sense exactly as they are. Incrementalism implies some other end goals, but the way things work now already explain the current status.
What's worse, is your imagined end goal of Apple locking people into the Mac App Store completely contradicts Apple's current methodology. Locking people into the Mac App Store won't make Macs more appealing, it will make them far less appealing. So much so in fact that I'm quite certain that if they ever made it mandatory, people would leave Apple in droves.
In order to keep selling Macs, Apple has to make Macs more attractive than PCs. A locked-in store won't do this. It will do the exact opposite.
So your theory requires that Apple would give up on their core business (hardware) in order to force people into something that hardly makes any money. Something that can only exist as long as people buy their hardware in the first place!
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I have an iPod full of music, and haven't bought a single thing from ITMS. I prefer buying tunes on CD and ripping them, because they can go on ANY device I want. I'm not locked into anything Apple.
Just a point of interest, all music on the iTMS is DRM-free. It is AAC, which may not be as universal as MP3, but it's still common enough to not locking you into "anything Apple".
They're not looking for 'superior' so much as they are looking to lock users into their App stores.
People say this as though the App Store is some sort of cash cow for Apple. They run their digital stores at mostly break-even. They aren't trying to lock their users into their App Stores (especially since you used the plural. they are absolutely *not* going to lock Mac OS X into their Mac App Store the way iOS is locked into the current App Store).
What you're missing is that they are going for superior, and the App Stores are part of that. Apple makes their money from hardware sales. App Stores make their hardware more appealing to consumers, which is superior than not having the App Stores (just like their music store makes iPods more appealing and is superior to not having a store).
I can't understand how someone can look at iMacs/Mac Pros, MacBooks/Pro/Air, iPads, iPods and iPhones and come to the conclusion that they are not going for 'superior'. I'm not saying they have to meet your needs in a superior way, but Apple's intentions are pretty obvious, and striving for superior hardware and software is key among them.
Over 14 million iPhones and 4 million iPads sold last quarter. It will take a *lot* of hipster-anecdotes for Samsung Galaxy or WP7 to reach numbers like those.
So the point is, right now, I don't think anyone is too late to the party, as it's just getting started.
You're right, but iOS has a huge head start, and Android is catching up to iOS. That doesn't leave a lot of room for WP7.
You, along with many others, liked Courier because it was a fantasy. It was never a real product, just a fake rendering of a very interesting idea. Its main purpose was to distract interest away from Apple's tablet, and it appears to have done its job for some (although not nearly well enough to keep the iPad from becoming a huge success).
But the truth also is that Microsoft has a huge dominance on computer market and that isn't going anywhere.
That's true, but not the point. The point is post-PC. MS is extremely weak on that front, and just like Sony losing their lead from the Walkman to the iPod, MS's huge lead in the PC world won't amount to much in the non-PC world.
Just bring me something that Courier was supposed to be. I want it, I need it!
It's not going to happen. I'd suggest you give up on it, at least for the time being. Otherwise you'll be in perpetual frustration. It's like wishing expectantly for wizard powers. By focussing too much on the non-real, you pass up on the real. MS teased you with the Courier, but what they gave you, later than promised, was a shitty Windows 7 slate from HP.
Say what you will about Apple, but at least they promote real products that they actually deliver. You say screw iPad, you want Courier. Well, sure, but iPad has the supremely important feature of actually existing.
Apple sold a record 14 million iPhones last quarter. If "antennagate" is a litmus test for fanboys, you'd think that number would be a bit lower.
The reason for this is that the antenna "problem" really isn't all it's made out to be by those looking for reasons to put down Apple or call someone a fanboy.
How does Apple hurt developers? By creating the world's most successful mobile app store? "Help! Apple's making it too easy for us to make money!" is the cry heard from developers far and wide?
They have done some things that don't help some developers. For example, the requirement of using Objective-C, C++, or C doesn't help Java programmers, but it doesn't hurt them. Refusing to carry buggy apps, or apps that run afoul of a limited number of guidelines, in their store doesn't help developers of such apps, but those developers knew going into it that the guidelines existed.
So, really, what has Apple done that can so generally be said to "hurt developers"? In fact, Apple does a lot to help them.
Apple sells hardware. All of this is non-revenue generating investment, it's just a way to consume profits.
No, but it's a way to create future profits by making their hardware more appealing through cloud services the way the App Store has made iPhones more appealing to consumers.
Does Apple claim any legal ownership, even in the form of license, of/to your data simply because it is stored on their hardware?
No. What possible reason do you have to think they would?
I had no idea top500 was about datacenters...
You're right, it's not. It's about supercomputers. The first one on the Top 500 list I could find information on regarding area was #4, Kraken. It's only 2,000 square feet. OP just needed an excuse to put down the iPad, lest he risk loosing the "leet" 3's in his his username.
Yeah, offering optional services that people will find compelling enough to voluntarily pay for. What an evil manipulative bastard!
Do iPads/Phones/Fish have the bandwidth to stream high-quality music anyway?
802.11n isn't high bandwidth?
I remember something about the iPad not getting a great wireless signal.
iPads get great wireless reception and they get poor wireless reception, just like pretty much anything wireless. Somebody who got poor wireless reception posted about it and you mistook that for a universally applicable anecdote.
This will give them control over your entire media collection.
No it won't. But that does fit the present Slashdot narrative regarding Apple.
In an instant they could wipe it from existence or do whatever they want with it.
Including the backup copy in my physical possession? And there's a huge difference between "could" and "would". If Apple ever did this deliberately, that would instantly decimate their user base as users leave that service in droves. Even if they did it accidentally, it would have a huge negative impact. I think it's fair to say Apple won't do something like that deliberately, and with a billion dollar datacenter and their technological skills, they should be able to keep from doing this accidentally as well.
You could promote the exact same fear about hosting photos on sites like Flickr and Picasa, or files on dropbox, etc. But you won't because it's a silly concern that's easily protected against. But because this is Apple, well shit, "worst case scenario" is synonymous with "most likely scenario" as far as many of the posters here are concerned!
I don't have any Apple devices, but if I did, I know that I would not upload my high-quality, offline available music to a server where it will most probably be re-encoded at a lower bitrate so they can stream it back to me.
802.11n is fast enough to stream HD video. Even a completely non-compressed surround sound 24-bit 192kHz would have no problem being streamed over 802.11g. Since you likely don't have your music in that format, let's assume by "high quality" you mean FLAC. Apple's lossless codec (ALAC) is similar. So, pretending for a moment you are talking about ALAC-encoded music, that's only about 700kb/s. You can even stream that over 3G. And if it's the more likely scenario of being 256k AAC or 128-256k MP3?
Maybe it'll be optional, but from what I've seen of Apple they will force their users to make use of it.
How the fuck do you think they will accomplish that? Do you think they will remove local storage of music from iPhones/iPods/iPads? Do you think they will stop allowing local storage in iTunes? If something like this comes to pass, it will be in addition to how the devices already work, and people who aren't all "Steve Jobs is an evil mastermind hell-bent on fascist world domination" will fucking love it.
I hate to break the new to ya, but PCs were starting to come with USB before Jobs ever "blessed" us with having Macs be USB only.
Do quote where I said otherwise. Please. For that to have been the case, the analogy would imply that I'm saying Apple was the first PC maker to include SSDs/flash storage altogether.
This whole "somebody else did it first" line is tired. No one is saying that. What they're saying is that Apple is the one to truly kick-start something. They usually aren't the "first ever", but they are quite often the "first to do it big/right". There were mp3 players before iPod, smartphones before iPhone, and tablets before iPad. But in all three cases, they were the first truly big hits, and completely redefined their respective markets.
When I use USB as an example, it's an example of Apple taking a hardware feature that already exists (SSD/flash storage) and kicking it up a notch from fairly obscure to commonplace.
While it is true many hung onto serial for legacy for quite awhile (which was understandable, as many corporate devices like high end routers needed serial for console) the parallel dropped off pretty quickly, especially in portables.
No it didn't. It took years after the first USB iMac for parallel to have mostly vanished from PCs, printers and scanners. Remember how common Zip drives were? They were primarily parallel on the PC for the longest time. The iMac came out in '98, PCs still predominantly used parallel, serial and PS/2 well into first half of the '00s. And PS/2, for some reason, remained dominant for bundled mice and keyboards up until fairly recently.
Even today I bet you see 1000 HP and Dell PCs sold for every Mac.
Um, more like 2.5. Apple is the third largest PC maker (in terms of units sold) in the US, and seventh or so worldwide. They are number one in the US if you count iPad as a PC (normally I wouldn't, but since you seem to love netbooks so much, it does seem only fair. BTW, have you noticed whose predictions, between us, about iPad vs netbooks has been most accurate these past six months?).
But even worldwide, where Apple's numbers are weakest, and *not* including iPads, just Macs, the numbers are:
HP: 15.4M ...
Acer: 11.5M
Dell: 10:8M
Apple: 3.9M
That puts HPs at 4x and Dells at 2.77x
That 20% they are citing is retailer sales, which even my clueless mother shops online now. After all it really ain't hard to type Dell.com into a browser, is it?
Apple sells Macs online too (less than one quarter of their Mac units sold last quarter were from their own retail stores). What's most interesting to me about retail vs online is that retail tracks more closely with consumers, not businesses.
it does not have the clout to direct the entire hard drive market.
One word: USB.
Apple won't change the hard drive market overnight. In fact, the vast majority of Macs have hard drives. But what is possible is they will have a huge impact in the change in momentum, which is what they usually do. The single biggest demand-side influence in the flash market today is Apple.
No. Apple sells much more than 20% of >$1,000 PCs (something like 90%).
Well, I guess if you're going to be paranoid about something, Apple's as good a target as any. Be sure to keep an eye out for their operatives. They are hard to spot, but you can identify them by their white earbuds...
On a more serious note, you don't have to worry about Apple locking down the computing world. There is no way in the world that society would let any company do that. You will always have the choice of using Linux or something similar. As far as Apple is concerned, I'm trying to say that not only can they *not* do this, they don't even want to. They'd rather get you (John Q. Consumer) to buy their products because they are so awesome, and not because you begrudgingly have to. The former is a recipe for success, the latter is a recipe for long-term failure.
You say "the idea that Apple is going to, or even just wants to, lock down the Mac like iOS is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can't stress that enough." It's not abrasive, it's wrong.
...
I don't think Apple is trying to lock down the Mac *exactly* like iOS.
The post you replied to, I was responding to:
"One step closer to macos lockdown just like the iOS platform"
If you don't think Mac OS X is going to be locked down like iOS, then I don't see what your response has to do with the topic at hand. I'm calling the idea above stupid, not yours. We may not share the same opinion, but I'm not calling your opinion insane like I am the idea referenced above.
If I'm reading you right, you don't think Steve Jobs is some sort of evil super-villain, you just don't like the way they design the products. Fair enough. I don't really care all that much if people don't like iPads or whatever. It's just the absurd and borderline insane notion that Steve Jobs/Apple is hell-bent on soviet-style control of people's computers that I'm talking about. Apple is *NOT* going to lock down Mac OS X. If you mostly agree with this, then we agree on the main premise here, and mainly differ on the details. I'm content to leave it at that.
For fuck's sake, I claim calling something like this "evil" is indicative of either crackpot hyperbole or directly of some sort of mental disorder. Evil? Really?
Yes, absolutely. Jobs is basically engineering a situation whereby he totally controls people's computing lives against their own interests and he does it in order to increase his personal wealth and power. I see this as evil.
I see this as paranoid delusion, so I guess "indicative of some sort of mental disorder" it is.
Rude and stupid, nice.
And there will plenty of fuck-wads around to defend Apple's every move.
Hmm...
Anyway, admittedly my post is rather harsh, but only because it's in response to a mind-numbingly idiotic notion. One which you have also fallen victim to. I *could* sugar-coat it and say, "well, I disagree", and treat it like a reasonable point of view, but that would betray the fundamental lunacy of the idea I'm responding to.
The idea that Apple is going to, or even just wants to, lock down the Mac like iOS is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can't stress that enough. If that's abrasive, I don't know what to say. It's the truth and to me it only barely conveys how fundamentally absurd that notion is.
It's like the idea that Obama wants universal health care so that he can instate "death panels". It's so absurd it deserves no respect.
Partly because they have an excellent Google Voice web app (which Apple has no ability or desire to block), and partly because it works as a propaganda tool against iOS
Hmm, who's ascribing things to avarice now?
Do you even know what "avarice" means?
Do you have any idea how much it costs to go for that 30% cut? They have to run an extremely high-volume service.
Oh the poor darlings. Hosting a web server, it's a terrible burden, I mean, almost nobody manages to do that.
A high-volume, high-availability "website" like the various iTunes stores? Any profit from these stores, while I'm sure welcome, is not the primary reason for the stores, and a very minuscule fraction of Apple's profits. It's clear from this, from what they say about it, and how they act about it, that direct financial revenue is not the primary motivation behind decisions on how these stores work, but how they affect the desirability of Apple's hardware does.
Those stores exist primarily to add value to the hardware they selll, and looking at their quarterly report from Monday, it's delusional to say it isn't working.
You can't draw that conclusion because people don't have a choice about where they buy things.
I can't draw the conclusion that it's working? Do you realize how wildly successful iOS devices are? It's absurd to think the App Store doesn't contribute to the success of iOS devices. I've never said that it's impossible for even better configurations, just that Apple's iTunes stores have been wildly successful in providing value for their hardware.
And btw, I certainly don't claim this isn't successful. I claim it is evil.
For fuck's sake, I claim calling something like this "evil" is indicative of either crackpot hyperbole or directly of some sort of mental disorder. Evil? Really?
. Apple clearly believes that a certain level of consistency provides for a better user experience than a bunch of little hacks to the UI
No, they don't "clearly believe this". They deny highly useful apps (such as tethering) that absolutely nobody could claim are not useful. They do it purely for business reasons. Claiming this is in the user's interests is, to use your expression "Bullshit".
You constantly fail at logic. A few counterexamples do not disprove an overall trend. You're like a creationist who thinks he's disproved evolution because of the second law of thermodynamics.
Um, if you read his post, he was commenting about how it's not like how most Linux-based package managers work at all, since you aren't locked into those.
You aren't locked into the Mac App Store either.
Also, that's a bad analogy. Drinking water can lead to drowning in certain (yet very rare) physical circumstances, for the record.
You're wrong that it's a bad analogy, but you're right that I could have worded it to better fit exactly what the way zeroshade wrote his post. The fear that this will lead to a locked down Mac OS X is like worrying that drinking a glass of water might lead to drowning. Technically it's possible, but to worry about it is fundamentally absurd.
What the poster you should have responded to (which is a little higher up than this poster) said was that this makes us closer to the possibility of vendor lock-in
Which is exactly the point of my analogy. Drinking a glass of water does bring you "closer to the possibility" of drowning. Yet somehow you don't see people going ape-shit over the possibility.
which might happen considering Apple's record with iOS.
Not for any reasonable value of "might happen". iOS is different from Mac OS X. Macs aren't iPhones. Extrapolating from one to the other for something as outlandish as this is madness.
However, I think it's rather unlikely considering how other operating systems let you run "un-approved" code just fine and any person with a brain would just flock to those instead.
That implies that it's something Apple wants to do, but won't due to market pressure. The fact is that no one has shown a compelling reason for Apple to even want to do this in the first place. Until you can come up with a reasonable explanation for such a move other than "Apple wants to control you!!!", it's an entirely irrational concern.
They will make the Mac App Store, people will love it for the convenience it provides, developers will love it for the exceptional access to consumers it provides. As long as it rolls out without too many problems, it will quickly become *the* premiere way to buy Mac applications. There's no compelling reason for Apple to lock it down. None whatsoever.
You will always always always be able to download Firefox from firefox.com. You will always always always be able to import a source repository and compile your own software. Apple will never ever remove this functionality. That anyone can even entertain the notion beyond the level of a quickly-dismissed thought experiment boggles my mind.
Apple doesn't make choices based on these sorts of things.
By definition, Apple makes choices based on what will make them more money.
Agreed, but that's not what I said. The decisions behind the App Store are not about direct profits, but indirect profits by making the iOS devices just that much more valuable to consumers.
The fact is not about blocking any specific competitor, but blocking specific applications on no grounds other than it competes with (defined as "duplicates") some software Apple has created.
Again, that's not what was said. zuperduperman didn't say "some competing apps", but "competitors". And it's a bit disingenuous to equate "duplicate functionality" with "competing apps". That is a type of competition, but not what people mean by that. It's a term used to try to push monopolistic emotional buttons. Apple has no qualms about allowing competing apps, but they do not want apps that alter, replace, or duplicate certain types of functionality. This is not because they want to be the ones to make money on those things (and on iOS, the notion is absurd on the face of it, since you already bought the iPhone, so selling or giving away software that duplicates certain functions does not financially compete with Apple in the first place), but because they want their product to have a certain user experience.
I'm not saying it will definitely happen, I'm saying it's possible. That it would not surprise me to see in the next year or two, Steve Jobs at a keynote saying how beneficial it is for the next version of MacOS to only allow installation from "approved app stores".
And I'm saying it's not possible, for any reasonable value of "possible".
You call it absurd. I call it a nightmare. You say it could never happen. I pray that it never happens. This is not "Anti-Apple Fanboism". This is just me being wary of Apple achieving its dream of complete vertical control where not only will it control the hardware and operating system of its machines, but the rest of the software too, and call it a "feature".
Yes, I call it absurd because it is absurd. It's so absurd that it boggles my mind that people can even take it seriously enough to think it worthy of fearing.
You think that Apple is hell-bent on control. What they are is hell-bent on user experience, and only exert control when they think it will provide for a better user experience. They don't do this stupidly. They don't look around and think, "hey, there's still things we don't control, so what should we go after next?" They look at things and think, "how can we make this better?" The situations where the answer is, "I know, more control!" are few, and application installation on Mac OS X is not one of those situations.
What Apple will do here is just like they've done with iTunes. They will make it a great service, but they will do nothing to block other services. You can readily acquire MP3 and AAC music from any DRM-free store you want and import it into iTunes and use them on your iPod (or avoid iTunes altogether and use other jukebox software and mp3 players). It adds no value to limit this. Likewise, it adds no value to require software be from Apple's App Store, or some other set of approved sources. *Maybe* if there was to be some extreme and continuous outbreak of malware for Mac OS X, *maybe* Apple would consider requiring signed apps, but even then it seems absurd. They would just offer signing as a part of an ADC subscription, letting you distribute apps however you want, and still allowing users to run non-signed apps. Mac OS X is all about enabling people to do more with their computers and locking it down is the opposite of that.
Google voice was banned forever for no other reason than Apple didn't want to let Google in.
Absolutely false. Google functionality is built into iOS. There are other Google apps in the App Store, and there are even Google Voice apps in the app store. Apple did not approve the official GV app for specific concerns about it uploading a user's contacts to Google, and replacing a rather prominent core aspect of the iPhone. Google could easily update the app to address those concerns, but they won't. Partly because they have an excellent Google Voice web app (which Apple has no ability or desire to block), and partly because it works as a propaganda tool against iOS.
Their policy explicitly states that apps that "duplicate" (aka "compete with") built in functions will not be allowed.
Correct, but that's not what you said, and not "technically not what you said", but not even in the spirit of what you said.
Apple's policies are all about control, lockdown, and ensuring that nothing gets on a device without 30% going to Apple.
Bullshit. This doesn't even make any sense. Do you have any idea how much it costs to go for that 30% cut? They have to run an extremely high-volume service. Apple makes orders of magnitude more money on the hardware than they do on the app/music/video stores. Those stores exist primarily to add value to the hardware they sell, and looking at their quarterly report from Monday, it's delusional to say it isn't working.
They have nothing to do with the user experience, as evidenced by the fact that so many apps that enhance the user experience are banned with no reference to their quality or usefulness.
You fail at logic. "Nothing to do with" does not follow from not approving some apps that you think violate this. Apple clearly believes that a certain level of consistency provides for a better user experience than a bunch of little hacks to the UI. You don't have to agree with their assessment, but to ascribe avarice and control/lockdown to an honest difference in approach is to completely throw out rational thought and engage in Anti-Apple fanboyism.
what problems would a locked down Mac App Store solve
It solves two huge problems - the problem that Apple is not getting a 30% cut of all software sold for the Mac like it is for iOS, and the problem that Apple can't disadvantage competitors by keeping them out of its premier store for its own platform.
Apple doesn't make choices based on these sorts of things. The iOS App Store (and all iTunes stores in general) aren't primarily profit centers. They enhance the hardware that Apple sells.
As for locking out competitors, which competitor has Apple blocked from their store? Google, Microsoft, Adobe (the top examples) all have apps on the App Store.
So, no, those are not "problems" a locked down App Store would solve. You're mad if you think Apple will block Adobe Lightroom (for example) just because it competes with Aperture.