I can uninstall the browser Ubuntu comes with and I can remove Safari from OS X.
No you can't - at least on Lion - if you try to drop it in the trash it will tell you the application cannot be removed because it is required by the system.
Windows (at least from my experience which admittedly does not go beyond XP) does not always accept my choice. For example opening links in MSN Messenger it will open in IE even though it's not my default browser. Windows more than any other system pushes its choices on you.
That's MSN Messenger - not Windows - using IE as opposed to using the OS default, any application can do that. ICQ - for example - could directly open IE as opposed to using the system default too.
They don't advertise their systems as being able to play all software released which is why they have system requirements where as a 360 does no have system requirements because it's expected that a 360 plays all 360 software. It would be like Apple labelling their software as Safari Mac 2007. Now what will MS do when they release a new model of the xbox?
From the link: Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs. This issue manifests itself as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen and is unrelated to our recent public beta. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox LIVE and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console.
Not that it's something I would expect but I don't see Apple reaching out to its customers to replace older unsupported Macs from 2006+ with new ones. Again, not saying they should or would be expected to do that, just that this situation with the XBox is clearly not analogous.
.NET was originally supposed to be the "next new thing" that would have taken the place of VB 6 and been used for practically everything, the way they were talking at the time.NET should have been VB6, Flash, and Java all rolled into one and frankly other than corporate its fizzled.
Firstly corporate alone a huge market, it would be more than enough to be successful there, but.Net is used a lot outside of that as well. For example there's the entire XBox indie catalog, there's all the ASP.NET stuff out there, there's Azure (which is what iCloud runs on) and there's consumer apps like Steam, Paint.NET, Quickbooks, etc... It's hardly 'fizzled', in fact it's been widely successful.
Then came Silverlight which was supposed to kill Flash and become the one video and animation tool to rule them all, yet other than a few that use it for DRM it fizzled too
Silverlight was never going to work.
and then finally there is HTML V5, great for Linux and iOS/OSX users, stupid as fuck for MSFT since it yanks any and ALL control out of their hands and puts it straight into the hands of Google and Apple
It allows easy portability, for some things you are going to have to call into platform-specific code just like any cross-platform framework but the advantage is HTML5 is so broad it means you can write so much portable code, it's a fantastic idea that makes it easy for devs.
the majority writing HTML V5 don't give a rat's ass about MSFT, they are writing for iPhone.
The majority of HTML5 devs are writing for iPhone? I don't think so. But even if that were true, it's easy portability between platforms, which is good for everyone.
so it has been one dumbass move after another, and with each bridge they burned they lost that many more devs that spent time and money learning something that was tossed or no longer considered the "cool thing" at MSFT, from VB 6 to.NET
Yes, they dumped Silverlight, but what other 'bridge have they burned'? VB6 is over 20 years old and evolved into VB.Net, it's like saying Apple burned a bridge by dropping Rosetta.
who the hell knows what parts of HTML V5 will be or won't be supported.
Certainly seems to be pretty well supported, they can't really afford to not support HTML5 standard features because they don't have the same domination of consumer computing platforms that they used to. In any case the more the better, it's not like webpages where its the same webapp for whatever platform (so it's ignorant to compare it to IE6) you write platform-specific apps (as distributed through platform app stores) but much of your code is portable.
One thing we HAVE learned from MSFT is "standards compliant" simply isn't in their vocabulary so I frankly wouldn't be surprised if they try the same kind of stupid shit they did with IE 6
I know people like to think things don't change but IE6 was over a decade ago, it's a bit silly to dwell on that and ignore IE9/10 which is what they are doing now, moreover these are platform-specific apps written in a portable language. Unlike webpages coded for IE6 that were viewable through any web browser (and just didn't display correctly), you don't run Metro apps on other devices just like you don't run HTML5-based iPhone or Android apps on any other platform, but you do have a somewhat portable codebase.
MSFT changing their fucking mind with regards to direction every 5 damned minutes (.NET? Silverlight? HTML V5?)
.NET? What did they change direction with there?
Silverlight, well I for one am glad that's gone, we don't need another Flash.
HTML5? That's great, the fact that they are using standards-compliant HTML5 makes portability easier than native apps.
Kinect comes from some little outfit in Israel - who OEM'd the technology under license to MS.
And how many people used it before Microsoft pushed it as a product for the XBox? Microsoft did what all the big companies do, take an existing technology and build a product with consumer appeal around it, compare their SDK with the PrimeSense one to get an idea of the amount of work they did on just that element. Apple did pretty much the same thing with Siri.
What if dual booting becomes impossible, because Windows will not run on a system without these restrictions?
That's just a silly scenario to even consider because it's illogical, they wouldn't lock out a hugely significant segment of their market forcing users to buy new hardware from which they make no money anyway for no gain.
Not necessarily easy to do; OEMs do not have to cooperate and enable custom mode, let alone allow you to disable the feature entirely.
Wrong, they do if they want Microsoft's blessing.
There is no guarantee that Windows will actually run on such a system.
Well actually there is, Windows 8 does run on older systems that do not support UEFI secureboot. If you're talking about future versions then there is no reason to believe they will be any different.
Look at the effort required to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system; what reason does Microsoft have to make Windows available on a home-built system?
The most obvious one, the very reason they and every for-profit company in the world are in business...to make money, which they do by selling a software license. Microsoft's revenue stream is derived vastly from selling Windows and Office licenses, with that in mind it's pretty silly to suggest they would stop doing exactly that.
Maybe only OEMs will get to do that, or maybe only OEMs will be allowed to install Windows with support for certain entertainment services (e.g. Netflix), etc. I know that it is a little paranoid
The reason that is paranoid is simply because there is no reason they would do that, nothing Microsoft would gain from that, they would only lose. Hey maybe they'll open source Windows under a BSD license.
If Microsoft is pushing this because they envision the future of home computer as being entertainment-oriented -- and I strongly suspect that this is the case -- it is reasonable to assume that they will do everything they can to create a "media ecosystem."
They've already got that with the XBox360's Zune functionality, people are much more likely to connect a cheap XBox to their TV than they are to connect a PC.
Sure, most people will not complain -- they will not complain, because they are content to live and think within the box.
How does any of this prevent you from 'living or thinking outside the box'? Or more to the point, what are you defining as 'the box'?
THEIR products? You paid for them, they're yours. I'd say you have every right to do anything you damned well please on your own equipment, and the vendor has no rights whatever after he has your cash.
That's correct, and we've seen precedents set that reinforce that, for example the ruling on the legality of jailbreaking iDevices.
Your freedom to throw punches ends where my face begins. My freedom to install software on my computer is not less important than some OEM's freedom to restrict what software runs on their products.
And they won't be at odds unless you - for some reason - purchase a locked down device, like many people do every day with bootloader-locked phones and tablets, at which point the simple fact of the matter is you bought the wrong product.
Microsoft's second biggest meal ticket is illegal tying of servers to client operating system.
Sounds like you're confused but would you care to explain why you believe that is illegal? There's certainly no anti-trust issue given that the larger marketshare (or monopoly) component is the client operating system and that the client operating system is not tied to the server, hence they aren't leveraging a monopoly.
illegal market control of PC OEMs
How do they control PC OEMs? We all know the biggest OEMs (HP, Dell, Asus, etc..) all sell (or sold but abandoned due to poor sales) Linux PCs, if Microsoft controlled them then they wouldn't have been selling them at all, because obviously Microsoft wouldn't like that, makes your claim pretty dubious.
I'd say his point is that it's not a viable alternative because Apple gives its browser preferential treatment, click on a link in any application and it will open up in Safari, there is no way to change the default browser to Chrome.
That's pretty normal now, i went out for dinner with some friends the other night, 12 people, 12 iphones (mix of 4 and 4S) and i doubt anyone could tell you why they bought an iphone over anything else aside from 'well it's what most other people have'. It's gotten to the point where what was considered advanced functionality that you had to hack a device to get is now considered commodity functionality. Truth be told i no longer have the time to fuck around with my phone to get stuff working well. There's no real standout reason i bought an iphone, it has the functionality i need and given that it's the most common smartphone it's like buying a nokia used to be. If you want to stand out you buy an Android or Windows Phone, if you don't really care you buy an iphone, they're all functionally pretty damn similar these days anyway. The days of elitist apple users are long gone (even if some people still can't let them go, and that goes for both advocates and detractors).
What's your stance on Secure Boot on PCs? Do you think that it would be ok to remove the ability to disable it so that only Windows would boot on there? Then sell those machines at a discount, of course.
Depends on who's doing it, obviously Microsoft can't mandate or have any involvement it as they have too powerful a market position, but if say Toshiba did it on their products there's no real problem with that, there's no competitive advantage to doing it.
But that's highly unlikely unless it provides something, some compelling reason to switch. It needs something so good that it outweighs the benefits of choosing a platform with a broad, mature and well-established ecosystem. We see the same thing with Windows Phone, by most accounts it's actually a very good OS compared to the market leaders but the difficult question to answer is: Why would you choose it instead of iOS or Android? Or more accurately why would 10% of people do so.
When you enter an established market you can't just be as good as the competition, you have to be considerably better!
The 8GB Nexus 7 is $199 USD in the US and $249 AUD in Australia. The 16 GB model is $50 more in each currency.
Ah yes, i thought it was 199 for the 16GB.
The Australian price probably includes 10 % GST
Probably not, you don't have to pay duties on imports of that cost, this assertion is backed by the fact that the RRP in AU is about 10% more than what Google is charging.
the markup is only 14%. That's not bad given the higher costs of operating a business in Australia.
What higher costs? Just ship it here, no need for any markup. Apple sells locally out of their retail stores so they need to charge GST hence a 10% markup.
Mac Mini running iTunes loaded with music from the NAS and HDMI out to the HiFi. Can be controlled via the TV and Trackpad+Keyboard or by phone (running the iTunes remote app so iPhone, Android or WP) or iPad or remote desktop from laptop. Also runs AirServer so music (or video) can be streamed directly from my phone.
The Nexus Q requires an Android phone for control and it also cannot stream from any device (NAS, phone, etc...).
Slashdot Mirror
I can uninstall the browser Ubuntu comes with and I can remove Safari from OS X.
No you can't - at least on Lion - if you try to drop it in the trash it will tell you the application cannot be removed because it is required by the system.
Windows (at least from my experience which admittedly does not go beyond XP) does not always accept my choice. For example opening links in MSN Messenger it will open in IE even though it's not my default browser. Windows more than any other system pushes its choices on you.
That's MSN Messenger - not Windows - using IE as opposed to using the OS default, any application can do that. ICQ - for example - could directly open IE as opposed to using the system default too.
They don't advertise their systems as being able to play all software released which is why they have system requirements where as a 360 does no have system requirements because it's expected that a 360 plays all 360 software. It would be like Apple labelling their software as Safari Mac 2007. Now what will MS do when they release a new model of the xbox?
Exactly, maybe i should re-iterate my point for you (even though i wrote it twice in the original post just to be clear you still seemed to somehow miss it):
Again, not saying they should or would be expected to do that, just that this situation with the XBox is clearly not analogous.
Can you tell me which it was that you tested that was 20% slower? That's pretty significant and i'd like to have a look through.
Since when is seven years later equal to "on a regular basis"?
I think he's referring to those 3-4 year old macs that are unsupported.
Yeah, and how many Wintel machines bought in 2006 (first Gen Macbook Pro guessing the date) can run ANYTHING.
Core2Duo E6600 + 4GB RAM + 8800GTX SLi, runs the latest AAA titles like Diablo 3 perfectly.
You are right. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/18/new-xbox-360-update-incompatible-with-some-models-ms-offering-r/2
From the link:
Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs. This issue manifests itself as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen and is unrelated to our recent public beta. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox LIVE and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console.
Not that it's something I would expect but I don't see Apple reaching out to its customers to replace older unsupported Macs from 2006+ with new ones. Again, not saying they should or would be expected to do that, just that this situation with the XBox is clearly not analogous.
.NET was originally supposed to be the "next new thing" that would have taken the place of VB 6 and been used for practically everything, the way they were talking at the time .NET should have been VB6, Flash, and Java all rolled into one and frankly other than corporate its fizzled.
Firstly corporate alone a huge market, it would be more than enough to be successful there, but .Net is used a lot outside of that as well. For example there's the entire XBox indie catalog, there's all the ASP.NET stuff out there, there's Azure (which is what iCloud runs on) and there's consumer apps like Steam, Paint.NET, Quickbooks, etc... It's hardly 'fizzled', in fact it's been widely successful.
Then came Silverlight which was supposed to kill Flash and become the one video and animation tool to rule them all, yet other than a few that use it for DRM it fizzled too
Silverlight was never going to work.
and then finally there is HTML V5, great for Linux and iOS/OSX users, stupid as fuck for MSFT since it yanks any and ALL control out of their hands and puts it straight into the hands of Google and Apple
It allows easy portability, for some things you are going to have to call into platform-specific code just like any cross-platform framework but the advantage is HTML5 is so broad it means you can write so much portable code, it's a fantastic idea that makes it easy for devs.
the majority writing HTML V5 don't give a rat's ass about MSFT, they are writing for iPhone.
The majority of HTML5 devs are writing for iPhone? I don't think so. But even if that were true, it's easy portability between platforms, which is good for everyone.
so it has been one dumbass move after another, and with each bridge they burned they lost that many more devs that spent time and money learning something that was tossed or no longer considered the "cool thing" at MSFT, from VB 6 to .NET
Yes, they dumped Silverlight, but what other 'bridge have they burned'? VB6 is over 20 years old and evolved into VB.Net, it's like saying Apple burned a bridge by dropping Rosetta.
who the hell knows what parts of HTML V5 will be or won't be supported.
Certainly seems to be pretty well supported, they can't really afford to not support HTML5 standard features because they don't have the same domination of consumer computing platforms that they used to. In any case the more the better, it's not like webpages where its the same webapp for whatever platform (so it's ignorant to compare it to IE6) you write platform-specific apps (as distributed through platform app stores) but much of your code is portable.
One thing we HAVE learned from MSFT is "standards compliant" simply isn't in their vocabulary so I frankly wouldn't be surprised if they try the same kind of stupid shit they did with IE 6
I know people like to think things don't change but IE6 was over a decade ago, it's a bit silly to dwell on that and ignore IE9/10 which is what they are doing now, moreover these are platform-specific apps written in a portable language. Unlike webpages coded for IE6 that were viewable through any web browser (and just didn't display correctly), you don't run Metro apps on other devices just like you don't run HTML5-based iPhone or Android apps on any other platform, but you do have a somewhat portable codebase.
MSFT changing their fucking mind with regards to direction every 5 damned minutes (.NET? Silverlight? HTML V5?)
.NET? What did they change direction with there?
Silverlight, well I for one am glad that's gone, we don't need another Flash.
HTML5? That's great, the fact that they are using standards-compliant HTML5 makes portability easier than native apps.
Kinect comes from some little outfit in Israel - who OEM'd the technology under license to MS.
And how many people used it before Microsoft pushed it as a product for the XBox? Microsoft did what all the big companies do, take an existing technology and build a product with consumer appeal around it, compare their SDK with the PrimeSense one to get an idea of the amount of work they did on just that element. Apple did pretty much the same thing with Siri.
What if dual booting becomes impossible, because Windows will not run on a system without these restrictions?
That's just a silly scenario to even consider because it's illogical, they wouldn't lock out a hugely significant segment of their market forcing users to buy new hardware from which they make no money anyway for no gain.
Not necessarily easy to do; OEMs do not have to cooperate and enable custom mode, let alone allow you to disable the feature entirely.
Wrong, they do if they want Microsoft's blessing.
There is no guarantee that Windows will actually run on such a system.
Well actually there is, Windows 8 does run on older systems that do not support UEFI secureboot. If you're talking about future versions then there is no reason to believe they will be any different.
Look at the effort required to get Mac OS X running on a homebrew system; what reason does Microsoft have to make Windows available on a home-built system?
The most obvious one, the very reason they and every for-profit company in the world are in business...to make money, which they do by selling a software license. Microsoft's revenue stream is derived vastly from selling Windows and Office licenses, with that in mind it's pretty silly to suggest they would stop doing exactly that.
Maybe only OEMs will get to do that, or maybe only OEMs will be allowed to install Windows with support for certain entertainment services (e.g. Netflix), etc.
I know that it is a little paranoid
The reason that is paranoid is simply because there is no reason they would do that, nothing Microsoft would gain from that, they would only lose. Hey maybe they'll open source Windows under a BSD license.
If Microsoft is pushing this because they envision the future of home computer as being entertainment-oriented -- and I strongly suspect that this is the case -- it is reasonable to assume that they will do everything they can to create a "media ecosystem."
They've already got that with the XBox360's Zune functionality, people are much more likely to connect a cheap XBox to their TV than they are to connect a PC.
Sure, most people will not complain -- they will not complain, because they are content to live and think within the box.
How does any of this prevent you from 'living or thinking outside the box'? Or more to the point, what are you defining as 'the box'?
THEIR products? You paid for them, they're yours. I'd say you have every right to do anything you damned well please on your own equipment, and the vendor has no rights whatever after he has your cash.
That's correct, and we've seen precedents set that reinforce that, for example the ruling on the legality of jailbreaking iDevices.
Your freedom to throw punches ends where my face begins. My freedom to install software on my computer is not less important than some OEM's freedom to restrict what software runs on their products.
And they won't be at odds unless you - for some reason - purchase a locked down device, like many people do every day with bootloader-locked phones and tablets, at which point the simple fact of the matter is you bought the wrong product.
OSX/Inqtana-A
Microsoft's second biggest meal ticket is illegal tying of servers to client operating system.
Sounds like you're confused but would you care to explain why you believe that is illegal? There's certainly no anti-trust issue given that the larger marketshare (or monopoly) component is the client operating system and that the client operating system is not tied to the server, hence they aren't leveraging a monopoly.
illegal market control of PC OEMs
How do they control PC OEMs? We all know the biggest OEMs (HP, Dell, Asus, etc..) all sell (or sold but abandoned due to poor sales) Linux PCs, if Microsoft controlled them then they wouldn't have been selling them at all, because obviously Microsoft wouldn't like that, makes your claim pretty dubious.
ONLY OS X remains VIRUS free. "Nearly zero" is NOT ZERO. In its over ten year history, OS X has NEVER had a SELF-REPLICATING piece of malware.
OSX/Inqtana-A is a worm and is self-replicating.
The iPhone 4S uses a micro Sim card while the iPad (at least iPad 2) uses a standard one.
iPad's (even the original) always used a micro SIM, they have NEVER used a normal SIM card.
Don't like Safari? Too bad, nothing else is available.
I don't yet own an iPad or an iPhone, but it looks like you may be wrong about that.
I'd say his point is that it's not a viable alternative because Apple gives its browser preferential treatment, click on a link in any application and it will open up in Safari, there is no way to change the default browser to Chrome.
That's pretty normal now, i went out for dinner with some friends the other night, 12 people, 12 iphones (mix of 4 and 4S) and i doubt anyone could tell you why they bought an iphone over anything else aside from 'well it's what most other people have'. It's gotten to the point where what was considered advanced functionality that you had to hack a device to get is now considered commodity functionality. Truth be told i no longer have the time to fuck around with my phone to get stuff working well. There's no real standout reason i bought an iphone, it has the functionality i need and given that it's the most common smartphone it's like buying a nokia used to be.
If you want to stand out you buy an Android or Windows Phone, if you don't really care you buy an iphone, they're all functionally pretty damn similar these days anyway. The days of elitist apple users are long gone (even if some people still can't let them go, and that goes for both advocates and detractors).
What's your stance on Secure Boot on PCs? Do you think that it would be ok to remove the ability to disable it so that only Windows would boot on there? Then sell those machines at a discount, of course.
Depends on who's doing it, obviously Microsoft can't mandate or have any involvement it as they have too powerful a market position, but if say Toshiba did it on their products there's no real problem with that, there's no competitive advantage to doing it.
You'll never hear about Apple's failed projects;
Ping? G4 Cube? Pippin? eMate?
Yes, because that 0.0001% could grow into 10%.
But that's highly unlikely unless it provides something, some compelling reason to switch. It needs something so good that it outweighs the benefits of choosing a platform with a broad, mature and well-established ecosystem.
We see the same thing with Windows Phone, by most accounts it's actually a very good OS compared to the market leaders but the difficult question to answer is: Why would you choose it instead of iOS or Android? Or more accurately why would 10% of people do so.
When you enter an established market you can't just be as good as the competition, you have to be considerably better!
You know what is really hilarious? Squiqqleslash saying that the Apple would NEVER produce an iphone:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193127&cid=15846677
I guess we won't be taking any predictions of the future from him! lol!
The 8GB Nexus 7 is $199 USD in the US and $249 AUD in Australia. The 16 GB model is $50 more in each currency.
Ah yes, i thought it was 199 for the 16GB.
The Australian price probably includes 10 % GST
Probably not, you don't have to pay duties on imports of that cost, this assertion is backed by the fact that the RRP in AU is about 10% more than what Google is charging.
the markup is only 14%. That's not bad given the higher costs of operating a business in Australia.
What higher costs? Just ship it here, no need for any markup. Apple sells locally out of their retail stores so they need to charge GST hence a 10% markup.
It would have been more sensible to add this as a GoogleTV feature and put out a GoogleTV device.
Mac Mini running iTunes loaded with music from the NAS and HDMI out to the HiFi. Can be controlled via the TV and Trackpad+Keyboard or by phone (running the iTunes remote app so iPhone, Android or WP) or iPad or remote desktop from laptop. Also runs AirServer so music (or video) can be streamed directly from my phone.
The Nexus Q requires an Android phone for control and it also cannot stream from any device (NAS, phone, etc...).