Anyone else who considered buying a iPhone having second thoughts upon hearing there will be no 3rd party apps?
I'll admit, I was disappointed upon hearing this.
But then, the iPod doesn't allow any third-party apps to be installed (unless you want to do a full firmware overwrite, of course), and that hasn't affected its sales one bit. Only recently has Apple allowed users to download playable games onto 5th-gen iPods, and even then you can only install those you buy directly from the iTunes Store, so they're only third-party apps in the technical sense.
So, I'll go out on a twig here and say Apple WILL allow you to install additional software, as long as it's software you can download from the iTunes Store or the Cingular Network. Cingular is right--the last thing the iPhone needs is some badly-designed app taking over the network connections and ruining the user experience.
I am still annoyed that a preinstalled QuickTime on a flagship hardware image is nagware.
Completely agree. Fortunately, it was relatively easy to trick it into stopping -- I set my system's clock five years into the future, waited until the nagware popup appeared, clicked "not now", then restarted and reset my clock. Quicktime still thinks it has to wait until 2011 before nagging me about it again.
Since it's the only thing in the OS that behaves this way (and since I don't have to look at it anymore), I'm willing to let it slide. But Apple really should have included a "don't remind me again" button on that popup.
I'm sick of buying laptops, particularly for work, which come with bundles of shit preinstalled.
At the risk of being a fanboy, this is a small advantage to Apple's control-the-hardware approach. Everything that comes on a new Mac (except iLife) is what would come with an OS upgrade anyway.
The thing is, I don't consider this an iPhone with music/internet/photo functionality glued on.
It's much more like a next-gen video iPod with internet and a phone glued on.
Come to think of it, it's even more like a portable iMac with iTunes built in and, what the heck, put a phone in there too.
My point is that the phone functionality accounts for maybe 8% of all the software and hardware inside that gadget. Calling it an "iPhone" at all is misleading in the extreme.
Even for those who cover all the MacWorld talks, this was BIG
I'm not surprised. For months we've been expecting an iPhone, a touch-screen iPod, or both--but I don't think anyone expected them both in a single device, and running OS X instead of the iPod OS to boot.
Heck, since it's got wireless networking you can probably even connect it to the new Apple TV as well.
This thing is expensive for a phone, but it's a pretty good price for the first of a new generation of iPod.
My limited understanding of Apple's iTV (we'll all know for sure later today) is that it will integrate with iTunes libraries, share whatever media is there, cache it locally and/or stream it over a home network, and do it all with little further thought from the user. Oh, and it'll use the Apple Remote, natch.
Unless the SlingCatcher can match that kind of instantaneous ease-of-use, it won't undercut anything.
The thing about PC gaming is that games on PC don't really use the operating system at all. They all run in full-screen mode with their own UI. As long as your version of Windows has the needed version of DirectX, etc. etc., a committed PC gamer doesn't really care if he's running Vista, XP, 2K, or 95.
The other thing worth noting is that Vista's hardware requirements make it difficult for users to upgrade their PCs; most people who want Vista's bells and whistles will need to buy a new machine. Since that's the case, it's worth telling them about how Vista stacks up to OS X, which will also need a new box of hardware.
The problem is the, studios don't care about movies. They don't care about creating new icons. They care about money. And nothing else.
You say this as if it were some shocking new revelation, instead of the basis of how Hollywood has operated ever since soundtracks were provided by a piano player in the theater.
Except, of course, it's NOT the same buck; it's more buck. Integrating cryptography into a video card will require expertise (expensive), development (expensive), and testing (expensive). And naturally, some cryptography technologies are covered by patents, so the video card company will have to purchase more patent licenses (expensive). Guess who's going to wind up footing the bill for these new expenses? That's right: you, the end user.
But it doesn't actually affect the playback of unprotected media, does it? Which is all the original poster is asking about.
If Apple released OS-X for commodity PC hardware and competed againts MS, then I'd start caring. Or, if they allowed Mac clones, I'd start caring. Othwerwise, they can tank and I won't shed a tear.
The fact that they don't do either of those things is the reason Apple hasn't tanked yet. Say it with me: "Apple is a hardware company."
I just don't get how everyone can hate MS so much, and look the other way at Apple's proprietary hardware and DRM.
It's a matter of degrees, really. Apple's DRM is about ten times less restrictive than anyone else's, and their "proprietary hardware" is perfectly amenable to installing other OSes. What you meant is that they won't let their OS be installed on anyone else's hardware, which of course is a good thing for them since (1) it's the main reason people buy their hardware in the first place and (2) it makes OS X more stable and dependable because there's a much more limited range of hardware to adapt it to.
This is old trollfood, of course. But it's late, and I'm bored.
But any time I've brought it up in casual conversation with Mac people, they've treated me like it's my fault for not understanding the superiority of the Mac UI. I was actually starting to justify in my mind that there must be something wonderful about only using the bottom, right corner and I just had to try harder to understand what it could be. Meditation wasn't helping. Seeing this on the list might save me years of therapy.
If I want to expand a Mac window in the down-and-left direction, I can get the same results by putting my mouse just to the left of the lower-right corner, moving the entire window to a new position, and then dragging the corner down-and-right. It only takes me one more click of the mouse, and not much more effort.
It's really a matter of preference. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, you get the idea. Apple doesn't make the lower-left corner resizable, I would guess, for the same reason they don't make the left, right and bottom edges resizable: it's less cluttered and potentially confusing to resize from just one point.
It's hard to appreciate the value of this unless you've watched very old or very young family members with shaky hands (and shaky memories) trying to manipulate things on-screen.
Of course that's the way it should be. Everyone should pay for his own education, and buy the service that he thinks is best; in the case of kids of course parents would take care of this.
We used to have that system; it's called apprenticeship. It also meant that kids and teens learned how to do one job very well, but sorely lacked a well-rounded education which would give them the chance to choose their own career and/or break out of their social strata. And kids born into poor families who didn't even have a skilled trade to master wouldn't get any chance at all.
Public education is a kind of democracy. It's our government's way of saying, Yes, we really do believe that All Men Are Created Equal, and that if we give everyone a minimum standard of education, they'll prove it for us. Those who can afford a better education may choose to buy one, but at least no one is being shut out of opportunities because they never had a chance to learn to read, or write, or count change, or how to vote.
And if that goes for people who are too poor to afford an education, it goes for those who require specialized teaching. If a teenager with mild retardation can be taught, over time and with great patience, to perform a minimum-wage job independently by age eighteen, why shouldn't he get that chance?
Democracy demands an educated, informed population in order to exist, and therefore it's only fair for that democracy to provide both education and information. Otherwise we may as well go back to restricting the vote to wealthy white male landowners.
With all due respect to your desire to follow bureaucratic rules, why the heck should she?
Because that's the rule, and it's a simple one to follow. Return to find a teacher, say you need a hall pass, you're in severe pain, and get one. It's not like she had to get the blue form signed in triplicate or anything.
If someone is old enough to drive then they're definitely old enough to determine when they need medical attention. They're also old enough to choose to leave a school site to do so.
They're also old enough to be clever and lie about such things just to get out of class, which a whole lot of other students try to do on a daily basis. That's why closed campuses exist.
It's nice that you think all high school juniors are honest and trustworthy just because they're in school at all, but reality is a very different thing. In my years as a substitute teacher, I know that nine out of ten students who come up and ask to leave the room--and ten out of ten who ask you in the first minute after you sit down--are BS'ing because they think it's worth a shot.
When you show up and work 40 hours a week and try to do a good job, people actually appreciate it. They'll even thank you for being helpful and doing a good job. It's rewarding and satisfying.
That may be true when you're doing something challenging for a living, but when you're a high school dropout serving food, ringing registers, stocking shelves or cleaning floors for minimum wage or less, I doubt you find your hard work quite so rewarding.
I was a junior in High School, about 10 years ago. One day I had intense nausea and a sharp pain in my back. I went up to the nurses office to seek assistance. I was promptly denied any assistance, as I did not have a "hall pass".
With all due respect to your medical crisis, why the heck didn't you go back and get a hall pass from a teacher?
I honestly think their budget would be better applied to programs for gifted children, but the real question is why schools are required to provide for special needs children out of the same budget as the rest of the childrens (won't you think of them?)
That's easy: it's because they're citizens of the school district, and as such are legally entitled to a quality education on par with those their peers get, regardless of their special needs.
Special needs students don't cost schools nearly as much as you think they might. In fact, they probably cost less now that they're required to be included in mainstream classrooms whenever possible -- even though doing so requires more of the mainstream schoolteachers, who previously didn't have to have any special training for such students at all, and now have to get it without getting any extra pay for it.
Consider for a moment that "special needs" actually covers both ends of the spectrum, and that if you want to eliminate classes for students with low mental performance, someone else could make the same argument that classes for gifted students (especially advanced placement classes, which need to be taught by teachers with Master's degrees) should be eliminated to save money.
This is very erie... Anyone read Prey by Michael Crichton?
Yeah, it was replete with pseudoscience that would make a great movie, but terrible research. Nanobots that are as intelligent, sophisticated, and above all mobile as the ones in that story aren't just impossible under current technology limits, they're impossible at all.
Sixty years ago, tech enthusiasts were absolutely certain we'd have a colony base on the Moon by now. Sixty years from now, nanotech will be just as stunted compared to where we imagine we'll be.
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
Until I can buy a DVD-RW recorder or a hard drive recorder for my TV that's under $50. Until then, I'll keep using my VCR to record my favorite shows every week.
Usher assumes that those doing the voting comprehend the problem. Also, with billion dollar corporations voting with their wallets, does my vote truly count?
Sorry, are we still talking about Vista? Because this also sounds like you're criticizing the recent Senate/House election.
I can only assume that either she asked for too much money to return, or she ticked somebody off during her time on the show. After seeing a glimpse of her temper, and her almost insignificant parts on other shows since B5, I think I know the answer.
I can imagine her response in words:
"Only one human has ever survived asking me that question. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your life... be somewhere else."
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Anyone else who considered buying a iPhone having second thoughts upon hearing there will be no 3rd party apps?
I'll admit, I was disappointed upon hearing this.
But then, the iPod doesn't allow any third-party apps to be installed (unless you want to do a full firmware overwrite, of course), and that hasn't affected its sales one bit. Only recently has Apple allowed users to download playable games onto 5th-gen iPods, and even then you can only install those you buy directly from the iTunes Store, so they're only third-party apps in the technical sense.
So, I'll go out on a twig here and say Apple WILL allow you to install additional software, as long as it's software you can download from the iTunes Store or the Cingular Network. Cingular is right--the last thing the iPhone needs is some badly-designed app taking over the network connections and ruining the user experience.
I am still annoyed that a preinstalled QuickTime on a flagship hardware image is nagware.
Completely agree. Fortunately, it was relatively easy to trick it into stopping -- I set my system's clock five years into the future, waited until the nagware popup appeared, clicked "not now", then restarted and reset my clock. Quicktime still thinks it has to wait until 2011 before nagging me about it again.
Since it's the only thing in the OS that behaves this way (and since I don't have to look at it anymore), I'm willing to let it slide. But Apple really should have included a "don't remind me again" button on that popup.
I'm sick of buying laptops, particularly for work, which come with bundles of shit preinstalled.
At the risk of being a fanboy, this is a small advantage to Apple's control-the-hardware approach. Everything that comes on a new Mac (except iLife) is what would come with an OS upgrade anyway.
"It's not you, it's me."
The thing is, I don't consider this an iPhone with music/internet/photo functionality glued on.
It's much more like a next-gen video iPod with internet and a phone glued on.
Come to think of it, it's even more like a portable iMac with iTunes built in and, what the heck, put a phone in there too.
My point is that the phone functionality accounts for maybe 8% of all the software and hardware inside that gadget. Calling it an "iPhone" at all is misleading in the extreme.
Even for those who cover all the MacWorld talks, this was BIG
I'm not surprised. For months we've been expecting an iPhone, a touch-screen iPod, or both--but I don't think anyone expected them both in a single device, and running OS X instead of the iPod OS to boot.
Heck, since it's got wireless networking you can probably even connect it to the new Apple TV as well.
This thing is expensive for a phone, but it's a pretty good price for the first of a new generation of iPod.
My limited understanding of Apple's iTV (we'll all know for sure later today) is that it will integrate with iTunes libraries, share whatever media is there, cache it locally and/or stream it over a home network, and do it all with little further thought from the user. Oh, and it'll use the Apple Remote, natch.
Unless the SlingCatcher can match that kind of instantaneous ease-of-use, it won't undercut anything.
The thing about PC gaming is that games on PC don't really use the operating system at all. They all run in full-screen mode with their own UI. As long as your version of Windows has the needed version of DirectX, etc. etc., a committed PC gamer doesn't really care if he's running Vista, XP, 2K, or 95.
The other thing worth noting is that Vista's hardware requirements make it difficult for users to upgrade their PCs; most people who want Vista's bells and whistles will need to buy a new machine. Since that's the case, it's worth telling them about how Vista stacks up to OS X, which will also need a new box of hardware.
...still no cure for greed.
The problem is the, studios don't care about movies. They don't care about creating new icons. They care about money. And nothing else.
You say this as if it were some shocking new revelation, instead of the basis of how Hollywood has operated ever since soundtracks were provided by a piano player in the theater.
Except, of course, it's NOT the same buck; it's more buck. Integrating cryptography into a video card will require expertise (expensive), development (expensive), and testing (expensive). And naturally, some cryptography technologies are covered by patents, so the video card company will have to purchase more patent licenses (expensive). Guess who's going to wind up footing the bill for these new expenses? That's right: you, the end user.
But it doesn't actually affect the playback of unprotected media, does it? Which is all the original poster is asking about.
If Apple released OS-X for commodity PC hardware and competed againts MS, then I'd start caring. Or, if they allowed Mac clones, I'd start caring. Othwerwise, they can tank and I won't shed a tear.
The fact that they don't do either of those things is the reason Apple hasn't tanked yet. Say it with me: "Apple is a hardware company."
I just don't get how everyone can hate MS so much, and look the other way at Apple's proprietary hardware and DRM.
It's a matter of degrees, really. Apple's DRM is about ten times less restrictive than anyone else's, and their "proprietary hardware" is perfectly amenable to installing other OSes. What you meant is that they won't let their OS be installed on anyone else's hardware, which of course is a good thing for them since (1) it's the main reason people buy their hardware in the first place and (2) it makes OS X more stable and dependable because there's a much more limited range of hardware to adapt it to.
This is old trollfood, of course. But it's late, and I'm bored.
But any time I've brought it up in casual conversation with Mac people, they've treated me like it's my fault for not understanding the superiority of the Mac UI. I was actually starting to justify in my mind that there must be something wonderful about only using the bottom, right corner and I just had to try harder to understand what it could be. Meditation wasn't helping. Seeing this on the list might save me years of therapy.
If I want to expand a Mac window in the down-and-left direction, I can get the same results by putting my mouse just to the left of the lower-right corner, moving the entire window to a new position, and then dragging the corner down-and-right. It only takes me one more click of the mouse, and not much more effort.
It's really a matter of preference. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, you get the idea. Apple doesn't make the lower-left corner resizable, I would guess, for the same reason they don't make the left, right and bottom edges resizable: it's less cluttered and potentially confusing to resize from just one point.
It's hard to appreciate the value of this unless you've watched very old or very young family members with shaky hands (and shaky memories) trying to manipulate things on-screen.
I think Apple's got one here.
Yeah! Kinda like what your communist friends should be doing in Tibet! But hey as long as it's For The People, it's OK.
Foul, ad hominem attack followed by a completely irrelevant comparison. Try again.
Of course that's the way it should be. Everyone should pay for his own education, and buy the service that he thinks is best; in the case of kids of course parents would take care of this.
We used to have that system; it's called apprenticeship. It also meant that kids and teens learned how to do one job very well, but sorely lacked a well-rounded education which would give them the chance to choose their own career and/or break out of their social strata. And kids born into poor families who didn't even have a skilled trade to master wouldn't get any chance at all.
Public education is a kind of democracy. It's our government's way of saying, Yes, we really do believe that All Men Are Created Equal, and that if we give everyone a minimum standard of education, they'll prove it for us. Those who can afford a better education may choose to buy one, but at least no one is being shut out of opportunities because they never had a chance to learn to read, or write, or count change, or how to vote.
And if that goes for people who are too poor to afford an education, it goes for those who require specialized teaching. If a teenager with mild retardation can be taught, over time and with great patience, to perform a minimum-wage job independently by age eighteen, why shouldn't he get that chance?
Democracy demands an educated, informed population in order to exist, and therefore it's only fair for that democracy to provide both education and information. Otherwise we may as well go back to restricting the vote to wealthy white male landowners.
With all due respect to your desire to follow bureaucratic rules, why the heck should she?
Because that's the rule, and it's a simple one to follow. Return to find a teacher, say you need a hall pass, you're in severe pain, and get one. It's not like she had to get the blue form signed in triplicate or anything.
If someone is old enough to drive then they're definitely old enough to determine when they need medical attention. They're also old enough to choose to leave a school site to do so.
They're also old enough to be clever and lie about such things just to get out of class, which a whole lot of other students try to do on a daily basis. That's why closed campuses exist.
It's nice that you think all high school juniors are honest and trustworthy just because they're in school at all, but reality is a very different thing. In my years as a substitute teacher, I know that nine out of ten students who come up and ask to leave the room--and ten out of ten who ask you in the first minute after you sit down--are BS'ing because they think it's worth a shot.
Hindsight is 20/20.
And those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.
When you show up and work 40 hours a week and try to do a good job, people actually appreciate it. They'll even thank you for being helpful and doing a good job. It's rewarding and satisfying.
That may be true when you're doing something challenging for a living, but when you're a high school dropout serving food, ringing registers, stocking shelves or cleaning floors for minimum wage or less, I doubt you find your hard work quite so rewarding.
I was a junior in High School, about 10 years ago. One day I had intense nausea and a sharp pain in my back. I went up to the nurses office to seek assistance. I was promptly denied any assistance, as I did not have a "hall pass".
With all due respect to your medical crisis, why the heck didn't you go back and get a hall pass from a teacher?
I honestly think their budget would be better applied to programs for gifted children, but the real question is why schools are required to provide for special needs children out of the same budget as the rest of the childrens (won't you think of them?)
That's easy: it's because they're citizens of the school district, and as such are legally entitled to a quality education on par with those their peers get, regardless of their special needs.
Special needs students don't cost schools nearly as much as you think they might. In fact, they probably cost less now that they're required to be included in mainstream classrooms whenever possible -- even though doing so requires more of the mainstream schoolteachers, who previously didn't have to have any special training for such students at all, and now have to get it without getting any extra pay for it.
Consider for a moment that "special needs" actually covers both ends of the spectrum, and that if you want to eliminate classes for students with low mental performance, someone else could make the same argument that classes for gifted students (especially advanced placement classes, which need to be taught by teachers with Master's degrees) should be eliminated to save money.
This is very erie... Anyone read Prey by Michael Crichton?
Yeah, it was replete with pseudoscience that would make a great movie, but terrible research. Nanobots that are as intelligent, sophisticated, and above all mobile as the ones in that story aren't just impossible under current technology limits, they're impossible at all.
Sixty years ago, tech enthusiasts were absolutely certain we'd have a colony base on the Moon by now. Sixty years from now, nanotech will be just as stunted compared to where we imagine we'll be.
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
Until I can buy a DVD-RW recorder or a hard drive recorder for my TV that's under $50. Until then, I'll keep using my VCR to record my favorite shows every week.
Usher assumes that those doing the voting comprehend the problem. Also, with billion dollar corporations voting with their wallets, does my vote truly count?
Sorry, are we still talking about Vista? Because this also sounds like you're criticizing the recent Senate/House election.
I can only assume that either she asked for too much money to return, or she ticked somebody off during her time on the show. After seeing a glimpse of her temper, and her almost insignificant parts on other shows since B5, I think I know the answer.
I can imagine her response in words:
"Only one human has ever survived asking me that question. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your life... be somewhere else."