Looks like this is for 4G and above iPods - mine's still a good old 3G that hasn't let me down yet, so I'll probably just have to wait. I wasn't planning on upgrading for another year anyway;).
Side note: turns out you can get Rocketboom, but I had to add it through the iTunes Store interface, not just cut 'n paste the RSS feed I had in iPodderX. I'm willing to bet most of the comments I got are about that;).
One other thing: Now, if Apple will just add in support for multiple users on iTunes, so I can log into the computer and have the same library as my wife when she logs in, and so on. I know there are some hacks, but it doesn't sync up all that well I've found unless you have one dedicated "music" user.
Rather nicely done. A good interface, the search function works, and the display is very iTunes-ish - to be honest, better than using iPodderX or NetNewsWire to import the songs, and you can add in custom feeds.
I like the ability to tell it "Keep the most recent X and dump the rest" - for news based Podcasts, I usually have to do that manually with listened ones. Now, once I listen to it, it will automatically be taken out. Sweet.
The Bad:
No built in support for turning MP3 to bookmarkable AAC's. I don't see any kind of support for video podcasts (such as Rocketboom, which is odd since iPodderX can export the videos to iTunes, perhaps in support for a (someday) future video iPod).
Otherwise, it's a nice addition, and it's going to be interesting to see where it goes. Kudos to Apple for getting it - now let's see how long it takes the Napster and Rhapsody folks to catch on;).
I mean, pretty much every store I've seen has the ESRB ratings inside with warnings on them. Personally, I think the issue is that too many parents expect someone else to just tell them what to do. Myself and a friend of mine were in a software store when a kid walked in (9 years old) wanting to buy Soldier of Fortune. We actually took the 5 seconds to point out the easily readable sign and explain why something like "Diablo" (T for Teen) was more acceptable for his age perhaps, or something like that.
I'm not necessarily against laws regarind video games as long as they're logical and thought out (example: M rated games behind the counter? Makes sense. M rated games 5 feet above the floor? Stupid, and discriminating against short people.) But until we have parents at least make the minimal effort, I don't want to hear them bitching.
This said as a father of three children who plays games with the little rug rats (we've finished "Ocarina of Time" and, after a bout with "Paper Mario" will be hitting "Chrono Trigger").
Now, I know why they don't allow the homebrew software:
Less game sales Loss of control (possibility of viruses, malware, etc)
But - I think they could really do something with the homebrew if done right. I had put out some of these in a column I wrote up a couple of weeks ago, and still feel its true.
Sony could:
1. Offer a homebrew kit to developers for $100 - $200 dollars to be used for non-commercial use only. 2. Include big ass disclaimers "You break-a yo' PSP, not our fault". 3. If an application starts getting big, add it to an online PSP App Center and charge for it. 75% of the profits go to the devs, 25% to Sony. Everybody wins, as Sony could built up a library of applications and make some money off of it.
Is this as good as, say, just developing Palm Pilot applications and not getting a developers hard work appropriated by Sony? Naturally not - but half a loaf, as they say, is better than none. In this scenario, more apps for the PSP make it a more attractive device, which means more sales, which means more developers develop for it. At the moment, the Nintendo DS is looking like a better system (I've got two PSP games that look interesting to me, and about 15 DS games on my list for the future).
Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong. If nothing else, I'm enjoying having a Genesis emulator on my PSP - and the irony that I can play Game Boy Color games on my PSP but not on my DS;).
Looks like a very cool system - well outside my price range (and with 3 small children, outside of my "what can my heart stand when the little buggers touch the expensive equipment").
My only question is on the school wheel interface. My understanding is that Apple had purchased the rights to use the patents to the scroll wheel touchpad system for their technologies (I don't recall the actual patent holder). Does this mean that Sony's scroll wheel is not touch pad based (could be a physical wheel and *not* violate the patent, I guess), or did they also get a piece of the patent license somehow?
I think this is a great thing. I know I have two major applications - Groove and Visio, both owned by Microsoft - that have no OS X support. Entourage supports Exchange, but not nearly as well as the original Windows MS Outlook.
This announcement means that Virtual PC has some real competition - rather than wasting my time booting up a virtual computer, I can just run the apps I need. Could this hurt OS X with Windows developers saying "Eh - just run Codeweaver and leave us alone?". Sure - but I think more people running OS X, even if they are running Wine-enabled applications, will still be better in the long run, since the "average user" won't understand why they're being told to spend another $50 to get a program to run on their Mac - they'll either go with a PC, or, if they've grown to love OS X, they'll tell the developer to convert.
We'll just have to see. Here's hoping Transgaming announces a similiar announcement, just for competitions sake. Like another poster, I'm also looking forward to Half Life 2 on my shiny Mactel box;).
Microsoft would never announce a product that wasn't in existence, promote it through marketing to the point that a competitor's product dropped in sales as people waited for Microsoft's uber-cool dingy-bopper thingy - then when it's released with half of the functionality promise that the next version will really be better than its competitors while supporting themselves with their monopoly!
Wiki's have their purpose. Collaborative story writing? Sure. Editorials and news stories? Maybe not - after all, an editorial is suppose to be a group of people's opinion, so in that case you want a "read-only" wiki with "write" ability to a very small subset.
What the major newspapers should do however is allow comments (a la slashdot style - include user moderation and some basic spam/troll protection). This would let them to two things:
1. Make more money off of ads (Google or otherwise) as people come back to see who's commented on their comments.
2. Readers can point out errors or omissions - yes, this can have an echo chamber effect such as when a group of liberals and conservatives fight it out about who's got the bigger penis and/or breasts, but overall it might be useful if a anonymous commentator could point a reporter towards another source or more information, or bring another opinion in.
Again, wiki's can be a great thing, but perhaps the format they chose was not the best one. And to blame Slashdot readers is a little silly - I'm sure there were many, many other people who wanted to just grief the article to death. Slashdot just helped people know about it.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
A PDA I think would be great - the hard part would be letting me sync it to iCal or something, but that would be excellent for me.
The other would be a Game Boy Color emulator. Yes, I know that the DS can play Game Boy Advance games, but there's still 4 Game Boy games I haven't finished yet (two Zelda games, "Dragon Warrior III" (almost done), and "Metal Gear Solid GBC"). I just want to have the ability to play them all on one device, and then I won't have to keep the GBA SP around all the time.
Not sure if it can do the latter - the processor might not be powerful enough for emulating the GBC, but the datebook might be good.
It makes me wonder why Palm hasn't tried to sell a Palm OS cartridge - I know I'd buy one, and even if it was Palm Light (let you sync up, maybe enter some things, but no major app support) it would almost be worth $50 - $60.
Just my opinion, of course. Congrats to the Linux on DS team, either way!
If Google's going this way, it might be just as easy to tie it into the Froogle service: let people find the item they want, then pay for it from the same interface.
In time, they could introduce their own eBay like system. Odds are, eBay won't just let Google Wallet into their system and people would have to do payments manually (they way they used to with Paypal). But if Google builds off of Froogle and inserts themselves as a middleman, it would be an effective way of getting extra revenue and balancing out their ad system.
Just a random thought - naturally, I could be wrong.
I believe that Mr. Cuban has proposed something like this, but imagine if the movie studios really took off with this idea. What if on the day a movie is released, it's:
1. Available in the theaters 2. Available on DVD 3. Available as a pay-for-download (say either pay-per-view, or an iTunes Video Store kind of idea (granted, that would mean Apple or someone would have to come up with a good home media Tivo like device that's not a whole fricken' computer - say around $300 or so. Tivo should be hopping over that.)
You can go to the movies and see it on the screen, and on your way out buy the DVD if you like. There - theaters and studios just got your money twice!
People (such as myself) with young children who don't attend many movies since small crying children in theaters are bad could either rent the new release (even at a premium of $10 for the rental of a "brand new!" movie release could be worth it), or pick it up in a store for $20 - $25 to own (maybe "new movie" DVD's are a little more, which would be acceptable, then go down in price after six months or so depending on the movies popularity), or tell the machine "I want to buy this movie - go download it" and, if the machine is set up smartly to auto-download certain movies in encrypted format for use (I believe DirectTV was thinking of an idea like this), I'm watching it.
Or use Pay-per-view. Whatever.
The movie industry could drive hugh amounts of revenue. Rather than hand-wringing with "Oh, nos! Teh bad hack0rs will steal our movies if we let them be downloaded", odds are they could see a doubling or tripling of sales the first 48 hours a movie is out. They could have re-releases of the DVD with the cool "Director's cut" (or even offer that the day the movie is released and get around the rating systems in the theaters) and get people to buy it twice.
It's so brain numbingly obvious, it's a mystery to me that nobody's at least tried it. At least maybe on a lesser known title that they don't expect to do well at the box office and see how it goes.
Anyway, this is all just my own opinion. I could be wrong.
Before people jump up and down on the "legal only" comment, go read the white paper linked in the article. It's actually got some interesting ideas, and (from what I've skimmed through so far) doesn't state anything about dealing with "legal" versus "illegal" downloads - it even mentions Bittorrent favorably in its use to retrieve Linux distributions. The writers just want to tweak out some weaknesses - something I noticed the other day when I was at 99.9% of a recent Bittorrent download, and that 1% had to wait for the one guy's slow pipe to get me the one last piece of the file I needed.
With this technology, my understanding is that my system could have figured out what the last piece looked like on its own rather than waiting four days (!) to get it. Granted, this is just me skimming it for about 2 minutes, but I'll print it out and read at my leisure later.
Now, we can all guess that the technology will be Windows only, blah, blah, blah - but it's still an interesting one, and I recommend you read the PDF document (yes - it's a PDF, not a DOC!) before you pass judgement.
Napster, Wal-Mart, and other stores have used WMA as their music business, using their own proprietary Windows client.
Now, MS swoops in and says "Well, yeah, I'm going to put you out of business now. Sorry about that - suckers!"
You'd think by now some companies would have learned. MS's standard system is:
1. Encourage someone else to use MS technology in their products. 2. Come out with an MS version of that same product once it succeeds and use monopoly position to put them out of business - or just buy out the company altogether.
The same way you eat a whale: one bite at a time. You go OS X for the security, iLife, etc - but you don't have to spend another $1000 - $2000 on software to do it.
Then, when Office has a new version out for the Mac, you upgrade. Later, you can upgrade Photoshop. So you still spend the $2000, but not all at once, and not because you have to - it's just part of the upgrade cycle.
They couldn't buy a Mac before regardless of the quality because they had $200 in Windows, $500 in Office, $300 in games, and so on tied into their computer.
So a new Mac wouldn't cost $2000, but around $4000 including software.
Now, a new Mac will cost $2000 - and over time as they buy new applications they'll buy OS X based rather than dual-booting.
It may appear convoluted, but you'll be surprised how many people I've talked to in the last 5 days who all go "Hm - yeah, I'm going to buy a Mac and if I don't like it I'll just run Windows." Most of these are gamer or hard core geek types.
Wordperfect tried a version that ran on Linux that was really a Windows version with a modified version of WINE. DIdn't do to well.
Any developer who wants to take that route with OS X in Intel will have to say "Hm - my competitor Photoshop runs natively, and my Windows via OS X Wine looks like ass. Will I really get more sales this way?"
Remember, Mac is also a look and feel, and the apps that truly run the best will tend to run best. So a Windows program *could* run on OS X (the way OS/2 ran Windows programs), but I think there's a large enough market (something OS/2 never had) and Apple could limit it to specific apps (like the aforementioned in the grandparent post) to prevent most developers from being lazy.
I could be wrong, but if Apple uses standard parts (Intel chip, ram, hdd, etc), I think MS would be cutting of their nose to spite their own faces. Imagine being a programmer going "Well, we could detect the rosetta chip and make Windows crash from that" - but the programming involved would more than likely mess up other systems as well (remember: Apple is pretty much going to look like a normal PC now, plus a few extra components).
Possible? Sure - but I think even MS would find it harder to pull of this time without getting hauled back into monopoly court.
My apologies - perhaps my example wasn't good enough.
I was talking about the people who already own Photoshop for Windows. Why make them buy a new version for OS X when it can be emulated - this keeps them in OS X, and 2-3 years from now when they have to upgrade Photoshop, they'll be more likely to buy the OS X version instead of the Windows version.
I realize that Photoshop runs on OS X, as does MS Office - but if you're a Windows user switching to OS X, it would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper if you didn't have to rebuy all of your old applications at once.
But I'll bet on "getting in bed together", "sleeping together", so on and so forth.
As for the rest about Microsoft, I'll buy that. In fact, I think that the whole "Mac on Intel" thing will sell well because of Microsoft.
At first.
See, there's several people who, upon considering a Mac, say this:
"I'd get one, but I'd have to rebuy all of my old applications." "I'd get one, but I like to play games."
Those are the 2 biggest reasons - not performance, not quality, it's always "apps and games".
Now, with an Intel based Mac, they can say:
"Well, I'll buy the Apple because they make good machines, and if OS X is crap then I'll just install Windows."
If Apple really works on shining up Wine (or buys out some other Wine based company - Crossover I believe?), then they can offer Windows compatibility with a certain number of apps, perhaps a solid list such as Photoshop, Office, etc (and grow the list as necessary).
So now if a Windows user buys a Mac, they can have the best of both worlds: they can keep their apps, and they can run either Windows via dual boot for what they *must*, or (emulated? translated?) the Wine type service instead of rebooting (even better, since they can keep all the Apple goodness with them.)
Windows sells the same as before, everybody's happy.
Except that if this works, and *if* Apple's market share climbs, more app writers make Mac versions of their products for their customers. Sure, there's the "Oh, no, they won't because they'll just wrote for Windows for compatiblity" - there will be those, but the ones that see a competitive market edge giving "*FULL* OS X compatibility" over their competition (sorry for using compet* so often) will make OS X based apps.
And lets face it, what are the big applications?
Browser Email Music Office Suite (assuming that Microsoft keeps its promise and makes the next Mac Office more "exchange compatible", this will be more true) Photoshop-like products Movies
Apple will have all of those, and everything else is just gravy.
Then it becomes a feedback loop: more OS X apps, more market share. More market share, more good hardware drivers written. More good hardware drivers written, more hardware OS X can work with so more people buy since it supports their stuff. Apps have to keep up, so more OS X apps, etc.
Now, fast forward 5 years from now, when Apple announces OS X for all beige machines, sold on Dell computers with a specific hardware list. If your hardware isn't on the list, it won't work - and how long will that take hardware developers to go "Shit! We'd better work on this thing before our competitors do!"
Then Apple can go to the Enterprise and say "Hi! We're more secure than Microsoft, easier than Linux, and we run all of the apps you care about natively - and what we don't, we emulate so well you won't know the difference! Buy us!"
Then the very Windows compatibility that helped Intel based Macs in the first place starts to hurt Windows.
Of course, Microsoft will be doing their bit on the side, but now it will be *true* competition, which means we the consumers win. Linux is still around innovating and updating and dong well in the server end, Jobs makes even more money, and everything's good.
Too optimistic? By far, I'm sure - the "OS X on a Dell" will probably never happen. But I don't see Intel and Apple merging - just Intel using Apple to sell more products and hold AMD, Microsoft, and Dell in control, and Apple selling more products and using AMD to threaten Intel when they need a better deal.
Of course, this is all my opinion, things may change and I could be wrong - but let's just wait and see what will happen. I'm just excited about running Final Cut Pro Express and Half-Life on the same box within a year or so.
The only logical thing I can think of is travelers. Guys on the road who have their own favorites, don't want to watch what's on the hotel listings or something like that.
Now, they have have it in a private area, put their disks in a little locked box without fear of people getting to them, and view in their leisure.
Anyway, that's the only situation I can think of. Personally, I still don't see that one working, because I can't imagine a guy holding up his PSP with one hand while trying to - um, you know - with the other. Sounds uncomfortable.
We were skeptical because we've been promised the moon, the sun and the stars for years, without delivery. Or perhaps because the main office were found to be a PO Box (or an empty office - I can't remember). Because every year there's some hardware, some sort of demo, but nothing real and tangible.
We're skeptical because many of us are empiricists who don't believe in empty promises anymore, but real results. Show us a machine, we can buy, and a real list of games that work, and we'll take a look at it. Until you actually say "On sale on [insert date here]", just shut up - we'll be a lot less skeptical that way.
Xen is an GNU kind of "hypervisor" contributed by Sun, IBM, etc. So far, it doesn't work with Windows. (Hm - love to see an OS X version come out when those X86 Macs arrive.)
Microsoft is announcing that their next version of Windows will have the same technology as Xen - but better! Hey, don't use that Xen crap now - just wait for our upcoming technology! I mean, it's not like we just announce technology years in advance in order to make people think that a current competitor isn't going to be around in a few years!
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like this is for 4G and above iPods - mine's still a good old 3G that hasn't let me down yet, so I'll probably just have to wait. I wasn't planning on upgrading for another year anyway ;).
Side note: turns out you can get Rocketboom, but I had to add it through the iTunes Store interface, not just cut 'n paste the RSS feed I had in iPodderX. I'm willing to bet most of the comments I got are about that ;).
One other thing: Now, if Apple will just add in support for multiple users on iTunes, so I can log into the computer and have the same library as my wife when she logs in, and so on. I know there are some hacks, but it doesn't sync up all that well I've found unless you have one dedicated "music" user.
The Good:
;).
Rather nicely done. A good interface, the search function works, and the display is very iTunes-ish - to be honest, better than using iPodderX or NetNewsWire to import the songs, and you can add in custom feeds.
I like the ability to tell it "Keep the most recent X and dump the rest" - for news based Podcasts, I usually have to do that manually with listened ones. Now, once I listen to it, it will automatically be taken out. Sweet.
The Bad:
No built in support for turning MP3 to bookmarkable AAC's. I don't see any kind of support for video podcasts (such as Rocketboom, which is odd since iPodderX can export the videos to iTunes, perhaps in support for a (someday) future video iPod).
Otherwise, it's a nice addition, and it's going to be interesting to see where it goes. Kudos to Apple for getting it - now let's see how long it takes the Napster and Rhapsody folks to catch on
I mean, pretty much every store I've seen has the ESRB ratings inside with warnings on them. Personally, I think the issue is that too many parents expect someone else to just tell them what to do. Myself and a friend of mine were in a software store when a kid walked in (9 years old) wanting to buy Soldier of Fortune. We actually took the 5 seconds to point out the easily readable sign and explain why something like "Diablo" (T for Teen) was more acceptable for his age perhaps, or something like that.
I'm not necessarily against laws regarind video games as long as they're logical and thought out (example: M rated games behind the counter? Makes sense. M rated games 5 feet above the floor? Stupid, and discriminating against short people.) But until we have parents at least make the minimal effort, I don't want to hear them bitching.
This said as a father of three children who plays games with the little rug rats (we've finished "Ocarina of Time" and, after a bout with "Paper Mario" will be hitting "Chrono Trigger").
Ahhh - ok, that makes some sense. Thanks!
Now, I know why they don't allow the homebrew software:
;).
Less game sales
Loss of control (possibility of viruses, malware, etc)
But - I think they could really do something with the homebrew if done right. I had put out some of these in a column I wrote up a couple of weeks ago, and still feel its true.
Sony could:
1. Offer a homebrew kit to developers for $100 - $200 dollars to be used for non-commercial use only.
2. Include big ass disclaimers "You break-a yo' PSP, not our fault".
3. If an application starts getting big, add it to an online PSP App Center and charge for it. 75% of the profits go to the devs, 25% to Sony. Everybody wins, as Sony could built up a library of applications and make some money off of it.
Is this as good as, say, just developing Palm Pilot applications and not getting a developers hard work appropriated by Sony? Naturally not - but half a loaf, as they say, is better than none. In this scenario, more apps for the PSP make it a more attractive device, which means more sales, which means more developers develop for it. At the moment, the Nintendo DS is looking like a better system (I've got two PSP games that look interesting to me, and about 15 DS games on my list for the future).
Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong. If nothing else, I'm enjoying having a Genesis emulator on my PSP - and the irony that I can play Game Boy Color games on my PSP but not on my DS
Looks like a very cool system - well outside my price range (and with 3 small children, outside of my "what can my heart stand when the little buggers touch the expensive equipment").
My only question is on the school wheel interface. My understanding is that Apple had purchased the rights to use the patents to the scroll wheel touchpad system for their technologies (I don't recall the actual patent holder). Does this mean that Sony's scroll wheel is not touch pad based (could be a physical wheel and *not* violate the patent, I guess), or did they also get a piece of the patent license somehow?
Just curious.
I think this is a great thing. I know I have two major applications - Groove and Visio, both owned by Microsoft - that have no OS X support. Entourage supports Exchange, but not nearly as well as the original Windows MS Outlook.
;).
This announcement means that Virtual PC has some real competition - rather than wasting my time booting up a virtual computer, I can just run the apps I need. Could this hurt OS X with Windows developers saying "Eh - just run Codeweaver and leave us alone?". Sure - but I think more people running OS X, even if they are running Wine-enabled applications, will still be better in the long run, since the "average user" won't understand why they're being told to spend another $50 to get a program to run on their Mac - they'll either go with a PC, or, if they've grown to love OS X, they'll tell the developer to convert.
We'll just have to see. Here's hoping Transgaming announces a similiar announcement, just for competitions sake. Like another poster, I'm also looking forward to Half Life 2 on my shiny Mactel box
Microsoft would never announce a product that wasn't in existence, promote it through marketing to the point that a competitor's product dropped in sales as people waited for Microsoft's uber-cool dingy-bopper thingy - then when it's released with half of the functionality promise that the next version will really be better than its competitors while supporting themselves with their monopoly!
I mean, they've never done that before, right?
Wiki's have their purpose. Collaborative story writing? Sure. Editorials and news stories? Maybe not - after all, an editorial is suppose to be a group of people's opinion, so in that case you want a "read-only" wiki with "write" ability to a very small subset.
What the major newspapers should do however is allow comments (a la slashdot style - include user moderation and some basic spam/troll protection). This would let them to two things:
1. Make more money off of ads (Google or otherwise) as people come back to see who's commented on their comments.
2. Readers can point out errors or omissions - yes, this can have an echo chamber effect such as when a group of liberals and conservatives fight it out about who's got the bigger penis and/or breasts, but overall it might be useful if a anonymous commentator could point a reporter towards another source or more information, or bring another opinion in.
Again, wiki's can be a great thing, but perhaps the format they chose was not the best one. And to blame Slashdot readers is a little silly - I'm sure there were many, many other people who wanted to just grief the article to death. Slashdot just helped people know about it.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
A PDA I think would be great - the hard part would be letting me sync it to iCal or something, but that would be excellent for me.
The other would be a Game Boy Color emulator. Yes, I know that the DS can play Game Boy Advance games, but there's still 4 Game Boy games I haven't finished yet (two Zelda games, "Dragon Warrior III" (almost done), and "Metal Gear Solid GBC"). I just want to have the ability to play them all on one device, and then I won't have to keep the GBA SP around all the time.
Not sure if it can do the latter - the processor might not be powerful enough for emulating the GBC, but the datebook might be good.
It makes me wonder why Palm hasn't tried to sell a Palm OS cartridge - I know I'd buy one, and even if it was Palm Light (let you sync up, maybe enter some things, but no major app support) it would almost be worth $50 - $60.
Just my opinion, of course. Congrats to the Linux on DS team, either way!
If Google's going this way, it might be just as easy to tie it into the Froogle service: let people find the item they want, then pay for it from the same interface.
In time, they could introduce their own eBay like system. Odds are, eBay won't just let Google Wallet into their system and people would have to do payments manually (they way they used to with Paypal). But if Google builds off of Froogle and inserts themselves as a middleman, it would be an effective way of getting extra revenue and balancing out their ad system.
Just a random thought - naturally, I could be wrong.
Yes, but I'm not a complete ass - just a partial one :).
I believe that Mr. Cuban has proposed something like this, but imagine if the movie studios really took off with this idea. What if on the day a movie is released, it's:
1. Available in the theaters
2. Available on DVD
3. Available as a pay-for-download (say either pay-per-view, or an iTunes Video Store kind of idea (granted, that would mean Apple or someone would have to come up with a good home media Tivo like device that's not a whole fricken' computer - say around $300 or so. Tivo should be hopping over that.)
You can go to the movies and see it on the screen, and on your way out buy the DVD if you like. There - theaters and studios just got your money twice!
People (such as myself) with young children who don't attend many movies since small crying children in theaters are bad could either rent the new release (even at a premium of $10 for the rental of a "brand new!" movie release could be worth it), or pick it up in a store for $20 - $25 to own (maybe "new movie" DVD's are a little more, which would be acceptable, then go down in price after six months or so depending on the movies popularity), or tell the machine "I want to buy this movie - go download it" and, if the machine is set up smartly to auto-download certain movies in encrypted format for use (I believe DirectTV was thinking of an idea like this), I'm watching it.
Or use Pay-per-view. Whatever.
The movie industry could drive hugh amounts of revenue. Rather than hand-wringing with "Oh, nos! Teh bad hack0rs will steal our movies if we let them be downloaded", odds are they could see a doubling or tripling of sales the first 48 hours a movie is out. They could have re-releases of the DVD with the cool "Director's cut" (or even offer that the day the movie is released and get around the rating systems in the theaters) and get people to buy it twice.
It's so brain numbingly obvious, it's a mystery to me that nobody's at least tried it. At least maybe on a lesser known title that they don't expect to do well at the box office and see how it goes.
Anyway, this is all just my own opinion. I could be wrong.
Before people jump up and down on the "legal only" comment, go read the white paper linked in the article. It's actually got some interesting ideas, and (from what I've skimmed through so far) doesn't state anything about dealing with "legal" versus "illegal" downloads - it even mentions Bittorrent favorably in its use to retrieve Linux distributions. The writers just want to tweak out some weaknesses - something I noticed the other day when I was at 99.9% of a recent Bittorrent download, and that 1% had to wait for the one guy's slow pipe to get me the one last piece of the file I needed.
With this technology, my understanding is that my system could have figured out what the last piece looked like on its own rather than waiting four days (!) to get it. Granted, this is just me skimming it for about 2 minutes, but I'll print it out and read at my leisure later.
Now, we can all guess that the technology will be Windows only, blah, blah, blah - but it's still an interesting one, and I recommend you read the PDF document (yes - it's a PDF, not a DOC!) before you pass judgement.
Napster, Wal-Mart, and other stores have used WMA as their music business, using their own proprietary Windows client.
Now, MS swoops in and says "Well, yeah, I'm going to put you out of business now. Sorry about that - suckers!"
You'd think by now some companies would have learned. MS's standard system is:
1. Encourage someone else to use MS technology in their products.
2. Come out with an MS version of that same product once it succeeds and use monopoly position to put them out of business - or just buy out the company altogether.
Hm.
The same way you eat a whale: one bite at a time. You go OS X for the security, iLife, etc - but you don't have to spend another $1000 - $2000 on software to do it.
Then, when Office has a new version out for the Mac, you upgrade. Later, you can upgrade Photoshop. So you still spend the $2000, but not all at once, and not because you have to - it's just part of the upgrade cycle.
They couldn't buy a Mac before regardless of the quality because they had $200 in Windows, $500 in Office, $300 in games, and so on tied into their computer.
So a new Mac wouldn't cost $2000, but around $4000 including software.
Now, a new Mac will cost $2000 - and over time as they buy new applications they'll buy OS X based rather than dual-booting.
It may appear convoluted, but you'll be surprised how many people I've talked to in the last 5 days who all go "Hm - yeah, I'm going to buy a Mac and if I don't like it I'll just run Windows." Most of these are gamer or hard core geek types.
I believe it could go both ways.
Wordperfect tried a version that ran on Linux that was really a Windows version with a modified version of WINE. DIdn't do to well.
Any developer who wants to take that route with OS X in Intel will have to say "Hm - my competitor Photoshop runs natively, and my Windows via OS X Wine looks like ass. Will I really get more sales this way?"
Remember, Mac is also a look and feel, and the apps that truly run the best will tend to run best. So a Windows program *could* run on OS X (the way OS/2 ran Windows programs), but I think there's a large enough market (something OS/2 never had) and Apple could limit it to specific apps (like the aforementioned in the grandparent post) to prevent most developers from being lazy.
I could be wrong, but if Apple uses standard parts (Intel chip, ram, hdd, etc), I think MS would be cutting of their nose to spite their own faces. Imagine being a programmer going "Well, we could detect the rosetta chip and make Windows crash from that" - but the programming involved would more than likely mess up other systems as well (remember: Apple is pretty much going to look like a normal PC now, plus a few extra components).
Possible? Sure - but I think even MS would find it harder to pull of this time without getting hauled back into monopoly court.
My apologies - perhaps my example wasn't good enough.
I was talking about the people who already own Photoshop for Windows. Why make them buy a new version for OS X when it can be emulated - this keeps them in OS X, and 2-3 years from now when they have to upgrade Photoshop, they'll be more likely to buy the OS X version instead of the Windows version.
I realize that Photoshop runs on OS X, as does MS Office - but if you're a Windows user switching to OS X, it would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper if you didn't have to rebuy all of your old applications at once.
Hopefully this makes more sense.
But I'll bet on "getting in bed together", "sleeping together", so on and so forth.
As for the rest about Microsoft, I'll buy that. In fact, I think that the whole "Mac on Intel" thing will sell well because of Microsoft.
At first.
See, there's several people who, upon considering a Mac, say this:
"I'd get one, but I'd have to rebuy all of my old applications."
"I'd get one, but I like to play games."
Those are the 2 biggest reasons - not performance, not quality, it's always "apps and games".
Now, with an Intel based Mac, they can say:
"Well, I'll buy the Apple because they make good machines, and if OS X is crap then I'll just install Windows."
If Apple really works on shining up Wine (or buys out some other Wine based company - Crossover I believe?), then they can offer Windows compatibility with a certain number of apps, perhaps a solid list such as Photoshop, Office, etc (and grow the list as necessary).
So now if a Windows user buys a Mac, they can have the best of both worlds: they can keep their apps, and they can run either Windows via dual boot for what they *must*, or (emulated? translated?) the Wine type service instead of rebooting (even better, since they can keep all the Apple goodness with them.)
Windows sells the same as before, everybody's happy.
Except that if this works, and *if* Apple's market share climbs, more app writers make Mac versions of their products for their customers. Sure, there's the "Oh, no, they won't because they'll just wrote for Windows for compatiblity" - there will be those, but the ones that see a competitive market edge giving "*FULL* OS X compatibility" over their competition (sorry for using compet* so often) will make OS X based apps.
And lets face it, what are the big applications?
Browser
Email
Music
Office Suite (assuming that Microsoft keeps its promise and makes the next Mac Office more "exchange compatible", this will be more true)
Photoshop-like products
Movies
Apple will have all of those, and everything else is just gravy.
Then it becomes a feedback loop: more OS X apps, more market share. More market share, more good hardware drivers written. More good hardware drivers written, more hardware OS X can work with so more people buy since it supports their stuff. Apps have to keep up, so more OS X apps, etc.
Now, fast forward 5 years from now, when Apple announces OS X for all beige machines, sold on Dell computers with a specific hardware list. If your hardware isn't on the list, it won't work - and how long will that take hardware developers to go "Shit! We'd better work on this thing before our competitors do!"
Then Apple can go to the Enterprise and say "Hi! We're more secure than Microsoft, easier than Linux, and we run all of the apps you care about natively - and what we don't, we emulate so well you won't know the difference! Buy us!"
Then the very Windows compatibility that helped Intel based Macs in the first place starts to hurt Windows.
Of course, Microsoft will be doing their bit on the side, but now it will be *true* competition, which means we the consumers win. Linux is still around innovating and updating and dong well in the server end, Jobs makes even more money, and everything's good.
Too optimistic? By far, I'm sure - the "OS X on a Dell" will probably never happen. But I don't see Intel and Apple merging - just Intel using Apple to sell more products and hold AMD, Microsoft, and Dell in control, and Apple selling more products and using AMD to threaten Intel when they need a better deal.
Of course, this is all my opinion, things may change and I could be wrong - but let's just wait and see what will happen. I'm just excited about running Final Cut Pro Express and Half-Life on the same box within a year or so.
The only logical thing I can think of is travelers. Guys on the road who have their own favorites, don't want to watch what's on the hotel listings or something like that.
Now, they have have it in a private area, put their disks in a little locked box without fear of people getting to them, and view in their leisure.
Anyway, that's the only situation I can think of. Personally, I still don't see that one working, because I can't imagine a guy holding up his PSP with one hand while trying to - um, you know - with the other. Sounds uncomfortable.
We were skeptical because we've been promised the moon, the sun and the stars for years, without delivery. Or perhaps because the main office were found to be a PO Box (or an empty office - I can't remember). Because every year there's some hardware, some sort of demo, but nothing real and tangible.
We're skeptical because many of us are empiricists who don't believe in empty promises anymore, but real results. Show us a machine, we can buy, and a real list of games that work, and we'll take a look at it. Until you actually say "On sale on [insert date here]", just shut up - we'll be a lot less skeptical that way.
Xen is an GNU kind of "hypervisor" contributed by Sun, IBM, etc. So far, it doesn't work with Windows. (Hm - love to see an OS X version come out when those X86 Macs arrive.)
Microsoft is announcing that their next version of Windows will have the same technology as Xen - but better! Hey, don't use that Xen crap now - just wait for our upcoming technology! I mean, it's not like we just announce technology years in advance in order to make people think that a current competitor isn't going to be around in a few years!