Surprised? Not at all. I find it completely ridiculous to be against breastfeeding in public also. In addition, I find it ridiculous to prevent women from walking around topless in any location that men are allowed to.
The fascination with breasts and the huge desire to see them that most men have is mostly a product of how much they are forcibly hidden. People would make a much smaller deal out of breasts if they didn't have that "forbidden" fruit appeal to them.
Unfortunately, I can't agree with you entirely. I agree that censorship is worthless. However, a parent knows their child and knows whether they are mature enough to handle the themes and ideas in a specific game. While in general I believe that any child should be allowed to play any game, some individuals shouldn't play some games.
There is something to be said for protecting your child from themselves. Children do need some rules to develop properly. It can also be a learning situation. You forbid your child from playing the game, which makes them want to play it even more. They play the game without you knowing, get nightmares like you told them they would and will of course come running to you because they are scared. As a result, you get the moment to give them a reason why they should trust you, not just because you are the parent but because you actually do know what you're talking about and are trying to look out for them.
Also what about using the game as a reward/punishment? Child behaves badly, don't allow them to play it. Child excels at something, give them a reward. There are many reasons beyond censorship which can factor in to a parent not allowing their child to play a specific game. As long as there is a valid reason (violence can be a valid reason in very specific cases of very specific children) then there is nothing wrong with the parent disallowing their child from playing the game.
No offense, but you don't have to indoctrinate your child to pass on your values and ideas. You could nudge them in the direction you want, teach them what you believe in and your morals. However, the difference between passing on and teaching vs indoctrination is to allow them to choose for themselves. Bitter lessons sometimes teach the best, or perhaps a good lesson where they listen to you and do well/are happy. Also a good lesson. The point is you can't control everything your child will ever be exposed to.
As mentioned, a four year old would have one of two reactions to pornography: They would either be very curious and ask lots of questions (that should be a fun conversation) or they would just go "ewww gross!" and walk away. The point is that the effect on the child would be determined by how you frame it and how YOU deal with it. If you allow them to just see it and don't talk to them then yes, it could potentially have a negative effect. However if you speak with them, discuss it and frame it in a way that the child can understand it then you're fine.
I once heard a wise man say: "You can't prepare your child for everything. You can't possibly be there when they will encounter everything. However if you can just talk to them and frame it in such a way so that when they encounter it they'll know how to categorize it, then they'll be okay. If they can see something totally wrong and just know to file it in their head as 'just wrong', then you've succeeded as a parent. Give them a frame of reference and let them make their own decisions because you can't always be there. Once you've laid the groundwork, you just hope it sunk in." This was told to me during a story where the father had, for the first time, caught his 11 year old son searching online for porn, and his approach to talking with him to prepare him for the crazy shit you'll find on the internet. I think it exemplifies the difference between teaching and indoctrination. He taught his son the difference between right and wrong and allowed him to, in the future, make his own decisions based on the frame of reference he was taught. Indoctrination doesn't allow the child to make his own decisions, at that point they'll just rebel against you trying to force your views. They won't learn anything.
Something I picked up during psychology classes in college was that you are more likely to learn something and take it to heart if you believe you came up with it on your own. If someone tells you, 'hey that's wrong' and you don't really understand why, but they punish you for doing it anyway, then you're less likely to believe them and think that they are just enforcing their will on you. Especially if it is someone who has authoritative power over you. However, if you decide for yourself that something is wrong, then you have your own reasons, and know it's wrong regardless of if you really understand it or not. It's the difference between a parent telling a child explicitly what they can and can't do, and a parent who lays a simple set of ground rules and talks with their child without needing specifics, trusting that the child will make the right decision.
Personally I think that there does exist certain material which is inappropriate for some children. The reason that it should be acceptable for retailers to sell it to children is that "acceptability" is on a per child basis. A 5 year old shouldn't play Dante's Inferno, they'll get nightmares. However, a mature 5 year old whose parent thinks they are old enough and won't get nightmares would be fine to play it.
A 12 year old child playing Halo might be just fine, or it might not. That depends on the parent and what they believe their child is mature enough to handle. The point is that it is up to the parent to determine what is and isn't appropriate for their child. The ESRB rating system helps inform the parents that actually care enough, game retailers already will not sell mature games to minors. There is no need for government involvement, which would just turn into censorship. There needs to exist a certain amount of trust between the child and parent. In addition to a certain amount of control. Place the game system (like you should with a computer) in the family room, not in the bedroom. That way, unless you've left your child home alone, a parent/babysitter/whatever can always see what the child is playing. Use your own judgement, faith and trust in your child for what they might play with friends and make sure to talk to them about it all beforehand if you're really that worried. As far as things that could hurt your kid or send him down a path to crime/violence/etc. video games should be pretty low on the list.
Except the parental controls, for most consoles, are more than adequate. They simply blacklist every game with a rating above what you deem is ok for your child. You also put a password on the parental controls and viola you're fine...that is until your child goes to his friend's house.
Truth be told I agree with you that it's ridiculous to assume that a parent will be able to supervise their child every minute that their child has leisure time. That's why you need good parenting. It's called trust and talking to your child. If you talk to them about the games, you know they know it's not real, you enforce no games before schoolwork is done, etc, and you have trust in them, then you don't NEED to supervise them every minute to know that they will be fine.
PS. If you can't trust your kid, then you have larger problems than violent video games.:)
While I am completely against the government censorship, I see nothing wrong with a parent refusing to allow their child to play a game. While it is ridiculous to believe games cause violence, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to prevent a child from playing a game. Parents usually know their children. If they know a game will give their child nightmares, then they shouldn't allow the child to play it. If they think that he/she is mature enough to play the game, then they should let them. Nice and simple.
If you look at the numbers you already would know that children have a hard time obtaining the games. Across the country theres about an 85% or higher rate of game stores turning away children trying to buy games rated above their age.
The problem, is that in almost 90% of cases the parents are the one who bought GTA IV for little 8 year old Timmy. Censoring video games would do nothing to stop that.
If corporations have Free speech and all other rights, why shouldn't they get the right to vote? If they have one right, they have them all right? Should we give citizenship to corporations?
Actually, the argument that will be used in the hearing is that they fall under and newly developed test to prove that they are obscene. Thus, as obscene material, they can be restricted. Which means if they get their way, they can make the same argument for any entertainment medium. That the violent portions of that media fall under obscenity and thus are not worthy of protection.
How is restricting violent video games any different?
It shouldn't be. We don't restrict violent movies, it is a voluntary rating system backed by company policy. Not law.
Why is it, in the US, that scenes of violence and murder (that are often illegal if actually done in person) get the PG, PG-13 or R rating, while sex -- usually a legal activity gets the R, NC17(x), & XXX?
Because the original outcry at movies was due to conservatives at a time where the US was very prudish. Before the 'sexual revolution' that occurred in the 60's and 70's which has spiraled into the modern day. The problem is that too many people still cling to these ideals that the worst thing in the world is for their child to see a naked breast. And they spout this while breast feeding without seeing the irony.
The fact of the matter is that there has never been any documented link or evidence that proved that pornography of any kind had any kind of harmful effect on the average kid. Just as there has never been a proper study that proved a causal link between violent video games and aggressive behavior. The studies (the few without flawed methodology) have at most shown a correlation. However there is no proof yet whether the video game caused the behavior or there's a higher percentage of aggressive people who enjoy the violent games (chicken/egg problem). I'd like to believe it is the latter due to personal anecdotal evidence. I know that anecdotal evidence isn't exactly scientific, but I find that fans of the sports games (specifically Madden) are entirely more aggressive and violent than those who enjoy games like Left 4 Dead or Halo. I would never claim that the sports games caused the violence.
Look at the fashion industry and then tell me that without IP there would be no progress. Look at the copying that goes on there and try to tell me that there's no innovation and creativity?
Look at history before the advent of patents and IP, tell me that there was no innovation or scientific progress before that point. Patents just delay progress until the current round expires.
Right. But it's not incorrect to point out that what people are willing to pay 'because it's Apple' is more expensive than identical hardware from another manufacturer. Hell, I don't even have a problem with Apple doing that, you wanna pay more money for the same damn hardware because it has some logo on it, go for it. What I have a problem with is that people who accept that they are paying a premium for brand insist that they aren't. They accept the marketing lies and proceed to lie to others because they believe it to be truth. When shown evidence that they are paying more money than Happy Harry down the road for the same product, they insist that there is bias and fanboyism.
You can charge what the market can bear...and still be overcharging. The two are not mutually exclusive. It just means sheeple will pay for pretty things because some guy in a turtleneck says it's better.
OS X costs about the same as Windows (in the $150 range), so if you purchased a Mac from Apple and then priced out (including paying for Windows) an identical system, you are spending more money for the hardware from Apple than you are from the average computer shop. Therefore the argument that their value is in its OS and Software is bull. The OS and software is just a vehicle to sell the hardware. Otherwise there would be no reason to lock the software down to the Mac hardware. (It is technically a violation of your license agreement to run OS X on any non-Apple hardware.)
Apple charges a premium for their hardware because they can. Get over yourself.
Considering that Android was in development before the iPhone was announced or leaked at all the most I'm willing to give you is that two groups concurrently innovated in a very similar way. Personally my opinion is that, taking a page from your book, to insinuate that the iPhone is anything more than the logical progression of mobile UIs is dishonest.
The original release of the iPhone had nothing special hardware-wise (except maybe a faster processor), all the 'innovation' was a fancy UI that people liked better. It wasn't the 'game changer' that so many people think it is. Comparing the iPhone to smartphones that came before it (such as maybe earlier BlackBerrys) the only REAL difference is the UI (and later the App Store). Hell, I would say that the iPhone as originally released was inferior to previous smartphones except in the UI due to its inability to send MMS or have any method to install applications of any kind.
The UI for the iPhone was a logical progression for mobile development though, essentially an all-in-one phone to serve for regular consumers the role that the BlackBerry served for business users. Touch screens were all the rage etc. Personally wouldn't call logical progression a grand innovation. As for the "why didn't the others do it if it was so obvious" argument. We had Android in development already (so at least one other group had come to the same conclusion) and the existing systems were happy with their sales and had stagnation in the industry. I'll give Apple credit where credit is due, they sparked an enormous amount of competition which created a need for companies to improve their products. However, calling it a 'revolution', an 'innovation', etc. is just marketing.
As one of those 'family geeks' you mention. I can definitively say that we WELCOME ways for everyone to "buy a device, download some music, sync some videos, install any number of a quarter of a million apps, backup their data, upgrade their OS, all without ever needing to ask the family geek for help." It's ridiculously annoying to always be asked by family members to fix things repeatedly. This absolutely has nothing to do with it.
For the most part, the "anti-apple movement" is because geeks and techies want to be able to tinker with their devices. If a device is technically possible of something, then we want to be allowed to make it do that and get pissed to hell when copyright/drm/proprietary things are used to prevent it. Essentially, if I buy a device, the device belongs to me. I should be allowed to do whatever I want to with the device. Most geeks don't care if they decide to revoke the warranty as a result as long as they can tinker with their device. Apple, right now, is king of locking out us geeks from being able to tinker with and mess with our devices. Thats why we avoid the devices. The problem is that these we're afraid of losing our choice to avoid devices that do this. We're afraid that other companies will follow these same practices and thus we will no longer be able to find an open device that we can just do whatever with.
Apple's review process seems to disagree with you. The entire reasoning for the locked down App Store and ridiculous limitations and restrictions is because Apple has decided to take responsibility for everything that is sold in their App Store. In addition, since it is Apple's App store and they have decided to take responsibility they are definitely 'distributing' every application in the store. Just as Steam 'distributes' any game that is available on it.
Because Copyright is defined by the right to distribute, the person who uploads to the App Store is not liable for infringement, especially due to the restrictions of Apple's store preventing the developer from distributing it themself (for the most part). The App Store is liable because they are distributing it. They can't claim safe haven as an ISP can because they actively take steps to prevent infringement (see the removal of bittorrent applications among other things). Therefore Apple is legally at fault here.
They are the child's guardian. If your child throws a ball and breaks someone's window, the parent is responsible to pay for and replace the window. Maybe not legally, but definitely morally.
Perhaps. That is if they weren't making any money off Android....yet they are selling more Android devices than anything else. I think they are making good money. =)
Ah my misunderstanding. However, considering that Apple has designed their store. I highly doubt it would be difficult to abstract an API for the way their "repository" works in such a way that someone would be able to host their repository with paid applications that could run through the same system to provide easy payment + updating using the same front-end. Perhaps a drop-down menu to provide choices to change what repository you are looking at.
Easy way to have a 'benefit' to get from the Apple repository is simply that the Apple repository would be the only one that is certified by Apple whereas the other repositories you would relying on the fact that the repository will continue to stay online to receive updates. Which should be enough to allay arguments that there would be no benefit for Apple. The benefit is that it would make Mac more appealing to more developers. They can either use Apple's store and do the 70/30 split and Apple takes care of everything or, people can create their own repositories and would thus have to handle the payment, marketing, etc. themselves and pay for their own bandwidth.
Perhaps Apple could even just sell the repository software. Hey look, a new product!/sarcasm
Or maybe they are just criticizing the fact that you cannot add other sources for applications to go through the Mac App Store updating system. You can only use Apple's central repository, whereas in Linux distributions you can add any repositories to the system and they will automatically be included.
Just to add on to this list, Eclipse is also a very widely used application which is written in java. Unless IDEs and development aren't important to you....
Yet the business case is quite simple to point out. The same business case that the App Store serves on the iPhones. A feature that people like that will drive hardware sales. Provide one easy way for anyone to provide applications to the Mac in a simple and elegant way and suddenly it appeals to more people. Sounds exactly like something Apple would like to do...
I acknowledged that the iPhone was first to market. I also never said you specifically stated that Android copied iPhone, I lumped the common argument that 'everyone has copied the iPhone' in with your argument that the iPhone 'paved the way for more open handsets'.
So that leaves RIM and Nokia, both of which have app approval processes, AFAIK.
This is irrelevant. As I stated, the only phone release, if any at all, that could be considered as paving the way for open handsets would be Android due to the formation of the Open Handset Alliance that resulted from the release of Android. The iPhone and its locked down App Store along with RIM and its app approval process (AFAIK due to the nature of Nokia's Maemo phones you can load whatever software you like, there is no approval process necessary. I could be wrong.) can't be considered as paving the way for openness because you are still locked down, only to the phone manufacturer instead of the telco.
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Surprised? Not at all. I find it completely ridiculous to be against breastfeeding in public also. In addition, I find it ridiculous to prevent women from walking around topless in any location that men are allowed to.
The fascination with breasts and the huge desire to see them that most men have is mostly a product of how much they are forcibly hidden. People would make a much smaller deal out of breasts if they didn't have that "forbidden" fruit appeal to them.
Unfortunately, I can't agree with you entirely. I agree that censorship is worthless. However, a parent knows their child and knows whether they are mature enough to handle the themes and ideas in a specific game. While in general I believe that any child should be allowed to play any game, some individuals shouldn't play some games.
There is something to be said for protecting your child from themselves. Children do need some rules to develop properly. It can also be a learning situation. You forbid your child from playing the game, which makes them want to play it even more. They play the game without you knowing, get nightmares like you told them they would and will of course come running to you because they are scared. As a result, you get the moment to give them a reason why they should trust you, not just because you are the parent but because you actually do know what you're talking about and are trying to look out for them.
Also what about using the game as a reward/punishment? Child behaves badly, don't allow them to play it. Child excels at something, give them a reward. There are many reasons beyond censorship which can factor in to a parent not allowing their child to play a specific game. As long as there is a valid reason (violence can be a valid reason in very specific cases of very specific children) then there is nothing wrong with the parent disallowing their child from playing the game.
No offense, but you don't have to indoctrinate your child to pass on your values and ideas. You could nudge them in the direction you want, teach them what you believe in and your morals. However, the difference between passing on and teaching vs indoctrination is to allow them to choose for themselves. Bitter lessons sometimes teach the best, or perhaps a good lesson where they listen to you and do well/are happy. Also a good lesson. The point is you can't control everything your child will ever be exposed to.
As mentioned, a four year old would have one of two reactions to pornography: They would either be very curious and ask lots of questions (that should be a fun conversation) or they would just go "ewww gross!" and walk away. The point is that the effect on the child would be determined by how you frame it and how YOU deal with it. If you allow them to just see it and don't talk to them then yes, it could potentially have a negative effect. However if you speak with them, discuss it and frame it in a way that the child can understand it then you're fine.
I once heard a wise man say: "You can't prepare your child for everything. You can't possibly be there when they will encounter everything. However if you can just talk to them and frame it in such a way so that when they encounter it they'll know how to categorize it, then they'll be okay. If they can see something totally wrong and just know to file it in their head as 'just wrong', then you've succeeded as a parent. Give them a frame of reference and let them make their own decisions because you can't always be there. Once you've laid the groundwork, you just hope it sunk in." This was told to me during a story where the father had, for the first time, caught his 11 year old son searching online for porn, and his approach to talking with him to prepare him for the crazy shit you'll find on the internet. I think it exemplifies the difference between teaching and indoctrination. He taught his son the difference between right and wrong and allowed him to, in the future, make his own decisions based on the frame of reference he was taught. Indoctrination doesn't allow the child to make his own decisions, at that point they'll just rebel against you trying to force your views. They won't learn anything.
Something I picked up during psychology classes in college was that you are more likely to learn something and take it to heart if you believe you came up with it on your own. If someone tells you, 'hey that's wrong' and you don't really understand why, but they punish you for doing it anyway, then you're less likely to believe them and think that they are just enforcing their will on you. Especially if it is someone who has authoritative power over you. However, if you decide for yourself that something is wrong, then you have your own reasons, and know it's wrong regardless of if you really understand it or not. It's the difference between a parent telling a child explicitly what they can and can't do, and a parent who lays a simple set of ground rules and talks with their child without needing specifics, trusting that the child will make the right decision.
Personally I think that there does exist certain material which is inappropriate for some children. The reason that it should be acceptable for retailers to sell it to children is that "acceptability" is on a per child basis. A 5 year old shouldn't play Dante's Inferno, they'll get nightmares. However, a mature 5 year old whose parent thinks they are old enough and won't get nightmares would be fine to play it.
A 12 year old child playing Halo might be just fine, or it might not. That depends on the parent and what they believe their child is mature enough to handle. The point is that it is up to the parent to determine what is and isn't appropriate for their child. The ESRB rating system helps inform the parents that actually care enough, game retailers already will not sell mature games to minors. There is no need for government involvement, which would just turn into censorship. There needs to exist a certain amount of trust between the child and parent. In addition to a certain amount of control. Place the game system (like you should with a computer) in the family room, not in the bedroom. That way, unless you've left your child home alone, a parent/babysitter/whatever can always see what the child is playing. Use your own judgement, faith and trust in your child for what they might play with friends and make sure to talk to them about it all beforehand if you're really that worried. As far as things that could hurt your kid or send him down a path to crime/violence/etc. video games should be pretty low on the list.
Except the parental controls, for most consoles, are more than adequate. They simply blacklist every game with a rating above what you deem is ok for your child. You also put a password on the parental controls and viola you're fine...that is until your child goes to his friend's house.
Truth be told I agree with you that it's ridiculous to assume that a parent will be able to supervise their child every minute that their child has leisure time. That's why you need good parenting. It's called trust and talking to your child. If you talk to them about the games, you know they know it's not real, you enforce no games before schoolwork is done, etc, and you have trust in them, then you don't NEED to supervise them every minute to know that they will be fine.
PS. If you can't trust your kid, then you have larger problems than violent video games. :)
While I am completely against the government censorship, I see nothing wrong with a parent refusing to allow their child to play a game. While it is ridiculous to believe games cause violence, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to prevent a child from playing a game. Parents usually know their children. If they know a game will give their child nightmares, then they shouldn't allow the child to play it. If they think that he/she is mature enough to play the game, then they should let them. Nice and simple.
If you look at the numbers you already would know that children have a hard time obtaining the games. Across the country theres about an 85% or higher rate of game stores turning away children trying to buy games rated above their age.
The problem, is that in almost 90% of cases the parents are the one who bought GTA IV for little 8 year old Timmy. Censoring video games would do nothing to stop that.
Why not mean a literal vote?
If corporations have Free speech and all other rights, why shouldn't they get the right to vote? If they have one right, they have them all right? Should we give citizenship to corporations?
Anyone else see the ridiculousness of this?
Actually, the argument that will be used in the hearing is that they fall under and newly developed test to prove that they are obscene. Thus, as obscene material, they can be restricted. Which means if they get their way, they can make the same argument for any entertainment medium. That the violent portions of that media fall under obscenity and thus are not worthy of protection.
How is restricting violent video games any different?
It shouldn't be. We don't restrict violent movies, it is a voluntary rating system backed by company policy. Not law.
Why is it, in the US, that scenes of violence and murder (that are often illegal if actually done in person) get the PG, PG-13 or R rating, while sex -- usually a legal activity gets the R, NC17(x), & XXX?
Because the original outcry at movies was due to conservatives at a time where the US was very prudish. Before the 'sexual revolution' that occurred in the 60's and 70's which has spiraled into the modern day. The problem is that too many people still cling to these ideals that the worst thing in the world is for their child to see a naked breast. And they spout this while breast feeding without seeing the irony.
The fact of the matter is that there has never been any documented link or evidence that proved that pornography of any kind had any kind of harmful effect on the average kid. Just as there has never been a proper study that proved a causal link between violent video games and aggressive behavior. The studies (the few without flawed methodology) have at most shown a correlation. However there is no proof yet whether the video game caused the behavior or there's a higher percentage of aggressive people who enjoy the violent games (chicken/egg problem). I'd like to believe it is the latter due to personal anecdotal evidence. I know that anecdotal evidence isn't exactly scientific, but I find that fans of the sports games (specifically Madden) are entirely more aggressive and violent than those who enjoy games like Left 4 Dead or Halo. I would never claim that the sports games caused the violence.
Look at the fashion industry and then tell me that without IP there would be no progress. Look at the copying that goes on there and try to tell me that there's no innovation and creativity?
Look at history before the advent of patents and IP, tell me that there was no innovation or scientific progress before that point. Patents just delay progress until the current round expires.
Right. But it's not incorrect to point out that what people are willing to pay 'because it's Apple' is more expensive than identical hardware from another manufacturer. Hell, I don't even have a problem with Apple doing that, you wanna pay more money for the same damn hardware because it has some logo on it, go for it. What I have a problem with is that people who accept that they are paying a premium for brand insist that they aren't. They accept the marketing lies and proceed to lie to others because they believe it to be truth. When shown evidence that they are paying more money than Happy Harry down the road for the same product, they insist that there is bias and fanboyism.
You can charge what the market can bear...and still be overcharging. The two are not mutually exclusive. It just means sheeple will pay for pretty things because some guy in a turtleneck says it's better.
OS X costs about the same as Windows (in the $150 range), so if you purchased a Mac from Apple and then priced out (including paying for Windows) an identical system, you are spending more money for the hardware from Apple than you are from the average computer shop. Therefore the argument that their value is in its OS and Software is bull. The OS and software is just a vehicle to sell the hardware. Otherwise there would be no reason to lock the software down to the Mac hardware. (It is technically a violation of your license agreement to run OS X on any non-Apple hardware.)
Apple charges a premium for their hardware because they can. Get over yourself.
Considering that Android was in development before the iPhone was announced or leaked at all the most I'm willing to give you is that two groups concurrently innovated in a very similar way. Personally my opinion is that, taking a page from your book, to insinuate that the iPhone is anything more than the logical progression of mobile UIs is dishonest.
The original release of the iPhone had nothing special hardware-wise (except maybe a faster processor), all the 'innovation' was a fancy UI that people liked better. It wasn't the 'game changer' that so many people think it is. Comparing the iPhone to smartphones that came before it (such as maybe earlier BlackBerrys) the only REAL difference is the UI (and later the App Store). Hell, I would say that the iPhone as originally released was inferior to previous smartphones except in the UI due to its inability to send MMS or have any method to install applications of any kind.
The UI for the iPhone was a logical progression for mobile development though, essentially an all-in-one phone to serve for regular consumers the role that the BlackBerry served for business users. Touch screens were all the rage etc. Personally wouldn't call logical progression a grand innovation. As for the "why didn't the others do it if it was so obvious" argument. We had Android in development already (so at least one other group had come to the same conclusion) and the existing systems were happy with their sales and had stagnation in the industry. I'll give Apple credit where credit is due, they sparked an enormous amount of competition which created a need for companies to improve their products. However, calling it a 'revolution', an 'innovation', etc. is just marketing.
As one of those 'family geeks' you mention. I can definitively say that we WELCOME ways for everyone to "buy a device, download some music, sync some videos, install any number of a quarter of a million apps, backup their data, upgrade their OS, all without ever needing to ask the family geek for help." It's ridiculously annoying to always be asked by family members to fix things repeatedly. This absolutely has nothing to do with it.
For the most part, the "anti-apple movement" is because geeks and techies want to be able to tinker with their devices. If a device is technically possible of something, then we want to be allowed to make it do that and get pissed to hell when copyright/drm/proprietary things are used to prevent it. Essentially, if I buy a device, the device belongs to me. I should be allowed to do whatever I want to with the device. Most geeks don't care if they decide to revoke the warranty as a result as long as they can tinker with their device. Apple, right now, is king of locking out us geeks from being able to tinker with and mess with our devices. Thats why we avoid the devices. The problem is that these we're afraid of losing our choice to avoid devices that do this. We're afraid that other companies will follow these same practices and thus we will no longer be able to find an open device that we can just do whatever with.
Apple's review process seems to disagree with you. The entire reasoning for the locked down App Store and ridiculous limitations and restrictions is because Apple has decided to take responsibility for everything that is sold in their App Store. In addition, since it is Apple's App store and they have decided to take responsibility they are definitely 'distributing' every application in the store. Just as Steam 'distributes' any game that is available on it.
Because Copyright is defined by the right to distribute, the person who uploads to the App Store is not liable for infringement, especially due to the restrictions of Apple's store preventing the developer from distributing it themself (for the most part). The App Store is liable because they are distributing it. They can't claim safe haven as an ISP can because they actively take steps to prevent infringement (see the removal of bittorrent applications among other things). Therefore Apple is legally at fault here.
because they, legally, have to bear the fiscal responsibilities of their child until the child is either emancipated or turns 18. At least in the US.
They are the child's guardian. If your child throws a ball and breaks someone's window, the parent is responsible to pay for and replace the window. Maybe not legally, but definitely morally.
Perhaps. That is if they weren't making any money off Android....yet they are selling more Android devices than anything else. I think they are making good money. =)
Ah my misunderstanding. However, considering that Apple has designed their store. I highly doubt it would be difficult to abstract an API for the way their "repository" works in such a way that someone would be able to host their repository with paid applications that could run through the same system to provide easy payment + updating using the same front-end. Perhaps a drop-down menu to provide choices to change what repository you are looking at.
Easy way to have a 'benefit' to get from the Apple repository is simply that the Apple repository would be the only one that is certified by Apple whereas the other repositories you would relying on the fact that the repository will continue to stay online to receive updates. Which should be enough to allay arguments that there would be no benefit for Apple. The benefit is that it would make Mac more appealing to more developers. They can either use Apple's store and do the 70/30 split and Apple takes care of everything or, people can create their own repositories and would thus have to handle the payment, marketing, etc. themselves and pay for their own bandwidth.
Perhaps Apple could even just sell the repository software. Hey look, a new product! /sarcasm
Yes, Apt does support authentication. It has an entire system set up for authentication and keys.
Or maybe they are just criticizing the fact that you cannot add other sources for applications to go through the Mac App Store updating system. You can only use Apple's central repository, whereas in Linux distributions you can add any repositories to the system and they will automatically be included.
Just to add on to this list, Eclipse is also a very widely used application which is written in java. Unless IDEs and development aren't important to you....
Yet the business case is quite simple to point out. The same business case that the App Store serves on the iPhones. A feature that people like that will drive hardware sales. Provide one easy way for anyone to provide applications to the Mac in a simple and elegant way and suddenly it appeals to more people. Sounds exactly like something Apple would like to do...
Yes, the iPhone was first to market
I acknowledged that the iPhone was first to market. I also never said you specifically stated that Android copied iPhone, I lumped the common argument that 'everyone has copied the iPhone' in with your argument that the iPhone 'paved the way for more open handsets'.
So that leaves RIM and Nokia, both of which have app approval processes, AFAIK.
This is irrelevant. As I stated, the only phone release, if any at all, that could be considered as paving the way for open handsets would be Android due to the formation of the Open Handset Alliance that resulted from the release of Android. The iPhone and its locked down App Store along with RIM and its app approval process (AFAIK due to the nature of Nokia's Maemo phones you can load whatever software you like, there is no approval process necessary. I could be wrong.) can't be considered as paving the way for openness because you are still locked down, only to the phone manufacturer instead of the telco.