Hey, at least Best Buy didn't get into "audio perfect" power strips... Monster cables are a scam, but they are one of the cheaper "look how much money you can spend on apparent increases in audio quality" scams out there.:)
It's somewhat creepy watching one of these things in operation, by the way. The wheels keep moving in apparent forward rolling motion, but the thing just scuttles sideways.
But you'd need a pretty refined sense of balance and good motor control to use it. People with neurological disorders and the elderly, in general, are not going to have the fine motor control to keep from smashing into other people, and turning them into potential customers... oh, wait, I think I just figured out their business model.
When rolling down a 1/2 mile steep hill, I've managed to get my $250 hybrid bike up to 39MPH. Can't QUITE break 40, but 39 is with the whole frame shuddering and wobbling in a pretty frakkin scary way anyway, so I've never dared push it any further. I'm also carrying about 20 pounds of gear (change of clothes, computer, etc). A "real" $1200 unladen road bike would probably bust 45 fairly easily down the same hill, if you could find a cyclist stupid enough to try it.
If he spent an extra $100 on shoes, he might make 46, possibly even 47 if he dropped an extra $500 shoes made of mousefartium or whatever ultralight material is in vogue right now. (I use jogging sneakers and pedal baskets).
So, "max speed" of my bike (if I were selling it as a concept car) would be "around 50MPH", and the road bike would be "around 55MPH".
Your apparent accuracy obviously shows that your marketing skills need work.
Given that, this device probably really maxes out at about 2MPH, and that's for a Japanese citizen. Not known for excessive height. Put my 6'+ American frame on that bad boy, he's gonna have a more little trouble staying upright.:)
Now, overall, I like this idea if it could get up to about 10MPH, especially with as small as it folds. "But, wait," I hear you saying, "there are folding bicycles, too, and they have larger wheels and no need for a recharge! And they'll probably be 1/10 the cost of this thing!"
Which is great. Because it'll get the turf herders distracted by a whole new channel. One that I don't have to look at. Google will bring massive resources to bear destroying the spammers and turfers, the spammers and turfers will all put massive effort into spewing their seed into it, and all of that effort might make a few spammers too busy to try and hack my PHP-Nuke site for a week or so.
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPAM --- Though, I'd like to take a moment and lay some down some astroturf for NukeSentinel, because I spend a lot less time preventing damage to my site now... In fact, almost none.:)
You know, this just occurred to me. Google must know this. I wonder if this is a way to gather spam samples on a different channel to better isolate them, as part of upgrading their spam detection engines? Hmmm.....
Agreed, there are no signs yet. Which doesn't mean there isn't a threat. We can't say for sure at this point, but this doesn't feel like it to me, either.
If (and it's a pretty big IF) Google is going for "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" then they are still only in the "Embrace" phase. The "Embrace" phase is the most innocuous of all, and is impossible to differentiate from actually putting good product out in the marketplace for fun and commercial gain, in a very much "do no evil" way. Unless you start seeing internal memos or learning about Google's secret lair with frikkin sharks with frikkin laser beams, the "Embrace" phase is all goodness and light and fluffy bunnies and purring kittens all singing 'kumbaya' and giving warm fuzzies.
If they start adding Google-specific stuff to their Javascript engine (say, a fast and easy API to access Google Apps implemented directly in the engine) and encouraging people to use it, then I'll start to be suspicious. Because that's sneaking into the "Extend" part, and the next phase would be to drop support in other browsers for their plugin and only offer the "special sauce 2.0" in Chrome.
But, at the moment, they are making a standards-compliant Javascript engine and offering versions of it for various web browsers, yes?
Crucially, they don't have a development toolkit that builds Javascript that can ONLY be run on "Frame", right? If you see that, then it's the First Sign. Then, and only then, would it be time to start stockpiling food and ammo to survive the potential upcoming Javascript Apocalypse.:)
First, I'd wonder about the claim that they own that much of the marketplace. Everything available from the iTunes store is also available on other channels, yes? In formats that are compatible with both Apple and Palm, not to mention everything else? Even if Apple accounted for 75% of music sales, much less 75% of MP3 music sales, all music is readily available through other channels. You don't have to buy music through Apple, hence no monopoly.
This is unlike, say, Microsoft, where it's the only place you can buy Windows or Office.
Second, they didn't block a competitor from much of anything, except convenience. You can still export your iTunes music and use it, it just takes extra steps. They didn't "block" the Pre from using MP3 or any other format.
Third, "fair" has nothing to do with the argument. "Wise" does, and I think Apple was unwise to do this, but Apple wrote iTunes and gives it away for free. If they choose to dictate what devices it talks to, well, you can always get your money back.
And, finally, Apple had no reason to sue Palm. In fact, they had no justification for doing so. This was not a court-worthy case. Apple discovered that Palm was taking advantage of what Apple considered a "hole" in their application do do something Apple did not want done. The only recourse, if they had a problem, was to close the hole. Done.
I don't think this was a good move on Apple's part, but Palm should never have built an entire new ecosystem of devices dependent upon a competitor's software to work anyway. Apple is within their rights to deny Palm the right to use their software.
Palm needs to enable mass-media support and call this one done. That would enable almost every media player under the sun to sync with them.
Hmm. I'd say that was genius, but I'm supposed to hate Macs since I use Windows *and* Linux.;)
Seriously, I'd be OK with it being in the Tools menu in Linux, which is really where it belongs. Having it in Edit is just asinine.
But I do really like the "application name" menu idea, that would contain things that could be considered specific to the application like preferences, etc.
Curiosity strikes: Is there a consistent shortcut key for pulling up the "application name" menu in Mac? In Win/Lin, you can hold the ALT key and tap the underlined letter of any menu to open the menu without resorting to mouse use. Or just tap the ALT key and it'll open the first menu.
{{Grasshopper, I too go for hours in Word without without using the mouse, and much prefer keyboard commands to menu picks. Please don't stereotype someone you've never met -- it's nekulturny, and beneath you.}}
Apologies, I allowed a single opinion to define the person. My bad.
{{However, I defy you to explain the organization plan used to assign functions in the ribbon. It seems to be totally random.}}
Actually, I think my favorite menu gripe in Firefox is the "Options" menu option. It's like no other menu option in Firefox.
In Windows, it's part of the "Tools" menu. In Linux, it's part of the "Edit" menu. God only knows where it is on Mac. I don't have one. And to top it off, it also has no direct keyboard shortcut.
Additionally, unlike all the other options, it opens up a multitabbed dialog box. If you want to be consistent, it really should be a main menu of its own with submenus instead of tabs. That one screen controls just about everything, requires a good deal of mouse interaction, and just looks clumsy.
Keep in mind that this is (to me certainly, and I imagine to most) the SINGLE MOST USED menu option in Firefox. It's the only way (other than about:config) to change most of the settings in the browser. And yet it's in a different place depending on which OS you are running, and there's no keyboard shortcut to it.
If you are running Windows Vista or Windows Seven, there is no retraining involved in running the Ribbon. If I understand it correctly, that is what the OS itself uses, so you're just extending that same look, fit, and feel to an application within the OS.
In other words, no retraining required. The users who use this will already be used to the ribbon, and may require retraining to use a drop-down menu.
>>>I think you'll find that users burdened by the ribbon will perform their tasks significantly slower than those using the more efficient menu system.
More years ago than I'd care to admit, I would have said the same thing about replacing the perfectly good DOS-based WordPerfect ALT-key combinations with these kludgy-ass things that require that I grab a freaking MOUSE and drag a freaking ARROW to the top of the freaking SCREEN and click on a freaking MENU and pull it down and click a freaking SUBMENU to get to click a freaking OPTION to get something done that required two simple keypresses. A 1/2 second task at MOST now took a few seconds.
And, yet, we accept that massive loss in productivity because no one wants to spend an hour learning a few dozen fast shortcuts, and would rather waste cumulative days clicking on menus.
To this day, I cringe when I see someone in Word use their mouse to do a simple task. Using a mouse to turn Bold/Italics on and off is insane to me when CTRL-B/CTRL-I beckon. "Edit"/"Copy"? Hell, no. CTRL-C. "Edit"/"Paste"? CTRL-V. I can literally spend hours in Word without touching the mouse.
And yes, I understand and accept that those keyboard shortcuts were inconsistent and frequently non-obvious, and I'm not enough of a troglodyte that I think GUIs and menus are a BAD idea, only that we accepted a lot of sustained productivity loss by eliminating a relatively small amount of learning curve. I use menus on a daily basis, and appreciate that they are deeply useful for apps that I don't spend a lot of time in so I don't need to learn a new set of keyboard commands. I also remember the horror days of learning what should have been a simple new application in DOS, and learning its unique and special list of keyboard commands.
If/when the Ribbon is crammed down my throat by Corporate Desktop, I'll carp about it a bit, learn it, and move on. I'm just happy that most of my keyboard commands (now called "shortcuts") are still around and are largely the same as what I'm used to, at least for simple functions.
My point is that the ribbon to you is as stupid and time-wasting as the menus and encouraging mouse use in general are to me. It's all about what you are used to. I'm also an RPG programmer, and I don't mean "Role Playing Games". (grin)
And to the next generation of Windows users, the menu will probably seem just as archaic to them as the use of keyboard commands today does to you, and it'll waste a LOT less time than menus did when compared to keyboard commands.
Now get off my lawn. (see? I can learn new memes, I've only been a slashdotter for a month or so)
The whole stated purpose of this change is to make Firefox fit more with the UI of Windows Vista and Windows 7 when running in those environments. Not to change the UI because, hey, let's just change the UI for the hell of it.
While your circle/text menu system sounds cool, that would mean yet another UI that a newbie would have to learn and get used to. There's a whole generation of Windows users who are just starting out with Vista and Seven, and will be used to the shiny ribbon from the get-go, and anything different is going to look kludgy to them, and they'll go back to IE.
Maybe for those of us who remember how revolutionary the concept of adding actual menus was to WordStar under DOS, changing from our familiar menus seems scary, and the "dumbification" of the UI means it'll take longer to get less done. But, hey, the learning curve is shallower. And the real menus are an ALT key away. And I'm still on XP and Linux Mint, and have yet to see a screen of Vista or Seven other than screenshots - I'm too damned cheap to go out and replace a perfectly good operating system.
Overall, though, this makes sense. If you're going to develop software to run on an operating system, you might as well make it look like it was written for that OS, and has the same fit and feel as the native OS. When in Rome, light Roman candles. The XP version will look like it fits in XP, the Linux version will look like it fits in Linux, and the newer Windows OS versions will look like they fit there.
The Open Source community has come a long way from running GIMP and GAIM under GTK.
I imagine the warrant covered the premises, of which the Wii was most certainly a part. It would have no material effect on the submitted evidence, but it might be embarrassing enough to the police that the DA might want to take a pretty lenient plea bargain to keep the tape from being shown in the courtroom, because that lack of professionalism would speak volumes about character to a jury.
Plus, the cops can always say that they didn't understand this technical mumbo-jumbo and thought the drugs might be hidden INSIDE THE GAME, and that since the game was inside the house, so was the virtual environment within the game.:)
Yes, all crops cross-pollinate to an extent, but if you and your neighbor are both growing regular beets, that cross-pollination is not relevant. You are growing the same crop. If we're both growing regular beets, I really don't care where each bit of pollen came from.
Either that or you and your neighbor are growing vastly different crops and cross contamination is not an issue. His corn cannot cross-pollinate your beets. All is well.
GM foods are usually genetically compatible with their non-GM brethren, so suddenly cross-pollination becomes a new issue, because we are now cross-pollinating compatible but not identical plants.
Cross-pollination has always been there, but it's never really been an issue on the sheer scale it is now.
If your neighbor suddenly wants to grow sugar beets, and you happen to be downwind, you are forced to grow a percentage of your crop as sugar beets whether you like it or not.
Whatever plants ended up cross-pollinated will either be sugar beets, regular beets, or some hybrid blend of the two that lacks sufficiently desirable sugar levels to be sold as a sugar beet, and also doesn't taste enough like an ordinary beet. You, as the recipient of the cross-pollination, will have to hand-pick through your crop to determine which is which.
GM foods are based on their predecessors, but with new traits that are, by design, genetically dominant. So chances are you'll end up with more sugar beets or undesirable hybrids, and fewer of the beets you want to sell.
And if you save your seed from year to year, your seedstock will itself be based on cross-pollinated plants, so you'll find it harder and harder to keep the cross-pollinated plants out of your farm each year.
Alternatively, you have to switch to an entirely different crop that is not genetically compatible with sugar beets, or start growing sugar beets yourself.
Now, if you find it desirable to grow sugar beets, this is good news. The cross-pollination will give you a free upgrade eventually. But if you want a supply of ordinary beets available, this is bad news - because sugar beets are engineered to be genetically dominant and therefore are basically the equivalent of an invasive species (maybe desirable, maybe not, but they will "win" eventually).
Apple had already written the support for various iPod models at various firmware releases. The functionality specific to a model and firmware version isn't going to change, because in order to change it Apple would need to change the iPod side of things as well.
If, for some reason, Apple decided to update the communication protocol on whatever older iPod hardware the Pre happened to be emulating, Palm would have to figure out the new protocol and support it eventually. But the old protocol would still be out there.
Apple can't change the protocol on iTunes without also changing it on the iPods. Which means the old protocol has to stay out there during the transition (possibly with an automatic notification that an upgrade is available). So the signature each iPod uses would change from (for example) "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.2.5" to "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.4.1". If a G1/1.2.5 unit tries to talk to iTunes, iTunes HAS to speak back to it in its native tongue, and anything claiming to be a G1/1.2.5 will be talked to in the same manner.
Otherwise, they'd have to upgrade the entire product line at the exact same time, or they'd be breaking compatibility with their own devices. This has nothing to do with maintaining Pre compatibility, it is all about maintaining genuine iPod compatibility.
So iTunes will talk to the Pre until Apple specifically stops supporting that model and firmware version of the genuine iPod, and at that point both a genuine (but not upgraded) iPod *and* the Pre will both get a "product not supported, firmware upgrade required" error.
The difference, of course, being that the genuine iPod can get a (probably free) firmware update from Apple and still work with iTunes. The Pre would need intervention from Palm, who would have to upgrade their compatibility to a model that iTunes still does support, with all the protocol changes that implies.
I agree that Palm *should* just go their own way and not be dependent upon Apple, but the Pre is zero effort on Apple's part. It's "unsupported" hardware.
Adding the "Vendor ID" to the signature WAS effort on Apple's part. Fortunately for them, it was only on the iTunes side, since the iPods were already sending Vendor ID anyway. And the only reason to do that is to intentionally break compatibility with non-Apple devices, because it didn't add a darned thing to the protocol for any device (or the devices would need an upgrade at the same time to support whatever the new feature is).
Which is within Apple's rights, but is more effort than just allowing Palm to get away it. Not a HUGE effort, true, but an effort.
Unless, of course, the farm that sells your warty diseased fruit happens to be downwind of a farm that makes pristine genetically-engineered food, in which case you get a free and unknowing upgrade to the superior product. Then the choice is gone because the GM crop has already wiped out the original seedstock of the non-GM crop or altered it significantly.
The issue is not that GM farms shouldn't have the right to sell GM foods. They should. The foods are arguably superior in many ways, and generally get better yields, resulting in more profit for the farmer and more foodcrop available for a hungry world. The vast majority of people are OK with GM foods. I chow down on them all the time and it has nothing to do with this facial twitch I've developed (grin).
The issue is that a GM farmer who introduces a new crop should also be obligated to take precautions to make sure they don't alter the crops of those farmers who DO NOT want to implement GM foods. If you live downwind of a GM farm and grow a similar crop, there's a darned good chance pollen will change the nature of your crop to something less desirable to you.
This is no more and no less than a pollution issue (cross-pollination being the pollution). If you want to grow GM, by all means, go for it. But don't plant it just on the other side of an open fence from someone who doesn't and is growing a similar crop. That's what the FDA rules are designed for - to assure that those who want the choice between GM and non-GM foods will continue to have that choice.
GM foods tend to be hardier, and in a non-GM farm would be basically an impossible-to-eradicate "invasive species". Once the invasion reached a certain point, the farmer would have no choice but to go GM, and eventually we'd run out of non-GM farms because the seedstock has all been contaminated.
Before: iTunes looks at what is plugged in and sees if it is an iPod (or CLAIMS to be one). Since the Pre is built to emulate an older iPod, iTunes would handle it exactly like a real iPod of the model and series it is emulating. Palm (rightly) used the Palm Vendor ID as part of that identification, and Apple ignored it. An iPod is an iPod, and if you claim to support a featureset iTunes would offer it to you. Apple isn't about to change the featureset of older iPods that are no longer available for sale, so Palm chose an older model iPod to "claim" to be, one with a minimal featureset they could easily emulate.
After: iTunes looks at what is plugged in and sees if it is an iPod *built by Apple* (ie. using Apple's USB Vendor ID). Since the Palm Pre is not currently set up to claim it is made by Apple, iTunes refuses to talk to it.
Apple is within their rights to make this change, no matter how unwise or unpopular that move might be.
Palm is NOT within their rights to use Apple's Vendor ID to "pretend" their device is an iPod made by Apple. Only Apple is authorized to use their own Vendor ID, under the terms of the USB policy board. Palm, if they go that route, will be violating their terms of contract with the USB-IF and may suffer penalties for it.
I think both companies are making a huge mistake, but the difference is that Apple has the right to make it.
Apple can't update the protocol on the iTunes (server) side without updating the protocol on the iPod (client) side as well, which would be a pretty significant undertaking. Palm probably chose an older iPod model to emulate. That way, Apple couldn't realistically change the protocol on them without pushing a firmware update to every iPod of that specific model. Apple added Vendor ID verification.
Before the update, iTunes was asking "What kind of device are you?" and the Pre was responding "I'm an iPod model XYZ, built by Palm." iTunes would then talk with it, because compatibility just meant compatibility and the version ID told iTunes what features were supported in that specific model.
Now, iTunes is asking "What kind of device are you?" and getting the same response, except iTunes is now validating the Vendor ID. So the "built by Palm" bit now gets a fail, because iTunes is now looking specifically for "I'm an iPod model XYZ, built by Apple" instead of just "I'm an iPod model XYZ".
For the record, I think it's well within Apple's rights to do this. I don't think it's a particularly smart move, but it's their software and their right. But they did do this, and it was obviously specifically to address the "Pre problem", since they warned that their updates might break compatibility with unsupported hardware just days before releasing, surprise surprise, an update that broke compatibility with unsupported hardware.
1. Could not agree more. My kingdom for some mod points, add some "Insightful" to that one.
2. Apple's actions are not and cannot be anti-competitive. Apple does not hold a monopoly on music stores, there is plenty of competition, including retail giant Amazon and just about every store on the planet that sells CDs.
I would argue that Apple's actions are STUPID, but they don't rise to the level of monopolistic. Not even close.
Palm needs to lick its wounds and move on - enable mass-media support and/or write a simple plugin for better apps like WinAmp in Windows and others in Linux and Mac. I don't know what other music management apps are available on Mac, but worst case a drag-and-drop copy ALWAYS works in mass-media mode (that's how I load music to my Blackberry, and I can do that from any platform I please that supports USB).
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, though frankly I don't think it is in Apple's best interests to block the Pre. The more people using Apple iTunes, the more potential revenue they have in song downloads, and get more people using iTunes with more of that good old face time with Apple's legendary user interfaces, meaning they might just convert a few people to Apple if they are suitably impressed by iTunes (not many, but probably a few).
But, regardless, it's Apples program and they get to decide how they want to write it.
However, from your post:
>>>All Apple is refusing to do for Palm is let them integrate Pre into the main iTunes application. That would require Apple to publish and maintain a plug-in API for iTunes which would cost Apple money. Why should they?
This isn't technically true. Apple doesn't have to write squat. Palm already did it for them, by programming the Pre to mimic an iPod/iPhone well enough to be recognized by iTunes. Apple didn't need to lift a finger.
Apple would have to (and has) has put effort into PREVENTING it, which has cost them money and effort.
I could see some really good press in this for Apple: "Our software is so good, even our COMPETITORS choose it for their devices! Aren't we shiny!"
Instead, Apple is spending money to prevent it, preventing Palm Pre users from seeing all the shiny goodness their UI designs have to offer, and getting bad press amongst non-Apple users. The Apple Faithful feel that this is good and righteous, but they'd also be able to feel good and righteous about iTunes being the choice of software for a competitor, so they wouldn't lose any smug points whatsoever.
I agree 100% that Apple has the absolute and utter right to block it, and Palm should have backed off when Apple asked them to stop. Palm should simply write a plugin for WinAmp or a much better music management app than iTunes, then moved on to support Linux and Mac through a plugin, or just enabled mass-media support and called it a day, because EVERYTHING can write to a mass-media USB drive.
Palm was stupid to build a dependency on iTunes, and kinda scummy for continuing it even when Apple asked them to stop.
But Apple put time, effort, and money into blocking it, and I fail to see any benefit whatsoever in their doing so.
Maine is dealing with the same issue in our lakes with Eurasian Milfoil. Once it establishes in a lake or slow-moving stream, it's pretty much over unless you put a LOT of work into ripping it out and a lot of nasty chemicals into controlling it.
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Hey, at least Best Buy didn't get into "audio perfect" power strips... Monster cables are a scam, but they are one of the cheaper "look how much money you can spend on apparent increases in audio quality" scams out there. :)
Sounds vaguely like a forklift I've seen on a couple of TV shows lately.
http://thefutureofthings.com/pod/279/sidewinder-sideways-moving-vehicle.html
It's somewhat creepy watching one of these things in operation, by the way. The wheels keep moving in apparent forward rolling motion, but the thing just scuttles sideways.
But you'd need a pretty refined sense of balance and good motor control to use it. People with neurological disorders and the elderly, in general, are not going to have the fine motor control to keep from smashing into other people, and turning them into potential customers... oh, wait, I think I just figured out their business model.
Somehow, I think this unit would not be able to carry the weight of the people who would use this.
When rolling down a 1/2 mile steep hill, I've managed to get my $250 hybrid bike up to 39MPH. Can't QUITE break 40, but 39 is with the whole frame shuddering and wobbling in a pretty frakkin scary way anyway, so I've never dared push it any further. I'm also carrying about 20 pounds of gear (change of clothes, computer, etc). A "real" $1200 unladen road bike would probably bust 45 fairly easily down the same hill, if you could find a cyclist stupid enough to try it.
If he spent an extra $100 on shoes, he might make 46, possibly even 47 if he dropped an extra $500 shoes made of mousefartium or whatever ultralight material is in vogue right now. (I use jogging sneakers and pedal baskets).
So, "max speed" of my bike (if I were selling it as a concept car) would be "around 50MPH", and the road bike would be "around 55MPH".
Your apparent accuracy obviously shows that your marketing skills need work.
Given that, this device probably really maxes out at about 2MPH, and that's for a Japanese citizen. Not known for excessive height. Put my 6'+ American frame on that bad boy, he's gonna have a more little trouble staying upright. :)
Now, overall, I like this idea if it could get up to about 10MPH, especially with as small as it folds. "But, wait," I hear you saying, "there are folding bicycles, too, and they have larger wheels and no need for a recharge! And they'll probably be 1/10 the cost of this thing!"
Oh, yeah, you're right. Never mind.
Which is great. Because it'll get the turf herders distracted by a whole new channel. One that I don't have to look at. Google will bring massive resources to bear destroying the spammers and turfers, the spammers and turfers will all put massive effort into spewing their seed into it, and all of that effort might make a few spammers too busy to try and hack my PHP-Nuke site for a week or so.
WARNING: POSSIBLE SPAM --- Though, I'd like to take a moment and lay some down some astroturf for NukeSentinel, because I spend a lot less time preventing damage to my site now... In fact, almost none. :)
You know, this just occurred to me. Google must know this. I wonder if this is a way to gather spam samples on a different channel to better isolate them, as part of upgrading their spam detection engines? Hmmm.....
Agreed, there are no signs yet. Which doesn't mean there isn't a threat. We can't say for sure at this point, but this doesn't feel like it to me, either.
If (and it's a pretty big IF) Google is going for "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" then they are still only in the "Embrace" phase. The "Embrace" phase is the most innocuous of all, and is impossible to differentiate from actually putting good product out in the marketplace for fun and commercial gain, in a very much "do no evil" way. Unless you start seeing internal memos or learning about Google's secret lair with frikkin sharks with frikkin laser beams, the "Embrace" phase is all goodness and light and fluffy bunnies and purring kittens all singing 'kumbaya' and giving warm fuzzies.
If they start adding Google-specific stuff to their Javascript engine (say, a fast and easy API to access Google Apps implemented directly in the engine) and encouraging people to use it, then I'll start to be suspicious. Because that's sneaking into the "Extend" part, and the next phase would be to drop support in other browsers for their plugin and only offer the "special sauce 2.0" in Chrome.
But, at the moment, they are making a standards-compliant Javascript engine and offering versions of it for various web browsers, yes?
Crucially, they don't have a development toolkit that builds Javascript that can ONLY be run on "Frame", right? If you see that, then it's the First Sign. Then, and only then, would it be time to start stockpiling food and ammo to survive the potential upcoming Javascript Apocalypse. :)
First, I'd wonder about the claim that they own that much of the marketplace. Everything available from the iTunes store is also available on other channels, yes? In formats that are compatible with both Apple and Palm, not to mention everything else? Even if Apple accounted for 75% of music sales, much less 75% of MP3 music sales, all music is readily available through other channels. You don't have to buy music through Apple, hence no monopoly.
This is unlike, say, Microsoft, where it's the only place you can buy Windows or Office.
Second, they didn't block a competitor from much of anything, except convenience. You can still export your iTunes music and use it, it just takes extra steps. They didn't "block" the Pre from using MP3 or any other format.
Third, "fair" has nothing to do with the argument. "Wise" does, and I think Apple was unwise to do this, but Apple wrote iTunes and gives it away for free. If they choose to dictate what devices it talks to, well, you can always get your money back.
And, finally, Apple had no reason to sue Palm. In fact, they had no justification for doing so. This was not a court-worthy case. Apple discovered that Palm was taking advantage of what Apple considered a "hole" in their application do do something Apple did not want done. The only recourse, if they had a problem, was to close the hole. Done.
I don't think this was a good move on Apple's part, but Palm should never have built an entire new ecosystem of devices dependent upon a competitor's software to work anyway. Apple is within their rights to deny Palm the right to use their software.
Palm needs to enable mass-media support and call this one done. That would enable almost every media player under the sun to sync with them.
Hmm. I'd say that was genius, but I'm supposed to hate Macs since I use Windows *and* Linux. ;)
Seriously, I'd be OK with it being in the Tools menu in Linux, which is really where it belongs. Having it in Edit is just asinine.
But I do really like the "application name" menu idea, that would contain things that could be considered specific to the application like preferences, etc.
Curiosity strikes: Is there a consistent shortcut key for pulling up the "application name" menu in Mac? In Win/Lin, you can hold the ALT key and tap the underlined letter of any menu to open the menu without resorting to mouse use. Or just tap the ALT key and it'll open the first menu.
{{Grasshopper, I too go for hours in Word without without using the mouse, and much prefer keyboard commands to menu picks. Please don't stereotype someone you've never met -- it's nekulturny, and beneath you.}}
Apologies, I allowed a single opinion to define the person. My bad.
{{However, I defy you to explain the organization plan used to assign functions in the ribbon. It seems to be totally random.}}
Seems you've already explained it pretty well. :)
Actually, I think my favorite menu gripe in Firefox is the "Options" menu option. It's like no other menu option in Firefox.
In Windows, it's part of the "Tools" menu.
In Linux, it's part of the "Edit" menu.
God only knows where it is on Mac. I don't have one.
And to top it off, it also has no direct keyboard shortcut.
Additionally, unlike all the other options, it opens up a multitabbed dialog box. If you want to be consistent, it really should be a main menu of its own with submenus instead of tabs. That one screen controls just about everything, requires a good deal of mouse interaction, and just looks clumsy.
Keep in mind that this is (to me certainly, and I imagine to most) the SINGLE MOST USED menu option in Firefox. It's the only way (other than about:config) to change most of the settings in the browser. And yet it's in a different place depending on which OS you are running, and there's no keyboard shortcut to it.
If you are running Windows Vista or Windows Seven, there is no retraining involved in running the Ribbon. If I understand it correctly, that is what the OS itself uses, so you're just extending that same look, fit, and feel to an application within the OS.
In other words, no retraining required. The users who use this will already be used to the ribbon, and may require retraining to use a drop-down menu.
>>>I think you'll find that users burdened by the ribbon will perform their tasks significantly slower than those using the more efficient menu system.
More years ago than I'd care to admit, I would have said the same thing about replacing the perfectly good DOS-based WordPerfect ALT-key combinations with these kludgy-ass things that require that I grab a freaking MOUSE and drag a freaking ARROW to the top of the freaking SCREEN and click on a freaking MENU and pull it down and click a freaking SUBMENU to get to click a freaking OPTION to get something done that required two simple keypresses. A 1/2 second task at MOST now took a few seconds.
And, yet, we accept that massive loss in productivity because no one wants to spend an hour learning a few dozen fast shortcuts, and would rather waste cumulative days clicking on menus.
To this day, I cringe when I see someone in Word use their mouse to do a simple task. Using a mouse to turn Bold/Italics on and off is insane to me when CTRL-B/CTRL-I beckon. "Edit"/"Copy"? Hell, no. CTRL-C. "Edit"/"Paste"? CTRL-V. I can literally spend hours in Word without touching the mouse.
And yes, I understand and accept that those keyboard shortcuts were inconsistent and frequently non-obvious, and I'm not enough of a troglodyte that I think GUIs and menus are a BAD idea, only that we accepted a lot of sustained productivity loss by eliminating a relatively small amount of learning curve. I use menus on a daily basis, and appreciate that they are deeply useful for apps that I don't spend a lot of time in so I don't need to learn a new set of keyboard commands. I also remember the horror days of learning what should have been a simple new application in DOS, and learning its unique and special list of keyboard commands.
If/when the Ribbon is crammed down my throat by Corporate Desktop, I'll carp about it a bit, learn it, and move on. I'm just happy that most of my keyboard commands (now called "shortcuts") are still around and are largely the same as what I'm used to, at least for simple functions.
My point is that the ribbon to you is as stupid and time-wasting as the menus and encouraging mouse use in general are to me. It's all about what you are used to. I'm also an RPG programmer, and I don't mean "Role Playing Games". (grin)
And to the next generation of Windows users, the menu will probably seem just as archaic to them as the use of keyboard commands today does to you, and it'll waste a LOT less time than menus did when compared to keyboard commands.
Now get off my lawn. (see? I can learn new memes, I've only been a slashdotter for a month or so)
I can think of one very good reason...
The whole stated purpose of this change is to make Firefox fit more with the UI of Windows Vista and Windows 7 when running in those environments. Not to change the UI because, hey, let's just change the UI for the hell of it.
While your circle/text menu system sounds cool, that would mean yet another UI that a newbie would have to learn and get used to. There's a whole generation of Windows users who are just starting out with Vista and Seven, and will be used to the shiny ribbon from the get-go, and anything different is going to look kludgy to them, and they'll go back to IE.
Maybe for those of us who remember how revolutionary the concept of adding actual menus was to WordStar under DOS, changing from our familiar menus seems scary, and the "dumbification" of the UI means it'll take longer to get less done. But, hey, the learning curve is shallower. And the real menus are an ALT key away. And I'm still on XP and Linux Mint, and have yet to see a screen of Vista or Seven other than screenshots - I'm too damned cheap to go out and replace a perfectly good operating system.
Overall, though, this makes sense. If you're going to develop software to run on an operating system, you might as well make it look like it was written for that OS, and has the same fit and feel as the native OS. When in Rome, light Roman candles. The XP version will look like it fits in XP, the Linux version will look like it fits in Linux, and the newer Windows OS versions will look like they fit there.
The Open Source community has come a long way from running GIMP and GAIM under GTK.
Yeah, they should be spared.
I imagine the warrant covered the premises, of which the Wii was most certainly a part. It would have no material effect on the submitted evidence, but it might be embarrassing enough to the police that the DA might want to take a pretty lenient plea bargain to keep the tape from being shown in the courtroom, because that lack of professionalism would speak volumes about character to a jury.
Plus, the cops can always say that they didn't understand this technical mumbo-jumbo and thought the drugs might be hidden INSIDE THE GAME, and that since the game was inside the house, so was the virtual environment within the game. :)
Yes, all crops cross-pollinate to an extent, but if you and your neighbor are both growing regular beets, that cross-pollination is not relevant. You are growing the same crop. If we're both growing regular beets, I really don't care where each bit of pollen came from.
Either that or you and your neighbor are growing vastly different crops and cross contamination is not an issue. His corn cannot cross-pollinate your beets. All is well.
GM foods are usually genetically compatible with their non-GM brethren, so suddenly cross-pollination becomes a new issue, because we are now cross-pollinating compatible but not identical plants.
Cross-pollination has always been there, but it's never really been an issue on the sheer scale it is now.
If your neighbor suddenly wants to grow sugar beets, and you happen to be downwind, you are forced to grow a percentage of your crop as sugar beets whether you like it or not.
Whatever plants ended up cross-pollinated will either be sugar beets, regular beets, or some hybrid blend of the two that lacks sufficiently desirable sugar levels to be sold as a sugar beet, and also doesn't taste enough like an ordinary beet. You, as the recipient of the cross-pollination, will have to hand-pick through your crop to determine which is which.
GM foods are based on their predecessors, but with new traits that are, by design, genetically dominant. So chances are you'll end up with more sugar beets or undesirable hybrids, and fewer of the beets you want to sell.
And if you save your seed from year to year, your seedstock will itself be based on cross-pollinated plants, so you'll find it harder and harder to keep the cross-pollinated plants out of your farm each year.
Alternatively, you have to switch to an entirely different crop that is not genetically compatible with sugar beets, or start growing sugar beets yourself.
Now, if you find it desirable to grow sugar beets, this is good news. The cross-pollination will give you a free upgrade eventually. But if you want a supply of ordinary beets available, this is bad news - because sugar beets are engineered to be genetically dominant and therefore are basically the equivalent of an invasive species (maybe desirable, maybe not, but they will "win" eventually).
Apple had already written the support for various iPod models at various firmware releases. The functionality specific to a model and firmware version isn't going to change, because in order to change it Apple would need to change the iPod side of things as well.
If, for some reason, Apple decided to update the communication protocol on whatever older iPod hardware the Pre happened to be emulating, Palm would have to figure out the new protocol and support it eventually. But the old protocol would still be out there.
Apple can't change the protocol on iTunes without also changing it on the iPods. Which means the old protocol has to stay out there during the transition (possibly with an automatic notification that an upgrade is available). So the signature each iPod uses would change from (for example) "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.2.5" to "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.4.1". If a G1/1.2.5 unit tries to talk to iTunes, iTunes HAS to speak back to it in its native tongue, and anything claiming to be a G1/1.2.5 will be talked to in the same manner.
Otherwise, they'd have to upgrade the entire product line at the exact same time, or they'd be breaking compatibility with their own devices. This has nothing to do with maintaining Pre compatibility, it is all about maintaining genuine iPod compatibility.
So iTunes will talk to the Pre until Apple specifically stops supporting that model and firmware version of the genuine iPod, and at that point both a genuine (but not upgraded) iPod *and* the Pre will both get a "product not supported, firmware upgrade required" error.
The difference, of course, being that the genuine iPod can get a (probably free) firmware update from Apple and still work with iTunes. The Pre would need intervention from Palm, who would have to upgrade their compatibility to a model that iTunes still does support, with all the protocol changes that implies.
I agree that Palm *should* just go their own way and not be dependent upon Apple, but the Pre is zero effort on Apple's part. It's "unsupported" hardware.
Adding the "Vendor ID" to the signature WAS effort on Apple's part. Fortunately for them, it was only on the iTunes side, since the iPods were already sending Vendor ID anyway. And the only reason to do that is to intentionally break compatibility with non-Apple devices, because it didn't add a darned thing to the protocol for any device (or the devices would need an upgrade at the same time to support whatever the new feature is).
Which is within Apple's rights, but is more effort than just allowing Palm to get away it. Not a HUGE effort, true, but an effort.
Unless, of course, the farm that sells your warty diseased fruit happens to be downwind of a farm that makes pristine genetically-engineered food, in which case you get a free and unknowing upgrade to the superior product. Then the choice is gone because the GM crop has already wiped out the original seedstock of the non-GM crop or altered it significantly.
The issue is not that GM farms shouldn't have the right to sell GM foods. They should. The foods are arguably superior in many ways, and generally get better yields, resulting in more profit for the farmer and more foodcrop available for a hungry world. The vast majority of people are OK with GM foods. I chow down on them all the time and it has nothing to do with this facial twitch I've developed (grin).
The issue is that a GM farmer who introduces a new crop should also be obligated to take precautions to make sure they don't alter the crops of those farmers who DO NOT want to implement GM foods. If you live downwind of a GM farm and grow a similar crop, there's a darned good chance pollen will change the nature of your crop to something less desirable to you.
This is no more and no less than a pollution issue (cross-pollination being the pollution). If you want to grow GM, by all means, go for it. But don't plant it just on the other side of an open fence from someone who doesn't and is growing a similar crop. That's what the FDA rules are designed for - to assure that those who want the choice between GM and non-GM foods will continue to have that choice.
GM foods tend to be hardier, and in a non-GM farm would be basically an impossible-to-eradicate "invasive species". Once the invasion reached a certain point, the farmer would have no choice but to go GM, and eventually we'd run out of non-GM farms because the seedstock has all been contaminated.
Before: iTunes looks at what is plugged in and sees if it is an iPod (or CLAIMS to be one). Since the Pre is built to emulate an older iPod, iTunes would handle it exactly like a real iPod of the model and series it is emulating. Palm (rightly) used the Palm Vendor ID as part of that identification, and Apple ignored it. An iPod is an iPod, and if you claim to support a featureset iTunes would offer it to you. Apple isn't about to change the featureset of older iPods that are no longer available for sale, so Palm chose an older model iPod to "claim" to be, one with a minimal featureset they could easily emulate.
After: iTunes looks at what is plugged in and sees if it is an iPod *built by Apple* (ie. using Apple's USB Vendor ID). Since the Palm Pre is not currently set up to claim it is made by Apple, iTunes refuses to talk to it.
Apple is within their rights to make this change, no matter how unwise or unpopular that move might be.
Palm is NOT within their rights to use Apple's Vendor ID to "pretend" their device is an iPod made by Apple. Only Apple is authorized to use their own Vendor ID, under the terms of the USB policy board. Palm, if they go that route, will be violating their terms of contract with the USB-IF and may suffer penalties for it.
I think both companies are making a huge mistake, but the difference is that Apple has the right to make it.
Apple can't update the protocol on the iTunes (server) side without updating the protocol on the iPod (client) side as well, which would be a pretty significant undertaking. Palm probably chose an older iPod model to emulate. That way, Apple couldn't realistically change the protocol on them without pushing a firmware update to every iPod of that specific model. Apple added Vendor ID verification.
Before the update, iTunes was asking "What kind of device are you?" and the Pre was responding "I'm an iPod model XYZ, built by Palm." iTunes would then talk with it, because compatibility just meant compatibility and the version ID told iTunes what features were supported in that specific model.
Now, iTunes is asking "What kind of device are you?" and getting the same response, except iTunes is now validating the Vendor ID. So the "built by Palm" bit now gets a fail, because iTunes is now looking specifically for "I'm an iPod model XYZ, built by Apple" instead of just "I'm an iPod model XYZ".
For the record, I think it's well within Apple's rights to do this. I don't think it's a particularly smart move, but it's their software and their right. But they did do this, and it was obviously specifically to address the "Pre problem", since they warned that their updates might break compatibility with unsupported hardware just days before releasing, surprise surprise, an update that broke compatibility with unsupported hardware.
1. Could not agree more. My kingdom for some mod points, add some "Insightful" to that one.
2. Apple's actions are not and cannot be anti-competitive. Apple does not hold a monopoly on music stores, there is plenty of competition, including retail giant Amazon and just about every store on the planet that sells CDs.
I would argue that Apple's actions are STUPID, but they don't rise to the level of monopolistic. Not even close.
Palm needs to lick its wounds and move on - enable mass-media support and/or write a simple plugin for better apps like WinAmp in Windows and others in Linux and Mac. I don't know what other music management apps are available on Mac, but worst case a drag-and-drop copy ALWAYS works in mass-media mode (that's how I load music to my Blackberry, and I can do that from any platform I please that supports USB).
I don't disagree with the rest of your post, though frankly I don't think it is in Apple's best interests to block the Pre. The more people using Apple iTunes, the more potential revenue they have in song downloads, and get more people using iTunes with more of that good old face time with Apple's legendary user interfaces, meaning they might just convert a few people to Apple if they are suitably impressed by iTunes (not many, but probably a few).
But, regardless, it's Apples program and they get to decide how they want to write it.
However, from your post:
>>>All Apple is refusing to do for Palm is let them integrate Pre into the main iTunes application. That would require Apple to publish and maintain a plug-in API for iTunes which would cost Apple money. Why should they?
This isn't technically true. Apple doesn't have to write squat. Palm already did it for them, by programming the Pre to mimic an iPod/iPhone well enough to be recognized by iTunes. Apple didn't need to lift a finger.
Apple would have to (and has) has put effort into PREVENTING it, which has cost them money and effort.
I could see some really good press in this for Apple: "Our software is so good, even our COMPETITORS choose it for their devices! Aren't we shiny!"
Instead, Apple is spending money to prevent it, preventing Palm Pre users from seeing all the shiny goodness their UI designs have to offer, and getting bad press amongst non-Apple users. The Apple Faithful feel that this is good and righteous, but they'd also be able to feel good and righteous about iTunes being the choice of software for a competitor, so they wouldn't lose any smug points whatsoever.
I agree 100% that Apple has the absolute and utter right to block it, and Palm should have backed off when Apple asked them to stop. Palm should simply write a plugin for WinAmp or a much better music management app than iTunes, then moved on to support Linux and Mac through a plugin, or just enabled mass-media support and called it a day, because EVERYTHING can write to a mass-media USB drive.
Palm was stupid to build a dependency on iTunes, and kinda scummy for continuing it even when Apple asked them to stop.
But Apple put time, effort, and money into blocking it, and I fail to see any benefit whatsoever in their doing so.
Maine is dealing with the same issue in our lakes with Eurasian Milfoil. Once it establishes in a lake or slow-moving stream, it's pretty much over unless you put a LOT of work into ripping it out and a lot of nasty chemicals into controlling it.
>>>It's better to die and let your opponent live than to take out the whole world.
I vote you in control of The Big Red Button... ... for the other side.
Interestingly, the post I am currently replying to is the only "zero" post at this moment. :)
There was one troll, but I don't feed them.