Apple are also building a 16,000-employee campus in Cupertino, that's adding to the existing 6,000-employee campus they already have - they also have long-term leases on another 10,000-employee or so offices, but I'm guessing those will be let to expire once the new campus comes online in 3 years or so.
"run rings around it" is a matter of opinion. I've used all 3 in anger, and I'm far and away more productive in Cocoa. Of course you'd use the gui interface builder (on either GnuStep or cocoa), that's an integral part of the system.
Pure cocoa would get you farther, easier - the GnuStep stuff imposes limits, but personally I'd use core data for persistence, quartz composer for data visualisation, Grand Central for parallelism (using NSOperation) and you can drop into C or C++ for performance when you need to. All basic building blocks that work well together and ObjC is far nicer to work with than plain old C and desnt have the gargantuan complexity of C++.
Simon.
(rather surprised that I was modded down to 0....)
I'd use Cocoa on a Mac, and stick to the (large) subset supported by GnuStep. Bonus, you'd be able to test IOS devices with your data set with a little more effort...
That's just not true. It's relatively trivial to solder even BGA parts with an oven (and a $50 "toaster oven" qualifies. Just don't use the same oven for food...)
Here's how I do it:
Get the PCB manufactured - I usually use Dorkbot pdx because it's (a) cheap and (b) good. It's also pretty fast (9 days) so there goes that saying...
On your PCB, put some solder points for capacitors that can be used to make a top-left and bottom-right corner, so that the inside edge is lined up with the printed outline of the BGA part
Before placing the BGA, make those corners with a couple of 0805 capacitors, so that the BGA has nowhere to move to when you place it in the oven. These caps are literally fractions of a cent each, so buy 100 for $0.40 and just use them as throwaways.
Solder the caps by tinning one of the pads first, then place the cap where you want, re-melt the tinned pad's solder, and the cap will be easy to position where you want. Optionally solder the other end (since this isn't a "real" capacitor)
That's it. Perfect results every time.
Handling these tiny parts (0603 / 0.5mm BGA is as low as I go) is trivial if you get a pair of these. They look as dorky as you could ever hope to not appear, but they really (*really*) work well. At going-on 45 my vision just isn't up to placing 0805 / 0603 by hand any more, but these things really help line things up perfectly.
Also, get non-metallic tweezers, and a well-lit area:)
Yes, but an H1-B visa allows you to convert to a green-card after 3 years. It takes a while (took me another 2 years, but hey, the same company that gave me an H1B also paid for the green card, so that was fine by me).
I'm from the UK, I didn't come to the US for anything much more than the sunny CA weather and the money... The company that now employs me bought my (small) company, and one of the conditions of sale was to relocate to the Bay Area. They really didn't have to twist my arm *too* much, but there's nothing inherently superior or overly-wonderful about the software industry in the US compared to anywhere else.
There's a few very large and successful companies (more so than elsewhere) and a whole slew of smaller ones (which is the same as anywhere). On the other hand you have to offset:
- the "police state" trend (even the cops here are far more aggressive than back home, how the cop who shot a handcuffed man in the head on the BART in Oakland didn't go down for murder I'll never know)
- the TSA. One thing to say: WTF!
- the fact that there's no universal health system to speak of. Only when I'd lost the NHS did I truly understand what a blessing it is. I get a great health-plan from my employer, but given that healthcare is tied to your employer over here, that's like having a lifesaver vest that dissolves in water... Oh, and it's more expensive than the *real* lifesaver vest. Another WTF! moment
- the fact that education is so expensive over here. I'm not talking about the "best of the best", even the lowly state schools are ridiculously expensive. My wife (a JD/MBA) has only recently finished paying off her student loans and she's getting towards the harsh end of the 30-40 range. I went to one of the "best of the best" colleges in London (Imperial College, for Physics) and it cost me a grand total of £2500 over 3 years. They paid me £17,000/year to do a PhD, not the other way around.
- a minor niggle : the low number of public holidays - ones actually *observed* by companies:) and the measly vacation grant.
Now I've worked off the "golden handcuffs" my employer placed on me, the last stock options are vesting this year, and the housing market is getting to the point where my currently-underwater house is getting back to the black, I think by the end of the year it'll be good to sell. My soon-to-be-born son will be American but have English citizenship by birthright, so I'm thinking we ought to move back to the UK in the next 2-3 years (before school becomes an issue).
I've paid well over half a million dollars in taxes into the US economy over the last 7 years or so. I'm probably the sort of person the US would like to keep (at least from a fiscal perspective), but the country is on such a destructive spiral, that I can't see any way it'll be a good place to raise a child and retire in. It'll take some sweet-talking to convince my wife (who loves the Bay Area), but I honestly think the US is not a good long term strategy for me and mine.
I've been asked if I was ever going to apply for US citizenship, and I used to joke that the UK citizenship was my fall-back option. Now I don't think of it as a joke.
Quoth siddesu: "In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out."
So, you don't think there's any connotation of "freedom" even remotely attached to the above sentence, written by you 40 minutes before your subsequent response ? 'Cos I do; and contrary to your subsequent claim, it seems to me that you're very much making the argument that the user is not free to use the device how (s)he wants to.
So, either you're poorly expressing yourself, you're a bare-faced liar, or you have an agenda. Which is it ?
That's a question reasonably asked for products that are popular by fiat, or by default.
When one has to spend more money, thereby implicitly rejecting cheaper competitors; when suppliers to said competitors attempt to push them in the same direction; when the market-share owned by these products is almost unbelievably high percentage (Apple owns ~90% of the $1k portable market, IIRC), it would not seem such a reasonable question...
I have to ask, have you ever actually *used* an iPhone ?...... because the "factory reset" thing you're describing just doesn't happen, at least in my experience. I've broken and replaced the iPhone and got back all my saved information between phones, because the thing syncs a backup to the Mac every time it's placed in the dock to charge. If the phone breaks, the new one is plugged in, and it asks you if you want to restore from the backup on your *own* goddamn computer.
So no, I don't believe you, because what you're saying is bullshit. Perhaps it's a problem with Android phones (I don't honestly know, but I'm being charitable and assuming you're getting this from *somewhere* and not just pulling it out of your arse).
In fact it does decrease tech support, because the only tech support needed is 'swap this out for a new one at the local store, mail order if you live too far away', then restore the phone and get everything back as you had it before. No need to find an expensive local "GeekSquad"-a-like to "fix" it (these guys frequently do as much harm as good, IMHO) for you. It's simple. People *like* simple.
One other point: DRM is not illegal, using DRM is not illegal. I don't much like DRM, but extortion it is not.
As for your 'Apple killed Stanza' diatribe, it's far more likely that Amazon killed it, not Apple, and not by action, but by inaction.
Basically your post comes down to "I don't like this", and that's fine, everyone can have their own opinion, all I'm doing is calling you out on the bullshit reasons you're putting forward as supposed justification for your hatred.
"some offices in Cupertino and pimply teenagers at Apple stores", huh?
Apple employ ~60,000 people now, with very very few (if any) of those being in China...
It's not Apple's job to make your country a better place or more biased towards manufacture than design, that's your governments job. Unfortunately your government prefers to play with its dangerous toys, declare war left, right, and centre, try to make its rich richer at the expense of everyone else, ignore the healthcare requirements of its populace (seriously? No single-payer system in this day and age?), destroy human rights in the name of 'the war on terror', and generally have its two parties more involved with acting like dicks to each other than actually, you know, running the country.
When you can vote the government in and out of office, you get the government you deserve. I can only assume a majority of Americans are seriously screwed up. Or masochists. Or something!
Which is totally valid, and totally irrelevant. The OP wasn't claiming anything other than that the sales needed to recuperate the developer-tools cost was small. It is. Sure, there are other costs, but nothing was said about those.
Print a solid block from a maker bot - set infill to 100%, put it in water and watch it float. I know it does, because I tried it. Perhaps it's due to air that gets trapped by mistake, but "solid" ABS plastic prints from maker bots float.
Not to mention that the ABS plastic used in a maker bot *floats*
I had already posted a comment on MB's web page last Friday, asking if this was just a publicity stunt, but for some reason it wasn't moderated as approved...
Apple *is* in fact making huge profits from its Mac division - about $5B last *quarter* - see http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/20/how-apples-business-grows/... A whole lot of companies would love to have this "not huge profits" business line... Assuming they don't screw it up, that's ~ $20B/year...
Apple makes a lot *more* money from iOS devices (lumping the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch together gets you to ~60% of the company's income), but that's "only" 3x the Mac income, hardly the "vast bulk", which (to me at least) implies a completely dominant fraction of the whole - of the order of 90-odd percent, not ~60 percent...
And your analysis is wrong anyway, IMHO. I think Apple are perfectly happy to be seen as the premium brand, where they can rake in much more in profit from much less "work" by focussing on only a few product lines. Look at http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/31/fourth-quarter-mobile-phone-industry-overview/ - Apple take more than 50% of the profit in the phone industry by owning only 4% of the market-share.
Businesses exist to product profit, not to product market share. *One* way to try and increase profit is to try and increase market share. Apple has another way, and it's working well for them.
I've got 3 CNC machines in the garage as well, various power tools, an electronics workshop etc. I'm currently building a fishtank, a task that I never really expected to involve writing ethernet drivers for 8-bit chips, metal-working, coding on embedded systems, plumbing, laying cement, wood-working an 8 foot long stand, etc. I get to geek out quite a bit, is what I'm saying:)
The only thing my garage lacks is any form of transportation. My wife is just fine with all the "toys" being away in the garage.
They at least are showing there is more than one way to develop a touch-enabled and touch-optimised smartphone. I'm on the fence as to whether it's the correct UI for the desktop, but anything that makes life simpler for the few relatives still holding out and not going Mac is a boon to me.
Redmond definitely didn't "photocopy" this UI, and I like the look of it - fresh, well thought out, and novel. You're not taking away my iPhone just yet, though:)
"Troy Dangerfield of the SFPD called to clarify his above statements: The police will only investigate if Calderón chooses to speak with them directly and share information about the people who came to his house. (So far, the SFPD has not spoken to Calderón, but only learned of his story through SF Weekly.)"
Also, (in fairness, probably after you posted the above), it's all irrelevant now - since (again, from the same FA) "Update (3:25 p.m.): Police now say they did assist Apple security with the home search of a Bernal Heights man"
... If he was just looking for some publicity, you might think he would call CNET, but NOT the actual police.
which, of course, is exactly what happened... Which is probably why the police are saying they're not going to do diddly squat until he gets in touch with them *himself*.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple are also building a 16,000-employee campus in Cupertino, that's adding to the existing 6,000-employee campus they already have - they also have long-term leases on another 10,000-employee or so offices, but I'm guessing those will be let to expire once the new campus comes online in 3 years or so.
Simon
"run rings around it" is a matter of opinion. I've used all 3 in anger, and I'm far and away more productive in Cocoa. Of course you'd use the gui interface builder (on either GnuStep or cocoa), that's an integral part of the system.
Pure cocoa would get you farther, easier - the GnuStep stuff imposes limits, but personally I'd use core data for persistence, quartz composer for data visualisation, Grand Central for parallelism (using NSOperation) and you can drop into C or C++ for performance when you need to. All basic building blocks that work well together and ObjC is far nicer to work with than plain old C and desnt have the gargantuan complexity of C++.
Simon.
(rather surprised that I was modded down to 0....)
I'd use Cocoa on a Mac, and stick to the (large) subset supported by GnuStep. Bonus, you'd be able to test IOS devices with your data set with a little more effort...
Simon
[sigh] I have no intention of getting a Raspberry PI board. I was talking in general terms.
Enjoy your "win"...
Simon.
That's just not true. It's relatively trivial to solder even BGA parts with an oven (and a $50 "toaster oven" qualifies. Just don't use the same oven for food...)
Here's how I do it:
Handling these tiny parts (0603 / 0.5mm BGA is as low as I go) is trivial if you get a pair of these. They look as dorky as you could ever hope to not appear, but they really (*really*) work well. At going-on 45 my vision just isn't up to placing 0805 / 0603 by hand any more, but these things really help line things up perfectly.
Also, get non-metallic tweezers, and a well-lit area :)
Simon
Yes, but an H1-B visa allows you to convert to a green-card after 3 years. It takes a while (took me another 2 years, but hey, the same company that gave me an H1B also paid for the green card, so that was fine by me).
I'm from the UK, I didn't come to the US for anything much more than the sunny CA weather and the money... The company that now employs me bought my (small) company, and one of the conditions of sale was to relocate to the Bay Area. They really didn't have to twist my arm *too* much, but there's nothing inherently superior or overly-wonderful about the software industry in the US compared to anywhere else.
There's a few very large and successful companies (more so than elsewhere) and a whole slew of smaller ones (which is the same as anywhere). On the other hand you have to offset:
- the "police state" trend (even the cops here are far more aggressive than back home, how the cop who shot a handcuffed man in the head on the BART in Oakland didn't go down for murder I'll never know) :) and the measly vacation grant.
- the TSA. One thing to say: WTF!
- the fact that there's no universal health system to speak of. Only when I'd lost the NHS did I truly understand what a blessing it is. I get a great health-plan from my employer, but given that healthcare is tied to your employer over here, that's like having a lifesaver vest that dissolves in water... Oh, and it's more expensive than the *real* lifesaver vest. Another WTF! moment
- the fact that education is so expensive over here. I'm not talking about the "best of the best", even the lowly state schools are ridiculously expensive. My wife (a JD/MBA) has only recently finished paying off her student loans and she's getting towards the harsh end of the 30-40 range. I went to one of the "best of the best" colleges in London (Imperial College, for Physics) and it cost me a grand total of £2500 over 3 years. They paid me £17,000/year to do a PhD, not the other way around.
- a minor niggle : the low number of public holidays - ones actually *observed* by companies
Now I've worked off the "golden handcuffs" my employer placed on me, the last stock options are vesting this year, and the housing market is getting to the point where my currently-underwater house is getting back to the black, I think by the end of the year it'll be good to sell. My soon-to-be-born son will be American but have English citizenship by birthright, so I'm thinking we ought to move back to the UK in the next 2-3 years (before school becomes an issue).
I've paid well over half a million dollars in taxes into the US economy over the last 7 years or so. I'm probably the sort of person the US would like to keep (at least from a fiscal perspective), but the country is on such a destructive spiral, that I can't see any way it'll be a good place to raise a child and retire in. It'll take some sweet-talking to convince my wife (who loves the Bay Area), but I honestly think the US is not a good long term strategy for me and mine.
I've been asked if I was ever going to apply for US citizenship, and I used to joke that the UK citizenship was my fall-back option. Now I don't think of it as a joke.
I'll miss the weather.
Simon.
Quoth siddesu: "In effect, you've relinquished ownership, and, unlike some other platforms, you have no legal way out."
So, you don't think there's any connotation of "freedom" even remotely attached to the above sentence, written by you 40 minutes before your subsequent response ? 'Cos I do; and contrary to your subsequent claim, it seems to me that you're very much making the argument that the user is not free to use the device how (s)he wants to.
So, either you're poorly expressing yourself, you're a bare-faced liar, or you have an agenda. Which is it ?
Simon.
That's a question reasonably asked for products that are popular by fiat, or by default.
When one has to spend more money, thereby implicitly rejecting cheaper competitors; when suppliers to said competitors attempt to push them in the same direction; when the market-share owned by these products is almost unbelievably high percentage (Apple owns ~90% of the $1k portable market, IIRC), it would not seem such a reasonable question...
Simon
So I guess he's pulling it out of his arse then...
Simon
I have to ask, have you ever actually *used* an iPhone ? ... ... because the "factory reset" thing you're describing just doesn't happen, at least in my experience. I've broken and replaced the iPhone and got back all my saved information between phones, because the thing syncs a backup to the Mac every time it's placed in the dock to charge. If the phone breaks, the new one is plugged in, and it asks you if you want to restore from the backup on your *own* goddamn computer.
So no, I don't believe you, because what you're saying is bullshit. Perhaps it's a problem with Android phones (I don't honestly know, but I'm being charitable and assuming you're getting this from *somewhere* and not just pulling it out of your arse).
In fact it does decrease tech support, because the only tech support needed is 'swap this out for a new one at the local store, mail order if you live too far away', then restore the phone and get everything back as you had it before. No need to find an expensive local "GeekSquad"-a-like to "fix" it (these guys frequently do as much harm as good, IMHO) for you. It's simple. People *like* simple.
One other point: DRM is not illegal, using DRM is not illegal. I don't much like DRM, but extortion it is not.
As for your 'Apple killed Stanza' diatribe, it's far more likely that Amazon killed it, not Apple, and not by action, but by inaction.
Basically your post comes down to "I don't like this", and that's fine, everyone can have their own opinion, all I'm doing is calling you out on the bullshit reasons you're putting forward as supposed justification for your hatred.
Simon.
Subject says it all, really.
Simon.
"some offices in Cupertino and pimply teenagers at Apple stores", huh?
Apple employ ~60,000 people now, with very very few (if any) of those being in China...
It's not Apple's job to make your country a better place or more biased towards manufacture than design, that's your governments job. Unfortunately your government prefers to play with its dangerous toys, declare war left, right, and centre, try to make its rich richer at the expense of everyone else, ignore the healthcare requirements of its populace (seriously? No single-payer system in this day and age?), destroy human rights in the name of 'the war on terror', and generally have its two parties more involved with acting like dicks to each other than actually, you know, running the country.
When you can vote the government in and out of office, you get the government you deserve. I can only assume a majority of Americans are seriously screwed up. Or masochists. Or something!
Simon
Which is totally valid, and totally irrelevant. The OP wasn't claiming anything other than that the sales needed to recuperate the developer-tools cost was small. It is. Sure, there are other costs, but nothing was said about those.
Simon
No. He's saying you can't read.
emphasis mine...
Simon.
Print a solid block from a maker bot - set infill to 100%, put it in water and watch it float. I know it does, because I tried it. Perhaps it's due to air that gets trapped by mistake, but "solid" ABS plastic prints from maker bots float.
Simon
Not to mention that the ABS plastic used in a maker bot *floats*
I had already posted a comment on MB's web page last Friday, asking if this was just a publicity stunt, but for some reason it wasn't moderated as approved...
Simon
Apple *is* in fact making huge profits from its Mac division - about $5B last *quarter* - see http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/20/how-apples-business-grows/ ... A whole lot of companies would love to have this "not huge profits" business line... Assuming they don't screw it up, that's ~ $20B/year...
Apple makes a lot *more* money from iOS devices (lumping the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch together gets you to ~60% of the company's income), but that's "only" 3x the Mac income, hardly the "vast bulk", which (to me at least) implies a completely dominant fraction of the whole - of the order of 90-odd percent, not ~60 percent...
And your analysis is wrong anyway, IMHO. I think Apple are perfectly happy to be seen as the premium brand, where they can rake in much more in profit from much less "work" by focussing on only a few product lines. Look at http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/31/fourth-quarter-mobile-phone-industry-overview/ - Apple take more than 50% of the profit in the phone industry by owning only 4% of the market-share.
Businesses exist to product profit, not to product market share. *One* way to try and increase profit is to try and increase market share. Apple has another way, and it's working well for them.
Simon.
There's a cult-like following, here, but it isn't Apple.
Hint: if you're selling millions upon millions of things to people, it's too large to be a 'cult' ...
Simon.
Um, "I do". Right here.
I've got 3 CNC machines in the garage as well, various power tools, an electronics workshop etc. I'm currently building a fishtank, a task that I never really expected to involve writing ethernet drivers for 8-bit chips, metal-working, coding on embedded systems, plumbing, laying cement, wood-working an 8 foot long stand, etc. I get to geek out quite a bit, is what I'm saying :)
The only thing my garage lacks is any form of transportation. My wife is just fine with all the "toys" being away in the garage.
Simon
They at least are showing there is more than one way to develop a touch-enabled and touch-optimised smartphone. I'm on the fence as to whether it's the correct UI for the desktop, but anything that makes life simpler for the few relatives still holding out and not going Mac is a boon to me.
Redmond definitely didn't "photocopy" this UI, and I like the look of it - fresh, well thought out, and novel. You're not taking away my iPhone just yet, though :)
Simon
Darn it. /. ate my reply...
Citation supplied, from the *same* FA:
"Troy Dangerfield of the SFPD called to clarify his above statements: The police will only investigate if Calderón chooses to speak with them directly and share information about the people who came to his house. (So far, the SFPD has not spoken to Calderón, but only learned of his story through SF Weekly.)"
Also, (in fairness, probably after you posted the above), it's all irrelevant now - since (again, from the same FA) "Update (3:25 p.m.): Police now say they did assist Apple security with the home search of a Bernal Heights man"
Simon
... If he was just looking for some publicity, you might think he would call CNET, but NOT the actual police.
which, of course, is exactly what happened... Which is probably why the police are saying they're not going to do diddly squat until he gets in touch with them *himself*.
Simon
http://tjsdaily.blogspot.com/2011/08/steve-jobs-cancer-picture-fake.html
Simon.
No, even over in the US, this Brit doesn't see any adverts for things other than the BBC itself. As expected.
Simon.
Whether computer, tablet, or phone, Apple don't do this. It's *one* of the reasons I like them.
Simon.
(haters in 3,... 2,... 1,...)