In my mind, giving users the option of 1) losing all online access and ability to play most future games or 2) taking away functionality which was advertised with the box...is pretty oppressive. As far as I know, Microsoft has only added features in updates, not taken any away. Sony removing features I paid for after the fact is far worse than anything Microsoft did with the Xbox 360.
You're right--that's incredibly convenient. And platforms where you don't have physical media are moving in that direction (Steam, DSi, WiiWare, XBL downloads, and PS3 downloads.) Of course, there are other problems with these, such as what happens when your physical unit fails.
You can call Google Voice to initiate a call. You can also (with most cell phones) program your address book with delays between digits. Between these two, you should be able to call from your GV number.
I started out using my number as a throwaway. Gave it to companies who I didn't trust with my real number in cases where I needed to have them contact me quickly. The blacklist feature was what really sold me on it. The SMS was just a nice bonus.
Then I started using the number more and more, and eventually it just became my default number. I gave it out to all my friends and never looked back.
I've noticed the lag, too. It manifests, in practice, by both parties trying to start talking at once, stopping, restarting, repeating. Occasionally, I'll also have choppy conversations--where the other side thinks I'm cutting out--but that could just as easily be my carrier.
There are several reasons Apple doesn't want flash on their phones. Part of it is exactly what you describe. Part of it is the user experience, like the GP described. Part of it is that they don't want to be held hostage by Adobe when iOS 5 comes out and breaks compatibility with Flash so that they are reliant on Adobe to make things work "like they used to" (from the perspective of Apple users.)
Adobe has treated Apple as a second-class citizen for a while, and Apple doesn't want to be a 2nd-class citizen in the mobile device market. There's no way that they're going to let their devices lose features unless it's on their terms, and if they have a third-party runtime in their OS, that's exactly what could happen.
Re:Oh good! The trolls are out in full force!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 1
I question why people target Apple specifically when prior to the iPhone, many phones capable of running third-party software had equal or worse restrictions.
And it looks like walled gardens are the future. Windows Phone 7, by all accounts, will work similarly. Android is open, but has a pretty small market share and frankly isn't nearly as user-friendly as the iPhone.
You can have it both ways. It's called a stipend--your employer adds a little bit to your paycheck each month, and you use it to get a phone. Then they have the right to call/page you on it.
Exactly. Other issues: DRM on the NES. Suing the people who made the Game Genie. Censoring their games in a way that would make Apple App Store critics curl into the fetal position. This is a good read: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/maniac.html
Howie Rubin of Jaleco (the company that was going to publish the game under license) advised us the that the baddest bad word is Kill. The central activity in most Nintendo games is killing things. The image and the act are good, but the word is bad, even if the word does not suggest the image or the act.
Also, the wii-mote + nunchuck is a great controller. If only more games would focus on buttons instead of waggles (a lot of games would make do with the 4 buttons that are easy to reach IMO)
I hate the Wii Remote. I put up with it only because I want to play Wii games. Most of the time, shaking the Wii remote performs a function which would be just as easily performed by using a discrete button, and would be far less likely to be pressed accidentally. I've died so many times due to the remote's accelerometers triggering in Super Mario Galaxy 2 that it's getting kind of absurd.
As a pointing device, it's adequate. For anything else, I'd rather have a real controller.
Humans are squishy. You can blow off your hand with a fire cracker. A ring of firecrackers with a metal exterior around your neck would probably blow off your head and do no damage to anyone else.
It would be reasonable to randomly choose the side to be presented first. However that would probably be difficult to do in the framework Wikipedia uses.
Maybe I'm just unimaginative, but I have a hard time envisioning that. Your hands are on the regular controller, and the Kinect tracks...your head and feat? What are they doing? And who is holding the gun prop?
Consoles are DRMd, too. It's just that NORMALLY, they don't get in the way. However, on the PS3, there are some games which DRM their save files so that you can't backup/restore them with the normal process:
This is pretty bad, since if your PS3 dies, you lose this game data. You can technically move these to another PS3 if both systems are working, by doing some migration hoodoo using a network cable (as opposed to the relatively simple hard disk backups you can do with any other game.)
Of course, since this generation of consoles have a much higher failure rate than previous generations, this is a pretty big deal to me.
Consoles used to be great for gaming, but I'm too wary of all of these issues to buy one now. My last console was a Wii, though before that I had all of the major consoles of each generation.
And have what happened to Google and Adobe companies happen to them? What's the point?
This is pretty vague, but I don't think it's fair for you to complain about companies not trying to do something because they're scared of Apple. You don't know what would happen if they tried.
So is it that you want apps to be able to modify the music database on iOS directly? Then I suppose apps aren't allowed to do that. But it's not exactly the same thing as just writing a music store app. Once useful multitasking comes to iOS, maybe we'll see someone write a music store with in-app purchases.
Really, while it's competing with Apple, if it's an in-app purchase, they'll still get a cut. It wouldn't surprise me if they allowed it, but didn't allow access to the music database on the phone.
Scientific data analysis, among other things.
There are graphic calculators in the store. There's nothing fundamentally different between a graphing calculator and scientific data analysis. Maybe no one has chosen to write such an app yet?
Other platforms have the notion of "files" not because people want them, but because nobody has come up with something better.
Files are a very high-level abstraction to a user. A music file has almost nothing to do with a document file. They're just globs of data. Getting rid of this abstraction is essential to making computers more accessible to people who don't care about how computers work.
Apple's trying something out. It certainly seems to be working. While there are cases where it's hard to make the device do what you want, for a good chunk of iOS users, it works perfectly well.
No, it's not "more than that". It's a place where I can put my presentations and files that I work on and access them from anywhere and any machine. There is nothing like that for iOS.
Well there's something like it. Dropbox, which I mentioned before. It's not perfect, obviously, but it's along those lines.
There is a right answer: give apps the level of access they need and enforce that. On iOS, right now, every Tetris clone can potentially read your personal information, access your location, and transmit all of that to Chinese hackers. That is wrong, and Apple's review process can't catch it either.
Other platforms get it right: different applications get different levels of access, and they enforce that at the OS level, and they do so without compromising functionality. It's a major deficiency of the iOS platform, and one that is hard to fix because it is so deeply hardcoded into the design of iOS.
I assume you are comparing it to the Android model? That makes the user have to make more decisions. Almost all of them will click through to get to play their game. The Windows world has taught us this. From a security standpoint, permissions manifests are mostly irrelevant.
Apple pays lip service to consistency; that's different from delivering it.
Apple's no magically perfect company, some inconsistencies are inherent to humans as programmers. Stupid humans. But exactly why would you say that it's just lip service? I'm very curious there.
Apple has better consistency than most other smartphones. They at least really try. I don't know what that guy is talking about, either.
What the GP means is an alternate distribution method. Nice way to twist his words. Realistically you should be able to install from any source, including the Internet.
The GP lamented that there were no interesting apps and then noted music stores as one of the interesting apps he'd like to see. There was no twisting of words. It was a direct reading.
- WiFi music sync This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this.
Why should you need to Jailbreak to get an application for such basic functionality. Android has been able to transfer files wirelessly (that is what it boils down to) since I started using it at version 1.1 via a thrid party program. In 2.2 it is a standard part of the OS.
And you conveniently failed to quote the part of my post which said:
There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.
Nice marketspeak, I'll translate
An unnecessary attack.
What Apple are doing is obfuscating file transactions by providing an extremely limited custom interface which hides file transactions from the user. In no way are they eliminating the concept of files, rather just treating the user like an idiot and hiding the actual transaction from them.
Yes. They're trying to make it easier for their users. That's what you apparently fail to grasp. Not everyone wants to manage files.
It's not like Android can manage separation of user permissions without compromising the entire device. Your excuse for the lockdown is bunk, you need not restrict the entire user just to protect them, you need only to restrict application from accessing the parts of the OS (API) that it doesn't need. This can be accomplished by explicitly granting permissions during installation and explicitly denying access to all other functions. You know, how Linux security works today.
I like Android's approach, to an extent. I like seeing what an app might do, and being able to decide "No, you know, there's no reason that this game needs to know my phone state." But Android's explanations of what the apps are doing needs help, and most people probably aren't going to even pay attention to them.. You know, like how most people just click "Yes" to Windows when it asks them for permission for something? Or did all trojans go away at some point when I wasn't looking?
This is a very fanboyish attempt to justify lock-in.
This is a very poor ad hominem attack. I kinda wish I hadn't bothered with the reply, but it's all there, so there you go. I prefer not to debate with people who are so rude. If you want to discuss with someone, try to refrain from name-calling.
Those are the top three reasons because few people even bother writing the interesting apps anymore; just to name a few that ought to be there:
- Bluetooth DUN
- USB 3G modem driver
To what end, exactly? To tether your device? That's a part of the OS. If you can't do it, it probably means that you're in the US, where AT&T didn't allow Apple to enable it on the devices.
- custom touch keyboards
This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be replacing driver-level components. There are serious pros and cons to allowing this no a platform.
- non-Apple music and video stores
Has any music store tried to write apps? I mean, you have alternate music options with Pandora and Rhapsody on the iPhone, and Rhapsody is very much like a store--you can download the music and then play it offline.
- in-device software development
Why would you want this, out of curiosity? It seems like developing with a touchscreen device would be annoying.
- WiFi music sync
This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this. There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.
- on-device file management
Files? What are files?
With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files. Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.
- full synchronization and backup with box.net
What does this mean exactly? Full backup? Of what? Apps and app data?
box.net, from my glance at the website, looks like just a file dump. Kinda like dropbox. Is it more than that?
Besides, an app wanting to do that would have to have access to lots of things outside of its sandbox. One of the nice things about the iOS platform is the segregation of apps, meaning it's much harder for one app to compromise you. Again, this is a situation which has pros and cons. The major pro is security. The major con is flexibility. It's a design choice where there is no right answer.
What? It's a technical doohicky with an optional lock that invites you in if you press a button. It's an almost perfect analogy. The difference is wholly within the culture. Technical people have a culture of "If I can do it, it's allowed." Everyone else has a culture of "If you want to use someone else's property, they need to tell you that it's ok for you to use it."
The geeks who don't get that are the ones who are fucked up.
Well that amendment doesn't even begin to touch on bear claws. Arms, sure, but claws? Not word one. Do claws count as part of the arm? What about pastry bear claws?
Slashdot Mirror
It's almost like different people have different opinions. What the hell is wrong with this place?!
So what? Does that mean that I can have a EULA somewhere on my website that people automatically agree to if they reply to my Slashdot posts?
In my mind, giving users the option of 1) losing all online access and ability to play most future games or 2) taking away functionality which was advertised with the box...is pretty oppressive. As far as I know, Microsoft has only added features in updates, not taken any away. Sony removing features I paid for after the fact is far worse than anything Microsoft did with the Xbox 360.
No one has gotten it all right yet.
You're right--that's incredibly convenient. And platforms where you don't have physical media are moving in that direction (Steam, DSi, WiiWare, XBL downloads, and PS3 downloads.) Of course, there are other problems with these, such as what happens when your physical unit fails.
You can call Google Voice to initiate a call. You can also (with most cell phones) program your address book with delays between digits. Between these two, you should be able to call from your GV number.
I started out using my number as a throwaway. Gave it to companies who I didn't trust with my real number in cases where I needed to have them contact me quickly. The blacklist feature was what really sold me on it. The SMS was just a nice bonus.
Then I started using the number more and more, and eventually it just became my default number. I gave it out to all my friends and never looked back.
I've noticed the lag, too. It manifests, in practice, by both parties trying to start talking at once, stopping, restarting, repeating. Occasionally, I'll also have choppy conversations--where the other side thinks I'm cutting out--but that could just as easily be my carrier.
There are several reasons Apple doesn't want flash on their phones. Part of it is exactly what you describe. Part of it is the user experience, like the GP described. Part of it is that they don't want to be held hostage by Adobe when iOS 5 comes out and breaks compatibility with Flash so that they are reliant on Adobe to make things work "like they used to" (from the perspective of Apple users.)
Adobe has treated Apple as a second-class citizen for a while, and Apple doesn't want to be a 2nd-class citizen in the mobile device market. There's no way that they're going to let their devices lose features unless it's on their terms, and if they have a third-party runtime in their OS, that's exactly what could happen.
I question why people target Apple specifically when prior to the iPhone, many phones capable of running third-party software had equal or worse restrictions.
And it looks like walled gardens are the future. Windows Phone 7, by all accounts, will work similarly. Android is open, but has a pretty small market share and frankly isn't nearly as user-friendly as the iPhone.
This is a case where SIP is great. Get your own number and just forward it to the company phone.
You can have it both ways. It's called a stipend--your employer adds a little bit to your paycheck each month, and you use it to get a phone. Then they have the right to call/page you on it.
Exactly. Other issues:
DRM on the NES.
Suing the people who made the Game Genie.
Censoring their games in a way that would make Apple App Store critics curl into the fetal position. This is a good read: http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/maniac.html
Howie Rubin of Jaleco (the company that was going to publish the game under license) advised us the that the baddest bad word is Kill. The central activity in most Nintendo games is killing things. The image and the act are good, but the word is bad, even if the word does not suggest the image or the act.
Also, the wii-mote + nunchuck is a great controller. If only more games would focus on buttons instead of waggles (a lot of games would make do with the 4 buttons that are easy to reach IMO)
I hate the Wii Remote. I put up with it only because I want to play Wii games. Most of the time, shaking the Wii remote performs a function which would be just as easily performed by using a discrete button, and would be far less likely to be pressed accidentally. I've died so many times due to the remote's accelerometers triggering in Super Mario Galaxy 2 that it's getting kind of absurd.
As a pointing device, it's adequate. For anything else, I'd rather have a real controller.
Humans are squishy. You can blow off your hand with a fire cracker. A ring of firecrackers with a metal exterior around your neck would probably blow off your head and do no damage to anyone else.
It would be reasonable to randomly choose the side to be presented first. However that would probably be difficult to do in the framework Wikipedia uses.
Maybe I'm just unimaginative, but I have a hard time envisioning that. Your hands are on the regular controller, and the Kinect tracks...your head and feat? What are they doing? And who is holding the gun prop?
im *SICK* of the DRM restrictions on pc games
Consoles are DRMd, too. It's just that NORMALLY, they don't get in the way. However, on the PS3, there are some games which DRM their save files so that you can't backup/restore them with the normal process:
http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation-3/locked-ps3-game-saves-compilation-list-is-now-available/#ixzz0TLGnOjgP
This is pretty bad, since if your PS3 dies, you lose this game data. You can technically move these to another PS3 if both systems are working, by doing some migration hoodoo using a network cable (as opposed to the relatively simple hard disk backups you can do with any other game.)
Of course, since this generation of consoles have a much higher failure rate than previous generations, this is a pretty big deal to me.
There are other issues that add to the annoyance factor. Some games require that you be signed into PSN ( http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64147 ) and plenty of games require the latest firmware to play. Firmware updates can brick your console ( http://gizmodo.com/5021399/playstation-3-firmware-24-bricking-some-ps3s ). While you can easily fix a PC which has been hosed by an update, fixing a console is going to be much harder.
Consoles used to be great for gaming, but I'm too wary of all of these issues to buy one now. My last console was a Wii, though before that I had all of the major consoles of each generation.
You can't do that anywhere.
Ah, I misunderstood what you meant.
And have what happened to Google and Adobe companies happen to them? What's the point?
This is pretty vague, but I don't think it's fair for you to complain about companies not trying to do something because they're scared of Apple. You don't know what would happen if they tried.
So is it that you want apps to be able to modify the music database on iOS directly? Then I suppose apps aren't allowed to do that. But it's not exactly the same thing as just writing a music store app. Once useful multitasking comes to iOS, maybe we'll see someone write a music store with in-app purchases.
Really, while it's competing with Apple, if it's an in-app purchase, they'll still get a cut. It wouldn't surprise me if they allowed it, but didn't allow access to the music database on the phone.
Scientific data analysis, among other things.
There are graphic calculators in the store. There's nothing fundamentally different between a graphing calculator and scientific data analysis. Maybe no one has chosen to write such an app yet?
Other platforms have the notion of "files" not because people want them, but because nobody has come up with something better.
Files are a very high-level abstraction to a user. A music file has almost nothing to do with a document file. They're just globs of data. Getting rid of this abstraction is essential to making computers more accessible to people who don't care about how computers work.
Apple's trying something out. It certainly seems to be working. While there are cases where it's hard to make the device do what you want, for a good chunk of iOS users, it works perfectly well.
No, it's not "more than that". It's a place where I can put my presentations and files that I work on and access them from anywhere and any machine. There is nothing like that for iOS.
Well there's something like it. Dropbox, which I mentioned before. It's not perfect, obviously, but it's along those lines.
There is a right answer: give apps the level of access they need and enforce that. On iOS, right now, every Tetris clone can potentially read your personal information, access your location, and transmit all of that to Chinese hackers. That is wrong, and Apple's review process can't catch it either.
Other platforms get it right: different applications get different levels of access, and they enforce that at the OS level, and they do so without compromising functionality. It's a major deficiency of the iOS platform, and one that is hard to fix because it is so deeply hardcoded into the design of iOS.
I assume you are comparing it to the Android model? That makes the user have to make more decisions. Almost all of them will click through to get to play their game. The Windows world has taught us this. From a security standpoint, permissions manifests are mostly irrelevant.
Apple pays lip service to consistency; that's different from delivering it.
Apple's no magically perfect company, some inconsistencies are inherent to humans as programmers. Stupid humans. But exactly why would you say that it's just lip service? I'm very curious there.
Apple has better consistency than most other smartphones. They at least really try. I don't know what that guy is talking about, either.
I don't think I said that anywhere.
What the GP means is an alternate distribution method. Nice way to twist his words. Realistically you should be able to install from any source, including the Internet.
The GP lamented that there were no interesting apps and then noted music stores as one of the interesting apps he'd like to see. There was no twisting of words. It was a direct reading.
- WiFi music sync
This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this.
Why should you need to Jailbreak to get an application for such basic functionality. Android has been able to transfer files wirelessly (that is what it boils down to) since I started using it at version 1.1 via a thrid party program. In 2.2 it is a standard part of the OS.
And you conveniently failed to quote the part of my post which said:
There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.
Nice marketspeak, I'll translate
An unnecessary attack.
What Apple are doing is obfuscating file transactions by providing an extremely limited custom interface which hides file transactions from the user. In no way are they eliminating the concept of files, rather just treating the user like an idiot and hiding the actual transaction from them.
Yes. They're trying to make it easier for their users. That's what you apparently fail to grasp. Not everyone wants to manage files.
It's not like Android can manage separation of user permissions without compromising the entire device. Your excuse for the lockdown is bunk, you need not restrict the entire user just to protect them, you need only to restrict application from accessing the parts of the OS (API) that it doesn't need. This can be accomplished by explicitly granting permissions during installation and explicitly denying access to all other functions. You know, how Linux security works today.
I like Android's approach, to an extent. I like seeing what an app might do, and being able to decide "No, you know, there's no reason that this game needs to know my phone state." But Android's explanations of what the apps are doing needs help, and most people probably aren't going to even pay attention to them.. You know, like how most people just click "Yes" to Windows when it asks them for permission for something? Or did all trojans go away at some point when I wasn't looking?
This is a very fanboyish attempt to justify lock-in.
This is a very poor ad hominem attack. I kinda wish I hadn't bothered with the reply, but it's all there, so there you go. I prefer not to debate with people who are so rude. If you want to discuss with someone, try to refrain from name-calling.
Good day to you, sir.
Those are the top three reasons because few people even bother writing the interesting apps anymore; just to name a few that ought to be there:
- Bluetooth DUN
- USB 3G modem driver
To what end, exactly? To tether your device? That's a part of the OS. If you can't do it, it probably means that you're in the US, where AT&T didn't allow Apple to enable it on the devices.
- custom touch keyboards
This would be nice, but it wouldn't exactly be an app. It would be replacing driver-level components. There are serious pros and cons to allowing this no a platform.
- non-Apple music and video stores
Has any music store tried to write apps? I mean, you have alternate music options with Pandora and Rhapsody on the iPhone, and Rhapsody is very much like a store--you can download the music and then play it offline.
- in-device software development
Why would you want this, out of curiosity? It seems like developing with a touchscreen device would be annoying.
- WiFi music sync
This would be very nice. If you Jailbreak your phone, you can buy an app that does this. There's no damned good reason for Apple to not develop this officially.
- on-device file management
Files? What are files?
With iOS, Apple is trying to make a simple, yet powerful device. They are trying to abstract away the concept of files. Any app can let you manage its own data files however the developer wishes.
- full synchronization and backup with box.net
What does this mean exactly? Full backup? Of what? Apps and app data?
box.net, from my glance at the website, looks like just a file dump. Kinda like dropbox. Is it more than that?
Besides, an app wanting to do that would have to have access to lots of things outside of its sandbox. One of the nice things about the iOS platform is the segregation of apps, meaning it's much harder for one app to compromise you. Again, this is a situation which has pros and cons. The major pro is security. The major con is flexibility. It's a design choice where there is no right answer.
"Need" is relative. How are they going to determine who needs help? And who actually pays for those laptops? Homeowners in the district, that's who.
If I lived in that community, I'd be livid.
Whoa whoa whoa, are you suggesting that schools have hired competent admins? Take my word for it--they do not.
What? It's a technical doohicky with an optional lock that invites you in if you press a button. It's an almost perfect analogy. The difference is wholly within the culture. Technical people have a culture of "If I can do it, it's allowed." Everyone else has a culture of "If you want to use someone else's property, they need to tell you that it's ok for you to use it."
The geeks who don't get that are the ones who are fucked up.
Well that amendment doesn't even begin to touch on bear claws. Arms, sure, but claws? Not word one. Do claws count as part of the arm? What about pastry bear claws?
It's quite vague, actually.