I'm extremely sorry then that you missed out on some of the greatest games of this last generation, many of which catered very well to sophisticated, mature gamers.
Viva Gamecube!
I might also point out (to myself) that Apple's stance of not including documentation with its products might be enhancing their reputation of "easy-to-use out of the box." Without an imposing manual through which to read, people might assume more readily that they can simply jump into a program and be able to figure it out.
Actually, I wouldn't mind it if they'd just go ahead and outsource their documentation efforts to someone or somegroup else. I found the included documentation for Keynote (for example) to be less than useful, and I'm sure there are writers out there who could do better.
One of the problems in doing this is that, to do any justice to programs of the complexity/simplicity twin nature of Apple's developments, documentation would have to be impossibly long. It's hard to cram the kind of information people can really use and from which they can draw ideas and solutions when they have a size limit of, oh say one hundred pages or so.
Engaging and thorough technical writing takes hundreds of pages to pull off correctly. Hundreds of pages are expensive to print, bind, and ship with the product - and time consuming to write, possibly further delaying a product.
I think the Apple community does a great job of making up the difference by creating their own resources and writing their own books. I might even go so far as to say that the lack of "official" documentation has created a nice atmosphere of "let's figure out how this bad boy works" (something a previous poster has already pointed out).
Cory Doctorow only hates Apple's implementation of DRM because he was too stupid/ignorant/uncaring/[other adjective here] to actually see how the authorization system worked. As long as you pay attention to what you're doing, I find Apple's DRM system to be very open, pretty forgiving, and a lot more accessible than most DRM I've seen so far.
Add to that the fact that it's at least the first DRM system to allow you to burn tracks to disc as many times as you want to (even with the trivial playlist policy), move them to an iPod as many times as necessary, and damn near invisible if you're only using one PC anyway, and I think it's a winner. It's at least better than the other DRM systems I've seen so far.
Now all iTunes needs is for authorized songs to play over Rendezvous (without requiring an additional authorization) and I think they'd have a nearly perfect solution.
Cory should be mad at his own ignorance, not at Apple.
I think it's very important for them to not license the technology, but to license the player as they are now. The physical shape and noticeable aspects of the iPod are definitely working in Apple's favor right now: it's becoming very nearly a fashion accessory in many places. By controlling the design of the iPods out there, they keep their branding in full public view. The idea of licensing the player to key allies for marketing reasons is a great idea.
I think that you're going to see the iPod generate a good number of Apple loyalists to replace the generation that will be headed out now that we've passed the 20th anniversary of the Mac. I also think that the branding the look of the iPod (and the other consumer lines) is very much a part of that strategy.
You mean the 2 years ago that the games shipped on hybrid CDs, right?
Blizzard (and sometimes MacSoft) is very good at maintaining simultaneous Macintosh versions of all their games. I haven't owned a Mac in almost 10 years, but I find myself drifting back towards getting one - and one of the reasons is that the quality and frequency of Mac ports of popular games seems to be increasing - and in many cases, the release dates of those games are inching closer to their PC counterparts.
With Apple gaining marketshare slowly but surely, I think some attention is being paid (and only more shoujld be paid in the future) to courting gamers in some capacity.
If there's anything that history has shown us about how video game console sales tend to go, it's the true Christmas season (which, according to malls, lasts from before Halloween now until after New Year's; or for most sensible people, the week before the 25th of Dec).
First of all, Nintendo definitely has a leg up with the $100 cheaper price tag. Most parents I know would jump at the chance to save $100 on a video game system they can get for their kids.
Second, it has the Nintendo brand attached to it. Parents *still* remember the old days when every video game console (to them, at least) was a 'nintendo.' Also, the video game characters that Nintendo owns and places in games hold appeal for parents for two possible reasons: (a) they had an old-school NES, and they remember how fun those characters were, or (b) their kids *definitely* know who Mario, Luigi, Pikachu (a.k.a. Electric Satan), and the rest are. There's recognition there.
Third, it's on the shelves. I seem to remember a lof of Christmases (especially one involving the... what was it called... the GENESIS) where parents bought one system and it sold like crazy simply because it was the one system they could find. Now according to what a lot of people are saying, the shelf factor could translate to Xbox sales, but it doesn't really seem that any of the three consoles are in *that* short a supply right now. It would largely depend on the retailers (and I'm looking at *you*, Best Buy).
History has always shown us that the video game console market cannot tolerate three competing systems. It's never worked. The market usually boils down to two major systems, and an also-ran. The PS2 is firmly entrenched, don't get me wrong. It's the Xbox that the GCN has to contend with. The problem with this is MS's proven track record of shoving complete shit right down our throats with pure marketing muscle - fortunately, they don't have the advantage of market momentum in this case.
One reason parents may not buy the Xbox and switch to the Cube for children is the advertising. Xbox adverts are clearly targeted at the 16-24 year-old age group or so. Parents don't like them very much because of this. Also, the Xbox is FREAKING HUGE and it fairly hefty - I wouldn't trust my kids around it, either.
Another thing - I wouldn't expect MS to back down on this anytime soon, even if they end up as the also-ran. They have spectacular PC translation support from developers, they have the capital to swallow up even long-term deficits from dismal sales of the units, and they definitely don't like not being in first place. I think that MS will keep coming back to the video game console market until they fully dominate it, just like the PC market. Just a thought.
On the other hand, I guarantee you that Sony's already contracting with Hell to get the PS3 development up in full swing (they might find that Microsoft has cornered the market this time on pure evil jammed into a set-top box...).
********
--achernar
"Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Okay. It's morning. You're getting ready to go to work. You pull on your pants. Do you fasten and then zip, or zip and then fasten?"\
One of the problems with American society that I've always hated is that we don't seem to give a damn until something happens to us.
Look at WWII. We didn't care about anything else going on in the world until someone decided to go ahead and plow over one of our military bases (whether or not you think we knew about that is a little irrelevant).
Instance: the problems in the Middle East. The general U.S. thought is that we should just tell everyone that we don't like what's going on in other parts of the world; if they don't bother us, then it's not really that much of a problem.
Make no mistake right now; this country is at war. We don't know against whom yet, and we won't find that out for a while, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is an act of war. Now I don't think that we should go around and tell everyone else in the world how they need to act or what we think they should be doing (God, we don't need to be the world's police), but I do think we should be more involved.
I don't think that there's too many Americans who would argue with us going over to wherever these people are from, killing them, burning their land, and then salting it forever. I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with this, but I do think that retalitation is the right thing to do.
Take Desert Storm, for instance. There were two ways that we could have handled that situation. We could have said, "Oh, that's OK, doesn't bother us, go ahead and take over Kuwait," or we could have said "You know what? Don't bully people around - you keep this up, and we'll come kick your ass."
What happened was that we did some kind of half-assed attack where we moved in, showed them that we didn't like what they were doing, and then let them go about their business and continue planning the downfall of their neighboring nations and of America. We should have either left them alone, or completely destroyed their economy and military systems.
I still think that the US has the unparalleled ability to make war and to do it successfully and decisively.
I, for the most part, am simply of the opinion that we should not roll over and say, "well, you got us, and we give up, just don't do it again."
I'm not going to say anything else until we figure out who did this, because my presuppositions are going to get the better of em and I'm going to say something else that is wayyyy too stupid.:)
... but you DO NOT do this to the American people.
I truly believe that no one in the world really understands the capacity of this country to make war and to completely, totally, and irreversibly give you a new bodily orifice.
I'm sure that a lot of people agree with me on this one - we need to not be the country of wussies we usually are with this. This situation demands swift and severe response from us in any way possible. We've known for a while that something like this was on the way, but we've never stopped to think about how we would respond.
*IF* Bin Laden is responsible, he needs to go. We've known where he is, he's very vocal about what he says he wants to do to our country and our people, and we think he's just blowing smoke up our ass. This should show that people who say things like this and have the resources to pull it off should be taken seriously and dealt with pre-emptively *before* we face a day of reckoning like this. Keep in mind that what I say here is valid only *if* he's responsible, even though I think we should still be scared of him.
The people who have done this to our people and our country deserve slow death on public television. This deserves retaliation, *not* diplomacy.
I'm open to criticism of my opinion, and maybe I'm just speaking out of good old American rage, but when all this was occurring, I began to think that I'm surprised no one set off a nuke in the middle of all this in one or more major cities.
>
The last words of mankind will *not* be, "The secret name of God is...," but, "What does *this* button do?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm extremely sorry then that you missed out on some of the greatest games of this last generation, many of which catered very well to sophisticated, mature gamers. Viva Gamecube!
Actually, that's under "help" as well...
Less imposing?
One of the problems in doing this is that, to do any justice to programs of the complexity/simplicity twin nature of Apple's developments, documentation would have to be impossibly long. It's hard to cram the kind of information people can really use and from which they can draw ideas and solutions when they have a size limit of, oh say one hundred pages or so.
Engaging and thorough technical writing takes hundreds of pages to pull off correctly. Hundreds of pages are expensive to print, bind, and ship with the product - and time consuming to write, possibly further delaying a product.
I think the Apple community does a great job of making up the difference by creating their own resources and writing their own books. I might even go so far as to say that the lack of "official" documentation has created a nice atmosphere of "let's figure out how this bad boy works" (something a previous poster has already pointed out).
If it's anything like the Mac OS X book he wrote for Panther users, I would say it's likely to be very helpful as a guide.
Add to that the fact that it's at least the first DRM system to allow you to burn tracks to disc as many times as you want to (even with the trivial playlist policy), move them to an iPod as many times as necessary, and damn near invisible if you're only using one PC anyway, and I think it's a winner. It's at least better than the other DRM systems I've seen so far.
Now all iTunes needs is for authorized songs to play over Rendezvous (without requiring an additional authorization) and I think they'd have a nearly perfect solution.
Cory should be mad at his own ignorance, not at Apple.
I think that you're going to see the iPod generate a good number of Apple loyalists to replace the generation that will be headed out now that we've passed the 20th anniversary of the Mac. I also think that the branding the look of the iPod (and the other consumer lines) is very much a part of that strategy.
Mindshare.
--99% of digital music users
You mean the 2 years ago that the games shipped on hybrid CDs, right? Blizzard (and sometimes MacSoft) is very good at maintaining simultaneous Macintosh versions of all their games. I haven't owned a Mac in almost 10 years, but I find myself drifting back towards getting one - and one of the reasons is that the quality and frequency of Mac ports of popular games seems to be increasing - and in many cases, the release dates of those games are inching closer to their PC counterparts. With Apple gaining marketshare slowly but surely, I think some attention is being paid (and only more shoujld be paid in the future) to courting gamers in some capacity.
If there's anything that history has shown us about how video game console sales tend to go, it's the true Christmas season (which, according to malls, lasts from before Halloween now until after New Year's; or for most sensible people, the week before the 25th of Dec).
First of all, Nintendo definitely has a leg up with the $100 cheaper price tag. Most parents I know would jump at the chance to save $100 on a video game system they can get for their kids.
Second, it has the Nintendo brand attached to it. Parents *still* remember the old days when every video game console (to them, at least) was a 'nintendo.' Also, the video game characters that Nintendo owns and places in games hold appeal for parents for two possible reasons: (a) they had an old-school NES, and they remember how fun those characters were, or (b) their kids *definitely* know who Mario, Luigi, Pikachu (a.k.a. Electric Satan), and the rest are. There's recognition there.
Third, it's on the shelves. I seem to remember a lof of Christmases (especially one involving the... what was it called... the GENESIS) where parents bought one system and it sold like crazy simply because it was the one system they could find. Now according to what a lot of people are saying, the shelf factor could translate to Xbox sales, but it doesn't really seem that any of the three consoles are in *that* short a supply right now. It would largely depend on the retailers (and I'm looking at *you*, Best Buy).
History has always shown us that the video game console market cannot tolerate three competing systems. It's never worked. The market usually boils down to two major systems, and an also-ran. The PS2 is firmly entrenched, don't get me wrong. It's the Xbox that the GCN has to contend with. The problem with this is MS's proven track record of shoving complete shit right down our throats with pure marketing muscle - fortunately, they don't have the advantage of market momentum in this case.
One reason parents may not buy the Xbox and switch to the Cube for children is the advertising. Xbox adverts are clearly targeted at the 16-24 year-old age group or so. Parents don't like them very much because of this. Also, the Xbox is FREAKING HUGE and it fairly hefty - I wouldn't trust my kids around it, either.
Another thing - I wouldn't expect MS to back down on this anytime soon, even if they end up as the also-ran. They have spectacular PC translation support from developers, they have the capital to swallow up even long-term deficits from dismal sales of the units, and they definitely don't like not being in first place. I think that MS will keep coming back to the video game console market until they fully dominate it, just like the PC market. Just a thought.
On the other hand, I guarantee you that Sony's already contracting with Hell to get the PS3 development up in full swing (they might find that Microsoft has cornered the market this time on pure evil jammed into a set-top box...).
********
--achernar
"Mind if I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Okay. It's morning. You're getting ready to go to work. You pull on your pants. Do you fasten and then zip, or zip and then fasten?"\
"What kind of a question is *that*?"
One of the problems with American society that I've always hated is that we don't seem to give a damn until something happens to us.
:)
Look at WWII. We didn't care about anything else going on in the world until someone decided to go ahead and plow over one of our military bases (whether or not you think we knew about that is a little irrelevant).
Instance: the problems in the Middle East. The general U.S. thought is that we should just tell everyone that we don't like what's going on in other parts of the world; if they don't bother us, then it's not really that much of a problem.
Make no mistake right now; this country is at war. We don't know against whom yet, and we won't find that out for a while, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is an act of war. Now I don't think that we should go around and tell everyone else in the world how they need to act or what we think they should be doing (God, we don't need to be the world's police), but I do think we should be more involved.
I don't think that there's too many Americans who would argue with us going over to wherever these people are from, killing them, burning their land, and then salting it forever. I'm not necessarily saying that I agree with this, but I do think that retalitation is the right thing to do.
Take Desert Storm, for instance. There were two ways that we could have handled that situation. We could have said, "Oh, that's OK, doesn't bother us, go ahead and take over Kuwait," or we could have said "You know what? Don't bully people around - you keep this up, and we'll come kick your ass."
What happened was that we did some kind of half-assed attack where we moved in, showed them that we didn't like what they were doing, and then let them go about their business and continue planning the downfall of their neighboring nations and of America. We should have either left them alone, or completely destroyed their economy and military systems.
I still think that the US has the unparalleled ability to make war and to do it successfully and decisively.
I, for the most part, am simply of the opinion that we should not roll over and say, "well, you got us, and we give up, just don't do it again."
I'm not going to say anything else until we figure out who did this, because my presuppositions are going to get the better of em and I'm going to say something else that is wayyyy too stupid.
... but you DO NOT do this to the American people.
I truly believe that no one in the world really understands the capacity of this country to make war and to completely, totally, and irreversibly give you a new bodily orifice.
I'm sure that a lot of people agree with me on this one - we need to not be the country of wussies we usually are with this. This situation demands swift and severe response from us in any way possible. We've known for a while that something like this was on the way, but we've never stopped to think about how we would respond.
*IF* Bin Laden is responsible, he needs to go. We've known where he is, he's very vocal about what he says he wants to do to our country and our people, and we think he's just blowing smoke up our ass. This should show that people who say things like this and have the resources to pull it off should be taken seriously and dealt with pre-emptively *before* we face a day of reckoning like this. Keep in mind that what I say here is valid only *if* he's responsible, even though I think we should still be scared of him.
The people who have done this to our people and our country deserve slow death on public television. This deserves retaliation, *not* diplomacy.
I'm open to criticism of my opinion, and maybe I'm just speaking out of good old American rage, but when all this was occurring, I began to think that I'm surprised no one set off a nuke in the middle of all this in one or more major cities.
>
The last words of mankind will *not* be, "The secret name of God is...," but, "What does *this* button do?