.mac isn't an application suite - it's basically a shared disk (the 'iDisk'), a webmail interface (although 'Mail' is much better), and a place to put your website. Oh, you can sync your address book through it as well... It has peripheral advantages, if you use other mac apps... the "casting" abilities of the iApps, for example, where I can publish/subscribe to various document-formats (eg: iPhoto does 'photocasts'); it's only really being used as a network-shared disk in this instance though.
It's actually one of the few things I think must have slipped under Steve's radar - I don't think.Mac is worth the money.
The idea of putting every application into a virtual machine is a good one, but the truism is that security *is* a process, not a checkbox on a feature-list. There is (and always will be) an inverse relationship between security and usability - the more of one, the less of the other. Compartmentalising the applications in such a draconian fashion would appear to be heavily leaning towards the security side, and not the usability side of the argument.
The article talks about the picture-viewer not being able to access the web. What if I *want* the picture-viewer to access the web ?
I tihnk I take issue with 99% of applications not needing interaction. If that's true (and I doubt it to be honest), I think that's a failing of software today, not a goal to be strived for. Most of the apps I use daily require web/internet access. I think that's only going to increase over time.
Say what you will of Steve Jobs, he whole-heartedly believes in Apple's products, and in their ability to compete on a level playing-field. How many other companies, owning the sort of market-share that Apple has in digital music, would even countenance changing it ?
And, he's not insane - Apple make their money on hardware, not so much on the iTMS itself - the risk is relatively low for Apple, conversely so for the labels. It is in fact likely to give SJ *more* power in his dealings with the record labels - Apple are the entrenched brand, the shining beacon over the dark landscape of pirated music . Once DRM is gone, the labels will need Apple to be even more on-side than they do currently, because they'll have lost the small measure of control they currently have.
As far as Apple is concerned, it's a win-win. Steve probably expects to lose sales on the iTMS, but that non-DRM'd files would become more-commonly shared, raising the number of people who want a DAP, and given the public's current opinion on which DAP is the best, he feels confident Apple will benefit overall. Still takes some cojones to suggest it, though... A bit like when they cancelled their best-selling iPod model (the original mini) because they had a better version. A traditional business would have milked the mini for all they could, first.
I think the whole RDF is simply that Steve *really* *really* believes in his companies products, that belief shines through in his body language, his tone of voice, his whole attitude. People pick up on that and empathise with it. It's a great sales technique, but it needs products that really change the world to do it. Apple strives to make that sort of product.
Simon.
Re:That "fairly stable api" didn't help Microsoft
on
Vista - iPod Killer?
·
· Score: 1
What I heard was that the Zune issues were also UAC based. Perhaps they were tweaking UAC right up until the end - in any event, the new apple commercial doesn't think they did a very good job...
Simon
Re:That "fairly stable api" didn't help Microsoft
on
Vista - iPod Killer?
·
· Score: 1
Your assumptions here are that (a) Microsoft told Apple about these API changes, and (b) it was even available for Apple to use/test against at the same time as it was internally at Microsoft. I'm assuming that (b) was not the case, and therefore it's not unreasonable for Apple to be later than Microsoft's own developers on this...
I don't actually disagree with you, and I think Apple are probably working hard to get the fix out.
However, look at this from a non-techie point of view (ie; Joe Public) - do you think Joe has more emotional attachment to his iPod, or his computer. I'm not sure that's an easy call to make... The computer does a lot more, but to have his iPod corrupted would be a disaster for most Joe's I know...
So, you could invert that logic, and say the Microsoft's sensible course of action would be to make sure their OS works with the music-player that *currently* has ~70-80% of the market...
Just a thought.
Simon
Re:That "fairly stable api" didn't help Microsoft
on
Vista - iPod Killer?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Which, correct me if I'm wrong, was not 6 months ago. And (presumed) changes to API's (otherwise it would have worked) only 4 weeks ago isn't a sign of a "stable API".
So, when a third-party company finally gets the latest API info, specs out the required changes and their implications, codes it up, runs it through QA, gets sign-off from all the parties (HI, VI, Engineering, Management, X-functional team managers), and gets it out in a couple of months, it's not so bad, really. Oh wait, we're bashing Apple today. BAD APPLE.
Agree with the PIC vs the AVR. It's the same as the i386 vs m68k... One is a disgusting kluge, the other is an elegant architecture.
In this modern age, though, I'd ditch both and go for the ARM - the kits aren't that much more these days (eg: from $30), and you can do a *lot* more with them... Obviously, the more you pay (up to ~$200) the more-capable the board you get...
... I reckon it's more likely to be Apple-TV rather than Xbox+extender, or 'media-PC'. MS do a wonderful job in the world of business, but they haven't got a clue when it comes to consumers (witness the 'zune' fiasco).
Repeat after me: "complexity is the enemy". MS just don't seem to be able to help themselves - they include every possible switch to toggle in their UI's. The consumer wants to turn it on, hit the channel, and watch TV. Reliably. Without expert (IT) help. Anything more than that is a problem you have to work really hard at solving (and you *need* to do more than that to make it a useful DVR, for example). This sort of industrial design just isn't their forté...
I thought this was common knowledge - I've been arguing that the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley are detrimental for some time now.
The major problem is that it invites software companies (I'm not making any accusations here) to put out shoddy software, full of bugs and not-ready-for-primetime features, giving themselves the option to *not* charge for upgrades later, perhaps for business-reasons. Bugfixes, you see, are not subject to the S-O ruling. This is not the way I'd like to see the s/w industry go...
To successfully defend a trademark, you have to show you've been consistently using it for years. Cisco couldn't do that - they had to stick a sticker on the outside of a shrink-wrap of another package. Do you not think if they actually *had* a product called the iPhone, they'd have taken a photo of that ?
I was going to use a stronger word, but my New Years resolution is still (diminishingly) in effect...
If Apple don't supply a piece of software, it is *not* their fault that there can be subsequent problems using that piece of software, it's the program-author's fault. Obviously vlc isn't completely necessary (otherwise I would have it installed, I install a fair amount of linux-related s/w). I do have windows-media player and realmedia player installed...
To say that just because Apple don't supply a particular feature (viewing movies that require codec XXX), it's Apple's problem when you install 3rd-party software that does is just... wrong. I can't think how you could think that. It's hard to construct an argument when your starting premise is just nonsense.
By the same logic, it's Apple's fault that:
- I can't run my FPGA-mapping software on my Mac Pro, because Xilinx don't support the Mac. Apple ought to do something.
- I can't run any game I want on the Mac. Curse those game-producing companies, oh no, wait, it's Apple's fault.
- My Mac doesn't make toast! How simple is making toast? Apple ought to pull their finger out!
- ad nauseum.
Install 3rd-party software, have problems with that software, blame the software author. Don't blame the machine manufacturer / operating-system provider.
Moan like buggery (*) (hmm, unfortunate turn of phrase:-) that QT doesn't support the codecs that you want, but it's not Apple's fault that other 3rd-party codecs have bugs in. Yes, I'm a Mac fan, but not a fanboy - I completely agree with bug #1, but this is just completely... bogus.
Simon
(*) "Moan like buggery" isn't really rude where I come from, oddly enough...
It's not even shipped by default !
on
Month of Apple Fixes
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So
[simon:~] simon% vlc tcsh: vlc: Command not found. [simon:~] simon% perl VLCMediaSlayer-x86.pl jump address is: 0x41424344 writing to file: pwnage.m3u [simon:~] simon% open pwnage.m3u [simon:~] simon% (opens iTunes)
the application for this second bug is not even shipped on Mac's by default! Meaning that this completely 3rd-party software, if installed onto a Mac, can cause problems with the Mac. And this is Apple's problem how, exactly ?
However, I doubt a "hugh percentage" of the population deliberately breaks the law on a regular basis
I think if you include speeding offences, the OP is probably correct - driving on a freeway, the vast majority of people are doing more than 65. Even on back-streets, more people than not go over 35/45... A rather large fraction of people drive, and if the majority of those are speeding, the percentage of lawbreakers may indeed be huge...
That'll be the whole "MGM suing the rightful owner of the domain wargames.com" bit, that you seemed to miss in the *summary* (let alone the *story*)....
Dunno what you mean by this. Perhaps copy/paste ? That works for me just fine. I always use xterm/nedit (it's a hangover from a previous life) and apple-C will do a copy in nedit, apple-V will paste into (whatever).
pre-installation
You get to choose whether to install it when you install the OS. It's a package that 99% of the user-base won't need or want, but it's a choice.
automatic on-demand launching
Oh dear. Open up the System Preferences panel, click on the Accounts icon, click the Login Items tab, add X11 to the list of apps installed on login. Problem solved. Why would they *not* use the standard way to start apps on login ? It's not as though it's the default window server or anything...
consistent window management
Consistent with what ? X11 doesn't have a consistent window management policy (even if you just consider X11 apps, there are different ways of managing windows). Apple's way is simply to make an X11 app respond just like a native window AFAICT. Works just fine for me.
keyboard layout integration
Since I've never had any problems with keyboard layout (I can type Option-3 to get a £ symbol in nedit, for example, even on my US keyboard, which is usually a problem for me in Linux) I don't know what you're talking about...
Performance could also be improved further
When couldn't it ?
If you want to use X11 desktop apps, you're out in the cold because they don't integrate well with the rest of OSX.
As someone who uses X11 apps all day every day, this is bullshit.
I lived in London for 15 years (I now live in the USA). I've got into a cab in London and asked for a road 30 miles away, the guy not only gets me there without asking me for directions, he takes me down tiny narrow streets that avoid the traffic.
Compare this to my experiences in the USA:
- Wanting to get back to my hotel in Sausalito from San Francisco. I'm standing on Lombard (which turns into the Golden gate bridge, the best way to go) and hail a cab. He turns (right) onto a side-street, turns left, turns left, crosses Lombard again, turns right, turns right, crosses Lombard again, etc. He's being told how to get to Sausalito by his controller (I can *hear* his controller saying "turn onto Lombard" at which point he says "I've just crossed Lombard"). This goes on until I lean over and tell him I can direct him.
- Getting off a plane at Newark, having the rest of the day free before a plane home to the UK the next day. Ask cabbie to take me to the Empire State building - hell why not. He doesn't know where it is. I direct him to roughly the right area, and he says "this is as close as I can get". WTF ? Walking about 8 blocks (diagonally) I get to the ESB...
I could go on. In my experience, cabbies in London are top-notch. The only place I've found that has vaguely-similar cabbies is Las Vegas, and I've travelled a fair amount in the US.
On their front-page right now is a geographic map of website traffic, which is a "public-beta" of a mapping system (upload IP addresses, get a map).
They don't actually appear to give out the code (from only a quick look on the site, that may not be correct), but this ought to be pretty trivial to do yourself if you wanted... The public API of hostip.info returns the lat/long of any IP address it knows, and plotting lat/long on an image of the world ought not be too hard.
I designed the whole system so you could download and set up your own geolocation database, slaved from the master at hostip.info with regular updates. Then you can query IP addresses locally and generate charts however/whenever you wanted...
I refer you to the eloquent argument made by the gentleman (or lady:) above - if I work around an original limitation (either in design or implementation), I really don't think they have a leg to stand on. My point was yes, I can see them going for the largest market first - that makes sense - but if you don't exploit a small resource, you can't complain when someone else exploits it first...
It's cool that Mac/Linux users can now access their media in the same way as Windows users have been able to. It's not *too* cool (ie: dangerous to TiVo, and by extension the implementors) because you still need your MAK key, and all it does is provide the same level of access as TiVo already provide to windows users.
The crucial thing here is that TiVo took a business decision not to support Mac/Linux users. They can't really complain when those users decide to support themselves, giving themselves the same abilities that TiVo provide to Windows users...
Personally I think this is the right balance - my TiVo has been sitting in a corner since I moved house - the new cable box does everything TiVo did, and does it in HD (although the interface sucks a bit. Bad comcast). With this though, I can see a new lease of life for the TiVo... a few creative uses come to mind:-)
Either deliberately (perhaps you're an xbox fan?) or you're just uninformed, but the Samsung is *not* cheaper than a PS3, and the PS3 *does* do 1080p output.
Here's the NexTag price list where the best-value price is $737.88, although there's a "refurb" (ie: not new) option at $573.95. It's not fair to compare new prices with refurb ones. If you can come up with a lower price for a new unit, I'd like to see it...
And the article clearly states that it *does* do 1080p - there may be an issue if you only have a 1080i display and try to play non-1080i movies (eg: DVD) because the PS3 won't upscale from 720p/480p to 1080i/p, but any 1080p *source* will work just fine, outputting 1080p video.
... To do a "match" you have to make *both* parts as equal to each other as possible. You can't just select "nVidia GPU" as the criteria, you have to "match" all the other parts of both models. This is usually fairly easy.
Mac users don't argue that you can buy cheaper elsewhere. They argue that once you have "matched" your two machines, the "Mac tax" as you put it, is nowhere near the 40% you mention. In some cases the Mac is cheaper. A lot cheaper. I saved some $2000 buying my Mac Pro rather than the equivalent Dell...
I'd like to see the evidence that they're more productive or that they have an easier life, but I think they probably/have/ to be more productive; having to support two types of processor at once, API changes, Apple adopting Java and then dropping it..
Well, personally the two-types-of-processor hasn't bothered me. I really did check the "compile for both" checkbox and my apps worked. That's probably because the sort of details where endian-ness matters is often hidden by the frameworks (typically Foundation and Cocoa) these days. API changes are handled in a sane manner - when something is deprecated, it sticks around for a few releases and then disappears (that's about 3-5 years). Whilst it's deprecated, you get compiler warnings. There's always a replacement, and a reason why it was deprecated. Example:
(or some fixed, rather than language-dependent default encoding, of course). It's obvious why the change has been made, but I'd expect that the old way will work for a few releases yet - it was only 10.4 that it was deprecated.
Apple *hasn't* dropped Java. What Apple has done is to stop developing the Java-Cocoa bridge (that let you use Cocoa directly from Java, as an alternative to Swing/whatever UI). I presume they've done that due to lack of interest - if you're writing a Java app, why would you want to tie it solely to the Mac ? The ability to deploy it anywhere is one of the strengths of the language, and for that you need a cross-platform UI.
C++ isn't the only language for Windows development.
No, you're right, it's not. It is, however, the language that the vast majority of applications for Windows are written in. Sure, you can start a new project in C# (or any of the other bound-languages you mention), but that doesn't help me maintain my 500,000 lines of C++ code that's tightly bound to the Win32 API.
Where is Apple's Visual Studio? Team development (and supporting software development in general) is probably the one area where Microsoft are dominant.
I guess I'm not sure what I'm missing - read about the things XCode gives you - I don't know of anything that VS provides over-and-above it. SCM is built into XCode - I use subversion, but it can use CVS or Perforce. Oh, and it's free - not a cut-down version, the entire thing is free, all you need to do is provide an email address and register with the ADC, no cash changes hands.
In terms of what it does provide, the XRay tools are simply wonderful instrumentation tools (see the link above). Shark is an excellent performance optimisation tool. Spin control lets you manage the main-thread properly if you ever have issues. UI's are really easy to create and localise with Interface builder. With Bindings, and key-value coding, the amount of code you have to write for "glue" logic is tiny, and the Cocoa API is really-well designed. It's actually pretty hard *not* to write a MVC application.
"90% as powerful"? Where did you get that from? The only thing I can think of (that isn't syntactic sugar) that C++ provides that Objective C does not is multiple-inheritance. Given what has been released on Objective C v2.0, it seems this will go away as well - "concrete protocols" sound very much like multiple inheritance to me. The static nature of the C++ language makes implementing some of the more powerful features (eg: templates) needlessly messy (though to be fair, you do get a faster runtime). The dynamic nature of Objective C means a lot of these problems just go away, at the expense of some runtime performance. When you really need performance, it's typically in a focussed area, and in Objective C (or Objective C++) you can write that part in C/C++, ObjC is a true superset of
Re:Just a few problems in your post...
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 1
Simon, I think you put a lot of effort into answering a troll
Slashdot Mirror
.mac isn't an application suite - it's basically a shared disk (the 'iDisk'), a webmail interface (although 'Mail' is much better), and a place to put your website. Oh, you can sync your address book through it as well... It has peripheral advantages, if you use other mac apps ... the "casting" abilities of the iApps, for example, where I can publish/subscribe to various document-formats (eg: iPhoto does 'photocasts'); it's only really being used as a network-shared disk in this instance though.
.Mac is worth the money.
It's actually one of the few things I think must have slipped under Steve's radar - I don't think
Simon.
The idea of putting every application into a virtual machine is a good one, but the truism is that security *is* a process, not a checkbox on a feature-list. There is (and always will be) an inverse relationship between security and usability - the more of one, the less of the other. Compartmentalising the applications in such a draconian fashion would appear to be heavily leaning towards the security side, and not the usability side of the argument.
The article talks about the picture-viewer not being able to access the web. What if I *want* the picture-viewer to access the web ?
I tihnk I take issue with 99% of applications not needing interaction. If that's true (and I doubt it to be honest), I think that's a failing of software today, not a goal to be strived for. Most of the apps I use daily require web/internet access. I think that's only going to increase over time.
Simon
Say what you will of Steve Jobs, he whole-heartedly believes in Apple's products, and in their ability to compete on a level playing-field. How many other companies, owning the sort of market-share that Apple has in digital music, would even countenance changing it ?
And, he's not insane - Apple make their money on hardware, not so much on the iTMS itself - the risk is relatively low for Apple, conversely so for the labels. It is in fact likely to give SJ *more* power in his dealings with the record labels - Apple are the entrenched brand, the shining beacon over the dark landscape of pirated music . Once DRM is gone, the labels will need Apple to be even more on-side than they do currently, because they'll have lost the small measure of control they currently have.
As far as Apple is concerned, it's a win-win. Steve probably expects to lose sales on the iTMS, but that non-DRM'd files would become more-commonly shared, raising the number of people who want a DAP, and given the public's current opinion on which DAP is the best, he feels confident Apple will benefit overall. Still takes some cojones to suggest it, though... A bit like when they cancelled their best-selling iPod model (the original mini) because they had a better version. A traditional business would have milked the mini for all they could, first.
I think the whole RDF is simply that Steve *really* *really* believes in his companies products, that belief shines through in his body language, his tone of voice, his whole attitude. People pick up on that and empathise with it. It's a great sales technique, but it needs products that really change the world to do it. Apple strives to make that sort of product.
Simon.
What I heard was that the Zune issues were also UAC based. Perhaps they were tweaking UAC right up until the end - in any event, the new apple commercial doesn't think they did a very good job...
Simon
Your assumptions here are that (a) Microsoft told Apple about these API changes, and (b) it was even available for Apple to use/test against at the same time as it was internally at Microsoft. I'm assuming that (b) was not the case, and therefore it's not unreasonable for Apple to be later than Microsoft's own developers on this...
Simon
I don't actually disagree with you, and I think Apple are probably working hard to get the fix out.
However, look at this from a non-techie point of view (ie; Joe Public) - do you think Joe has more emotional attachment to his iPod, or his computer. I'm not sure that's an easy call to make... The computer does a lot more, but to have his iPod corrupted would be a disaster for most Joe's I know...
So, you could invert that logic, and say the Microsoft's sensible course of action would be to make sure their OS works with the music-player that *currently* has ~70-80% of the market...
Just a thought.
Simon
Which, correct me if I'm wrong, was not 6 months ago. And (presumed) changes to API's (otherwise it would have worked) only 4 weeks ago isn't a sign of a "stable API".
So, when a third-party company finally gets the latest API info, specs out the required changes and their implications, codes it up, runs it through QA, gets sign-off from all the parties (HI, VI, Engineering, Management, X-functional team managers), and gets it out in a couple of months, it's not so bad, really. Oh wait, we're bashing Apple today. BAD APPLE.
Simon.
Agree with the PIC vs the AVR. It's the same as the i386 vs m68k... One is a disgusting kluge, the other is an elegant architecture.
In this modern age, though, I'd ditch both and go for the ARM - the kits aren't that much more these days (eg: from $30), and you can do a *lot* more with them... Obviously, the more you pay (up to ~$200) the more-capable the board you get...
Simon
... I reckon it's more likely to be Apple-TV rather than Xbox+extender, or 'media-PC'. MS do a wonderful job in the world of business, but they haven't got a clue when it comes to consumers (witness the 'zune' fiasco).
Repeat after me: "complexity is the enemy". MS just don't seem to be able to help themselves - they include every possible switch to toggle in their UI's. The consumer wants to turn it on, hit the channel, and watch TV. Reliably. Without expert (IT) help. Anything more than that is a problem you have to work really hard at solving (and you *need* to do more than that to make it a useful DVR, for example). This sort of industrial design just isn't their forté...
Simon
I thought this was common knowledge - I've been arguing that the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley are detrimental for some time now.
The major problem is that it invites software companies (I'm not making any accusations here) to put out shoddy software, full of bugs and not-ready-for-primetime features, giving themselves the option to *not* charge for upgrades later, perhaps for business-reasons. Bugfixes, you see, are not subject to the S-O ruling. This is not the way I'd like to see the s/w industry go...
Simon.
To successfully defend a trademark, you have to show you've been consistently using it for years. Cisco couldn't do that - they had to stick a sticker on the outside of a shrink-wrap of another package. Do you not think if they actually *had* a product called the iPhone, they'd have taken a photo of that ?
Score one for the fruit company...
Simon.
I was going to use a stronger word, but my New Years resolution is still (diminishingly) in effect...
... wrong. I can't think how you could think that. It's hard to construct an argument when your starting premise is just nonsense.
:-) that QT doesn't support the codecs that you want, but it's not Apple's fault that other 3rd-party codecs have bugs in. Yes, I'm a Mac fan, but not a fanboy - I completely agree with bug #1, but this is just completely ... bogus.
If Apple don't supply a piece of software, it is *not* their fault that there can be subsequent problems using that piece of software, it's the program-author's fault. Obviously vlc isn't completely necessary (otherwise I would have it installed, I install a fair amount of linux-related s/w). I do have windows-media player and realmedia player installed...
To say that just because Apple don't supply a particular feature (viewing movies that require codec XXX), it's Apple's problem when you install 3rd-party software that does is just
By the same logic, it's Apple's fault that:
- I can't run my FPGA-mapping software on my Mac Pro, because Xilinx don't support the Mac. Apple ought to do something.
- I can't run any game I want on the Mac. Curse those game-producing companies, oh no, wait, it's Apple's fault.
- My Mac doesn't make toast! How simple is making toast? Apple ought to pull their finger out!
- ad nauseum.
Install 3rd-party software, have problems with that software, blame the software author. Don't blame the machine manufacturer / operating-system provider.
Moan like buggery (*) (hmm, unfortunate turn of phrase
Simon
(*) "Moan like buggery" isn't really rude where I come from, oddly enough...
So
[simon:~] simon% vlc
tcsh: vlc: Command not found.
[simon:~] simon% perl VLCMediaSlayer-x86.pl
jump address is: 0x41424344
writing to file: pwnage.m3u
[simon:~] simon% open pwnage.m3u
[simon:~] simon% (opens iTunes)
the application for this second bug is not even shipped on Mac's by default! Meaning that this completely 3rd-party software, if installed onto a Mac, can cause problems with the Mac. And this is Apple's problem how, exactly ?
Simon
However, I doubt a "hugh percentage" of the population deliberately breaks the law on a regular basis
I think if you include speeding offences, the OP is probably correct - driving on a freeway, the vast majority of people are doing more than 65. Even on back-streets, more people than not go over 35/45... A rather large fraction of people drive, and if the majority of those are speeding, the percentage of lawbreakers may indeed be huge...
Simon
That'll be the whole "MGM suing the rightful owner of the domain wargames.com" bit, that you seemed to miss in the *summary* (let alone the *story*)....
Simon
Desktop integration
Dunno what you mean by this. Perhaps copy/paste ? That works for me just fine. I always use xterm/nedit (it's a hangover from a previous life) and apple-C will do a copy in nedit, apple-V will paste into (whatever).
pre-installation
You get to choose whether to install it when you install the OS. It's a package that 99% of the user-base won't need or want, but it's a choice.
automatic on-demand launching
Oh dear. Open up the System Preferences panel, click on the Accounts icon, click the Login Items tab, add X11 to the list of apps installed on login. Problem solved. Why would they *not* use the standard way to start apps on login ? It's not as though it's the default window server or anything...
consistent window management
Consistent with what ? X11 doesn't have a consistent window management policy (even if you just consider X11 apps, there are different ways of managing windows). Apple's way is simply to make an X11 app respond just like a native window AFAICT. Works just fine for me.
keyboard layout integration
Since I've never had any problems with keyboard layout (I can type Option-3 to get a £ symbol in nedit, for example, even on my US keyboard, which is usually a problem for me in Linux) I don't know what you're talking about...
Performance could also be improved further
When couldn't it ?
If you want to use X11 desktop apps, you're out in the cold because they don't integrate well with the rest of OSX.
As someone who uses X11 apps all day every day, this is bullshit.
Simon.
I lived in London for 15 years (I now live in the USA). I've got into a cab in London and asked for a road 30 miles away, the guy not only gets me there without asking me for directions, he takes me down tiny narrow streets that avoid the traffic.
Compare this to my experiences in the USA:
- Wanting to get back to my hotel in Sausalito from San Francisco. I'm standing on Lombard (which turns into the Golden gate bridge, the best way to go) and hail a cab. He turns (right) onto a side-street, turns left, turns left, crosses Lombard again, turns right, turns right, crosses Lombard again, etc. He's being told how to get to Sausalito by his controller (I can *hear* his controller saying "turn onto Lombard" at which point he says "I've just crossed Lombard"). This goes on until I lean over and tell him I can direct him.
- Getting off a plane at Newark, having the rest of the day free before a plane home to the UK the next day. Ask cabbie to take me to the Empire State building - hell why not. He doesn't know where it is. I direct him to roughly the right area, and he says "this is as close as I can get". WTF ? Walking about 8 blocks (diagonally) I get to the ESB...
I could go on. In my experience, cabbies in London are top-notch. The only place I've found that has vaguely-similar cabbies is Las Vegas, and I've travelled a fair amount in the US.
Simon.
I created the hostip.info website a couple of years ago which is an open-source geo-location system. I've since passed it to others to maintain.
On their front-page right now is a geographic map of website traffic, which is a "public-beta" of a mapping system (upload IP addresses, get a map).
They don't actually appear to give out the code (from only a quick look on the site, that may not be correct), but this ought to be pretty trivial to do yourself if you wanted... The public API of hostip.info returns the lat/long of any IP address it knows, and plotting lat/long on an image of the world ought not be too hard.
I designed the whole system so you could download and set up your own geolocation database, slaved from the master at hostip.info with regular updates. Then you can query IP addresses locally and generate charts however/whenever you wanted...
Just a thought,
Simon
It's not their box. It's mine. I paid for it.
:) above - if I work around an original limitation (either in design or implementation), I really don't think they have a leg to stand on. My point was yes, I can see them going for the largest market first - that makes sense - but if you don't exploit a small resource, you can't complain when someone else exploits it first...
I refer you to the eloquent argument made by the gentleman (or lady
Simon.
It's cool that Mac/Linux users can now access their media in the same way as Windows users have been able to. It's not *too* cool (ie: dangerous to TiVo, and by extension the implementors) because you still need your MAK key, and all it does is provide the same level of access as TiVo already provide to windows users.
... a few creative uses come to mind :-)
The crucial thing here is that TiVo took a business decision not to support Mac/Linux users. They can't really complain when those users decide to support themselves, giving themselves the same abilities that TiVo provide to Windows users...
Personally I think this is the right balance - my TiVo has been sitting in a corner since I moved house - the new cable box does everything TiVo did, and does it in HD (although the interface sucks a bit. Bad comcast). With this though, I can see a new lease of life for the TiVo
Simon
Either deliberately (perhaps you're an xbox fan?) or you're just uninformed, but the Samsung is *not* cheaper than a PS3, and the PS3 *does* do 1080p output.
Here's the NexTag price list where the best-value price is $737.88, although there's a "refurb" (ie: not new) option at $573.95. It's not fair to compare new prices with refurb ones. If you can come up with a lower price for a new unit, I'd like to see it...
And the article clearly states that it *does* do 1080p - there may be an issue if you only have a 1080i display and try to play non-1080i movies (eg: DVD) because the PS3 won't upscale from 720p/480p to 1080i/p, but any 1080p *source* will work just fine, outputting 1080p video.
Simon.
... To do a "match" you have to make *both* parts as equal to each other as possible. You can't just select "nVidia GPU" as the criteria, you have to "match" all the other parts of both models. This is usually fairly easy.
Mac users don't argue that you can buy cheaper elsewhere. They argue that once you have "matched" your two machines, the "Mac tax" as you put it, is nowhere near the 40% you mention. In some cases the Mac is cheaper. A lot cheaper. I saved some $2000 buying my Mac Pro rather than the equivalent Dell...
Simon.
There's usually a fee for every authorization performed as well, so it'll be a fixed cost + 3% in total.
Simon
I'd like to see the evidence that they're more productive or that they have an easier life, but I think they probably /have/ to be more productive; having to support two types of processor at once, API changes, Apple adopting Java and then dropping it..
Well, personally the two-types-of-processor hasn't bothered me. I really did check the "compile for both" checkbox and my apps worked. That's probably because the sort of details where endian-ness matters is often hidden by the frameworks (typically Foundation and Cocoa) these days. API changes are handled in a sane manner - when something is deprecated, it sticks around for a few releases and then disappears (that's about 3-5 years). Whilst it's deprecated, you get compiler warnings. There's always a replacement, and a reason why it was deprecated. Example:
char *cstring = [NSString cString];
is now deprecated in favour of:
char *cstring = [NSString cStringUsingEncoding:[NSString defaultCStringEncoding]];
(or some fixed, rather than language-dependent default encoding, of course). It's obvious why the change has been made, but I'd expect that the old way will work for a few releases yet - it was only 10.4 that it was deprecated.
Apple *hasn't* dropped Java. What Apple has done is to stop developing the Java-Cocoa bridge (that let you use Cocoa directly from Java, as an alternative to Swing/whatever UI). I presume they've done that due to lack of interest - if you're writing a Java app, why would you want to tie it solely to the Mac ? The ability to deploy it anywhere is one of the strengths of the language, and for that you need a cross-platform UI.
C++ isn't the only language for Windows development.
No, you're right, it's not. It is, however, the language that the vast majority of applications for Windows are written in. Sure, you can start a new project in C# (or any of the other bound-languages you mention), but that doesn't help me maintain my 500,000 lines of C++ code that's tightly bound to the Win32 API.
Where is Apple's Visual Studio? Team development (and supporting software development in general) is probably the one area where Microsoft are dominant.
I guess I'm not sure what I'm missing - read about the things XCode gives you - I don't know of anything that VS provides over-and-above it. SCM is built into XCode - I use subversion, but it can use CVS or Perforce. Oh, and it's free - not a cut-down version, the entire thing is free, all you need to do is provide an email address and register with the ADC, no cash changes hands.
In terms of what it does provide, the XRay tools are simply wonderful instrumentation tools (see the link above). Shark is an excellent performance optimisation tool. Spin control lets you manage the main-thread properly if you ever have issues. UI's are really easy to create and localise with Interface builder. With Bindings, and key-value coding, the amount of code you have to write for "glue" logic is tiny, and the Cocoa API is really-well designed. It's actually pretty hard *not* to write a MVC application.
"90% as powerful"? Where did you get that from?
The only thing I can think of (that isn't syntactic sugar) that C++ provides that Objective C does not is multiple-inheritance. Given what has been released on Objective C v2.0, it seems this will go away as well - "concrete protocols" sound very much like multiple inheritance to me. The static nature of the C++ language makes implementing some of the more powerful features (eg: templates) needlessly messy (though to be fair, you do get a faster runtime). The dynamic nature of Objective C means a lot of these problems just go away, at the expense of some runtime performance. When you really need performance, it's typically in a focussed area, and in Objective C (or Objective C++) you can write that part in C/C++, ObjC is a true superset of
Simon, I think you put a lot of effort into answering a troll
:-)
[grin] I know, but I was bored
Simon.