"With this said, if you honestly parse the OP's post, look at the structure, language, word choice and links, not to mention the timing of it's posting, and consider modern marketing techniques as they pertain to blogs and social networks, it seems to be at least a reasonable to at least suspect that the author has either professional or monetary ties to Apple, or that he is a true Holy Warrior for The One True Platform."
Huh? This sort of response is the sort of thing that hurts actual debate.
"Your point seems valid and I agree with it on principle, however without any solid evidence I'm going to accuse you of being a corporate shill using immature labeling, and disregard everything you've said."
I mean, seriously, I could copy paste what you said right back at you and accuse you of working for Google.
""Proper" Cisco VPN support (i.e. with group usernames and passwords) was added in 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich) and works very well indeed. Be aware that there appears to be a bug in 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 on the GSM Galaxy Nexus which cause it to reboot as soon as you pass data over a VPN, connected via 3G...wifi works fine."
You say "works very well." I don't think it means what you think it means.
Because Apple has a process to fast track approvals if there is a serious bug.
But again, if there is a bug so severe that everything is going to hell unless it's fixed in 24-48 hours (current approval time), you've got bigger problems. XBox Live has way longer approval times, yet somehow things aren't falling apart on the 360 either.
"With Android, most non-game development is done in Java. A language many people know. With iOS, development is done in Objective C, a language that is not used outside of Apple-world anywhere near as much as Java. Objective C seems obscure to me"
"I have some written code at one time or another in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Common Lisp, Basic, PHP and probably some languages I'm forgetting, but have never had cause to use Objective C."
Then learning another language should honestly not be that big of a deal. Java was based on Obj-C. It's not like they're worlds apart. They're pretty much the same once you get used to the brackets. Memory is even automatically managed these days. (And if you already know C, you really should not be complaining at all.)
"Which imaginary developers are these that thing the hassle and expense of XCode and iOS programming is better than the free one-file setup of Eclipse and Android programming?"
Developers that are making enough money to afford such things because iOS development pays better. (RTFA.)
"It also took significantly (over a month) longer to get setup with an Apple developer account and the requirements in terms of legal documents are significant, to the point that my company had to go to the office of our Secretary of State to get some documents filed that we hadn't needed in more than 20 years of existence."
All Apple requires is documentation that your business exists. If you had to go through that much trouble to find such documentation, I'd say you have bigger issues.
This sounds like an argument for thoroughly testing your software and not releasing with bugs.
Game developers have had similar issues on other platforms. It used to be that when you released on a cartridge you actually had to do good work the first time. You can't patch a cartridge in the wild. With internet connected consoles, the problem has been getting worse and worse. It used to be that when you bought a game at launch it was solid. Now you're pretty much guaranteed to get something extremely buggy until the first few patches, assuming you actually get the whole game and the developers haven't decided to favor an early release and just update the game with more content later, leaving you with a pretty threadbare experience.
So if your complaint is that Apple makes things difficult if you don't write good code the first time, maybe the problem isn't with Apple. Heck, your description just made Apple's system sound much better to me. Why would I want to buy buggy games?
A few things here. We're talking about the Windows 8 store. Mac OS X lets you run unsigned code perfectly fine. If we want to talk about mobile, Microsoft also does not allow for unsigned code.
Second, if the user can resign the code with a developer cert, they can run it on their device.
"Okay, so it is more accurate to say that Apple doesn't *accomodate* open-source licenses (particularly GPL it would seem.) But Microsoft does. That's still noteworthy."
Define "accommodate". The only issue it seems is that it's not possible to load a re-linked executable onto a device with a developer account. Besides that, on iOS, Apple does nothing to stop open source distribution. You're free to distribute source, and you can distribute your executable unsigned outside of the app store (leaving the user to sign it.)
If we want to compare apples to apples (pun not intended), the Mac App Store let's you dynamically link against libraries, sidestepping this completely and making app store apps both fully compatible with GPLv2 and open source.
Open source licenses themselves restrict distribution in Apple's store. See VLC for iOS. Apple had no problem distributing it on the app store. It was developer infighting about licensing that resulted in VLC themselves making the request to take it down.
Great. Root it. Apple isn't denying you being able to root your tablet. They're simplying not supporting rooted tablets, which seems pretty damn fair, all things considered.
"But don't expect an iPad experience for Fire prices. It won't happen."
Why exactly? The Fire seems to have more powerful hardware than the first generation iPad. It arguably should be able to provide a better experience than Apple's 1st gen experience.
"I am very happy about not being tied to iTunes either. There's only one iPod left in the house, and it's a nightmare of support when she has problems."
Modern iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches are not tied to iTunes either. You can use them entirely indecently of iTunes or machine syncing, including setup.
"The problem that I have with all the new GUIs that are coming out it seems like it's all just change for the sake of change."
It's really for the sake of touch. Touch based input has a far less accurate hit area, resulting in all the buttons needing to be larger. In addition, notions like mouse over and right click don't really work on touch based devices, requiring new UIs.
The real problems seem to happen when developers try to force a UI designed for touch on mouse users (like Windows 8.) Windows 8 brings the frustrating touch UI of their handhelds to the desktop, while bringing the non touch optimized frustrating desktop applications back to the mobile users. Everyone loses. Except Microsoft.
"Why the hell would iToonz require a system reboot?"
It doesn't. As a developer, I'd remember if I had to restart for my weekly iTunes beta upgrade.
Making the OP possible troll bait.
Re:That didn't take too long to fail
on
iOS 5 Update Available
·
· Score: 5, Informative
"That's right, the Apple official way to restart a crashed iDevice is to let the battery drain. I'd link to the article, but their support site is down."
Or you could use the official method of holding down both the home and lock button until it restarts. It'll even restart a crashed device.
On the Mac, Apple makes no such restrictions. The developer tools are free, and you can load any app you want on your machine. The $99 Mac membership is only for some special perks like having Apple engineers review your code, and WWDC session videos. This makes Windows 8 far more locked down than OS X.
Windows Mobile 7, Metro on ARM, and iOS are even. They all require MS/Apple to sign off on the app.
While I like this idea, doesn't it cause problems with first to file?
I just imagine a scenario where a university discovers something, doesn't file a patent, and megacorp comes along and patents it. With first to file, Megacorp gets the patent.
Maybe there's something I'm missing, but to me it would seem better that the university file the patent, but not be able to enforce it.
It had the iPhone 4 design, it was just put inside an iPhone 3 external shell. Remove the shell around the outside, and you've got an iPhone 4 case with external antenna design.
This is exactly why Gizmodo bought it to begin with. The person who picked it up realized that it wasn't really an iPhone 3GS, it was a different phone hiding in a 3GS shell. Otherwise, why would anyone have any interest in something that looked like a 3GS?
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't even have a Mac and I know how to do it."
Which explains why you don't know that FileVault or a firmware password (both recommended by Apple for secure machines) blocks this.
"With this said, if you honestly parse the OP's post, look at the structure, language, word choice and links, not to mention the timing of it's posting, and consider modern marketing techniques as they pertain to blogs and social networks, it seems to be at least a reasonable to at least suspect that the author has either professional or monetary ties to Apple, or that he is a true Holy Warrior for The One True Platform."
Huh? This sort of response is the sort of thing that hurts actual debate.
"Your point seems valid and I agree with it on principle, however without any solid evidence I'm going to accuse you of being a corporate shill using immature labeling, and disregard everything you've said."
I mean, seriously, I could copy paste what you said right back at you and accuse you of working for Google.
""Proper" Cisco VPN support (i.e. with group usernames and passwords) was added in 4.0 (Ice-Cream Sandwich) and works very well indeed. Be aware that there appears to be a bug in 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 on the GSM Galaxy Nexus which cause it to reboot as soon as you pass data over a VPN, connected via 3G...wifi works fine."
You say "works very well." I don't think it means what you think it means.
Because Apple has a process to fast track approvals if there is a serious bug.
But again, if there is a bug so severe that everything is going to hell unless it's fixed in 24-48 hours (current approval time), you've got bigger problems. XBox Live has way longer approval times, yet somehow things aren't falling apart on the 360 either.
"With Android, most non-game development is done in Java. A language many people know. With iOS, development is done in Objective C, a language that is not used outside of Apple-world anywhere near as much as Java. Objective C seems obscure to me"
The more and more people who take up iPhone programming, the less and less obscure Objective C grows. This argument is beginning to wear thin, especially with numbers like this:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
"I have some written code at one time or another in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Common Lisp, Basic, PHP and probably some languages I'm forgetting, but have never had cause to use Objective C."
Then learning another language should honestly not be that big of a deal. Java was based on Obj-C. It's not like they're worlds apart. They're pretty much the same once you get used to the brackets. Memory is even automatically managed these days. (And if you already know C, you really should not be complaining at all.)
"We only know that IDevices are usually used by total retards that can be tricked into giving all their money to *everything*."
Oh trust me. The feeling is mutual.
"Which imaginary developers are these that thing the hassle and expense of XCode and iOS programming is better than the free one-file setup of Eclipse and Android programming?"
Developers that are making enough money to afford such things because iOS development pays better. (RTFA.)
"It also took significantly (over a month) longer to get setup with an Apple developer account and the requirements in terms of legal documents are significant, to the point that my company had to go to the office of our Secretary of State to get some documents filed that we hadn't needed in more than 20 years of existence."
All Apple requires is documentation that your business exists. If you had to go through that much trouble to find such documentation, I'd say you have bigger issues.
This sounds like an argument for thoroughly testing your software and not releasing with bugs.
Game developers have had similar issues on other platforms. It used to be that when you released on a cartridge you actually had to do good work the first time. You can't patch a cartridge in the wild. With internet connected consoles, the problem has been getting worse and worse. It used to be that when you bought a game at launch it was solid. Now you're pretty much guaranteed to get something extremely buggy until the first few patches, assuming you actually get the whole game and the developers haven't decided to favor an early release and just update the game with more content later, leaving you with a pretty threadbare experience.
So if your complaint is that Apple makes things difficult if you don't write good code the first time, maybe the problem isn't with Apple. Heck, your description just made Apple's system sound much better to me. Why would I want to buy buggy games?
A few things here. We're talking about the Windows 8 store. Mac OS X lets you run unsigned code perfectly fine. If we want to talk about mobile, Microsoft also does not allow for unsigned code.
Second, if the user can resign the code with a developer cert, they can run it on their device.
"Okay, so it is more accurate to say that Apple doesn't *accomodate* open-source licenses (particularly GPL it would seem.) But Microsoft does. That's still noteworthy."
Define "accommodate". The only issue it seems is that it's not possible to load a re-linked executable onto a device with a developer account. Besides that, on iOS, Apple does nothing to stop open source distribution. You're free to distribute source, and you can distribute your executable unsigned outside of the app store (leaving the user to sign it.)
If we want to compare apples to apples (pun not intended), the Mac App Store let's you dynamically link against libraries, sidestepping this completely and making app store apps both fully compatible with GPLv2 and open source.
Open source licenses themselves restrict distribution in Apple's store. See VLC for iOS. Apple had no problem distributing it on the app store. It was developer infighting about licensing that resulted in VLC themselves making the request to take it down.
Great. Root it. Apple isn't denying you being able to root your tablet. They're simplying not supporting rooted tablets, which seems pretty damn fair, all things considered.
"But don't expect an iPad experience for Fire prices. It won't happen."
Why exactly? The Fire seems to have more powerful hardware than the first generation iPad. It arguably should be able to provide a better experience than Apple's 1st gen experience.
"I am very happy about not being tied to iTunes either. There's only one iPod left in the house, and it's a nightmare of support when she has problems."
Modern iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches are not tied to iTunes either. You can use them entirely indecently of iTunes or machine syncing, including setup.
"The problem that I have with all the new GUIs that are coming out it seems like it's all just change for the sake of change."
It's really for the sake of touch. Touch based input has a far less accurate hit area, resulting in all the buttons needing to be larger. In addition, notions like mouse over and right click don't really work on touch based devices, requiring new UIs.
The real problems seem to happen when developers try to force a UI designed for touch on mouse users (like Windows 8.) Windows 8 brings the frustrating touch UI of their handhelds to the desktop, while bringing the non touch optimized frustrating desktop applications back to the mobile users. Everyone loses. Except Microsoft.
"Can you honestly see this being used in an office environment?"
You're right. Nobody ever talks into phones in an office. /s
"Why the hell would iToonz require a system reboot?"
It doesn't. As a developer, I'd remember if I had to restart for my weekly iTunes beta upgrade.
Making the OP possible troll bait.
"That's right, the Apple official way to restart a crashed iDevice is to let the battery drain. I'd link to the article, but their support site is down."
Or you could use the official method of holding down both the home and lock button until it restarts. It'll even restart a crashed device.
"You can't put the OS on your own hardware..."
Yes, it's not like Apple released a set of optional tools to assist you in loading whatever OS you want on their Mac hardware. OH WAIT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp_(software)
I'm going to let you re-read my comment. I specifically said Mac, and then went on to say that for iPad, Apple does indeed control the flow of apps.
Windows 8 is a real computer and tablet OS, remember.
On the Mac, Apple makes no such restrictions. The developer tools are free, and you can load any app you want on your machine. The $99 Mac membership is only for some special perks like having Apple engineers review your code, and WWDC session videos. This makes Windows 8 far more locked down than OS X.
Windows Mobile 7, Metro on ARM, and iOS are even. They all require MS/Apple to sign off on the app.
Ahhhhh ok. This is the piece I was missing. Thanks!
While I like this idea, doesn't it cause problems with first to file?
I just imagine a scenario where a university discovers something, doesn't file a patent, and megacorp comes along and patents it. With first to file, Megacorp gets the patent.
Maybe there's something I'm missing, but to me it would seem better that the university file the patent, but not be able to enforce it.
It had the iPhone 4 design, it was just put inside an iPhone 3 external shell. Remove the shell around the outside, and you've got an iPhone 4 case with external antenna design.
This is exactly why Gizmodo bought it to begin with. The person who picked it up realized that it wasn't really an iPhone 3GS, it was a different phone hiding in a 3GS shell. Otherwise, why would anyone have any interest in something that looked like a 3GS?