this article has been posted for a while now and still no comments? maybe the admins need to make some sort of sms-to-slashdot-comments-section bridge to lure in the next generation of visitors...
#1 Sell ten times more than the $1000 tablet with a $300 profit margin. Thus earning $500 in profits for every ten Netbooks sold at $300 for every one $1000 Tablet sold with a $300 margin. Net sum of $200 more in profits.
maybe, maybe not. you also pulled those number out of the air and only apple know if the real-world figures would yield them more profit
#2 Raise the Apple marketshare of Mac OSX based devices.
is that really a goal? i'm not so sure. higher market share means less exclusivity and therefore lower profit margins. also the platform becomes more tempting for hackers to target
#3 Put a lid on the Hackintosh market as a $300 Mac based Netbook is cheap enough to buy that even the stingiest of Hackintosh users can't pass up the $300 Mac OSX Netbook.
let's wait and see how their current strategy of largely ignoring the hackingtosh market plays out. i have a feeling there aren't that many people building hackingtoshes - the people that do are (i think) a disproportionately vocal minority of computer geeks. and that's not even a bad thing - when geeks go out of their way to install apples OS on their own hardware, it sends out a subtle message to the market that 'the people in the know' choose osx because 'it's better'. sure it's all very unoffical, but it's marketing nontheless
#4 Apple really needs a Netbook to compete with the PC companies who have their own Netbook.
i really don't get this point. why? netbooks are barely profitable for most netbook manufacturers. why should any company rush to compete in a profitless market with lots of risk and huge potential for brand damage (by way of selling an inferior product)?
#5 It means more iTunes sales, as well as more iPhone and iPod sales to sync up with the Mac Netbook.
possibly, but apple doesn't really profit from itunes sales, and iphone/ipod sales are already so high that any netbook->iPod/iPhone halo effect would be almost negligible. instead, the iphone/ipod->macbook halo effect is much more profitable for apple and i think that's what they're focusing on.
having said all that, there is clearly plenty of space in apples product line for cheaper hardware, as long as they can deliver a good end user experience. perhaps a relatively cheap tablet will fill this gap nicely. perhaps not. time will tell. or not:P
I've not had any problems either. My machine is a Dell box over a year old, and I upgraded from 9.04 which had some nasty problems (black squares flickering across the screen at random all the time!).
I don't know why you sound so unimpressed. A lot of people would consider "more of the same" a good thing coming from Apple. Sure they have their flaws, but by and large they are very good at providing stuff their target market want. You shouldn't expect a world-changing announcement every year - that would detract from their announcements that actually DO change the world.
because they are taking the time to do it right - that way you will get a well thought out 'OS' instead of a repeat of todays dominant OS. if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.
the internet flourished during the dark age of browsers and we've gone another half decade since then. what's another year between friends? at least we have a promise that it's on its way soon.
besides, with safari, firefox and opera (and even ie??? [ducks]) getting more and more standards compliant and faster JS with each iteration, Google doesn't need to rush. that's the beauty of standards compliance, it turns the browser in to a generic piece of software that is easily interchangeable. That's the future Google are chasing, and it's interesting that Chrome has gone a long way to push that agenda without even releasing a non-Windows version.
what ur saying isn't wrong, but i think it ignores the concept of being sensible.
for example, according to what you said the person who drove the hummer 5 miles to work supposedly used less petrol than the civic driver who drove 50 miles, but that doesn't change the fact that he burnt a stupidly large amount of fuel on such a short trip. that's wasteful. it would be understandable if they were making a journey that required such a vehicle, but 'going to work' is not really a good justification. there probably are some places where a hummer type vehicle is appropriate (army, etc), but most of the hummers that i have seen look quite bling and are so shiny that i doubt they have ever been offroad.
maybe they want to teach the kids the computer skills they will need in the future? with online warfare becoming an increased threat, it's probably good for them to encourage (covertly*) the next generation of American hackers.
i say it's a good use of taxpayers money.
---
* online warfare is only to be used as a plan-B (in case operation "hope&change" fails)
although linux is widely used in the server world, there is no dominant linux distro. each distro (even the big three: redhat, suse and debian) is a combination of varying security tools (firewalls, ssh, etc) and kernel configurations - each of which could be at any version. if it's too hard for software companies to port their software over to linux because of the inter-distro incompatibilities, it's probably even harder for the malware people. (i think it's called 'security-through-incompatability' - the very same thing that protects vista;)
i think the same thing protects os x, albeit to a lesser extent - they release a new version roughly every 18 months, each one adding significant security enhancements. from a hackers point of view, it fragments an already tiny market.
xp on the other hand, has been around for a heck of a long time. patches are released, but overall the security model has remained unchanged for the better part of a decade. it's not nearly as much of a moving target, but even if half the users upgrade to the newer secure patch, then hackers will still have many millions of targets in either half of the market.
CONFESSION: i made up all my numbers to help convey my point.
i think the reason people are making such a big deal about the pricing is that only the more expensive ssds actually offer any significant benefit over hdds. most of the cheaper/older generation ssds actually compare unfavourably to hdds (see http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html) in almost every metric.
yeah, i say rsync and mysql replication would work nicely. of course you have to look into them and decide if they meet your needs, but i think you'll find it's probably good enough.
I agree with you in principle, but for me the issue is with boundaries.
1.5tb/mo isn't fair use? ok, then what is? and who decides? my concern is that isps will soon be capping us at 1.5GB/mo and still call that fair use. and is 1.5tb/mo really so unreasonable in a world where people are about to start downloading (legitimately) high def movies? with apple tvs and other similar gadgets taking off, who gets to decide what's reasonable?
same thing with trading linux binaries etc. i know i only download legal stuff, but who decides what is and isn't fair? what's stopping isps going crazy and flagging anything they like? don't forget about all those folks who are lobbying against net neutrality (i don't like those people).
also, on a seperate point, don't mess with the kids. under 18yr olds should not be fined because they realistically can't afford to buy stuff. it's not their fault all the cool brittney spears crap is targetted at a market with no income. but thats another argument altogether.
I had this problem too. I think I fixed it by uninstalling Firebug. There are several versions of firebug (official and otherwise) that claim to run with ff3, but i don't think any do.
Slashdot Mirror
this article has been posted for a while now and still no comments? maybe the admins need to make some sort of sms-to-slashdot-comments-section bridge to lure in the next generation of visitors...
I see. So that's why I keep my passwords stored in my head. No virus that can live in my head can read my passwords out of there, AFAIK.
No, dude! That's what they want you to think!!! Quick, forget all your passwords and go stand next to somebody that's thinking about windows xp...
who didn't see this coming? :)
#1 Sell ten times more than the $1000 tablet with a $300 profit margin. Thus earning $500 in profits for every ten Netbooks sold at $300 for every one $1000 Tablet sold with a $300 margin. Net sum of $200 more in profits.
maybe, maybe not. you also pulled those number out of the air and only apple know if the real-world figures would yield them more profit
#2 Raise the Apple marketshare of Mac OSX based devices.
is that really a goal? i'm not so sure. higher market share means less exclusivity and therefore lower profit margins. also the platform becomes more tempting for hackers to target
#3 Put a lid on the Hackintosh market as a $300 Mac based Netbook is cheap enough to buy that even the stingiest of Hackintosh users can't pass up the $300 Mac OSX Netbook.
let's wait and see how their current strategy of largely ignoring the hackingtosh market plays out. i have a feeling there aren't that many people building hackingtoshes - the people that do are (i think) a disproportionately vocal minority of computer geeks. and that's not even a bad thing - when geeks go out of their way to install apples OS on their own hardware, it sends out a subtle message to the market that 'the people in the know' choose osx because 'it's better'. sure it's all very unoffical, but it's marketing nontheless
#4 Apple really needs a Netbook to compete with the PC companies who have their own Netbook.
i really don't get this point. why? netbooks are barely profitable for most netbook manufacturers. why should any company rush to compete in a profitless market with lots of risk and huge potential for brand damage (by way of selling an inferior product)?
#5 It means more iTunes sales, as well as more iPhone and iPod sales to sync up with the Mac Netbook.
possibly, but apple doesn't really profit from itunes sales, and iphone/ipod sales are already so high that any netbook->iPod/iPhone halo effect would be almost negligible. instead, the iphone/ipod->macbook halo effect is much more profitable for apple and i think that's what they're focusing on.
:P
having said all that, there is clearly plenty of space in apples product line for cheaper hardware, as long as they can deliver a good end user experience. perhaps a relatively cheap tablet will fill this gap nicely. perhaps not. time will tell. or not
I've not had any problems either. My machine is a Dell box over a year old, and I upgraded from 9.04 which had some nasty problems (black squares flickering across the screen at random all the time!).
Koalas > Jackalopes
I don't know why you sound so unimpressed. A lot of people would consider "more of the same" a good thing coming from Apple. Sure they have their flaws, but by and large they are very good at providing stuff their target market want. You shouldn't expect a world-changing announcement every year - that would detract from their announcements that actually DO change the world.
hey guys, just got back from the store
:(
i tried to return my netbook as 'faulty' but they didn't accept it
because they are taking the time to do it right - that way you will get a well thought out 'OS' instead of a repeat of todays dominant OS. if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.
the internet flourished during the dark age of browsers and we've gone another half decade since then. what's another year between friends? at least we have a promise that it's on its way soon.
besides, with safari, firefox and opera (and even ie??? [ducks]) getting more and more standards compliant and faster JS with each iteration, Google doesn't need to rush. that's the beauty of standards compliance, it turns the browser in to a generic piece of software that is easily interchangeable. That's the future Google are chasing, and it's interesting that Chrome has gone a long way to push that agenda without even releasing a non-Windows version.
what ur saying isn't wrong, but i think it ignores the concept of being sensible.
for example, according to what you said the person who drove the hummer 5 miles to work supposedly used less petrol than the civic driver who drove 50 miles, but that doesn't change the fact that he burnt a stupidly large amount of fuel on such a short trip. that's wasteful. it would be understandable if they were making a journey that required such a vehicle, but 'going to work' is not really a good justification. there probably are some places where a hummer type vehicle is appropriate (army, etc), but most of the hummers that i have seen look quite bling and are so shiny that i doubt they have ever been offroad.
maybe they want to teach the kids the computer skills they will need in the future? with online warfare becoming an increased threat, it's probably good for them to encourage (covertly*) the next generation of American hackers.
i say it's a good use of taxpayers money.
---
* online warfare is only to be used as a plan-B (in case operation "hope&change" fails)
hrm, i prefer ZFS (or as it is affectionately known - 'icantbelieveitsnotbttrfs')
im not sure i agree fully.
;)
although linux is widely used in the server world, there is no dominant linux distro. each distro (even the big three: redhat, suse and debian) is a combination of varying security tools (firewalls, ssh, etc) and kernel configurations - each of which could be at any version. if it's too hard for software companies to port their software over to linux because of the inter-distro incompatibilities, it's probably even harder for the malware people. (i think it's called 'security-through-incompatability' - the very same thing that protects vista
i think the same thing protects os x, albeit to a lesser extent - they release a new version roughly every 18 months, each one adding significant security enhancements. from a hackers point of view, it fragments an already tiny market.
xp on the other hand, has been around for a heck of a long time. patches are released, but overall the security model has remained unchanged for the better part of a decade. it's not nearly as much of a moving target, but even if half the users upgrade to the newer secure patch, then hackers will still have many millions of targets in either half of the market.
CONFESSION: i made up all my numbers to help convey my point.
i think the reason people are making such a big deal about the pricing is that only the more expensive ssds actually offer any significant benefit over hdds. most of the cheaper/older generation ssds actually compare unfavourably to hdds (see http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html) in almost every metric.
cowboy neal?
yeah, i say rsync and mysql replication would work nicely. of course you have to look into them and decide if they meet your needs, but i think you'll find it's probably good enough.
back? not back? idunno... old age is getting to me and i can't hit the refresh button as fast as i used to...
here are two links of interest though:
- http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/01/new_app_lets_your_mac_share_your_iphones_internet_connection.html
- http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/01/ten_step_guide_to_sharing_your_iphones_connection_with_netshare.html
my money says it'll be back in some form at some point for some reason.
I agree with you in principle, but for me the issue is with boundaries.
1.5tb/mo isn't fair use? ok, then what is? and who decides? my concern is that isps will soon be capping us at 1.5GB/mo and still call that fair use. and is 1.5tb/mo really so unreasonable in a world where people are about to start downloading (legitimately) high def movies? with apple tvs and other similar gadgets taking off, who gets to decide what's reasonable?
same thing with trading linux binaries etc. i know i only download legal stuff, but who decides what is and isn't fair? what's stopping isps going crazy and flagging anything they like? don't forget about all those folks who are lobbying against net neutrality (i don't like those people).
also, on a seperate point, don't mess with the kids. under 18yr olds should not be fined because they realistically can't afford to buy stuff. it's not their fault all the cool brittney spears crap is targetted at a market with no income. but thats another argument altogether.
wwwwaaaaaAAAAAAAlllllllleeeeeeeee
I had this problem too. I think I fixed it by uninstalling Firebug. There are several versions of firebug (official and otherwise) that claim to run with ff3, but i don't think any do.