But your analysis is only correct if you live in the past. With baytrail Intel is again stomping ARM and this is only getting worse now that Intel has set ist sights on this market segment.
Nope, because then we also consider the Tegra 4 and the results are pretty on par for those 2.
And what is the problem? They are pretty clear about it not being an iPhone. Exactly what elements did Apple invent and how long do you suggest they have exclusivity on those elements for?
If that is a ripoff of iOS 7's calendar then clearly iOS 7's calendar is a ripoff of the meego calendar, in fact I would say it looks a lot more like the Meego one than the iOS 7 one.
So customize an existing device to do that. Obviously the market for such a thing is probably just you so no company is ever going to make such a thing but instead of whining about it you could quite easily just do it.
Seriously who cares? So what if they used the same color schemes or whatever?
Of course, it is not an exact replica, but at first glance, it could easily fool anyone.
And what exactly are the dire consequences of being fooled at first glance? I mean it clearly isn't an iphone, it has the xiaomi branding on the front along with the standard Android capacitive buttons.
It's not really accurate to say that iOS 7's design is flat. It actually has more depth than the earlier design, it's just that the individual items in each layer are flat.
And how is that different from say Android? Which is layered flat design and has its "desktop" over a parallax background and the notifications bar is overlaid atop that.
Or from Windows 8? Which is also layered flat design and has the tiles overlaid on a parallax background and other various "layers" (charms, multitasking, etc..) are overlaid atop that.
But why should I get Win8 when I have to get it and then jump a few hoops to get what I already had with Win7?
Because most new PCs come with it installed. I don't see any reason to upgrade an existing Windows 7 PC to Windows 8 but it's hardly the end of the world if you buy a new PC with Win8 already installed.
Take the absolute lowest Intel and AMD quads, the Atom and Jaguar respectively, and put it against the most expensive top 'o the line ARM quad and what happens? the ARM gets a curbstomping
Wrong, you can see the Atom chips getting smashed by the Exynos 5 chip.
And here in h.264 encoding, zip compression and PHP compilation benchmarks.
Also here it's more of a mixed bag but the Atom gets thoroughly beaten and the Tegra4 and Jaguar trade the lead.
I understand running a business that depends on PCs is where your obvious bias comes from but the facts don't lie, this isn't to say that ARM is better than x86 but in some cases it is and it most certainly isn't the "curbstomping" you claim it to be.
So Android devices are multipurpose computers and even Windows Phone has Touch Studio for writing programs. With a text editor and remote compilation you can code on pretty much any device.
It isn't really a question of money, you simply cannot test anything even close to that many configurations. No other vendor supports anywhere near that many. The could leave it up to the OEM to test but that would probably end up like the state of Android updates.
OS X is supported on a relatively small amount of configurations and they bundle driver updates for the core hardware so it is generally much more stable across its available hardware platforms. iOS is a comparatively very narrow set of configurations. We all know the story with the disparate availability of Android updates and even custom distros like Cyanogen only support a handful of handsets and they don't have customizable internals or various driver versions for those internals unlike desktops/laptops.
No it doesn't seem "more like that" at all, testing the millions of configurations is objectively impossible with the different types, brands and revisions of hardware all mixed and matched as well as the myriad of different versions of drivers for that hardware.
I'm using Windows 7 and I was affected by this. I can't fathom the depths of ineptitude required to release such an update, to be perfectly honest.
Maybe something to do with the millions of configurations of software and hardware that they have to support? Every now and then something is bound to go wrong.
Alright, why don't you tell us what actually happened?
Alrighty then:
Under cross examination, however, Detective Matt Goeckel conceded that Bravo had an iPhone 4 which did not have Siri capability and there was no proof that Bravo had asked Siri for suggestions on disposing of a body. The detective said the image on Bravo's phone was a "cached photo."
The defense also pointed out that Bravo and Aguilar were not roommates.
I gave many examples of advantages but you don't value them.
No it's not that I don't value them, it's that the vast majority of people don't value them. They aren't significant or disruptive changes, look at what the iPhone did to the smartphone market, that is what will make people switch. Real significant, tangible benefits are what people are willing to put up with change and incompatibility for.
That's fine, but others do and would switch but for inertia.
There is absolutely no proof of that whatsoever, the only proof is to the contrary: OS X marketshare has grown over the past decade while desktop Linux has not. Windows has gone through 2 major disruptive changes yet that hasn't caused any significant number to switch to desktop Linux.
All those corporations stuck with XP and IE6 probably wish they could make the jump to Win7 and keep IE 6 for their internal craplications.
Right, they want to go to Win 7, not to Linux. We all know what the IE6 issue was - and had Netscape been the one to succeed we would have been stuck with applications tied to their proprietary extensions too - but thankfully the web standards are capable for producing functional web applications these days and those standards are mostly adhered to by the big players Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even IE. Back then you needed to use proprietary extensions because the standard was too limited, the choice was IE or Netscape so you were tied to them either way, had people used Netscape's embedded objects or dynamic documents or multicol, spacer, etc... they'd be tied to non-compliant old Navigator versions too.
When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, that's the problem with Linux advocates: they think Linux is the solution for every problem, from smartwatches to mainframes. It's great for embedded systems (the various embedded versions of Windows are only appropriate for a small niche there) and it's great for mainframes (not sure why anybody would run Windows there) but it's unnecessary on the desktop because it adds nothing of value over the incumbents.
You can install bash on Windows, but only if you install the rest of Cygwin (basically a Unix userspace ported to Windows).
Nope, you can use win-bash.
You can very well be stuck if you use XP. Let's say, one of those nice pre-installed machines craps out. Now, if you want consistancy, you're SOL.
How are you "stuck"?
With Linux, since you can mix and match, you can either install the old distro on a well chosen new machine or you can install the latest but keep all of the old userspace in a chroot for that special app that needs the old libraries.
Which is a nice feature, but of no value to the vast majority of people. That's been proven already.
But to each his own. You are free to pound nails with a rock if you like, but I prefer a hammer or a nailgun for that.
And you can keep you head in the sand just ignoring reality, I'm not quite sure what your analogy is supposed to mean as I use OS X primarily and that has all the same tools as Linux, I can even replace the shell if I want. So it seems you're just very uneducated about what is available.
I think you underestimate the magnitude of user inertia. I suspect as the generation growing up to expect varied interfaces matures, they'll be more open to a Linux desktop.
Changing interfaces is not a big deal, I've already said that. The problem is that Linux offers no valuable features so no incentive to change from the incumbents, you learn a new interface and you get nothing for it. The only benefit you've given is cheapness (which comes with incompatibility), whether that's the lack of license cost or re-purposing ancient machines that can't run other modern operating systems.
The problem is, no matter how cheap, unless it is Free, you still get to spend money on license compliance.
I don't.
The very largest organizations need not worry because they likely have a very expensive site license, but anything smaller does not.
Smaller ones generally buy their licenses included with their hardware, just like regular consumers do.
If you want other benefits, there are plenty. Consider all the pain now as various organizations now have to either migrate off of XP now or cough up huge sums to maintain support for a few more years. Not a problem with a Free OS.
There is no free OS version that has had 13 years of support and even large corporations are reluctant to maintain an operating system themselves due the huge cost, the alternative for them is to cough up huge sums to companies like RedHat to maintain support, so no real benefit there.
BTW, multiple workspaces are NICE to have.
Yeah I have that in OS X, use it all the time.
Does Windows FINALLY have a compose key?
I don't know.
As for the system portability, I explicitly stated that it includes the userspace software.
Yes, at the pocket watch scale you must make concessions to the limited power of the platform and the limited UI, but the standard cli utilities work just fine.
How disconnected from reality are you to really think this benefits average users in any way?
Another nice thing with the Linux GUI is that even on a multi-user system, each user can have the desktop he/she wants.
But most people don't have regular multi-user systems. It's a nice benefit but not useful to most people, again that's why it's niche.
While Windows has made great progress in stability and durability, it still has a habit of periodically crapping it's pants such that a re-install is the best answer.
Yeah I haven't had that since Windows 95 and haven't had it at all with OS X (maybe it happened with Mac OS but I didn't regularly use that).
Install Windows and you have an OS. Install a Linux Distro and you have a huge variety of software to choose from. Office suite, image editing/processing, genomics, etc all there and part of the official distro.
There's no reason you can't install what you want on Windows or OS X either, the same office suites and image editors. Actually i'd be annoyed if my OS install also installed a bunch of bloatware like genomics that I don't want or need.
While a typical user may not be comfortable on the command line, it is there for the power user in Linux. And I don't mean the crappy DOS shell, I mean a
choice of feature-full shells each speaking a Turing complete script language.
Just like any power user can use bash, powershell, perl, or whatever on Windows. You see you're trying to sell a power-user feature on the fact that it's pre-installed, no power user is going to be deterred by the need to download and install something.
All that and nobody can force me to 'upgrade' if I don't want to.
I don't think you know the meaning of the word 'force'. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade anything, but you won't get support for outdated distros either, even LTS releases eventually go out of support. In fact Windows XP has been supported longer than any version of any Linux distro, the same cannot be said for any version of OS X though.
And nobody shoves the cup under my nose if I *DO* want to.
Again, cheapness.
Know that 'old' Windows box that can't run Win7? Install the latest and greatest of the distro of your choice and it's nearly as good as a brand new computer.
No, no I don't. Something that old is just a space hog and a powe
Larger organizations have saved MILLIONS by switching. Maybe you have an unwanted spare million bux in your pocket, but many don't.
Very few large organizations have done so and ultimately that's just the argument that it's cheap and just pleasing the beancounters. If somebody like Microsoft (or to a lesser extent, Apple) come in with a cheap deal or something desirable then you find yourself offering nothing, which is precisely what has been happening in the consumer space for nigh on 2 decades. It's not that it's not as good as the commercial offerings, it's that it's not measurably better, it isn't disruptive. Even Microsoft has stumbled with releases like Vista and 8 that have introduced huge changes and desktop Linux distros still faltered because they were different but not innovative.
So like I said, they accept changes in usability and lose application compatibility for what? All you've offered is that it's cheap.
How so? True the tiny systems are often barebones install, but it still all comes from the same source packages
The kernel is (somewhat) the same even though you're compiling with different features for different architectures but you aren't running all the same userland packages. So I don't see where you think the usability aspects of a pocket watch translate in any way to supercomputers except for some things at the syscall level.
What you're saying is that the kernel of the system is built from the same generic source tree, well what's your point?
Considering the amount of pushback I got trying to move 5 outlook express users who were losing data on a monthly basis to thunderbird where no crashes were happening, I believe I can blame the users.
And did you try to understand why it was difficult? What was it they were attached to? If outlook express crashes while they were typing an email and they then have to revert to an auto-saved draft you can see that not being that much of a big deal.
I Honestly cannot see what is so hard about Linux desktop.
The reason people don't switch is not that it's necessarily that hard, it's that it's not worth it. It's just change for the sake of change but in addition to that you lose application compatibility in exchange for... what?
As for the system, there are people running Debian or Ubuntu on a smartphone.
Yes of course some people are but saying it's the same system "on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch" is just nonsense.
with great apps without having to go through iTunes and what not.
Actually pretty much anything that will run on a Linux OS will also run on OS X, in fact there is even a nix-style package manager called MacPorts that you can get a lot of that stuff from. The App Store (not sure why you mention iTunes, perhaps you just don't know much about OS X) is in addition to that, you never have to use it.
I bet you'd still find more people running OS X on hackintoshes than you would running Elementary OS.
So you expect to be able to use a general purpose system that does accounting, astronomy, genomics, etc etc on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch with NO learning whatsoever?
Don't be daft, it isn't the same system, it's (mostly) the same kernel, people aren't running RHEL or SLES on their smartphones. Apple uses the same kernel for their desktop, server, tablet, phone and media player operating systems and those are very intuitive so yes Linux-based products should be be intuitive, because going between Windows and OS X is nowhere near as difficult as going to a desktop Linux distro.
But I personally don't think that's the real issue, people will adapt to using even unintuitive products *if* they are significantly better than the incumbents. The problem desktop Linux has is that it has a couple of big negatives:
-Usability/Intuitive-ness (even if that just means a different paradigm)
-Incompatibility with applications
Now people will get past those *if* there is a killer benefit to outweigh the negatives and the fact remains that there isn't. Linux distros have been ridiculously easy to install for the last decade or so, even Live CDs/USBs to try them out first have been around for that long but still it hasn't caught on because there's no reason for the average user to use it. You can't just continue to blame the user for that.
Ex-Microsoft people, always causing trouble to their new companies to benefit their old company.
How does that shit get modded up? After all while Netflix support Microsoft they also support Microsoft's biggest competitors: Sony (Playstation), Apple (OS X and iOS), Nintendo (Wii), Google (Chromebooks and even Android to a degree). The fact that they don't support "Linux" (even though they do support Linux in the form of Chromebooks and Android) hardly seems to be some Microsoft-centric conspiracy now does it?
My 2009 MacBook was just awful after that touted "free upgrade" to Mavericks. It was so bad, I ended up ejecting from the Apple ecosystem.
Problem solved then. We know how the cycle of operating system upgrades works with the major vendors, it has been well established over the past decade or so. If you're only just realizing it now then you're a bit late to the game but no matter, if you don't like it then as you say, don't use it.
Why should they be forced to upgrade?
They aren't, just because Apple releases a new version doesn't mean the old one magically stops working. Nobody is forced to do anything, if you thought the product you bought would be supported forever well that's just a bit silly.
Slashdot Mirror
Locked BIOS.
Does it have a locked BIOS?
We really need more diversity here.
Why? It's an operating system, its job is to run your programs and manage resources, what do you need so many operating systems for?
But your analysis is only correct if you live in the past. With baytrail Intel is again stomping ARM and this is only getting worse now that Intel has set ist sights on this market segment.
Nope, because then we also consider the Tegra 4 and the results are pretty on par for those 2.
What is happening now is just blatant copying.
And what is the problem? They are pretty clear about it not being an iPhone. Exactly what elements did Apple invent and how long do you suggest they have exclusivity on those elements for?
Did you see the calendar app?
If that is a ripoff of iOS 7's calendar then clearly iOS 7's calendar is a ripoff of the meego calendar, in fact I would say it looks a lot more like the Meego one than the iOS 7 one.
So customize an existing device to do that. Obviously the market for such a thing is probably just you so no company is ever going to make such a thing but instead of whining about it you could quite easily just do it.
Seriously who cares? So what if they used the same color schemes or whatever?
Of course, it is not an exact replica, but at first glance, it could easily fool anyone.
And what exactly are the dire consequences of being fooled at first glance? I mean it clearly isn't an iphone, it has the xiaomi branding on the front along with the standard Android capacitive buttons.
It's not really accurate to say that iOS 7's design is flat. It actually has more depth than the earlier design, it's just that the individual items in each layer are flat.
And how is that different from say Android? Which is layered flat design and has its "desktop" over a parallax background and the notifications bar is overlaid atop that.
Or from Windows 8? Which is also layered flat design and has the tiles overlaid on a parallax background and other various "layers" (charms, multitasking, etc..) are overlaid atop that.
But why should I get Win8 when I have to get it and then jump a few hoops to get what I already had with Win7?
Because most new PCs come with it installed. I don't see any reason to upgrade an existing Windows 7 PC to Windows 8 but it's hardly the end of the world if you buy a new PC with Win8 already installed.
Take the absolute lowest Intel and AMD quads, the Atom and Jaguar respectively, and put it against the most expensive top 'o the line ARM quad and what happens? the ARM gets a curbstomping
Wrong, you can see the Atom chips getting smashed by the Exynos 5 chip.
And here in monte carlo and FFT benchmarks.
And here in h.264 encoding, zip compression and PHP compilation benchmarks.
Also here it's more of a mixed bag but the Atom gets thoroughly beaten and the Tegra4 and Jaguar trade the lead.
I understand running a business that depends on PCs is where your obvious bias comes from but the facts don't lie, this isn't to say that ARM is better than x86 but in some cases it is and it most certainly isn't the "curbstomping" you claim it to be.
That's easy.
Can you code on it? Multipurpose.
So Android devices are multipurpose computers and even Windows Phone has Touch Studio for writing programs. With a text editor and remote compilation you can code on pretty much any device.
It isn't really a question of money, you simply cannot test anything even close to that many configurations. No other vendor supports anywhere near that many. The could leave it up to the OEM to test but that would probably end up like the state of Android updates.
OS X is supported on a relatively small amount of configurations and they bundle driver updates for the core hardware so it is generally much more stable across its available hardware platforms.
iOS is a comparatively very narrow set of configurations.
We all know the story with the disparate availability of Android updates and even custom distros like Cyanogen only support a handful of handsets and they don't have customizable internals or various driver versions for those internals unlike desktops/laptops.
No it doesn't seem "more like that" at all, testing the millions of configurations is objectively impossible with the different types, brands and revisions of hardware all mixed and matched as well as the myriad of different versions of drivers for that hardware.
I'm using Windows 7 and I was affected by this. I can't fathom the depths of ineptitude required to release such an update, to be perfectly honest.
Maybe something to do with the millions of configurations of software and hardware that they have to support? Every now and then something is bound to go wrong.
Alright, why don't you tell us what actually happened?
Alrighty then:
Under cross examination, however, Detective Matt Goeckel conceded that Bravo had an iPhone 4 which did not have Siri capability and there was no proof that Bravo had asked Siri for suggestions on disposing of a body. The detective said the image on Bravo's phone was a "cached photo."
The defense also pointed out that Bravo and Aguilar were not roommates.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/defense-denies-accused-killer-asked-siri/story?id=24958781
I gave many examples of advantages but you don't value them.
No it's not that I don't value them, it's that the vast majority of people don't value them. They aren't significant or disruptive changes, look at what the iPhone did to the smartphone market, that is what will make people switch. Real significant, tangible benefits are what people are willing to put up with change and incompatibility for.
That's fine, but others do and would switch but for inertia.
There is absolutely no proof of that whatsoever, the only proof is to the contrary: OS X marketshare has grown over the past decade while desktop Linux has not. Windows has gone through 2 major disruptive changes yet that hasn't caused any significant number to switch to desktop Linux.
All those corporations stuck with XP and IE6 probably wish they could make the jump to Win7 and keep IE 6 for their internal craplications.
Right, they want to go to Win 7, not to Linux. We all know what the IE6 issue was - and had Netscape been the one to succeed we would have been stuck with applications tied to their proprietary extensions too - but thankfully the web standards are capable for producing functional web applications these days and those standards are mostly adhered to by the big players Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even IE. Back then you needed to use proprietary extensions because the standard was too limited, the choice was IE or Netscape so you were tied to them either way, had people used Netscape's embedded objects or dynamic documents or multicol, spacer, etc... they'd be tied to non-compliant old Navigator versions too.
When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, that's the problem with Linux advocates: they think Linux is the solution for every problem, from smartwatches to mainframes. It's great for embedded systems (the various embedded versions of Windows are only appropriate for a small niche there) and it's great for mainframes (not sure why anybody would run Windows there) but it's unnecessary on the desktop because it adds nothing of value over the incumbents.
You can install bash on Windows, but only if you install the rest of Cygwin (basically a Unix userspace ported to Windows).
Nope, you can use win-bash.
You can very well be stuck if you use XP. Let's say, one of those nice pre-installed machines craps out. Now, if you want consistancy, you're SOL.
How are you "stuck"?
With Linux, since you can mix and match, you can either install the old distro on a well chosen new machine or you can install the latest but keep all of the old userspace in a chroot for that special app that needs the old libraries.
Which is a nice feature, but of no value to the vast majority of people. That's been proven already.
But to each his own. You are free to pound nails with a rock if you like, but I prefer a hammer or a nailgun for that.
And you can keep you head in the sand just ignoring reality, I'm not quite sure what your analogy is supposed to mean as I use OS X primarily and that has all the same tools as Linux, I can even replace the shell if I want. So it seems you're just very uneducated about what is available.
I think you underestimate the magnitude of user inertia. I suspect as the generation growing up to expect varied interfaces matures, they'll be more open to a Linux desktop.
Changing interfaces is not a big deal, I've already said that. The problem is that Linux offers no valuable features so no incentive to change from the incumbents, you learn a new interface and you get nothing for it. The only benefit you've given is cheapness (which comes with incompatibility), whether that's the lack of license cost or re-purposing ancient machines that can't run other modern operating systems.
The problem is, no matter how cheap, unless it is Free, you still get to spend money on license compliance.
I don't.
The very largest organizations need not worry because they likely have a very expensive site license, but anything smaller does not.
Smaller ones generally buy their licenses included with their hardware, just like regular consumers do.
If you want other benefits, there are plenty. Consider all the pain now as various organizations now have to either migrate off of XP now or cough up huge sums to maintain support for a few more years. Not a problem with a Free OS.
There is no free OS version that has had 13 years of support and even large corporations are reluctant to maintain an operating system themselves due the huge cost, the alternative for them is to cough up huge sums to companies like RedHat to maintain support, so no real benefit there.
BTW, multiple workspaces are NICE to have.
Yeah I have that in OS X, use it all the time.
Does Windows FINALLY have a compose key?
I don't know.
As for the system portability, I explicitly stated that it includes the userspace software.
Yes, at the pocket watch scale you must make concessions to the limited power of the platform and the limited UI, but the standard cli utilities work just fine.
How disconnected from reality are you to really think this benefits average users in any way?
Another nice thing with the Linux GUI is that even on a multi-user system, each user can have the desktop he/she wants.
But most people don't have regular multi-user systems. It's a nice benefit but not useful to most people, again that's why it's niche.
While Windows has made great progress in stability and durability, it still has a habit of periodically crapping it's pants such that a re-install is the best answer.
Yeah I haven't had that since Windows 95 and haven't had it at all with OS X (maybe it happened with Mac OS but I didn't regularly use that).
Install Windows and you have an OS. Install a Linux Distro and you have a huge variety of software to choose from. Office suite, image editing/processing, genomics, etc all there and part of the official distro.
There's no reason you can't install what you want on Windows or OS X either, the same office suites and image editors. Actually i'd be annoyed if my OS install also installed a bunch of bloatware like genomics that I don't want or need.
While a typical user may not be comfortable on the command line, it is there for the power user in Linux. And I don't mean the crappy DOS shell, I mean a choice of feature-full shells each speaking a Turing complete script language.
Just like any power user can use bash, powershell, perl, or whatever on Windows. You see you're trying to sell a power-user feature on the fact that it's pre-installed, no power user is going to be deterred by the need to download and install something.
All that and nobody can force me to 'upgrade' if I don't want to.
I don't think you know the meaning of the word 'force'. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade anything, but you won't get support for outdated distros either, even LTS releases eventually go out of support. In fact Windows XP has been supported longer than any version of any Linux distro, the same cannot be said for any version of OS X though.
And nobody shoves the cup under my nose if I *DO* want to.
Again, cheapness.
Know that 'old' Windows box that can't run Win7? Install the latest and greatest of the distro of your choice and it's nearly as good as a brand new computer.
No, no I don't. Something that old is just a space hog and a powe
Larger organizations have saved MILLIONS by switching. Maybe you have an unwanted spare million bux in your pocket, but many don't.
Very few large organizations have done so and ultimately that's just the argument that it's cheap and just pleasing the beancounters. If somebody like Microsoft (or to a lesser extent, Apple) come in with a cheap deal or something desirable then you find yourself offering nothing, which is precisely what has been happening in the consumer space for nigh on 2 decades. It's not that it's not as good as the commercial offerings, it's that it's not measurably better, it isn't disruptive. Even Microsoft has stumbled with releases like Vista and 8 that have introduced huge changes and desktop Linux distros still faltered because they were different but not innovative.
So like I said, they accept changes in usability and lose application compatibility for what? All you've offered is that it's cheap.
How so? True the tiny systems are often barebones install, but it still all comes from the same source packages
The kernel is (somewhat) the same even though you're compiling with different features for different architectures but you aren't running all the same userland packages. So I don't see where you think the usability aspects of a pocket watch translate in any way to supercomputers except for some things at the syscall level.
What you're saying is that the kernel of the system is built from the same generic source tree, well what's your point?
Considering the amount of pushback I got trying to move 5 outlook express users who were losing data on a monthly basis to thunderbird where no crashes were happening, I believe I can blame the users.
And did you try to understand why it was difficult? What was it they were attached to? If outlook express crashes while they were typing an email and they then have to revert to an auto-saved draft you can see that not being that much of a big deal.
I Honestly cannot see what is so hard about Linux desktop.
The reason people don't switch is not that it's necessarily that hard, it's that it's not worth it. It's just change for the sake of change but in addition to that you lose application compatibility in exchange for ... what?
As for the system, there are people running Debian or Ubuntu on a smartphone.
Yes of course some people are but saying it's the same system "on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch" is just nonsense.
Perhaps they don't want to beholden to Apple
What does that even mean?
with great apps without having to go through iTunes and what not.
Actually pretty much anything that will run on a Linux OS will also run on OS X, in fact there is even a nix-style package manager called MacPorts that you can get a lot of that stuff from. The App Store (not sure why you mention iTunes, perhaps you just don't know much about OS X) is in addition to that, you never have to use it.
I bet you'd still find more people running OS X on hackintoshes than you would running Elementary OS.
So you expect to be able to use a general purpose system that does accounting, astronomy, genomics, etc etc on everything from a modern mainframe to a pocket watch with NO learning whatsoever?
Don't be daft, it isn't the same system, it's (mostly) the same kernel, people aren't running RHEL or SLES on their smartphones. Apple uses the same kernel for their desktop, server, tablet, phone and media player operating systems and those are very intuitive so yes Linux-based products should be be intuitive, because going between Windows and OS X is nowhere near as difficult as going to a desktop Linux distro.
But I personally don't think that's the real issue, people will adapt to using even unintuitive products *if* they are significantly better than the incumbents. The problem desktop Linux has is that it has a couple of big negatives:
-Usability/Intuitive-ness (even if that just means a different paradigm)
-Incompatibility with applications
Now people will get past those *if* there is a killer benefit to outweigh the negatives and the fact remains that there isn't. Linux distros have been ridiculously easy to install for the last decade or so, even Live CDs/USBs to try them out first have been around for that long but still it hasn't caught on because there's no reason for the average user to use it. You can't just continue to blame the user for that.
Ex-Microsoft people, always causing trouble to their new companies to benefit their old company.
How does that shit get modded up? After all while Netflix support Microsoft they also support Microsoft's biggest competitors: Sony (Playstation), Apple (OS X and iOS), Nintendo (Wii), Google (Chromebooks and even Android to a degree). The fact that they don't support "Linux" (even though they do support Linux in the form of Chromebooks and Android) hardly seems to be some Microsoft-centric conspiracy now does it?
But do you do that with physical goods too? Or only digital ones where there is a high chance you can get away with it?
My 2009 MacBook was just awful after that touted "free upgrade" to Mavericks. It was so bad, I ended up ejecting from the Apple ecosystem.
Problem solved then. We know how the cycle of operating system upgrades works with the major vendors, it has been well established over the past decade or so. If you're only just realizing it now then you're a bit late to the game but no matter, if you don't like it then as you say, don't use it.
Why should they be forced to upgrade?
They aren't, just because Apple releases a new version doesn't mean the old one magically stops working. Nobody is forced to do anything, if you thought the product you bought would be supported forever well that's just a bit silly.