But Apple isn't the one that has caused that. It's not their fault that Amazon doesn't want to support Australia. The record companies control where music can be sold more than anyone else. Once one company can do it then pretty much anyone else can. Of course smaller companies won't be able to offer the same selection but that will be down more to the cost of getting it from the music publishers. Amazon on the other hand doesn't have that issue and I suspect they just don't want to sell music elsewhere at this time unfortunately.
Music doesn't have to be channeled through iTunes. Yes most people will just use it and naturally Apple advertise only their option but there is nothing stopping you from using Amarok or many other solutions.
Microsoft still has the largest marketshare but I would argue they haven't been abusing their position as much. Therefore they're not really a monopoly same as Apple hasn't been forcing me to use their system to buy or get music onto my iPod.
Sure apps are different but unlike a PC a mobile device is much more sensitive to power usage, data usage and security problems. People could track my every step, cost me money by eating up my data or render my phone useless by draining the battery. I would actually prefer to have a gate keeper (though I do use Android because I can't stomach the idea of paying for an iPhone) because it makes sense and certainly makes more sense than the Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 being locked down.
And it's only the apps that you can't (without jail breaking) get onto an iphone. You can get music on them as well. It's not just iPods.
Of course it's not just about competition but your market share if you abuse it. Again I fail to see how Apple opening up their music by removing DRM or allowing iTunes to import anyone else's music shows any signs of using their music store might to stop competition or stop consumers from using their music how they wish.
I suspect they'd offer DRM-free movies too if publishers were happy to do so.
In most cases yes but even Open Office isn't completely 100% compatible with Office even if I get by just fine with OO.
That's different to a bit of music software that is completely neutral and accepts my MP3 collection that I've spent years collecting and if I wanted to buy music from iTunes and play it elsewhere I can now that Apple got their want and can sell DRM-free music and it works exactly as it should which isn't always the case with Office documents even if that is generally the case.
It's called an example of actual market abuse. Where as iTunes in no way forces me to use a certain format or get their music from their store. I have no more music from iTunes itself but I have used it to put my years worth of MP3s from various sources include Amazon onto an iPod though I typically don't even use iTunes and put my music onto my iPod through other software.
Apple don't even require you to own their own hardware to use iTunes. You can use Windows. The only place where they do place restrictions are with apps and to be quite honest that makes complete sense given the fact power and data usage are much bigger issues on mobile devices.
So I can develop whatever I want for Nintendo's systems, Playstation 3 or Xbox 360? Not every system is open and is meant to be. Just as Apple will happily let you do what you want on a Mac and even help sell / promote your GPL'ed app in their store but on the system where performance and security matter more they don't. It only makes sense. It certainly makes more sense than home consoles being locked down.
There is nothing that ties you to buying music from iTunes and you don't even have to use to get music onto your iPod yet Microsoft has abused its position many times to gain an advantage. The lastest being making Bing the default search engine in their browser they attempt to force onto people. What's worse is when Bing shortly came out my settings for both Firefox and IE were switched to Bing.
That is abusing your market position in one area to gain power in another. Providing one of many options to buy music is not.
Are people dumb enough not to be using Amazon for music? Even then what actually ties you to buying music from iTunes? Hell what ties you to using iTunes to get music on your iPod? I'm doing quite well without it on my Linux machine.
The idea that Apple would modify the name of your application even if it's a hateful application to make it appear as something completely different is wrong. The right thing to do was just to remove it. Anyone suggesting otherwise is being a bit dim.
There is enough there to have a free market in the cell phone industry but no company will be willing to offer better deals. There is no incentive and it's working well enough to compete without offering something superior.
I think people will always come up for a reason why a free market doesn't exist rather than admit that putting things in the hands of companies only (or the government only) is just dumb and we need a mix of both. For instance with cell phones the US government should have standardised cell phones. If you phone is no good on someone else's network then unless you're willing to lose out on the cash for that phone then you're stuck with your provider. But people seem to think companies having the freedom and the ability to choose their own standards allows them to offer the best technology and price. In reality it's just allowed them to lock you into their service.
They already use the same network or share towers. My grand parents owned quite a few acres of land. On the back a cell phone provider bought a chunk and gave them a really sweet phone deal and payments for life. While I'm sure in the grand scheme of things that's a small chunk of money to them I'm sure providers much rather work with each other than keep negotiating numerous deals with people so I'm sure they try working deals with each other in the first instance and only look for starting from scratch where they have to.
Not that it matters. They're not going to give consumers any additional benefits just because they've killed the competition. The US seems quite content on being bent over on cell phones. Why would they rock the boat especially if they have less competition?
Or they're over selling and the local infrastructure can't handle the amount of people using it. It will eventually get resolved but you shouldn't really have to deal with months (or a month) of awful service just so they can milk every last penny out of their hardware.
Still I'd agree he should complain. If people complain maybe they'd be less likely to do that.
From what I can tell they're not exactly fighting each other either to get your business. 3 identical choices is not exactly what I'd call having choice.
I agree with that. If they caused a problem they need to speak up. If something other software causes problems and they haven't found the problem yet they need to at least tell people they're looking into it. If it's a hardware fault they need to offer people a refund or a new macbook with fixed hardware.
So does my ultra-portable HP with aluminum chassis and 7200 rpm hard drive (Apple sticks with 5400 rpm or sticks their long barbed wiener up your butt for an SSD upgrade.)
I'm not saying you can't get the same but it's definitely not common and no their SSD option isn't that expensive. It's certainly not the cheapest option on the net but It's not that cheap buying an SSD on its own. BTW, I believe because of the SSD I can easily get over 10 hours even if I'm just browsing or using vim.
Bullshit, I can price a laptop with everything a Mac has for between half to three-quarters the price. I can even throw in an SSD and keep it as cheap as I just said. Check out the HP Envy or Performance models.
I'd still say 3/4 of the price is only just on the border of being close enough that I'd still weigh up the weight of the two, the look and everything else. Though I still question whether you could find something of the same spec and quality for 3/4 the price.
Wrong. Thunderbolt should have no bearing on the OS stability, and if it does then they should not have implemented it in the first place or waited to release the next batch of Macbooks until the stability was handled. Apple is a egotistical wallet rapist. They have the nerve to say they make superior products, charge a ridiculous premium, and then claim "It just works" when time and time again its proven wrong. They didn't even bother to fix the iPhone antenna issue. Some fucking consumer friendly company they are. They just don't give a damn about you or anyone else, and treat the consumer as if they should be glad to even be graced by a Apple product.
Sure if it turns out it is a problem with thunderbolt and it's in Apple's hardware / software then they damn well better sort it out. That goes without saying.
But if it's a third party app that is causing problems then yes I would hope Apple helps get to the bottom of it and gives a solution but it's not really their fault any more than any other hardware developer is responsible for someone's potentially bad coding.
For example if you think to ask you may find some mobile internet dongles will bring OS X and cause you to reinstall the system. Best I can tell is it's because some companies don't bother looking into the problem until it arises and even then they don't tell you to get the update when you buy the thing and you don't see the problem until you restart the system. Luckily someone at work bricked their work macbook with a dongle and I knew to avoid that company and made sure to ask around.
Even if you could blame the original problem on Apple the mere fact they're still happy to sell the product without the fix and say nothing means it's the dongle's provider that is at fault for bricking your system.
Now you just sound like an asshole. People hate big ego's, and Apple has the biggest one, and they have NO RIGHT TO IT. Or is it cool with you that a company time and time again charges more than their product is worth, treats the consumer like an idiot, and then fails to address hardware issues with any form of refurbishment or recall?
So what is the reason then people will sit there and re-tell the same stupid lies like saying the Mac App store follows the same rules as the iOS one which is patently false. There are numerous apps that download or run external code and there are GPL open sourced apps or say stupid shit like their $400 laptop is exactly the same as a macbook pro.
To me that says it's jealousy especially when a lot of them turn out to be teens but even if I'm wrong whatever their reason doesn't justify the crap they spout.
I agree. If it's a genuine problem it has to be fixed. It's unacceptable under any circumstance but it's especially unacceptable for high cost items like a macbook even if it's a justified higher cost.
That's a flawed argument because people are saying that macbooks are the same but over priced. But then if someone points out that actually they're not you can say oh well then you have to compare it to what people want.
The reason being is because you can't say that everyone that buys a macbook doesn't want those features. Maybe, like me they've researched it and realised it's not that more expensive and it looks nicer.
Things like lit keyboards are more useful than you think. A lot of laptops offer something for that. Whether it's my ancient thinkpad with a orange light that shines onto the keyboard or the macbook that lights the keys. People do want these features and people must want bluetooth or there wouldn't be a market for all those ugly USB bluetooth adapters.
My macbook comes with a camera. A lot of laptop don't but again I don't call that a special feature. There wouldn't be such a market for USB cameras if people didn't want them. I think people just try to be cheap or responsible and they buy the cheaper laptop. Then spend £20 to £50 here and there for things and end up with the same features, higher price and it's not as portable because everything is a larger device that now has to be hooked up to a USB port.
PCs (or especially laptops) are only cheap because they cut features and load shareware on it and degrade the performance. Hell that alone has probably made a lot of windows users think macbooks run better purely because they don't realise it hasn't been loaded down with rubbish software.
I agree if you don't need the features ever then yes buy something that is cheaper simply because it has fewer features but if you do want to use the features it's better paying the higher amount for all that stuff built in and leaving you with a full featured laptop and the ability to easily use those features anywhere.
I think a a lit keyboard is needed if you take your laptop out of the house. It's come in real handy doing work on planes, buses, etc or even if I want to use my laptop quickly while watching a movie. Forgetting that though there is bluetooth isn't really something I'd call some sort of gold plated feature. In fact I assumed they were standard until I saw Dell wanted something like £16 to add it to the laptop.
When gaming yeah it whirs away away and gets quite hot near the top half of it but it never crashed and the fan doesn't spin constantly. It'll spin up for a couple minutes and the go off again. I don't have any useful amount of experience on older models but the 2009 model takes a beating quietly. Part of the silence is the fact I have an SSD so the only think that can make any noise is the fan.
My macbook pro easily meets the 7 hour battery life they've claimed (mine is one version before the 2011), it's almost always nearly as cool as when it's off, it's dead silent, starts up and is at a functional desktop within 5 seconds and yes it looks better with it's metal case than some cheap plastic one and it's thinner than what I'd get from Dell. Despite being thinner things like the lid feel much sturdier than a Dell and it comes with everything. THere are even small touches like being able to check the battery life without even turning it on.
I can't vouch for their newest model. It may be utter shit. But having gone through the process of pricing up laptops to get everything I have in my macbook it would cost nearly as much or more in some cases. Part of the reason for this is it seems to be nearly impossible to get an SSD in a laptop which seems retarded but you're looking at quite a big bump up in the price to add the equivalent sized SSD into a Wintel laptop.
Again even if you do get all those things it will still be in a cheap plastic case, it will almost certainly still be thicker, run warmer and louder. I don't think it's any surprise a lot of developers can be seen with Macbooks even if they aren't running OS X. The hardware is quality and it's built in such a way that you end up with something that resembles what a laptop should be rather than some big ugly plastic thing that gives you back pains carrying it around.
People need to take a break from their anti-apple circle jerk and remember that the newest macbook features brand new technology in it like Intel's Thunderbolt. It is just as likely that can cause problems even if you're not actually plugging anything into the port. One thing Apple does do that many other companies don't is adapt new technologies sooner and as a result are more likely to get bit in the ass by something going wrong. One of two things will happen. It can be resolved in a short period through software or maybe the 2011 models will just be notorious for being rubbish and smart people will pass on them and wait for the next iteration where the issue may not exist.
Alternatively they could have had a bad batch of components. It happens to everyone. Just look at how many companies that were affected by Sony's shitty laptop batteries. But of course some people just like to hate on things they can't afford.
I'd say it's more newsworthy because my macbook pro is one version before the 2011 and I can put it under quite a load. To the point I get concerned with how hot it feels but since I'm gaming I find it hard to quit. Anyway, it's never crashed. If the new macbooks are crashed over heavy use then there is probably a flaw somewhere which needs to be resolved.
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But Apple isn't the one that has caused that. It's not their fault that Amazon doesn't want to support Australia. The record companies control where music can be sold more than anyone else. Once one company can do it then pretty much anyone else can. Of course smaller companies won't be able to offer the same selection but that will be down more to the cost of getting it from the music publishers. Amazon on the other hand doesn't have that issue and I suspect they just don't want to sell music elsewhere at this time unfortunately.
Music doesn't have to be channeled through iTunes. Yes most people will just use it and naturally Apple advertise only their option but there is nothing stopping you from using Amarok or many other solutions.
Microsoft still has the largest marketshare but I would argue they haven't been abusing their position as much. Therefore they're not really a monopoly same as Apple hasn't been forcing me to use their system to buy or get music onto my iPod.
Sure apps are different but unlike a PC a mobile device is much more sensitive to power usage, data usage and security problems. People could track my every step, cost me money by eating up my data or render my phone useless by draining the battery. I would actually prefer to have a gate keeper (though I do use Android because I can't stomach the idea of paying for an iPhone) because it makes sense and certainly makes more sense than the Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 being locked down.
And it's only the apps that you can't (without jail breaking) get onto an iphone. You can get music on them as well. It's not just iPods.
Of course it's not just about competition but your market share if you abuse it. Again I fail to see how Apple opening up their music by removing DRM or allowing iTunes to import anyone else's music shows any signs of using their music store might to stop competition or stop consumers from using their music how they wish.
I suspect they'd offer DRM-free movies too if publishers were happy to do so.
In most cases yes but even Open Office isn't completely 100% compatible with Office even if I get by just fine with OO.
That's different to a bit of music software that is completely neutral and accepts my MP3 collection that I've spent years collecting and if I wanted to buy music from iTunes and play it elsewhere I can now that Apple got their want and can sell DRM-free music and it works exactly as it should which isn't always the case with Office documents even if that is generally the case.
It's called an example of actual market abuse. Where as iTunes in no way forces me to use a certain format or get their music from their store. I have no more music from iTunes itself but I have used it to put my years worth of MP3s from various sources include Amazon onto an iPod though I typically don't even use iTunes and put my music onto my iPod through other software.
Apple don't even require you to own their own hardware to use iTunes. You can use Windows. The only place where they do place restrictions are with apps and to be quite honest that makes complete sense given the fact power and data usage are much bigger issues on mobile devices.
So I can develop whatever I want for Nintendo's systems, Playstation 3 or Xbox 360? Not every system is open and is meant to be. Just as Apple will happily let you do what you want on a Mac and even help sell / promote your GPL'ed app in their store but on the system where performance and security matter more they don't. It only makes sense. It certainly makes more sense than home consoles being locked down.
Personally I consider that a positive thing rather than a negative thing.
There is nothing that ties you to buying music from iTunes and you don't even have to use to get music onto your iPod yet Microsoft has abused its position many times to gain an advantage. The lastest being making Bing the default search engine in their browser they attempt to force onto people. What's worse is when Bing shortly came out my settings for both Firefox and IE were switched to Bing.
That is abusing your market position in one area to gain power in another. Providing one of many options to buy music is not.
Are people dumb enough not to be using Amazon for music? Even then what actually ties you to buying music from iTunes? Hell what ties you to using iTunes to get music on your iPod? I'm doing quite well without it on my Linux machine.
The idea that Apple would modify the name of your application even if it's a hateful application to make it appear as something completely different is wrong. The right thing to do was just to remove it. Anyone suggesting otherwise is being a bit dim.
Who shit in your corn flakes?
I can't get behind a fat ass.
There is enough there to have a free market in the cell phone industry but no company will be willing to offer better deals. There is no incentive and it's working well enough to compete without offering something superior.
I think people will always come up for a reason why a free market doesn't exist rather than admit that putting things in the hands of companies only (or the government only) is just dumb and we need a mix of both. For instance with cell phones the US government should have standardised cell phones. If you phone is no good on someone else's network then unless you're willing to lose out on the cash for that phone then you're stuck with your provider. But people seem to think companies having the freedom and the ability to choose their own standards allows them to offer the best technology and price. In reality it's just allowed them to lock you into their service.
They already use the same network or share towers. My grand parents owned quite a few acres of land. On the back a cell phone provider bought a chunk and gave them a really sweet phone deal and payments for life. While I'm sure in the grand scheme of things that's a small chunk of money to them I'm sure providers much rather work with each other than keep negotiating numerous deals with people so I'm sure they try working deals with each other in the first instance and only look for starting from scratch where they have to.
Not that it matters. They're not going to give consumers any additional benefits just because they've killed the competition. The US seems quite content on being bent over on cell phones. Why would they rock the boat especially if they have less competition?
Or they're over selling and the local infrastructure can't handle the amount of people using it. It will eventually get resolved but you shouldn't really have to deal with months (or a month) of awful service just so they can milk every last penny out of their hardware.
Still I'd agree he should complain. If people complain maybe they'd be less likely to do that.
From what I can tell they're not exactly fighting each other either to get your business. 3 identical choices is not exactly what I'd call having choice.
I agree with that. If they caused a problem they need to speak up. If something other software causes problems and they haven't found the problem yet they need to at least tell people they're looking into it. If it's a hardware fault they need to offer people a refund or a new macbook with fixed hardware.
So does my ultra-portable HP with aluminum chassis and 7200 rpm hard drive (Apple sticks with 5400 rpm or sticks their long barbed wiener up your butt for an SSD upgrade.)
I'm not saying you can't get the same but it's definitely not common and no their SSD option isn't that expensive. It's certainly not the cheapest option on the net but It's not that cheap buying an SSD on its own. BTW, I believe because of the SSD I can easily get over 10 hours even if I'm just browsing or using vim.
Bullshit, I can price a laptop with everything a Mac has for between half to three-quarters the price. I can even throw in an SSD and keep it as cheap as I just said. Check out the HP Envy or Performance models.
I'd still say 3/4 of the price is only just on the border of being close enough that I'd still weigh up the weight of the two, the look and everything else. Though I still question whether you could find something of the same spec and quality for 3/4 the price.
Wrong. Thunderbolt should have no bearing on the OS stability, and if it does then they should not have implemented it in the first place or waited to release the next batch of Macbooks until the stability was handled. Apple is a egotistical wallet rapist. They have the nerve to say they make superior products, charge a ridiculous premium, and then claim "It just works" when time and time again its proven wrong. They didn't even bother to fix the iPhone antenna issue. Some fucking consumer friendly company they are. They just don't give a damn about you or anyone else, and treat the consumer as if they should be glad to even be graced by a Apple product.
Sure if it turns out it is a problem with thunderbolt and it's in Apple's hardware / software then they damn well better sort it out. That goes without saying.
But if it's a third party app that is causing problems then yes I would hope Apple helps get to the bottom of it and gives a solution but it's not really their fault any more than any other hardware developer is responsible for someone's potentially bad coding.
For example if you think to ask you may find some mobile internet dongles will bring OS X and cause you to reinstall the system. Best I can tell is it's because some companies don't bother looking into the problem until it arises and even then they don't tell you to get the update when you buy the thing and you don't see the problem until you restart the system. Luckily someone at work bricked their work macbook with a dongle and I knew to avoid that company and made sure to ask around.
Even if you could blame the original problem on Apple the mere fact they're still happy to sell the product without the fix and say nothing means it's the dongle's provider that is at fault for bricking your system.
Now you just sound like an asshole. People hate big ego's, and Apple has the biggest one, and they have NO RIGHT TO IT. Or is it cool with you that a company time and time again charges more than their product is worth, treats the consumer like an idiot, and then fails to address hardware issues with any form of refurbishment or recall?
So what is the reason then people will sit there and re-tell the same stupid lies like saying the Mac App store follows the same rules as the iOS one which is patently false. There are numerous apps that download or run external code and there are GPL open sourced apps or say stupid shit like their $400 laptop is exactly the same as a macbook pro.
To me that says it's jealousy especially when a lot of them turn out to be teens but even if I'm wrong whatever their reason doesn't justify the crap they spout.
I agree. If it's a genuine problem it has to be fixed. It's unacceptable under any circumstance but it's especially unacceptable for high cost items like a macbook even if it's a justified higher cost.
That's a flawed argument because people are saying that macbooks are the same but over priced. But then if someone points out that actually they're not you can say oh well then you have to compare it to what people want.
The reason being is because you can't say that everyone that buys a macbook doesn't want those features. Maybe, like me they've researched it and realised it's not that more expensive and it looks nicer.
Things like lit keyboards are more useful than you think. A lot of laptops offer something for that. Whether it's my ancient thinkpad with a orange light that shines onto the keyboard or the macbook that lights the keys. People do want these features and people must want bluetooth or there wouldn't be a market for all those ugly USB bluetooth adapters.
My macbook comes with a camera. A lot of laptop don't but again I don't call that a special feature. There wouldn't be such a market for USB cameras if people didn't want them. I think people just try to be cheap or responsible and they buy the cheaper laptop. Then spend £20 to £50 here and there for things and end up with the same features, higher price and it's not as portable because everything is a larger device that now has to be hooked up to a USB port.
PCs (or especially laptops) are only cheap because they cut features and load shareware on it and degrade the performance. Hell that alone has probably made a lot of windows users think macbooks run better purely because they don't realise it hasn't been loaded down with rubbish software.
I agree if you don't need the features ever then yes buy something that is cheaper simply because it has fewer features but if you do want to use the features it's better paying the higher amount for all that stuff built in and leaving you with a full featured laptop and the ability to easily use those features anywhere.
I think a a lit keyboard is needed if you take your laptop out of the house. It's come in real handy doing work on planes, buses, etc or even if I want to use my laptop quickly while watching a movie. Forgetting that though there is bluetooth isn't really something I'd call some sort of gold plated feature. In fact I assumed they were standard until I saw Dell wanted something like £16 to add it to the laptop.
When gaming yeah it whirs away away and gets quite hot near the top half of it but it never crashed and the fan doesn't spin constantly. It'll spin up for a couple minutes and the go off again. I don't have any useful amount of experience on older models but the 2009 model takes a beating quietly. Part of the silence is the fact I have an SSD so the only think that can make any noise is the fan.
My macbook pro easily meets the 7 hour battery life they've claimed (mine is one version before the 2011), it's almost always nearly as cool as when it's off, it's dead silent, starts up and is at a functional desktop within 5 seconds and yes it looks better with it's metal case than some cheap plastic one and it's thinner than what I'd get from Dell. Despite being thinner things like the lid feel much sturdier than a Dell and it comes with everything. THere are even small touches like being able to check the battery life without even turning it on.
I can't vouch for their newest model. It may be utter shit. But having gone through the process of pricing up laptops to get everything I have in my macbook it would cost nearly as much or more in some cases. Part of the reason for this is it seems to be nearly impossible to get an SSD in a laptop which seems retarded but you're looking at quite a big bump up in the price to add the equivalent sized SSD into a Wintel laptop.
Again even if you do get all those things it will still be in a cheap plastic case, it will almost certainly still be thicker, run warmer and louder. I don't think it's any surprise a lot of developers can be seen with Macbooks even if they aren't running OS X. The hardware is quality and it's built in such a way that you end up with something that resembles what a laptop should be rather than some big ugly plastic thing that gives you back pains carrying it around.
People need to take a break from their anti-apple circle jerk and remember that the newest macbook features brand new technology in it like Intel's Thunderbolt. It is just as likely that can cause problems even if you're not actually plugging anything into the port. One thing Apple does do that many other companies don't is adapt new technologies sooner and as a result are more likely to get bit in the ass by something going wrong. One of two things will happen. It can be resolved in a short period through software or maybe the 2011 models will just be notorious for being rubbish and smart people will pass on them and wait for the next iteration where the issue may not exist.
Alternatively they could have had a bad batch of components. It happens to everyone. Just look at how many companies that were affected by Sony's shitty laptop batteries. But of course some people just like to hate on things they can't afford.
Who is talking about Dell computers?
I'd say it's more newsworthy because my macbook pro is one version before the 2011 and I can put it under quite a load. To the point I get concerned with how hot it feels but since I'm gaming I find it hard to quit. Anyway, it's never crashed. If the new macbooks are crashed over heavy use then there is probably a flaw somewhere which needs to be resolved.