I hate to point out the obvious, but no web site in existence does "retina" anyway. The only thing adding "retina support" to the browser would do is make a very high-DPI UI (I guess) surrounding a webpage designed to be viewed at the same DPI that every single other computer in existence uses.
You're not missing anything, really, and asking Firefox to waste resources on something that maybe a few percent of a percent of Firefox users can even use is just ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as the fact that apparently they ARE wasting resources on that (if it's in nightly builds). Firefox doesn't need "retinal support" until real computers and OSes support it.
Is it? If you read the actual article, Cuban's complaints seem to be that there are extra costs not included in that figure. Part of his problem is that they had to advertise for Facebook to drive people to their Facebook page in the first place. So there's already money invested which should be taken into consideration as part of the "cost per person."
He also points out that since it's variable and on a per-post basis, it's basically impossible for them to plan ahead - they can't say "OK, we're dedicating $100,000 this year to our Facebook budget" and then choose when and what to post based on that, as the price per post can change. He also seems to suggest that this actually increases the costs, as it adds a new layer of accounting for every post.
I find that second argument to be the most persuasive. If the cost per post really does change and budgeting really is impossible, then yes, that's definitely a problem and one that Facebook should fix. He seems to be OK with the idea of paying Facebook, but he wants the costs to be known ahead of time and paid up front, rather than on a per-post basis.
Cuban also appears to be betting that, since they have to advertise to get people to the Facebook page in the first place, he can advertise their Twitter feed and get people to follow that, instead. That way their upfront costs would remain the same, but they wouldn't have extra unexpected and unknowable costs in the future. I'm not sure I entirely believe this, but if he's right and it's their advertising that's driving people to their Facebook page and not Facebook as a platform itself, then why should he pay Facebook extra for the privilege of needing to advertise for them in the first place?
Of course, I suppose we'll only find out if he's right in a year or two, after he tries out moving to other platforms. I'm not so sure he is, but then again, I never "liked" any businesses on Facebook in the first place.
Since I just wound up looking this up, I might as well answer it: "yes" in giant air quotes.
"Digital copy" is a thing that comes with certain Blu-ray discs. It's really just a special download code that allows you to stream a low-quality version of the movie to a computer or mobile device.
And that's it.
So you can access your "digital copy" via iPad, because you're not really copying it off the Blu-ray, you're just streaming a low-quality version off the Internet.
So when you say "digital copy" you don't mean an actual digital copy, you mean a brand name thing that Blu-ray does. I suppose I should have guessed that since "digital copy" would apply to basically every thing a computer ever does and is a stupid term (as the movie on the Blu-ray disc is digital in the first place), but, in any case: pocket BLU
That took all of one second of Google to find. And then a bit more to determine that, yes, that's the official way to play supported "digital copy" Blu-ray discs on your Android device.
The fact that digital copies of movies works with it is even nicer, since I really prefer to have a digital copy as well. I'm betting an Android tablet isn't allowed to do that due to the DRM.
You're going to have to explain what the fuck you're talking about here, because I'll bet you're either wrong or are complaining that Android doesn't use Apple's DRM. Of course it doesn't, Apple won't even allow other companies to use rounded corners without suing.
But Android can play more media files than iOS can, simply because you can install things like VLC on Android - something that Apple won't allow you to do on iOS.
These days? Because if they did that, then people could record the shows, and skip the ads. And that would be terrible.
At least if you're a TV network who wants to milk the most ad money you possibly can. Don't forget, getting up to go to the bathroom during the commercials is theft.
Unfortunately the difference is in the diatric marks over the letter and Slashdot can't figure out how to deal with UTF-8 because they might have to look up the BIDI control characters, but basically "apple" and "evil" are both "malum" (but with a different sounding "a", I guess) in Latin.
It can also be traced to Greek mythology, but I like the idea of it being a bad Latin pun that everyone latched on to.
The only question is whether they can do anything with next years product releases (iPad 4 and iPhone 6)
The iPad 4 is already out. It launched with the iPad Mini. And, yes, it's a full-fledged new version over the 3rd generation iPad: new processor, new GPU, new camera, all that jazz.
I'm not surprised you missed it; the only people who really noticed are the butt-hurt Apple idiots who bought the 3rd generation iPad only to watch Apple drop support for it 6 months later.
Next year's iPad will be 5th generation, unless they pull some weird iPad 4S thing.
Before, the image above the apology was set up so it auto-sized to fill up the space until the browser view was 1600 pixels tall, at which point it stopped. (Mind you that you couldn't see the apology, the image knocking it off the bottom just stopped getting larger.)
Now, in order to see the apology without scrolling, your browser window needs to be 1700 pixels tall, and the image doesn't change size depending on the browser window size.
So, yes, it's an "improvement." Now NoScript doesn't make the apology visible.
Incidentally, they're just showing both ad campaigns they're running at the same time. On the US website, you either see the iPad Mini or the iPad 4th gen ad. On the UK, you always see both, so that the apology gets knocked off the bottom in nearly all use cases.
I'm really hoping that the judge will force them to make the apology "click-through" on every page they control and show in the UK after this bullshit.
You didn't read the article. They also list sales figures for the iPhone 5, which were something like less than a third the sales of the 4S. Which just kind of goes to show how big a dud the iPhone "5" really is.
Clearly, in order for the iPhone 5 to have 3Q sales, it had to have been released in Q3. Which it was.
You are mistaken. The iPhone 5 was released in Q3. That's why this includes the iPhone 5 in the sales figures it's comparing against the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
Face it, Apple fans, you're time has come. The iPhone is in decline, iOS 6 is an unmitigated disaster, and Android is going to reign supreme. The writing has always been on the wall, now it's finally coming to pass.
I do feel kind of bad for all the iPhone owners who are going to have to rebuy all their apps for Android in a few years, but - who am I kidding, no I don't.
Yes. Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on all their other sites. That's the determining factor for whether the resize code is used.
Wrong. They're showing both the 4th gen iPad and the iPad mini on the US page. I know, because I just accidentally double-opened the page while double-checking and got one of each.
But wait, it gets better. When I wrote my original post, it was based off seeing the iPad Mini ad. It looks like this. Note that there's plenty of room at the footer to place an apology.
The iPad version actually takes up more vertical space than the iPad mini version! It looks like this. This one kind of cuts off the footer.
So, yes, they're being flat-out asses here. The fact that the same iPad mini resize code runs on every international site is probably more a factor that Apple runs two versions of the site: for the US, and for "everyone else."
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
Oh, bullshit. Try this: go to Apple's US page (which is "apple.com" which I'm guessing will redirect in other countries, and apparently you can't just add/us/ to force it to stay in the US, so, you may have to pick a random country if you're actually in the UK) and compare it to the UK version of the page. Notice anything different?
You might not, if the browser isn't large enough, but I'm typing this on a 1920x1200 display with the browser sized to the maximum height. With that, on the US page, the entire page is visible, including the header. On the UK page, the content is sized off the bottom.
If you throw the page into Responsive Design View in Firefox (Ctrl-Shift-M) and start playing with the size, you'll notice that they explicitly designed the page to size the apology off the bottom. (Well, almost: they give up if you manage to get your browser view to be greater than 1600 pixels tall.)
That's not "using above the fold real estate," not when it's optimized to not display on anything less than 1600 pixels tall. That's called "being as asshole" at the least and, I expect, will turn into being called "found in contempt of court."
Why are they storing CCs plain text on the terminals.
They aren't. Well, maybe they aren't, but that's not the problem. The summary is very unclear, but the actual article explains that they were compromising the "PIN pads" and not the cash registers. (The PIN pad presumably being that little thing where you swipe your card, and then either sign it or enter your PIN.) Since those were compromised, even if they weren't storing the data in the register itself, the thieves had access to the data through the compromised PIN pad.
The question then becomes "how were these compromised" and it sounds like the hardware itself was modified, but the actual details are very vague.
Little more than a handy way to convey that they're using higher PPI IPS panels, because the average consumer knows nothing about what PPI or IPS happens to be.
You're wrong. Retina just means "high PPI," there's nothing that says "IPS." And given that it's only "Retina" if you hold it a certain distance from your eye, "high PPI" is kind of meaningless too. (I mean, my desktop is "retina" if I sit 10 feet from it!)
This thread has already answered the obvious question from Apple dropping Samsung: yes, their displays are going to be shit from now on because of that. Poetic justice.
Before anyone dismisses that as just a joke, it's literally true in iOS 6 if you use the new "Passbook" feature. Every time you pull up the lock screen with Passbook enabled, Passbook does a GPS fix and checks in with Apple to find out if it should display one of the little Passbook cards.
So, yeah. Apple really does know every time you're at Starbucks - if you use the Starbucks app and iOS 6's Passbook.
Oh, and note I said "lock screen," not "unlock the phone." Just pressing the "hold" button to display the lock screen checks in with Apple.
And when we talk to someone who has actually used them, their opinion is not adding anything to the conversation.
Really, the concept is clear: if all you're going to say is "I've used them, seemed fine to me" you're doing nothing to disprove the maps are terrible. Because you're not offering any evidence.
If you want to claim that maps that have been widely proven to be riddled with flaws are, in fact, "fine," you're going to have to provide something more than just "I used 'em for a few minutes, seemed OK to me."
Face it, the maps aren't fine. There's tons of proof - but really, I need to go no further than Tim Cook apologizing for pushing out maps that clearly weren't ready, or the iTunes App Store including "working map apps" as a "top category."
But go ahead, if you want to mindlessly defend maps that Apple themselves have admitted are useless at best, please provide specifics, like where you were and what you were doing with them. Anything less than that is basically trolling in the same way that claiming there's "no consensus on global warming" is trolling.
Way to miss the point, which was that first-hand reviews that have something nice to say should never be moderated "troll".
Oh, bullshit. Sorry, but a first hand review of "nu-uh, works great!" isn't a meaningful comment. It may not be a troll, but it's not adding anything to the conversation.
We all know Apple Maps are riddled with errors and flaws. We know this because they've been kind of extensively reported on and the flaws have been demonstrated.
Saying "nu-uh, maps are fine" is just trolling. They aren't fine. We know they're not fine. You're going to have to do a hell of a lot to demonstrate that they are when a ton of evidence has been provided that they aren't.
And then some guy comes along and says "you know, those apple maps are pretty good, if you, like, actually use them", which may be the only bit of actual first-hand knowledge offered in the entire thread.
The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data." So one guy got lucky with Apple Maps, good for him. There have been a ton of stories - with examples - demonstrating just how large a disaster Apple Maps have been.
You're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than "[i]t's all media hype, b/c some neighborhood names in San Francisco were not the most popular names" to demonstrate that Apple Maps are anything other than a disaster.
There are stories of towns entirely missing off the maps, streets that don't exist being on the maps, street addresses being on the wrong street, missing intersections, parks that don't exist, and so on. That's even before we get into search, which is even more of a joke. POIs in the wrong places, POIs that don't exist, missing POIs, POIs that do exist on the map but can't be found using the search, and so on.
Just because one guy managed to get lucky with Apple Maps (especially near where Apple is headquartered, and presumably where the most effort was spent in fixing the maps), doesn't mean they're not a complete disaster elsewhere. As I understand it, the maps are best in the US (while still being appallingly bad) and a complete joke everywhere else.
It's going to take a lot more than one person saying "no, not really" to disprove that. Especially given the large number of screenshots demonstrating errors in Apple Maps.
TeleAtlas isn't to blame for most of the iPhone Maps app problems I've heard about. You can blame the map provider if a road is missing or mislabled, or an address is down the street, but that's about it.
I could have sworn most of the iOS map problems were stuff like mislabeled streets and misplaced POI items. Stuff like towns entirely missing from the maps, or the inclusion of roads that don't exist in the map, or features that simply don't exist being shown (such as an entire town being drawn as a park).
I don't have much experience with Apple Maps, having only "used" the navigation feature once. It did give directions that went past where we were actually going, so that was OK - but it decided that not only was the destination address on the wrong side of the road, it was about a block up from where it really was.
So maybe the POI search is horrible too, I've never used it. (Although I have seen screenshots of someone searching for "Apple Store" with the map centered on an Apple Store and the app failing to find it.) But there are definitely more issues than just POIs being hard to find or placed wrong - the maps are just flat-out bad in many cases.
Except in this case, regulation is the problem. This problem didn't exist back in the dial-up days. Some 15 years ago, there was a choice of like twenty different ISPs in the area, including some that were "free" and ad-supported.
Now, there's a choice between two: Verizon and Comcast.
Why just those two? Why does no one else compete with them? Because they're legally forbidden from competing with them.
Of course, it no longer matters. Because Comcast and Verizon are the big players, even if the regulation preventing anyone else for competing was lifted, no one else could possibly compete anyway. If they tried, Comcast and Verizon would just lower prices to undercut the newcomer. (Hell, Comcast and Verizon already try and undercut each other in a similar way by offering "introductory pricing." First year, you can get like 75% off your bill! Then the price skyrockets...)
So - yes, now the only solution is regulation. But that's not a failing of the free market, that's a failing of the original regulation that created the current oligopoly in the first place!
If he isn't just trolling about Windows, and instead does want to make a point about the "value of being able to install your own software", why is there an official Minecraft client for iOS?
Hell, there's also a version for Xbox 360.
Clearly, Notch has no problems releasing Minecraft on a Microsoft platform that restricts your ability to freely release software.
That and I highly doubt this has anything to do with problems with the Windows 8 platform and much more to do with the fact that Minecraft is written in Java, and therefore would have to be ported to "something else" in order to meet the game store requirements.
Of course, astute Minecraft fans would know that the game already has been ported to "something else" multiple times in order to make the Xbox 360 and iOS releases. So presumably, if Notch didn't want to be an ass, he could just make the Xbox 360 version the "official" version and port that back to Windows and - presto, he'd have a Windows 8 game store capable version, right there.
But that would involve not being a drama whore. And would probably improve the game experience by not requiring his users to install a giant security hole just to play the game.
So you really do have to either have backed up your old copy of Xcode OR download the entire old version (1.84GB!). I was really hoping to avoid having to do that. Oh well.
(And I really do have to do that, since one of the libraries our app uses requires iOS 5.1 and doesn't compile on iOS 6.)
Slashdot Mirror
So what?
I hate to point out the obvious, but no web site in existence does "retina" anyway. The only thing adding "retina support" to the browser would do is make a very high-DPI UI (I guess) surrounding a webpage designed to be viewed at the same DPI that every single other computer in existence uses.
You're not missing anything, really, and asking Firefox to waste resources on something that maybe a few percent of a percent of Firefox users can even use is just ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as the fact that apparently they ARE wasting resources on that (if it's in nightly builds). Firefox doesn't need "retinal support" until real computers and OSes support it.
.3 cents per person is really pretty cheap.
Is it? If you read the actual article, Cuban's complaints seem to be that there are extra costs not included in that figure. Part of his problem is that they had to advertise for Facebook to drive people to their Facebook page in the first place. So there's already money invested which should be taken into consideration as part of the "cost per person."
He also points out that since it's variable and on a per-post basis, it's basically impossible for them to plan ahead - they can't say "OK, we're dedicating $100,000 this year to our Facebook budget" and then choose when and what to post based on that, as the price per post can change. He also seems to suggest that this actually increases the costs, as it adds a new layer of accounting for every post.
I find that second argument to be the most persuasive. If the cost per post really does change and budgeting really is impossible, then yes, that's definitely a problem and one that Facebook should fix. He seems to be OK with the idea of paying Facebook, but he wants the costs to be known ahead of time and paid up front, rather than on a per-post basis.
Cuban also appears to be betting that, since they have to advertise to get people to the Facebook page in the first place, he can advertise their Twitter feed and get people to follow that, instead. That way their upfront costs would remain the same, but they wouldn't have extra unexpected and unknowable costs in the future. I'm not sure I entirely believe this, but if he's right and it's their advertising that's driving people to their Facebook page and not Facebook as a platform itself, then why should he pay Facebook extra for the privilege of needing to advertise for them in the first place?
Of course, I suppose we'll only find out if he's right in a year or two, after he tries out moving to other platforms. I'm not so sure he is, but then again, I never "liked" any businesses on Facebook in the first place.
Since I just wound up looking this up, I might as well answer it: "yes" in giant air quotes.
"Digital copy" is a thing that comes with certain Blu-ray discs. It's really just a special download code that allows you to stream a low-quality version of the movie to a computer or mobile device.
And that's it.
So you can access your "digital copy" via iPad, because you're not really copying it off the Blu-ray, you're just streaming a low-quality version off the Internet.
Oh, I have an iPhone. I'll never get to experience this.
Sure you will. Man up and buy a real smartphone.
They're cheaper than the iPhone, so why didn't you just buy a real phone to begin with?
So when you say "digital copy" you don't mean an actual digital copy, you mean a brand name thing that Blu-ray does. I suppose I should have guessed that since "digital copy" would apply to basically every thing a computer ever does and is a stupid term (as the movie on the Blu-ray disc is digital in the first place), but, in any case: pocket BLU
That took all of one second of Google to find. And then a bit more to determine that, yes, that's the official way to play supported "digital copy" Blu-ray discs on your Android device.
The fact that digital copies of movies works with it is even nicer, since I really prefer to have a digital copy as well. I'm betting an Android tablet isn't allowed to do that due to the DRM.
You're going to have to explain what the fuck you're talking about here, because I'll bet you're either wrong or are complaining that Android doesn't use Apple's DRM. Of course it doesn't, Apple won't even allow other companies to use rounded corners without suing.
But Android can play more media files than iOS can, simply because you can install things like VLC on Android - something that Apple won't allow you to do on iOS.
These days? Because if they did that, then people could record the shows, and skip the ads. And that would be terrible.
At least if you're a TV network who wants to milk the most ad money you possibly can. Don't forget, getting up to go to the bathroom during the commercials is theft.
Although there is a reason that apples are identified as that fruit: it's a horrible Latin pun.
Unfortunately the difference is in the diatric marks over the letter and Slashdot can't figure out how to deal with UTF-8 because they might have to look up the BIDI control characters, but basically "apple" and "evil" are both "malum" (but with a different sounding "a", I guess) in Latin.
It can also be traced to Greek mythology, but I like the idea of it being a bad Latin pun that everyone latched on to.
The only question is whether they can do anything with next years product releases (iPad 4 and iPhone 6)
The iPad 4 is already out. It launched with the iPad Mini. And, yes, it's a full-fledged new version over the 3rd generation iPad: new processor, new GPU, new camera, all that jazz.
I'm not surprised you missed it; the only people who really noticed are the butt-hurt Apple idiots who bought the 3rd generation iPad only to watch Apple drop support for it 6 months later.
Next year's iPad will be 5th generation, unless they pull some weird iPad 4S thing.
Before, the image above the apology was set up so it auto-sized to fill up the space until the browser view was 1600 pixels tall, at which point it stopped. (Mind you that you couldn't see the apology, the image knocking it off the bottom just stopped getting larger.)
Now, in order to see the apology without scrolling, your browser window needs to be 1700 pixels tall, and the image doesn't change size depending on the browser window size.
So, yes, it's an "improvement." Now NoScript doesn't make the apology visible.
Incidentally, they're just showing both ad campaigns they're running at the same time. On the US website, you either see the iPad Mini or the iPad 4th gen ad. On the UK, you always see both, so that the apology gets knocked off the bottom in nearly all use cases.
I'm really hoping that the judge will force them to make the apology "click-through" on every page they control and show in the UK after this bullshit.
You didn't read the article. They also list sales figures for the iPhone 5, which were something like less than a third the sales of the 4S. Which just kind of goes to show how big a dud the iPhone "5" really is.
Clearly, in order for the iPhone 5 to have 3Q sales, it had to have been released in Q3. Which it was.
You are mistaken. The iPhone 5 was released in Q3. That's why this includes the iPhone 5 in the sales figures it's comparing against the Samsung Galaxy SIII.
Face it, Apple fans, you're time has come. The iPhone is in decline, iOS 6 is an unmitigated disaster, and Android is going to reign supreme. The writing has always been on the wall, now it's finally coming to pass.
I do feel kind of bad for all the iPhone owners who are going to have to rebuy all their apps for Android in a few years, but - who am I kidding, no I don't.
Yes. Apple are pushing the fourth generation iPad on their USA site and the iPad mini on all their other sites. That's the determining factor for whether the resize code is used.
Wrong. They're showing both the 4th gen iPad and the iPad mini on the US page. I know, because I just accidentally double-opened the page while double-checking and got one of each.
But wait, it gets better. When I wrote my original post, it was based off seeing the iPad Mini ad. It looks like this. Note that there's plenty of room at the footer to place an apology.
The iPad version actually takes up more vertical space than the iPad mini version! It looks like this. This one kind of cuts off the footer.
So, yes, they're being flat-out asses here. The fact that the same iPad mini resize code runs on every international site is probably more a factor that Apple runs two versions of the site: for the US, and for "everyone else."
How is this contempt? The message isn't hidden, it's right there on the page. The fact that they optimise the page so that their product shot makes the most of the above-the-fold real estate is not removing it from the page in any way, it's just good design.
Oh, bullshit. Try this: go to Apple's US page (which is "apple.com" which I'm guessing will redirect in other countries, and apparently you can't just add /us/ to force it to stay in the US, so, you may have to pick a random country if you're actually in the UK) and compare it to the UK version of the page. Notice anything different?
You might not, if the browser isn't large enough, but I'm typing this on a 1920x1200 display with the browser sized to the maximum height. With that, on the US page, the entire page is visible, including the header. On the UK page, the content is sized off the bottom.
If you throw the page into Responsive Design View in Firefox (Ctrl-Shift-M) and start playing with the size, you'll notice that they explicitly designed the page to size the apology off the bottom. (Well, almost: they give up if you manage to get your browser view to be greater than 1600 pixels tall.)
That's not "using above the fold real estate," not when it's optimized to not display on anything less than 1600 pixels tall. That's called "being as asshole" at the least and, I expect, will turn into being called "found in contempt of court."
Why are they storing CCs plain text on the terminals.
They aren't. Well, maybe they aren't, but that's not the problem. The summary is very unclear, but the actual article explains that they were compromising the "PIN pads" and not the cash registers. (The PIN pad presumably being that little thing where you swipe your card, and then either sign it or enter your PIN.) Since those were compromised, even if they weren't storing the data in the register itself, the thieves had access to the data through the compromised PIN pad.
The question then becomes "how were these compromised" and it sounds like the hardware itself was modified, but the actual details are very vague.
Little more than a handy way to convey that they're using higher PPI IPS panels, because the average consumer knows nothing about what PPI or IPS happens to be.
You're wrong. Retina just means "high PPI," there's nothing that says "IPS." And given that it's only "Retina" if you hold it a certain distance from your eye, "high PPI" is kind of meaningless too. (I mean, my desktop is "retina" if I sit 10 feet from it!)
This thread has already answered the obvious question from Apple dropping Samsung: yes, their displays are going to be shit from now on because of that. Poetic justice.
Before anyone dismisses that as just a joke, it's literally true in iOS 6 if you use the new "Passbook" feature. Every time you pull up the lock screen with Passbook enabled, Passbook does a GPS fix and checks in with Apple to find out if it should display one of the little Passbook cards.
So, yeah. Apple really does know every time you're at Starbucks - if you use the Starbucks app and iOS 6's Passbook.
Oh, and note I said "lock screen," not "unlock the phone." Just pressing the "hold" button to display the lock screen checks in with Apple.
And when we talk to someone who has actually used them, their opinion is not adding anything to the conversation.
Really, the concept is clear: if all you're going to say is "I've used them, seemed fine to me" you're doing nothing to disprove the maps are terrible. Because you're not offering any evidence.
If you want to claim that maps that have been widely proven to be riddled with flaws are, in fact, "fine," you're going to have to provide something more than just "I used 'em for a few minutes, seemed OK to me."
Face it, the maps aren't fine. There's tons of proof - but really, I need to go no further than Tim Cook apologizing for pushing out maps that clearly weren't ready, or the iTunes App Store including "working map apps" as a "top category."
But go ahead, if you want to mindlessly defend maps that Apple themselves have admitted are useless at best, please provide specifics, like where you were and what you were doing with them. Anything less than that is basically trolling in the same way that claiming there's "no consensus on global warming" is trolling.
Way to miss the point, which was that first-hand reviews that have something nice to say should never be moderated "troll".
Oh, bullshit. Sorry, but a first hand review of "nu-uh, works great!" isn't a meaningful comment. It may not be a troll, but it's not adding anything to the conversation.
We all know Apple Maps are riddled with errors and flaws. We know this because they've been kind of extensively reported on and the flaws have been demonstrated.
Saying "nu-uh, maps are fine" is just trolling. They aren't fine. We know they're not fine. You're going to have to do a hell of a lot to demonstrate that they are when a ton of evidence has been provided that they aren't.
And then some guy comes along and says "you know, those apple maps are pretty good, if you, like, actually use them", which may be the only bit of actual first-hand knowledge offered in the entire thread.
The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data." So one guy got lucky with Apple Maps, good for him. There have been a ton of stories - with examples - demonstrating just how large a disaster Apple Maps have been.
You're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than "[i]t's all media hype, b/c some neighborhood names in San Francisco were not the most popular names" to demonstrate that Apple Maps are anything other than a disaster.
There are stories of towns entirely missing off the maps, streets that don't exist being on the maps, street addresses being on the wrong street, missing intersections, parks that don't exist, and so on. That's even before we get into search, which is even more of a joke. POIs in the wrong places, POIs that don't exist, missing POIs, POIs that do exist on the map but can't be found using the search, and so on.
Just because one guy managed to get lucky with Apple Maps (especially near where Apple is headquartered, and presumably where the most effort was spent in fixing the maps), doesn't mean they're not a complete disaster elsewhere. As I understand it, the maps are best in the US (while still being appallingly bad) and a complete joke everywhere else.
It's going to take a lot more than one person saying "no, not really" to disprove that. Especially given the large number of screenshots demonstrating errors in Apple Maps.
TeleAtlas isn't to blame for most of the iPhone Maps app problems I've heard about. You can blame the map provider if a road is missing or mislabled, or an address is down the street, but that's about it.
I could have sworn most of the iOS map problems were stuff like mislabeled streets and misplaced POI items. Stuff like towns entirely missing from the maps, or the inclusion of roads that don't exist in the map, or features that simply don't exist being shown (such as an entire town being drawn as a park).
I don't have much experience with Apple Maps, having only "used" the navigation feature once. It did give directions that went past where we were actually going, so that was OK - but it decided that not only was the destination address on the wrong side of the road, it was about a block up from where it really was.
So maybe the POI search is horrible too, I've never used it. (Although I have seen screenshots of someone searching for "Apple Store" with the map centered on an Apple Store and the app failing to find it.) But there are definitely more issues than just POIs being hard to find or placed wrong - the maps are just flat-out bad in many cases.
Except in this case, regulation is the problem. This problem didn't exist back in the dial-up days. Some 15 years ago, there was a choice of like twenty different ISPs in the area, including some that were "free" and ad-supported.
Now, there's a choice between two: Verizon and Comcast.
Why just those two? Why does no one else compete with them? Because they're legally forbidden from competing with them.
Of course, it no longer matters. Because Comcast and Verizon are the big players, even if the regulation preventing anyone else for competing was lifted, no one else could possibly compete anyway. If they tried, Comcast and Verizon would just lower prices to undercut the newcomer. (Hell, Comcast and Verizon already try and undercut each other in a similar way by offering "introductory pricing." First year, you can get like 75% off your bill! Then the price skyrockets...)
So - yes, now the only solution is regulation. But that's not a failing of the free market, that's a failing of the original regulation that created the current oligopoly in the first place!
If he isn't just trolling about Windows, and instead does want to make a point about the "value of being able to install your own software", why is there an official Minecraft client for iOS?
Hell, there's also a version for Xbox 360.
Clearly, Notch has no problems releasing Minecraft on a Microsoft platform that restricts your ability to freely release software.
That and I highly doubt this has anything to do with problems with the Windows 8 platform and much more to do with the fact that Minecraft is written in Java, and therefore would have to be ported to "something else" in order to meet the game store requirements.
Of course, astute Minecraft fans would know that the game already has been ported to "something else" multiple times in order to make the Xbox 360 and iOS releases. So presumably, if Notch didn't want to be an ass, he could just make the Xbox 360 version the "official" version and port that back to Windows and - presto, he'd have a Windows 8 game store capable version, right there.
But that would involve not being a drama whore. And would probably improve the game experience by not requiring his users to install a giant security hole just to play the game.
So you really do have to either have backed up your old copy of Xcode OR download the entire old version (1.84GB!). I was really hoping to avoid having to do that. Oh well.
(And I really do have to do that, since one of the libraries our app uses requires iOS 5.1 and doesn't compile on iOS 6.)