There is a trade between complexity and efficiency. You can cram information, shortcuts, and tricks (eg: the vi editor), but it requires a mental switch, unless you really really have been used that particular application.
I think one goal of Apple is to free yourself from that switch. Making each application UI a no brainer, you can concentrate on your job, and not in UI interaction. I think that's where most of the love for the iPhone comes from.
You should consider that an iPhone application is designed to be used with your fingers, and then ponder if designing for a stylus would improve it as much as to make it worth it.
Boosting gaming on the iPhone (or a possible mediapad) makes sense because 1) it is the primary source of earnings for Apple, and 2) phones are getting good enough to work as handheld consoles.
However, Apple lacks hardware or software expertise to go nuclear against XBox and DirectX, Wii, or Playstation with a new gaming console.
Non PG-13: Slasher, Murderdrome*, Pull My Finger*, Knnife Music*, Prohibition 2*, Booty Caller, Tweetie*, NIN iPhone
Duplicated functionality (aka killing the competition): MailWrangler, Podcaster
Use of undocumented API: Peeps
Defamatory: Obama!, Obama Trampoline
Not standard UI: The odyssey
Unknown reasons: Voice Notes, iFartz, Teto
Those marked with an asterisk were reinstated or modified to fit Apple policy. For NetShare and "I am rich", I'm guessing the reason since no explanation was given by Apple.
as well as giving Apple the ability to retroactively change their minds and kill apps on paying customer's phones
This is intended only to stop exploits. Apple didn't nuke any application so far, even those that have raised hell with telcos like Netshare (which I bought and still use).
Why do developers put up with this kind of draconian control by a third party over their own apps?
Apple decided to keep the Appstore at PG-13 rating. Is that draconian control? The list of rejected applications is fairly small (iPhone Graveyard lists only a dozen), and relates to copyright infringements, offensive stuff, or deal breakers for telcos. Even when rejection rules are unclear (which yes, it's utter bullshit), the Appstore is great in terms of revenue and meritocracy marketing. That and that developing for one phone is better than trying to fix your program for a dozen J2ME & Android profiles (it may be standard but you are developing for phones with different capabilities).
Not much gets done in the real world if you don't accept some kind of compromise.
I've always wondered, how do open source games deal with cheating
Easy. A ladder system. There will always be an aimbot fight at the top of the ladder, but it still matches players with other players or bots with the same skill. This won't allow you to brag about your position on the ladder, but for most of the population games are there to have fun, not to brag about your e-peen.
To prevent someone creating a new account to be able to play with an aimbot against casual players, an openid system would be needed to track the score and the amount of played hours of each account.
Sorry, yes, it does for the most part. But having your desktop spinning on a cube is hardly state of the art, any system is a step away from that. However, doing it right requires functionality entirely missing, eg: try the cube effect while working with video and 3d rendering. I'm not following development any more, but last year you had to choose between glx (slow) or aiglx (ugly). Quartz does that on any situation with zero penalty.
In looks department, they are already comfortably ahead of anything Vista or Leopard throw up.
uhm no. Compiz is a half broken implementation with flickering and poor performance, just overlap glxgears and video to see the artifacts/sloweness. Google DRI2 for more information.
OS X is also ahead on device/resolution-independent, color management, and typography.
MDY is liable to Blizzard for violations of 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) with respect to the dynamic nonliteral elements of WoW.
Michael Donnelly is liable to Blizzard for damages arising from MDY's tortious interference with contract from November 30, 2005, to the present.
Michael Donnelly is liable to Blizzard for damages arising from MDY's contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and DMCA violations.
Blizzard is entitled to a permanent injunction against the continued sale, distribution, and servicing of Glider.
On or before February 13, 2009, the parties shall submit memoranda, not to exceed seven pages in length, addressing (1) the appropriate terms of any permanent injunction, (2) whether the permanent injunction should be stayed pending appeal, and what bond or other measures (for stay of the injunction and for damages) should be imposed for Blizzards protection pending appeal.
DATED this 28th day of January, 2009.
Which means the judge awarded everything to Blizzard and asked MDY for a memo explaining why they should stay in business while they fight the case. After reading the judge order it's safe to say there is little chance that the judge allows MDY to remain on business after february 13.
Welcome, Seagate hard drive owners. A number of Seagate hard drives from the following families may fail when the host system is powered on:
Barracuda 7200.11
DiamondMax 22
Barracuda ES.2 SATA
SV35
Once a drive has failed, the data is inaccessible to users. Seagate has isolated this issue to a firmware bug affecting drives from these families manufactured through December 2008. Please use the following tools and instructions to determine if you have one of the affected products. If you do, we recommend that you update the firmware on the disk drive.
See if your model number is in this list.
Summary from user Zenbird posted at the Seagate forum
The 1TB drive failue is a very widespread problem. There are many threads from many forums (not just the Seagate forum) regarding this particular issue. I'm going to make a little summary below.
The problem is BIOS no detect after a few months of usage (typically 3 months)
This problem applies to, ST31000340as, SD15, Thailand, Seagate 1TB drive
There are also problems for Segate 1.5TB, 640GB and 500GB. The 1.5TB drive's problem seems to be fixed by the newer firmware. The problems are a bit different from the 1TB SD15 problem (those drives didn't die completely).
Until today, Segate denied there is problem with SD15 1TB drive. SD15 is still the newest firmware.
If you RMA today, you are likely to get the bad drive again which is likely to fail another 3 months later. That's why I haven't RMA it yet.
Calling them you will get no help because they haven't acknowledge this problem offically yet.
Email them and you won't get any response.
This problem is very widespread (go to any place that sells this drive and with a online forum, you will see what I meant. e.g. newegg, ncix, amazon)
The previous firmware SD14 has some performance issues. But I haven't heard of any dramatic failure for that version (Some Dead on arrival, but those are "normal":) . By fixing the performance issue, SD15 introduced some serious bug. I suspect it's 100% failure after about 3 months of usage, but there's no way to verify this claim.
"Papadenadia" is probably just "Hamartolos" in disguise, who I suspected is the alter ego of this forum's moderator AlanM. But again, I've no way to verify this accusation. It's possible I'm accusing the innocent (unless this post got deleted or modified without my consent).
In most of the cases (applying only to no detect issue), the data are recoverable, but you have to pay for the recovery service. I haven't heard of any free solution yet.
Switching the PCB doesn't work.
No software solution I have heard of.
In most cases, the drive is still intact. No abnormal "clicking" sound (if it does, it's a different issue).
At the time of my purchase (August), there was no negative posting regarding this issue. There were a few "Dead on Arrival", but like I said, those happened to all drives.
The earliest complaints regarding this issue I've seen is around late October. It's more frequent in December (someone who has more time than me may want to do a more scientific count). So this problem is just starting to surface.
Sorry but if you're skipping a firmware update, and running a major OS update on old firmware, you deserve a headache.
Lame excuse. Tell that to my mom. After so much effort put on making things easier for non tech savvy users, Apple bricks their computers via software update. That's a major screw up.
Unix security: they won't break the system from their account.
Share screen: a built-in VNC will let you admin his computer.
Built-in camera: senior citizens will appreciate a video chat with their sons.
iPhoto: No other program comes close in simplicity and usability. Specially that cheap windows software included with each camera.
No need for antivirus: one real virus in the last 10 years speak for itself.
When you explain how an iPhone works, people smile with pleasure because the mechanics of dragging with your fingers just make sense on their heads. The same will happen with OS X (except when you drag a CD to the trashcan:P that one is counter intuitive).
In general, an out of the box mac is ready to work for stupid users because it aims for simplicity. In comparison Windows software has complex interfaces in the hope that users will do more after they finish learning how the UI works, or simply because their creators don't know better.
See Every time you provide an option, you're asking the user to make a decision.
Virus: a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user.
Apple has 20% market share in US, 10% market share in the world. So far 0 virus. Note that according to the virus definition above Im not counting those that you have to execute yourself and provide with your admin password.
Do you think the difference is just attributable to Apple's market share? In comparison Windows has 100,000+ and its the only support of the whole antivirus industry.
A much fairer comparison would be to install a fresh bloatware-free install of XP Pro in bootcamp on the Macbook Pro. You might be surprised at the results.
Done by PC World in 2007 with Vista. They labeled the macbook pro "The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year".
Maybe YOU would be surprised if you'd tried.
When the problem occurs all hard drive operations stop until the OS times out the ATA command - typically 30 seconds. This results in the computer freezing for 30 seconds.
The problem can result in data loss if using a RAID system. Depending on the OS/RAID configuration the problem may cause a RAID system to think the drive has died. The RAID system automatically removes the drive and continues to run degraded (as designed). 20 minutes later when another drive exhibits the problem the RAID system drops the second drive and dies.
The problem may be a systematic problem rather than a small number of drives - all drives have I tested running the SD17 firmware have exhibited the problem.
To clarify, we are talking about a freaking document reader whose updates include a photo album, a electronic book organizer, photography online services, media player, form designer, electronic cards, javascript engine , autoupdater, quicklaunch agent, and probably a dozen fetures that I don't know because I uninstalled the damn thing the moment it asked for.5Gb of updates.
This had to happen because it is bloated software made by people with a bloated mindset. A tool should do one thing and do it well. I'll update you if I need something else.
Plus, if you are already a.NET developer, the learning curve is almost nil.
Same if you are already an Apple developer.
And it seems iTunes is the preferred way of organizing your mp3 library in Windows and Macs, which is helped by iPods as #1 mp3 player. So the point of sale is already on most computers.
And yes, Apple ONLY charges 30% which is way less than most telcos or software publishers. The AppStore is the only place I know of where visibility is determined by number of sales, not by how big is your brand.
and i particularly enjoy responding to 'is that a mac'? questions with 'better!' and show em the compiz desktop eye candy.
Compiz is behind Quartz in speed and quality. See DRI2 or run a 3D game and check how your whole UI slows down. It wouldn't happen on Quartz since it uses 2D GPU features instead 3D. But yes, the 3D candy is impressive for the untrained eye. I think it's the same with any other desktop technology like fonts, windows server, color calibration, resolution independence.. linux has it, but it's lagging in quality.
( a fun game is to go to the mac store and spec one up to how you'd like your generic pc to be, then be horrified at the running total! )
If you're patient, you can get a dell for up to 40% off
You can also get a marketing bait airline ticket at an amazingly low price, that doesn't make the other 99% any cheaper. Somehow I doubt Dell is going to sell many machines at nearly half the price.
virtuallyblind does the best coverage of the case. MDY itself keeps virtuallyblind up to date on their case.
There will be an appeal that MDY has to win on all counts to negate the damage judgement.
2. Blizzard shall not be entitled to double or triple recovery for counts I, II and III. That is, Blizzard shall be entitled to receive a total of $6,000,000 in damages for counts I, II and III. However, should liability on any one or two of the counts be reversed on appeal, any one of these counts independently supports the $6,000,000 award.
Apple is mostly image and branding. There is nothing Apple does that is unique. It's how people FEEL about Apple. If you disagree, instead of modding me flaimbait, how about citing some *objective* examples of where I am mistaken?
Maybe the problem is all mine... I am just not as enthused by shiny stuff as other people are.
I support your point, Zune is equally good than an iPod because they have the same functionallity. *grin*
Frameworks capture web architecture best practises. It's not about learning the framework itself but its point of view on architecture and patterns. No Haskell hacking alone will give you that insight.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a trade between complexity and efficiency. You can cram information, shortcuts, and tricks (eg: the vi editor), but it requires a mental switch, unless you really really have been used that particular application.
I think one goal of Apple is to free yourself from that switch. Making each application UI a no brainer, you can concentrate on your job, and not in UI interaction. I think that's where most of the love for the iPhone comes from.
You should consider that an iPhone application is designed to be used with your fingers, and then ponder if designing for a stylus would improve it as much as to make it worth it.
I can wait for it to launch to start asking stupid questions.
Boosting gaming on the iPhone (or a possible mediapad) makes sense because 1) it is the primary source of earnings for Apple, and 2) phones are getting good enough to work as handheld consoles. However, Apple lacks hardware or software expertise to go nuclear against XBox and DirectX, Wii, or Playstation with a new gaming console.
Here is the (probably incompleted) list of apps rejected by Apple so far.
Those marked with an asterisk were reinstated or modified to fit Apple policy. For NetShare and "I am rich", I'm guessing the reason since no explanation was given by Apple.
If you know a rejected App not listed here, notify Peter Hosey at the iPhone Application Graveyard .
as well as giving Apple the ability to retroactively change their minds and kill apps on paying customer's phones
This is intended only to stop exploits. Apple didn't nuke any application so far, even those that have raised hell with telcos like Netshare (which I bought and still use).
Why do developers put up with this kind of draconian control by a third party over their own apps?
Apple decided to keep the Appstore at PG-13 rating. Is that draconian control? The list of rejected applications is fairly small (iPhone Graveyard lists only a dozen), and relates to copyright infringements, offensive stuff, or deal breakers for telcos. Even when rejection rules are unclear (which yes, it's utter bullshit), the Appstore is great in terms of revenue and meritocracy marketing. That and that developing for one phone is better than trying to fix your program for a dozen J2ME & Android profiles (it may be standard but you are developing for phones with different capabilities).
Not much gets done in the real world if you don't accept some kind of compromise.
I've always wondered, how do open source games deal with cheating
Easy. A ladder system. There will always be an aimbot fight at the top of the ladder, but it still matches players with other players or bots with the same skill. This won't allow you to brag about your position on the ladder, but for most of the population games are there to have fun, not to brag about your e-peen.
To prevent someone creating a new account to be able to play with an aimbot against casual players, an openid system would be needed to track the score and the amount of played hours of each account.
Interesting, I guess GPU power made this problem irrelevant.
Sorry, yes, it does for the most part. But having your desktop spinning on a cube is hardly state of the art, any system is a step away from that. However, doing it right requires functionality entirely missing, eg: try the cube effect while working with video and 3d rendering. I'm not following development any more, but last year you had to choose between glx (slow) or aiglx (ugly). Quartz does that on any situation with zero penalty.
In looks department, they are already comfortably ahead of anything Vista or Leopard throw up.
uhm no. Compiz is a half broken implementation with flickering and poor performance, just overlap glxgears and video to see the artifacts/sloweness. Google DRI2 for more information. OS X is also ahead on device/resolution-independent, color management, and typography.
IT IS ORDERED:
DATED this 28th day of January, 2009.
Which means the judge awarded everything to Blizzard and asked MDY for a memo explaining why they should stay in business while they fight the case. After reading the judge order it's safe to say there is little chance that the judge allows MDY to remain on business after february 13.
Sorry but if you're skipping a firmware update, and running a major OS update on old firmware, you deserve a headache.
Lame excuse. Tell that to my mom. After so much effort put on making things easier for non tech savvy users, Apple bricks their computers via software update. That's a major screw up.
In general, an out of the box mac is ready to work for stupid users because it aims for simplicity. In comparison Windows software has complex interfaces in the hope that users will do more after they finish learning how the UI works, or simply because their creators don't know better. See Every time you provide an option, you're asking the user to make a decision.
Virus: a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user.
Apple has 20% market share in US, 10% market share in the world. So far 0 virus.
Note that according to the virus definition above Im not counting those that you have to execute yourself and provide with your admin password.
Do you think the difference is just attributable to Apple's market share?
In comparison Windows has 100,000+ and its the only support of the whole antivirus industry.
A much fairer comparison would be to install a fresh bloatware-free install of XP Pro in bootcamp on the Macbook Pro. You might be surprised at the results.
Done by PC World in 2007 with Vista. They labeled the macbook pro "The fastest Windows Vista notebook we've tested this year". Maybe YOU would be surprised if you'd tried.
From http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15863
To clarify, we are talking about a freaking document reader whose updates include a photo album, a electronic book organizer, photography online services, media player, form designer, electronic cards, javascript engine , autoupdater, quicklaunch agent, and probably a dozen fetures that I don't know because I uninstalled the damn thing the moment it asked for .5Gb of updates.
This had to happen because it is bloated software made by people with a bloated mindset. A tool should do one thing and do it well. I'll update you if I need something else.
Plus, if you are already a .NET developer, the learning curve is almost nil.
Same if you are already an Apple developer.
And it seems iTunes is the preferred way of organizing your mp3 library in Windows and Macs, which is helped by iPods as #1 mp3 player. So the point of sale is already on most computers. And yes, Apple ONLY charges 30% which is way less than most telcos or software publishers. The AppStore is the only place I know of where visibility is determined by number of sales, not by how big is your brand.
and i particularly enjoy responding to 'is that a mac'? questions with 'better!' and show em the compiz desktop eye candy.
Compiz is behind Quartz in speed and quality. See DRI2 or run a 3D game and check how your whole UI slows down. It wouldn't happen on Quartz since it uses 2D GPU features instead 3D. But yes, the 3D candy is impressive for the untrained eye. I think it's the same with any other desktop technology like fonts, windows server, color calibration, resolution independence.. linux has it, but it's lagging in quality.
( a fun game is to go to the mac store and spec one up to how you'd like your generic pc to be, then be horrified at the running total! )
Tom's Hardware on mac prices is still the most detailed analysis: The Apple Mac Cost Misconception : Macs and Their Prices. Short story: not expensive, but buy upgrades in macsales instead Apple.
If you're patient, you can get a dell for up to 40% off
You can also get a marketing bait airline ticket at an amazingly low price, that doesn't make the other 99% any cheaper. Somehow I doubt Dell is going to sell many machines at nearly half the price.
virtuallyblind does the best coverage of the case. MDY itself keeps virtuallyblind up to date on their case.
There will be an appeal that MDY has to win on all counts to negate the damage judgement.
Apple is mostly image and branding. There is nothing Apple does that is unique. It's how people FEEL about Apple. If you disagree, instead of modding me flaimbait, how about citing some *objective* examples of where I am mistaken? Maybe the problem is all mine... I am just not as enthused by shiny stuff as other people are.
I support your point, Zune is equally good than an iPod because they have the same functionallity. *grin*
Frameworks capture web architecture best practises. It's not about learning the framework itself but its point of view on architecture and patterns. No Haskell hacking alone will give you that insight.