Seriously. Why can't Apple exist in your universe? Do you ever *ever* hear Apple fans saying that Android shouldn't be available for those who want the ability to easily tinker on their devices?
The world is big enough for lots of different types of devices. Apple has chosen the appliance model because that appeals to a large block of customers--but not all of them. That's okay--there are other companies.
1. Passing the "Re: Try this!" test: If Apple made it easy for you to install homebrew software on your device, they also would be making it easy for the casual nontechnical user to do this unintentionally. Warning dialogs or switches under Settings don't work, the test is whether someone can write an email to easily trick a nontechnical user into putting their device into a non-safe state.
2. It costs more for Apple to support customers when they are running non-curated software. They're a business and they have every right to restrict their focus to whatever audience they think will (in the end) make them more money.
3. Controlling the user experience: If there exists a substantial software base available outside of the walled garden--then this creates demand even amongst nontechnical users to access those applications. If enough iOS devices are 'Jailbroken' then the user experience becomes compromised. The nontechnical users won't associate the flakiness/insecurity of their devices with their direct actions which led them to circumvent the walled garden--instead they'll blame Apple. Apple's entire business model is based on controlling the user experience.
Given all 3 above, Apple's current approach seems pretty reasonable to me: non-curated free & open development using HTML5 and curated development for native apps, some extra cost to write non-curated apps to run on your iPhone (or within your Enterprise setup), and more or less tolerating the existence of Jailbreakers but cutting off Apple support for them (of course, always allowing them a way back into the walled garden).
At some point you just need to deal with the reality that Apple is not building general purpose mobile computers with their iOS platform, they are building appliances. The OSX platform is general-purpose. If iOS isn't your cup of tea, then buy an Android.
The hyperbole about having access to the thing that you bought is just fucking retarded and you sound more like a moron everytime you spot that nonsense. You don't have full access to your microwave, or your car, or most any other electronic device you buy.
Or else Apple wouldn't have sold that many iOS devices.
Why can't you live with the fact that there are a lot of people out there who like the walled garden when it comes to the intrinsically limited device that they carry around in their pocket? Why can't you understand that making it easy to load untrusted code onto an iOS device would also make it easy to have the same problems with crappy spyware/spamware/viruses/etc. that PCs suffer from? It's not like there aren't alternatives. Go buy one.
Have you ever heard an Apple customer complaining that the Android option shouldn't exist? or that Google should be somehow forced to lock up their devices?
Yet you continue to complain that the iOS walled garden model shouldn't exist despite the millions of people that are perfectly happy with it. And somehow this leads to more "choice"?
You can call it crippled if you want. I guess it is in the same way that a car is crippled because it doesn't expose an easy way to manually deploy the airbag. I call it good engineering. I suspect you wouldn't know good engineering if it slapped you in the face.
Sony is hostile towards homebrew SW for PS3's Nintendo is hostile towards homebrew SW for Wii's Microsoft is hostile towards homebrew SW for Xbox's...
In fact, out of all of these, Apple has the cheapest and easiest path towards SW development on their 'appliance' devices--but yet I bet you have never once complained about those other products. The problem is that you want iOS devices to be something that they aren't.
they could make literally thousands of dollars selling computers to geeks instead of having to suffer through making billions of dollars selling computers to consumers.
#2 is an example of goodness. Unavailability of alternatives (#3) implies that there are no better alternatives, unless you are claiming something like an artificial (regional?) constraint preventing the majority from accessing a potentially superior alternative--I honestly don't see how one can claim that.
The question here is whether people generally buy Apple products because they are better than the alternatives for those people, or whether they have been tricked by Apple's marketing into buying a product which is inferior (for those people's usage patterns) than other available products. The question is not whether there is someone somewhere who is unhappy with their Apple purchase or who clearly bought an Apple product just for the logo--we are talking about the majority of people here.
If the majority of people were somehow 'tricked' into purchasing an Apple, then it stands to reason that they would (in general) have lower customer satisfaction than customers of other products. That's a testable claim. In fact, Apple customers are overwhelmingly happy with their purchases when compared to customers of other products by any number of studies. So that claim is false.
But now you are going to say that perhaps they are really unhappy, but because of mass delusion, peer pressure, and sunk lost tragedy they are pretending to be happy when in fact they aren't. That doesn't really explain why they are repeat customers at such a high rate--but regardless this is fundamentally not a falsifiable claim, because essentially you are saying that Apple customers who deny being unhappy is further proof that they are unhappy.
You desperately want innovative to mean "gee whiz techno features". It literally means doing something that hasn't been done before, which Apple does constantly.
Apple is innovative in how they integrate new technology, how it's packaged, how it is exposed to the user. You are right that most other tech companies haven't figured this out.
There is literally no evidence one could present to you that would convince you that people buy Apple products because they are good products and not because they say Apple on them. Essentially you are making claims which are not falsifiable--which is pretty much the definition of a religon. Have fun with your religon.
They have to walk a very fine line where they claim that Apple doesn't actually produce products with any intrinsic value, but instead they trick billions of people into thinking that they do with "marketing". Oh and Apple is evil for locking down their devices eventhough the overwhelming majority of their customers are perfectly happy to have them locked down.
Apple designs appliances for the consumer masses--with well executed industrial design and software to go along with excellent hardware; instead of designing gadgets which non-technical people have trouble using.
The unwavering focus on the typical user experience is truley groundbreaking and that's why they are printing money.
It's okay that you don't get this, neither does HP, Dell, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.
It's okay, not everybody does. You probably are good at other things, like gardening maybe?
But you don't understand computer security, in particular you don't understand how 'draconian control' leads directly to Apple succeeding where others have failed.
Go to the Magic Kingdom, notice that there are no liquor stores and strip clubs on Main Street? Also note how happy people are while they are there, almost like they actually enjoy the concept of a walled garden.
Note how they are free to leave anytime they want. Are you starting to get the idea?
Walled gardens are nice, people like them. If you don't like them, then don't go into one.
Step 1: Buy an Android, hack it all you want. Post blogs about your shitty software with direct links to let anybody download your virus invested bloated battery killing software.
Step 2: Acquire inner peace sufficient to allow for a world large enough for people who want a robust appliance and people who want something they can tinker with.
and have made hundreds of billions of dollars with their innovations.
You are a sad, lonely, depressed little human who believes that you elevate your own pathetic little existence by openly mocking the accomplishments of thousands of engineers who have actually contributed something to humanity.
Slashdot Mirror
Pay $100/year or jailbreak.
You want something less obscure? Then how do you prevent non-technical people from doing it?
Seriously. Why can't Apple exist in your universe? Do you ever *ever* hear Apple fans saying that Android shouldn't be available for those who want the ability to easily tinker on their devices?
The world is big enough for lots of different types of devices. Apple has chosen the appliance model because that appeals to a large block of customers--but not all of them. That's okay--there are other companies.
1. Passing the "Re: Try this!" test: If Apple made it easy for you to install homebrew software on your device, they also would be making it easy for the casual nontechnical user to do this unintentionally. Warning dialogs or switches under Settings don't work, the test is whether someone can write an email to easily trick a nontechnical user into putting their device into a non-safe state.
2. It costs more for Apple to support customers when they are running non-curated software. They're a business and they have every right to restrict their focus to whatever audience they think will (in the end) make them more money.
3. Controlling the user experience: If there exists a substantial software base available outside of the walled garden--then this creates demand even amongst nontechnical users to access those applications. If enough iOS devices are 'Jailbroken' then the user experience becomes compromised. The nontechnical users won't associate the flakiness/insecurity of their devices with their direct actions which led them to circumvent the walled garden--instead they'll blame Apple. Apple's entire business model is based on controlling the user experience.
Given all 3 above, Apple's current approach seems pretty reasonable to me: non-curated free & open development using HTML5 and curated development for native apps, some extra cost to write non-curated apps to run on your iPhone (or within your Enterprise setup), and more or less tolerating the existence of Jailbreakers but cutting off Apple support for them (of course, always allowing them a way back into the walled garden).
At some point you just need to deal with the reality that Apple is not building general purpose mobile computers with their iOS platform, they are building appliances. The OSX platform is general-purpose. If iOS isn't your cup of tea, then buy an Android.
The hyperbole about having access to the thing that you bought is just fucking retarded and you sound more like a moron everytime you spot that nonsense. You don't have full access to your microwave, or your car, or most any other electronic device you buy.
Or else Apple wouldn't have sold that many iOS devices.
Why can't you live with the fact that there are a lot of people out there who like the walled garden when it comes to the intrinsically limited device that they carry around in their pocket? Why can't you understand that making it easy to load untrusted code onto an iOS device would also make it easy to have the same problems with crappy spyware/spamware/viruses/etc. that PCs suffer from? It's not like there aren't alternatives. Go buy one.
Have you ever heard an Apple customer complaining that the Android option shouldn't exist? or that Google should be somehow forced to lock up their devices?
Yet you continue to complain that the iOS walled garden model shouldn't exist despite the millions of people that are perfectly happy with it. And somehow this leads to more "choice"?
You can call it crippled if you want. I guess it is in the same way that a car is crippled because it doesn't expose an easy way to manually deploy the airbag. I call it good engineering. I suspect you wouldn't know good engineering if it slapped you in the face.
Sony is hostile towards homebrew SW for PS3's ...
Nintendo is hostile towards homebrew SW for Wii's
Microsoft is hostile towards homebrew SW for Xbox's
In fact, out of all of these, Apple has the cheapest and easiest path towards SW development on their 'appliance' devices--but yet I bet you have never once complained about those other products. The problem is that you want iOS devices to be something that they aren't.
then you might have a point.
75 apps per. Many of those are free apps. Many of those are probably downloads of updates for existing apps.
I think you are a meaningless and false number.
and I like Apple.
Kinda blows a hole in your theory.
...or else their stock price might continue its perpetual slide into oblivion. I mean seriously, that company must be running on fumes now.
Clearly Apple needs to come read slashdot forums so they can get their company back on track.
oh snap.
they could make literally thousands of dollars selling computers to geeks instead of having to suffer through making billions of dollars selling computers to consumers.
#2 is an example of goodness. Unavailability of alternatives (#3) implies that there are no better alternatives, unless you are claiming something like an artificial (regional?) constraint preventing the majority from accessing a potentially superior alternative--I honestly don't see how one can claim that.
The question here is whether people generally buy Apple products because they are better than the alternatives for those people, or whether they have been tricked by Apple's marketing into buying a product which is inferior (for those people's usage patterns) than other available products. The question is not whether there is someone somewhere who is unhappy with their Apple purchase or who clearly bought an Apple product just for the logo--we are talking about the majority of people here.
If the majority of people were somehow 'tricked' into purchasing an Apple, then it stands to reason that they would (in general) have lower customer satisfaction than customers of other products. That's a testable claim. In fact, Apple customers are overwhelmingly happy with their purchases when compared to customers of other products by any number of studies. So that claim is false.
But now you are going to say that perhaps they are really unhappy, but because of mass delusion, peer pressure, and sunk lost tragedy they are pretending to be happy when in fact they aren't. That doesn't really explain why they are repeat customers at such a high rate--but regardless this is fundamentally not a falsifiable claim, because essentially you are saying that Apple customers who deny being unhappy is further proof that they are unhappy.
You desperately want innovative to mean "gee whiz techno features". It literally means doing something that hasn't been done before, which Apple does constantly.
Apple is innovative in how they integrate new technology, how it's packaged, how it is exposed to the user. You are right that most other tech companies haven't figured this out.
I do it with a soldering iron, some dip switches, and a jumper wire.
I guess that makes you stupid.
This is kinda like arguing with a creationist.
There is literally no evidence one could present to you that would convince you that people buy Apple products because they are good products and not because they say Apple on them. Essentially you are making claims which are not falsifiable--which is pretty much the definition of a religon. Have fun with your religon.
They have to walk a very fine line where they claim that Apple doesn't actually produce products with any intrinsic value, but instead they trick billions of people into thinking that they do with "marketing". Oh and Apple is evil for locking down their devices eventhough the overwhelming majority of their customers are perfectly happy to have them locked down.
What a sad, pathetic little tribe.
Run along back to your Ruby coding.
Apple designs appliances for the consumer masses--with well executed industrial design and software to go along with excellent hardware; instead of designing gadgets which non-technical people have trouble using.
The unwavering focus on the typical user experience is truley groundbreaking and that's why they are printing money.
It's okay that you don't get this, neither does HP, Dell, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.
Whooosh
it would be a shame if something happened to it.
Sincerely,
USA
It's okay, not everybody does. You probably are good at other things, like gardening maybe?
But you don't understand computer security, in particular you don't understand how 'draconian control' leads directly to Apple succeeding where others have failed.
Maybe you should get back to your lawn.
Go to the Magic Kingdom, notice that there are no liquor stores and strip clubs on Main Street? Also note how happy people are while they are there, almost like they actually enjoy the concept of a walled garden.
Note how they are free to leave anytime they want. Are you starting to get the idea?
Walled gardens are nice, people like them. If you don't like them, then don't go into one.
Step 1: Buy an Android, hack it all you want. Post blogs about your shitty software with direct links to let anybody download your virus invested bloated battery killing software.
Step 2: Acquire inner peace sufficient to allow for a world large enough for people who want a robust appliance and people who want something they can tinker with.
software for it. Why aren't you protesting in front of GE? They don't even offer the option of a $99 developer license.
and have made hundreds of billions of dollars with their innovations.
You are a sad, lonely, depressed little human who believes that you elevate your own pathetic little existence by openly mocking the accomplishments of thousands of engineers who have actually contributed something to humanity.