People care about Unix and Linux is just another Unix.
THAT is what freely re-implementable interfaces get you. Now while it is possible to have proprietary interfaces that can be re-implemented, it is very rare. The whole point of "owning" the API is the fact that you can disallow drop in replacements. You are you're own monopoly and market pressures quickly enforce that.
We haven't moved from Free to Proprietary but from proprietary apps to proprietary services where all of your eggs are in one basket at some Facebook owned data center.
What's missing is mobility of data between different "compatible" services.
Things that are remembered have already stood the test of time. Your memory is faulty because you really don't have enough neurons to waste on the crap. So you forget about all of the dreck and have this strangely biased view of the past.
People were complaining about Hollywood bean counters in the 70s.
They may be worse now but people were still whining about them 40 years ago.
You say that like none of us have never seen, used, or owned an iPad. Of course that's not true and your bullshit doesn't impress anyone.
If he's considering Android, he's probably doing so because he does value his time or wants to do something that Apple Corp doesn't approve of (like Flash).
Sometimes, there's no substitute for a device that's in the control of the user.
What you should take away from this is not that "even geeks like shiny and pretty" but that geeks prefer FUNCTIONAL. That's what you would have taken away from any of the Slashdot UI rants if you had actually been paying attention.
No. Putting you into a straightjacket and pretending that is "usability" is not going to impress a geek.
The Thrive is high on my list because of it's built in connectivity options and the fact that I actually got to play with one after a n00b relative bought one.
I think it is worse than that. Once you have seeds that are the "property" of a single corporation you have only one entity that is capable of subsequent derivative works. Instead of having "an entire planet of hackers" trying to solve the problem of continued viability, all work is limited to the single corporation that may not feel motivated to plan ahead.
There are plenty of ways of avoiding the cost of Starbucks in a free market. You don't even have to try that hard or even skimp on quality or convenience.
It's a real shame that Apple chose to chase that spirit away from their phone platform. It could solve some of this problem. Instead of paying some amount for a crappy version of something you could just get for free, you could just get the free thing. You would also be able to do so without worrying about ads or other nonsense.
App stores with adware aren't really any better than the "wild wild west" situation we had before. People just kid themselves that adware is not a problem.
I am really at a loss to consider how an Apple PVR of all things managed to be too hard to deal with. It just seems insane unless this person can't handle ANY PVR of any kind.
What's to get confused over? Some menus?
Tivo and ReplayTV had the basics nailed a long time ago.
Instead they come up with a remote with not nearly enough buttons and no onscreen menus to compensate. Stuff just "falls on the floor". Sure, the remote has less buttons than something like a DVD player or Tivo, but it also allows you to do less.
It's crude even from a simple "menu + cursor" perspective.
OTOH, a button with a lot of legacy controls at least represent a framework that the user is familiar with. That's an aspect of HID that some people like to ignore while droning on about "interface design".
Most of the barriers in this area are DRM. There are multiple overlappying flavors of DRM that need to be addressed in any "does it all" solution. Plus some devices/services just don't play nice with anything else.
You can take control of the cable provider's box. It just won't be as pretty or as magical as the usual stuff from Apple because Apple won't be in control. They will have to put up with 3rd party devices that are actually kind of hostile to being under someone else's control.
Their usual approach to technology of gutting it and spoon feeding it to users won't go over so well.
Plus, all of the content is still under someone else's control.
Someone already solved "the TV problem". They did it in the 90s and it's called a Tivo. Although the solution suffers both from end user apathy and monopoly market barriers.
Most people are willing to eat dirt and aren't interested in paying what Apple wants to charge them.
Yeah. Blow a lot of money on replacing all of your old sets with overpriced Smart TV's just so you can save on cable box rental.
Rather than just buying the $100 box that already exists.
Yeah...
The absurd price premiums on Smart TVs are already there for anyone to see. You just have to be willing to bother looking. You're already better off avoiding the Smart TVs and just getting an appliance to plug into it.
You can buy an HTPC with the difference, never mind an AppleTV or Roku.
USB was standard on Intel motherboards before it was standard on Mac. The main difference with Apple is that they gave you no other choice. It was their way or the highway.
OTOH, I have a 2011 motherboard with USB3 and it still has "legacy" connectors on it.
Some people like to confuse "first to implement" with "first to screw old users".
If it's a single vendor solution that I can't get on a PC card, then it's proprietary (and probably highly so).
Yeah. They are antagonizing their only real market.
Who outside of Slashdot and similar sites is going to bother paying twice the price or more? Most "normal consumers" are just going to buy the "well known brand" or the "cheap thing".
This is why I view the Roku and AppleTV as fundementally inferior solutions. Why can't a device like that in 2011 take advantage of network tech that has been pervasive since 1995 and commonplace since the mid 80s?
Some people like to whine about how "hard" other devices are when it's pretty trivial to create a setup where any GUI desktop user can easily add content for XBMC, or MythTV, or WMC. Once it's on the right place on the network, things "just work" and there's no extra file conversion steps needed.
TV recordings. DVDs. BDs. Old Home videos. New Home videos. Stuff saved from the web. Old AVI files from some 3 foot 10 pack. Anime fansubs. None of it's a problem.
Artificially limited solutions aren't inherently user friendly. They're just lame and require more work in the end.
If Netflix is all you are really after and some light PVR functions then a Tivo is probably the thing. It's just not the dirt cheap option.
As far as "legacy media" goes: all you should need to do is use the shiny happy GUI in your OS of choice to share your files. Video appliances should be able to handle the rest without any jailbreaking or nonsense
Although a lot of "iTunes" is DRM. So there is only one vendor that may even be in a position to offer something there.
Slashdot Mirror
> So why would anyone care about Linux?
People care about Unix and Linux is just another Unix.
THAT is what freely re-implementable interfaces get you. Now while it is possible to have proprietary interfaces that can be re-implemented, it is very rare. The whole point of "owning" the API is the fact that you can disallow drop in replacements. You are you're own monopoly and market pressures quickly enforce that.
We haven't moved from Free to Proprietary but from proprietary apps to proprietary services where all of your eggs are in one basket at some Facebook owned data center.
What's missing is mobility of data between different "compatible" services.
> it's not easy to make such a scalable system.
Then don't try. Don't try to make the largest tower of babel.
It's sad that anyone thinks we need to.
Things that are remembered have already stood the test of time. Your memory is faulty because you really don't have enough neurons to waste on the crap. So you forget about all of the dreck and have this strangely biased view of the past.
People were complaining about Hollywood bean counters in the 70s.
They may be worse now but people were still whining about them 40 years ago.
3D is an overpriced and overrated variation that is taking far to much valuable real estate that would be better used attracting a wider audience.
You say that like none of us have never seen, used, or owned an iPad. Of course that's not true and your bullshit doesn't impress anyone.
If he's considering Android, he's probably doing so because he does value his time or wants to do something that Apple Corp doesn't approve of (like Flash).
Sometimes, there's no substitute for a device that's in the control of the user.
A nice fat Archos is a cool thing to have if you want lots of built in storage. Not sure I would recommend one as a general purpose tablet though.
I have a "great job".
I still don't treat money like something I can burn.
That's not an uncommon attitude among those that are self made and/or actually work for a living.
If you're trying to look like you can burn money, then you're just pretending in some sad attempt to impress the rest of us.
Yup. The UI matters even to geeks.
What you should take away from this is not that "even geeks like shiny and pretty" but that geeks prefer FUNCTIONAL. That's what you would have taken away from any of the Slashdot UI rants if you had actually been paying attention.
No. Putting you into a straightjacket and pretending that is "usability" is not going to impress a geek.
The Thrive is high on my list because of it's built in connectivity options and the fact that I actually got to play with one after a n00b relative bought one.
I think it is worse than that. Once you have seeds that are the "property" of a single corporation you have only one entity that is capable of subsequent derivative works. Instead of having "an entire planet of hackers" trying to solve the problem of continued viability, all work is limited to the single corporation that may not feel motivated to plan ahead.
It's the Cathedral and the Bazaar all over again.
True. But $1 doesn't equate to much in terms of vendor lock.
Your total aggregate vendorlock for the entire phone might end up being less than a single decent desktop IP.
There are plenty of ways of avoiding the cost of Starbucks in a free market. You don't even have to try that hard or even skimp on quality or convenience.
It's a real shame that Apple chose to chase that spirit away from their phone platform. It could solve some of this problem. Instead of paying some amount for a crappy version of something you could just get for free, you could just get the free thing. You would also be able to do so without worrying about ads or other nonsense.
App stores with adware aren't really any better than the "wild wild west" situation we had before. People just kid themselves that adware is not a problem.
Leap weeks?
Almost sounds like this guy is just from another culture and simply dressed up an old idea in a lot of astrophysics and called it "invention".
I am really at a loss to consider how an Apple PVR of all things managed to be too hard to deal with. It just seems insane unless this person can't handle ANY PVR of any kind.
What's to get confused over? Some menus?
Tivo and ReplayTV had the basics nailed a long time ago.
I don't see Apple doing any better.
Instead they come up with a remote with not nearly enough buttons and no onscreen menus to compensate. Stuff just "falls on the floor". Sure, the remote has less buttons than something like a DVD player or Tivo, but it also allows you to do less.
It's crude even from a simple "menu + cursor" perspective.
OTOH, a button with a lot of legacy controls at least represent a framework that the user is familiar with. That's an aspect of HID that some people like to ignore while droning on about "interface design".
Most of the barriers in this area are DRM. There are multiple overlappying flavors of DRM that need to be addressed in any "does it all" solution. Plus some devices/services just don't play nice with anything else.
> While Macs are not making the majority of Apple's revenue or profit anymore,
That's all anyone needs to hear.
Apple lost that platform war. Time to get over it. Apple clearly did.
You can take control of the cable provider's box. It just won't be as pretty or as magical as the usual stuff from Apple because Apple won't be in control. They will have to put up with 3rd party devices that are actually kind of hostile to being under someone else's control.
Their usual approach to technology of gutting it and spoon feeding it to users won't go over so well.
Plus, all of the content is still under someone else's control.
Someone already solved "the TV problem". They did it in the 90s and it's called a Tivo. Although the solution suffers both from end user apathy and monopoly market barriers.
Most people are willing to eat dirt and aren't interested in paying what Apple wants to charge them.
Yeah. Blow a lot of money on replacing all of your old sets with overpriced Smart TV's just so you can save on cable box rental.
Rather than just buying the $100 box that already exists.
Yeah...
The absurd price premiums on Smart TVs are already there for anyone to see. You just have to be willing to bother looking. You're already better off avoiding the Smart TVs and just getting an appliance to plug into it.
You can buy an HTPC with the difference, never mind an AppleTV or Roku.
USB was standard on Intel motherboards before it was standard on Mac. The main difference with Apple is that they gave you no other choice. It was their way or the highway.
OTOH, I have a 2011 motherboard with USB3 and it still has "legacy" connectors on it.
Some people like to confuse "first to implement" with "first to screw old users".
If it's a single vendor solution that I can't get on a PC card, then it's proprietary (and probably highly so).
A limited subset of one video codec, in one container, with limited audio options, force fed through iTunes is not "whatever content you like".
This is a perverted, ignorance worshiping, Apple fanboy vision of "whatever content you like".
Smart TVs are already overpriced.
Yeah. They are antagonizing their only real market.
Who outside of Slashdot and similar sites is going to bother paying twice the price or more? Most "normal consumers" are just going to buy the "well known brand" or the "cheap thing".
It creates new monopolies, complicates/prevents the development of new products and technologies, and interferes with individual property rights.
DRM primarily impacts the paying customer and rarely if ever stops "pirates".
This is why I view the Roku and AppleTV as fundementally inferior solutions. Why can't a device like that in 2011 take advantage of network tech that has been pervasive since 1995 and commonplace since the mid 80s?
Some people like to whine about how "hard" other devices are when it's pretty trivial to create a setup where any GUI desktop user can easily add content for XBMC, or MythTV, or WMC. Once it's on the right place on the network, things "just work" and there's no extra file conversion steps needed.
TV recordings. DVDs. BDs. Old Home videos. New Home videos. Stuff saved from the web. Old AVI files from some 3 foot 10 pack. Anime fansubs. None of it's a problem.
Artificially limited solutions aren't inherently user friendly. They're just lame and require more work in the end.
Amazon does.
Sounds like a Tivo really.
If Netflix is all you are really after and some light PVR functions then a Tivo is probably the thing. It's just not the dirt cheap option.
As far as "legacy media" goes: all you should need to do is use the shiny happy GUI in your OS of choice to share your files. Video appliances should be able to handle the rest without any jailbreaking or nonsense
Although a lot of "iTunes" is DRM. So there is only one vendor that may even be in a position to offer something there.