I wonder how long it'll take people to figure out that Apple is doing Win32 development of in-house apps coded originally for the Carbon API in less than a year?
If I were a third-party developer wondering whether to take my Win32 app to the Mac, I'd start paying attention. If the development tools are this good...
The article comes right out and says that Gates' money paid for a high-priced attorney to work directly with NHTSA, EPA and lawmakers to fashion legislation that would permit their nice little rich guys' plaything. It's a cool car, but I have trouble working up sympathy after reading this story.
Why does anyone have trouble believing Gates and Co. wouldn't do the same thing when it comes to matters involving billions of dollars? That antitrust case sure went out with a whimper, didn't it?
Whoops - that would be the sift key that makes my scroll wheel work horizontally, not the command key.
Still, though, why put another wheel/button on the mouse if it has already been solved quite elegantly with existing input devices? Virtually everyone I notice keeps at least one key on the keyboard, so the shift key modifier seems easiest.
I wish I could do this on my Macintosh with my generic two-button scoll mouse.
Oh, wait (holds down command key) I can scroll horizontally. In any application. With no new drivers, equipment, or fuss.
Yay for Mac OS X, I guess. What's the big deal again?
Cassette adapter is interim solution!
on
Pods Unite
·
· Score: 1
This thread at vwvortex indicates the the cassette adapter is only an interim solution, and that apparently Steve jobs is keen on the whole idea.
Belkin is building part of the 'connectivity kit'.
Knowing the general build quality of modern VWs and Audis, I can't imagine they'd suffer the cassette adapter on buyers. I'm sure an AUX input adapter thingy for the iPod is in the works.
I used a ThinkPad for eighteen months (A21m), and I can honestly say it's the first Wintel laptop (mine was running Win2k Pro) I really enjoyed using - at least from a hardware perspective.
I have used PowerBooks since they were introduced - my first one was a PowerBook 170, and I've owned at least one Powerbook from each subsequent generation (working at Apple made this easier).
The ThinkPad is the closest any other manufacturer has come to emulating Apple's design and feature sense (surpassing it in some ways) of understated, well-proportioned and functional laptops.
I don't think you'd be disappointed with a ThinkPad, unless you absolutely abhor black plastic.
Simplicity is definitely valued more by the normal layperson than are features. I have seen people turn down Trillian because "it is too complicated". I think most people would love to have such a simple chat client.
I would rewrite this passage this way:
Simplicity is judged a valuable attribute by the normal layperson, but people buy features.
Put another way, simplicity is seen as a sophistication in and of itself, and is therefore desirable, but the average Joe pounding down CA Highway 41 in a Ford F250 doesn't buy simplicity - he or she buys 'features' that will 'make computing easier'. And they buy all this at a place where they can get the "Best Buy". S
Here's a laugh: Microsoft bills Windows XP as a fully color managed operating system, and insists XP works as well as a Mac for, say, fine art photographic interpretation.
You ever see fine art photographs on the wall in a BRIGHT SCREAMING RED AND BLUE frame - with the wall behind the print painted in still more primary colors? Me niether - and there's a reason why. Apple chooses to 'frame' documents in more subtle and understated silvery-neutral tones. Unlike Windows, where you have to create your own middle-grey desktop (uh, sorry, Wallpaper) pattern, Apple eincludes one by default. You can even turn off the traffic signal-colored windows controls with a single click. That's thoughful simplicity.
Windows XP is a terrible environment (by default, mind you) for using Photoshop or any other piece of software where you'd be expected to make careful color and tonality judgements on screen.
Does the Average User(TM) know that, or care? No and no. So the features (NEW, COLORFUL THREE-DEE WINDOWS THAT LOOK RENDERED BUT AREN'T!) sell more copies of XP while subtly increasing the number of elements that make color and tonal adjustments more difficult.
If Apple gave up on simplicity and built what everyone on Slashdot wanted (A $500.00 Mac OS X on x86 box with six expansion slots, ten drive bays, an Athlon64, a 400W power supply and an M+M dispenser on the front) the people who DO buy Macs faithfully every 30 months would leave in droves. The thing about simplicity is that it is incredibly tough to do properly. Simplicity done Microsoft's way = sparse.
Based on the PC market, you might say that about 3-5% of the people with computers value and purchase simplicity.
Yeah, but you can roll your own dual 3.06GHz Xeon for WAY less than $4,000 (or $3000 for that matter).
2xCPUs would cost around $1400
Motherboard $300
'Cos everyone knows all you need is a motherboard and processors. Didn't you work in IT at a company I used to work for? You're the one who took the RAM out of my computer and said you'd be "right back", aren't you?
Excercise for you:
Add the cost of Bluetooth, PCI-X, 802.11G, Gigabit ethernet, SATA hard drives and controllers, DVD-R drive, power supply, all the other hardware stuff I've forgotten, plus iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, and the ten or so other bundled applications on the G5s, a Unix-based operating system with superior usability, and one year of free warranty and support for ALL of that stuff.
That's the dangers of making a comment like "fastest PC on earth"......it's a claim that one has to be VERY careful about making.
Considering that you couldn't get either system yesterday (G5 or 3.2GHz Xeon (I hate it when slashdotters write 'zeon')), I see the whole thing as moot.
It's marketing, folks, not the bible. Greg backed up the test parameters with his data. I think the world would be a less stressful place if Windows went away, but I'm not stressing over a minute saved over a week of Photoshop work.
We spend more time thinking about what to do next in Photoshop than could possibly be saved by a faster processor/architecture/whatever.
That being said, I'll continue to buy Macs because the extra up front cost is well worth the knowledge that one company (and a rather well-run one these days) is responsible and capable enough to develop and market botht he hardware and the OS. They do a rather good job of it for a small premium.
Put another way: If I lose an hour a month because of a hardware vendor who refers me to an OS vendor to resolve a problem, I've lost an hour. I can't get that time back. If my Mac emits smoke and kernel panics at the same time, I know I can get resolution to both problems by calling Apple.
The "status quo" crowd that jumped all over Apple this morning for the "fake" benchmarks and "dishonest" wording will still find lots of reasons and ways to disparage the fruit company, simply because Apple isn't doing what they want - building the best, fastest, and most cutting-edge computers for $400.00.
Forget about Serial ATA - (Apple is the first top-tier manufacturer to make this interface stardard across their high-end machines.) Forget about the new motherboard featuring HyperTransport, PCI-X, and the IBM-fabbed 1GHz northbridge chip. Oh, and 802.11G, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and Bluetooth, too. Forget about the imagination and creativity that goes into making a project like this go from concept to reality in eighteen months.
Why support a company like that? Bunch of dirty liars - there's no way a 2GHz chip could be faster than my Intel/AMD/whatever86!
Maybe it's not ultimately faster (although Greg's comments seem to indicate that the playing field was pretty equal). I don't buy "fast". I buy well-integrated tools that help me get work done, and in turn, bill clients. So I (still) use a Mac.
Jeez - to hear people around here, you'd think that innovation, style, performance, and the courage to move forward agressively and definitively with new technologies doesn't come at a price.
What other comapny would develop all these technologies to hardware and software maturity as part of a new hardware platform, then bring it all to market with system software already written (by the same vendor, I might add) to take advantage of new hardware features?
Those things DO come at a price. The price begins at $1999.00 for the 1.6GHz G5, or $799.00 for an eMac.
As long as there are people who just want to get work done on their computers without hiring an IT department or worrying about who is responsible for which component of the system, Apple will still be around.
I bill around eight hours a day with my Macintosh - the $400.00 price premium over PC hardware at the time I bought my G4/800 simply isn't an issue - over the lifetime of the machine, I'll probably bill at least two hundred times that amount for work made possible by its existence.
That $400.00 up-front cost means that I don't have to spend my time - my extremely expensive and finite time - having to deal with at least two vendors just to get a system with competitive hardware, a competitive OS, and support for them both. If your time isn't valuable, by all means cheap out and build your oft-touted (and perfectly capable) PC from parts you buy at Frys. $400.00 means nothing to professionals - it's cheap support insurance.
I hope Apple sells a TON of these machines - because they're practically the only personal computer company willing to take the initiative and responsibility for supporting hardware and operating system on equal terms.
Perhaps if Apple stressed the cost of ownership point to more people, they'd have higher sales. Our small business has nearly thirty Macs. I'm the lone IT person, spending an entire hour a week on supporting a bunch of artists and their Macs. What similarly-sized Windows-based business can make that claim?
And since they airframe-strip planes every so often (can't recall the number of flight hours), its a simple matter to install them.[Access point]
This is called heavy maintenance, and at least in Boeing's parlance, a C check.
The interior (seats, seat rails, galleys, o/head bins, ceiling panels, side panels, carpet, toilets) of the aircraft is removed, the stringers (vertical fuselage reinforcements) and wing roots are visually inspected and x-rayed for stress frasctures and other wear. Cabin insulation blankets are also removed and replaced - over a few months, the moisture condensation from thousands of peoples' breath adds hundreds or even thousands of pounds of moisture to a jet.
C check also includes 'ongoing upgrades' like new seats or seat spacing for cabin comfort, but they don't normally include anything new that would require FAA recertification of the aircraft. The FAA may choose to recertify with modifications based on what the manufacturer tells them (we promise it's safe, here are some test results), or based on previous, similar modifications - but make no mistake, an airworthiness certificate must be obtained after these additions are installed for every airframe modified.
I would be very surprised if 802.11 was added to all but very recent airframes, such as the 777, A319/20/21, 767-300/400 and NG 737 series. It doesn't make much sense to do otherwise.
Air travel is a very dangerous business, despite what many of the people on this forum think; a tiny chunk of ice, a wayward bird (or ten), a wrong turn on the ground (Tenerife, over 500 dead) can all mean massive and ugly death. Aircraft cabins of all types and vintages are lined with hundreds of miles of copper wiring. As someone wrote above, wiring=antenna. That's so comforting now that all new jet aircraft have some form of full-authority digital engine control - the noisy woman next to me can be making calls to her boyfriend while we taxi between terminals and simultaneously sending a "Maximum power left engine" command to the engine control pack.
So fer chrissake, turn your damn phone off, and let's not take too many chances here. Your entertainment/phonecall/whatever can wait.
Duh...I want DVD...two dollah at checkout register...works once...what a bargain!
More disposable crap to fill up the landfills with. I'm sure glad our kids are going to have to solve the problem of a throwaway society.
I guess it'd be too much to ask them to make the discs out of something degradeable or to include a mailer for recycling - but instead, they place the burden on the consumer to recycle the discs by asking us to mail the discs in off our own volition. Something I'm sure we all have time to do.
In other words, these discs will NEVER get recycled.
Seriously, as the alpha-geek crowd, we should do our part to dissuade everyone we know from even thinking of buying these.
that Dan Goldin, a.k.a. "the man who replaced all the Macs" at NASA would stand for it. He is FIRMLY in the Microsoft camp, and in 1997 appeared as a booster in Microsoft advertisements for Windows NT 4.0.
Goldin replaced perfectly good I.T. infrastructure with Microsoft equipment in the name of standardization; it says a lot about the entrenched bullshit beaurocracy at NASA that he rose so meteorically through the ranks at the Space Administration.
I think I might have just stayed passive if you hadn't made a reference to Apple's per-processor price.
What do you know about how much Apple pays to Mot? Mot's processor business is just that - their own business - They are responsible for what they decide to charge to Apple.
There was indeed a working, DR-ready Copland build. It required only the following:
- One current PowerMac (6100, 7100, 8100) - One Serial cable -One more current PowerMac (6100, 7100, 8100) - Lots and lots of fucking patience.
Copland was up and running - I once saw it briefly. From my brief impression, it was responsive and it was VERY cool. But it never had a chance with developers. In retrospect, I'm glad Apple didn't invest more in Copland, as it was constrained by the graphics architecture of the admittedly brilliant QuickDraw. Quartz is a leap forward in usability when it comes to feedback and cues.
While I will mourn QuickDraw, I am glad that Quartz is the new graphics model. Copland wouldn't be up to today's eye-candy standards.
I think more support for independent labels will come with time. While Apple commands a lot of attention for a company its size, they need a certain critical mass to launch a totally new kind of music delivery service.
Featuring independent labels, or even lumping them with popu-crap does very little to further the adoption of this service at this point, and certainly is a resource drain, if you consider that on a project team, resources are finite, while the potential feature set is nearly infinite.
I am sure that as the program progresses in scope, independent labels will have their own section of the store, and probably will be featured in some cases - but remember that even Apple has finite resources and promotional capitol.
They owe it to themselves, their shareholders, and the music buying public at large to launch the service with music that the majority of people will recognize and want.
The smaller (and in most cases more innovative!) artists will get their chance, but having them at launch doesn't help Apple as much as it drains resources.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder how long it'll take people to figure out that Apple is doing Win32 development of in-house apps coded originally for the Carbon API in less than a year? If I were a third-party developer wondering whether to take my Win32 app to the Mac, I'd start paying attention. If the development tools are this good...
The article comes right out and says that Gates' money paid for a high-priced attorney to work directly with NHTSA, EPA and lawmakers to fashion legislation that would permit their nice little rich guys' plaything. It's a cool car, but I have trouble working up sympathy after reading this story. Why does anyone have trouble believing Gates and Co. wouldn't do the same thing when it comes to matters involving billions of dollars? That antitrust case sure went out with a whimper, didn't it?
Apple did offer a parity-checking SIMM option on the IIci, from 1989-92, I believe.
As if local area networks weren't already taxed enough due to greedy bandwidth-hogging users and their viruses!
Whoops - that would be the sift key that makes my scroll wheel work horizontally, not the command key. Still, though, why put another wheel/button on the mouse if it has already been solved quite elegantly with existing input devices? Virtually everyone I notice keeps at least one key on the keyboard, so the shift key modifier seems easiest.
Oh, wait (holds down command key) I can scroll horizontally. In any application. With no new drivers, equipment, or fuss.
Yay for Mac OS X, I guess. What's the big deal again?
Belkin is building part of the 'connectivity kit'.
Knowing the general build quality of modern VWs and Audis, I can't imagine they'd suffer the cassette adapter on buyers. I'm sure an AUX input adapter thingy for the iPod is in the works.
*Mercury Rising/Consipracy Theory/That horrible movie with Denzel, etc.
I have used PowerBooks since they were introduced - my first one was a PowerBook 170, and I've owned at least one Powerbook from each subsequent generation (working at Apple made this easier).
The ThinkPad is the closest any other manufacturer has come to emulating Apple's design and feature sense (surpassing it in some ways) of understated, well-proportioned and functional laptops.
I don't think you'd be disappointed with a ThinkPad, unless you absolutely abhor black plastic.
Sounds like an interesting mod to me...
Sounds like a 17" PowerBook to me!
I would rewrite this passage this way:
Simplicity is judged a valuable attribute by the normal layperson, but people buy features.
Put another way, simplicity is seen as a sophistication in and of itself, and is therefore desirable, but the average Joe pounding down CA Highway 41 in a Ford F250 doesn't buy simplicity - he or she buys 'features' that will 'make computing easier'. And they buy all this at a place where they can get the "Best Buy". S
Here's a laugh: Microsoft bills Windows XP as a fully color managed operating system, and insists XP works as well as a Mac for, say, fine art photographic interpretation.
You ever see fine art photographs on the wall in a BRIGHT SCREAMING RED AND BLUE frame - with the wall behind the print painted in still more primary colors? Me niether - and there's a reason why. Apple chooses to 'frame' documents in more subtle and understated silvery-neutral tones. Unlike Windows, where you have to create your own middle-grey desktop (uh, sorry, Wallpaper) pattern, Apple eincludes one by default. You can even turn off the traffic signal-colored windows controls with a single click. That's thoughful simplicity.
Windows XP is a terrible environment (by default, mind you) for using Photoshop or any other piece of software where you'd be expected to make careful color and tonality judgements on screen.
Does the Average User(TM) know that, or care? No and no. So the features (NEW, COLORFUL THREE-DEE WINDOWS THAT LOOK RENDERED BUT AREN'T!) sell more copies of XP while subtly increasing the number of elements that make color and tonal adjustments more difficult.
If Apple gave up on simplicity and built what everyone on Slashdot wanted (A $500.00 Mac OS X on x86 box with six expansion slots, ten drive bays, an Athlon64, a 400W power supply and an M+M dispenser on the front) the people who DO buy Macs faithfully every 30 months would leave in droves. The thing about simplicity is that it is incredibly tough to do properly. Simplicity done Microsoft's way = sparse.
Based on the PC market, you might say that about 3-5% of the people with computers value and purchase simplicity.
Yeah. I was wondering too, because Dell and Apple and all the other PC manufacturers have a bullet point on the spec sheet called "How hot it gets".
2xCPUs would cost around $1400
Motherboard $300
'Cos everyone knows all you need is a motherboard and processors. Didn't you work in IT at a company I used to work for? You're the one who took the RAM out of my computer and said you'd be "right back", aren't you?
Excercise for you:
Add the cost of Bluetooth, PCI-X, 802.11G, Gigabit ethernet, SATA hard drives and controllers, DVD-R drive, power supply, all the other hardware stuff I've forgotten, plus iTunes, iDVD, iMovie, and the ten or so other bundled applications on the G5s, a Unix-based operating system with superior usability, and one year of free warranty and support for ALL of that stuff.
How much does your dual Xeon cost now?
Considering that you couldn't get either system yesterday (G5 or 3.2GHz Xeon (I hate it when slashdotters write 'zeon')), I see the whole thing as moot.
It's marketing, folks, not the bible. Greg backed up the test parameters with his data. I think the world would be a less stressful place if Windows went away, but I'm not stressing over a minute saved over a week of Photoshop work.
We spend more time thinking about what to do next in Photoshop than could possibly be saved by a faster processor/architecture/whatever.
That being said, I'll continue to buy Macs because the extra up front cost is well worth the knowledge that one company (and a rather well-run one these days) is responsible and capable enough to develop and market botht he hardware and the OS. They do a rather good job of it for a small premium.
Put another way: If I lose an hour a month because of a hardware vendor who refers me to an OS vendor to resolve a problem, I've lost an hour. I can't get that time back. If my Mac emits smoke and kernel panics at the same time, I know I can get resolution to both problems by calling Apple.
The "status quo" crowd that jumped all over Apple this morning for the "fake" benchmarks and "dishonest" wording will still find lots of reasons and ways to disparage the fruit company, simply because Apple isn't doing what they want - building the best, fastest, and most cutting-edge computers for $400.00.
Forget about Serial ATA - (Apple is the first top-tier manufacturer to make this interface stardard across their high-end machines.)
Forget about the new motherboard featuring HyperTransport, PCI-X, and the IBM-fabbed 1GHz northbridge chip. Oh, and 802.11G, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and Bluetooth, too.
Forget about the imagination and creativity that goes into making a project like this go from concept to reality in eighteen months.
Why support a company like that? Bunch of dirty liars - there's no way a 2GHz chip could be faster than my Intel/AMD/whatever86!
Maybe it's not ultimately faster (although Greg's comments seem to indicate that the playing field was pretty equal). I don't buy "fast". I buy well-integrated tools that help me get work done, and in turn, bill clients. So I (still) use a Mac.
Jeez - to hear people around here, you'd think that innovation, style, performance, and the courage to move forward agressively and definitively with new technologies doesn't come at a price.
What other comapny would develop all these technologies to hardware and software maturity as part of a new hardware platform, then bring it all to market with system software already written (by the same vendor, I might add) to take advantage of new hardware features?
Those things DO come at a price. The price begins at $1999.00 for the 1.6GHz G5, or $799.00 for an eMac.
As long as there are people who just want to get work done on their computers without hiring an IT department or worrying about who is responsible for which component of the system, Apple will still be around.
I bill around eight hours a day with my Macintosh - the $400.00 price premium over PC hardware at the time I bought my G4/800 simply isn't an issue - over the lifetime of the machine, I'll probably bill at least two hundred times that amount for work made possible by its existence.
That $400.00 up-front cost means that I don't have to spend my time - my extremely expensive and finite time - having to deal with at least two vendors just to get a system with competitive hardware, a competitive OS, and support for them both. If your time isn't valuable, by all means cheap out and build your oft-touted (and perfectly capable) PC from parts you buy at Frys. $400.00 means nothing to professionals - it's cheap support insurance.
I hope Apple sells a TON of these machines - because they're practically the only personal computer company willing to take the initiative and responsibility for supporting hardware and operating system on equal terms.
Perhaps if Apple stressed the cost of ownership point to more people, they'd have higher sales. Our small business has nearly thirty Macs. I'm the lone IT person, spending an entire hour a week on supporting a bunch of artists and their Macs. What similarly-sized Windows-based business can make that claim?
This is called heavy maintenance, and at least in Boeing's parlance, a C check.
The interior (seats, seat rails, galleys, o/head bins, ceiling panels, side panels, carpet, toilets) of the aircraft is removed, the stringers (vertical fuselage reinforcements) and wing roots are visually inspected and x-rayed for stress frasctures and other wear. Cabin insulation blankets are also removed and replaced - over a few months, the moisture condensation from thousands of peoples' breath adds hundreds or even thousands of pounds of moisture to a jet.
C check also includes 'ongoing upgrades' like new seats or seat spacing for cabin comfort, but they don't normally include anything new that would require FAA recertification of the aircraft. The FAA may choose to recertify with modifications based on what the manufacturer tells them (we promise it's safe, here are some test results), or based on previous, similar modifications - but make no mistake, an airworthiness certificate must be obtained after these additions are installed for every airframe modified.
I would be very surprised if 802.11 was added to all but very recent airframes, such as the 777, A319/20/21, 767-300/400 and NG 737 series. It doesn't make much sense to do otherwise.
Air travel is a very dangerous business, despite what many of the people on this forum think; a tiny chunk of ice, a wayward bird (or ten), a wrong turn on the ground (Tenerife, over 500 dead) can all mean massive and ugly death. Aircraft cabins of all types and vintages are lined with hundreds of miles of copper wiring. As someone wrote above, wiring=antenna. That's so comforting now that all new jet aircraft have some form of full-authority digital engine control - the noisy woman next to me can be making calls to her boyfriend while we taxi between terminals and simultaneously sending a "Maximum power left engine" command to the engine control pack.
So fer chrissake, turn your damn phone off, and let's not take too many chances here. Your entertainment/phonecall/whatever can wait.
But then it wouldn't be wireless, would it?
Duh...I want DVD...two dollah at checkout register...works once...what a bargain!
More disposable crap to fill up the landfills with. I'm sure glad our kids are going to have to solve the problem of a throwaway society.
I guess it'd be too much to ask them to make the discs out of something degradeable or to include a mailer for recycling - but instead, they place the burden on the consumer to recycle the discs by asking us to mail the discs in off our own volition. Something I'm sure we all have time to do.
In other words, these discs will NEVER get recycled.
Seriously, as the alpha-geek crowd, we should do our part to dissuade everyone we know from even thinking of buying these.
Whoops. My bad. Could've sworn I saw his name mentioned in context as administrator very recently.
My apologies for besmirching NASA's golden reputation by associating his name with that fine space agency.
that Dan Goldin, a.k.a. "the man who replaced all the Macs" at NASA would stand for it. He is FIRMLY in the Microsoft camp, and in 1997 appeared as a booster in Microsoft advertisements for Windows NT 4.0.
Goldin replaced perfectly good I.T. infrastructure with Microsoft equipment in the name of standardization; it says a lot about the entrenched bullshit beaurocracy at NASA that he rose so meteorically through the ranks at the Space Administration.
the render farms rested, for their caches were full, and their disks bore the fruit of long labors.
What do you know about how much Apple pays to Mot? Mot's processor business is just that - their own business - They are responsible for what they decide to charge to Apple.
There was indeed a working, DR-ready Copland build. It required only the following:
- One current PowerMac (6100, 7100, 8100)
- One Serial cable
-One more current PowerMac (6100, 7100, 8100)
- Lots and lots of fucking patience.
Copland was up and running - I once saw it briefly. From my brief impression, it was responsive and it was VERY cool. But it never had a chance with developers. In retrospect, I'm glad Apple didn't invest more in Copland, as it was constrained by the graphics architecture of the admittedly brilliant QuickDraw. Quartz is a leap forward in usability when it comes to feedback and cues.
While I will mourn QuickDraw, I am glad that Quartz is the new graphics model. Copland wouldn't be up to today's eye-candy standards.
Featuring independent labels, or even lumping them with popu-crap does very little to further the adoption of this service at this point, and certainly is a resource drain, if you consider that on a project team, resources are finite, while the potential feature set is nearly infinite.
I am sure that as the program progresses in scope, independent labels will have their own section of the store, and probably will be featured in some cases - but remember that even Apple has finite resources and promotional capitol.
They owe it to themselves, their shareholders, and the music buying public at large to launch the service with music that the majority of people will recognize and want.
The smaller (and in most cases more innovative!) artists will get their chance, but having them at launch doesn't help Apple as much as it drains resources.
You may want ot recheck your assumptions. Most CD-length collections on the iTunes store are $9.99.