You did not get modded down for "moderation." What you probably saw was "Moderation -1." This means that somebody applied a moderation of -1 to your post, not that your post got modded down for moderation! The reason it got modded down is below the "Moderation -1" part: "100% Flamebait". So somebody thought your post was flamebait.
There is a large difference in taking it back to NonExistentCarCompany and saying "Please fix my car", and NonExistentCarCompany pushing out an upgrade via WLAN that will cause your car to get auto-upgraded and stop dead in the middle of the road somewhere.
Apple isn't pushing out an upgrade via WLAN either. You're perfectly free to not install the upgrade if you're afraid it might brick your phone. It's not even clear whether the update actually will disable the phone, or whether Apple is simply trying to preempt the shitstorm that will start if it accidentally does.
That's exactly why they are doing it, and it benefits them enormously.
Bricking hacked iPhones helps Apple not at all. In fact, all the support calls will cost Apple, and people are not going to stop hacking their iPhones, they are just going to stop installing updates. In fact, the installing of apps isn't what Apple is after at all. They have publicly said that they will do nothing about this. What they are after are SIM unlocks, and they go after these because they have to; it's very likely part of their contract with AT&T. Also, they get money from cell phone contracts iPhone users have with AT&T, so it makes monetary sense to go after this.
Apple isn't not evil, it's just that we have to look at different things differently:
Charging a buck for ringtones? Evil, but not Apple's fault.
The checksum on the iPod's database? Somewhat evil, but was hacked quickly, so probably not intended to be evil.
Not releasing an SDK for the iPhone? Marginally evil, may be due to time constraints.
Changing the TV cables to new iPods can't use old cables? Clearly evil, there seems to be no technical reason.
Announcing that firmware upgrades could corrupt hacked iPhones? Not evil, just common sense. I'm going to hack my iPhone, and I never intended to just install a Firmware upgrade over my hacked iPhone.
The day I unlocked my iPhone, I stopped updating iTunes on the Mac I sync my iPhone with. The unlocked phone is in a weird state which the updater doesn't expect. It's likely to cause issues, and we all knew it when we hacked our phones.
Dude, if you write stuff like "Consumers who want to jack up their iPhones by HACKING it, don't deserve consumer rights", you should not be surprised that you get modded down. I don't even think you understand what "hacking" means.
It's not even that. I'm getting my iPhone today, and first think I'll do is unlock it. I never expected to be able to install any updates from Apple after that, so this whole brouhaha seems totally absurd. I just won't update iTunes on the Mac I sync the iPhone with anymore, and that's that.
Well, note it's the Lisa that introduced changes that weren't in Xerox - not the Macintosh, which just developed on changes just like every other GUI in the 80s did.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that, and Horn - who was only in the Mac team, I think - points it out in the quote, too.
The illegal drugs are only cooked up in backyard sheds because they are illegal. Not to mention that the dope I used to grow on my balcony was also an illegal drug, even though it has nothing "mixed in for effect" and probably does a lot less damage to my brain than the legal pills I eat when I have a headache.
And 20-25% goes to the credit card companies, so there's not a whole lot left for Apple. Not to mention that the label margins on CDs are way lower than 70%.
Let's face it, they don't actually have anything to complain, but they're greedy bastards, so they complain anyway.
Well, iTunes seems to pay the most of all online stores (as per macjournals). Let's do the maths: The labels get 70%, the credit card companies get 20-25%, and Apple gets 5%. How is that gouging the labels? I doubt Apple makes much money on iTunes at all; most of the money is probably spent on R&D, bandwidth and similar stuff.
Also now the Finder can browse folders on other computers. Microsoft are probably kicking themselves that they didn't implement that over a decade ago and call it SMB.
And that's where I stopped reading your post. Let me guess: you've never actually used a Mac, have you? I don't think you quite understand that particular feature. Do you seriously think it's about the browsing? It's not. It's about Apple keeping track of dynamic IPs so you can easily connect to your other Macs when you're not in your home network.
I guess the rest of your post is similarly misguided/uninformed/intentionally mean spirited (take your pick).
That's an interesting way to put it, and I've never seen anyone saying it quite as open as this. You don't want a better phone; you just want one with more features. That's why the iPhone is not for you and will never be. I, however, will gladly trade some of my P990i's features for a bit more stability and usability. Well, I count being "better" as a feature in itself.;)
Yeah, me too:-)
I just don't see how the iPhone actually is better. It's shinier, yes, but my SCH-U740 is stable and usable already. I suppose it could stand to take one less button press to find a contact, but that's what voice dialing is for. The music player is ugly and makes poor use of screen space, but I already have an iPod, and I'm not about to replace it with a phone that can only hold 1/3 of my music. Other than that, all the glitz in the iPhone's interface just seems like fixing what isn't broken.
Well, it's broken for me. What I want from a phone is:
Good SMS capabilities
An easy way to enter appointments
A way to read html pages
A big screen
That's not a lot, but all the phones that seem to provide this and that I own (I've owned or currently own a P800, a Treo 650 and a P990i) are crap. The Treo is a pretty nice and usable phone, but it does no multithreading. So if I read something in the browser and then reply to an SMS, the browser forgets where on the page I was. The Symbian phones have multithreading, but they crash. A lot. And when they do, they insult me by telling me that "the phone had to be restarted to improve performance," as if I was too stupid to figure out that it crashed. Furthermore, entering a new appointment takes 14 steps on my P990i. Did anyone actually try using these things? Finally, the P990i is fat. If I put it in my trousers' pocket, it looks like... well, I don't want to go into details.
What Apple does really, really well is:
Good form factor. The iPhone is thin, so I can put it in my pocket without looking like a freak.
Usability. The people at Apple obviously put a lot of thought into what features to present when, and how to access the different parts of the phone.
I have no idea about stability, but so far, I haven't heard any complaints other than Safari crashing from time to time.
Also, it has the neat threaded display of SMS messages, which is a huge plus for how I use SMS.
So I think Apple really nailed what I want from a cell phone.
No, my point is just that you can sell more phones by bringing them to the carriers people already use, instead of expecting them to switch carriers to use your phone.
Ah, fair point. But since Apple has a 5-year exclusive contract with AT&T, that particular train has left the station. Personally, I think Apple would have stood to gain a lot more from releasing an unlocked phone from the beginning, and let people continue using their current contract. Sure, they'd have lost the money from AT&T's contracts, but long term, I think it would have helped Apple.
As you may be gathering, the difference between the Xerox system architectures and Macintosh architecture is huge; much bigger than the difference between the Mac and Windows. It's not surprising, since Microsoft saw quite a bit of the Macintosh design (API's,sample code, etc.) during the Mac's development from 1981 to 1984; the intention was to help them write applications for the Mac, and it also gave their system designers a template from which to design Windows. In contrast, the Mac and Lisa designers had to invent their own architectures. Of course, there were some ex- Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn't leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think.
"I believe that without Apple, our user interfaces would look substantially different. I mean, try this: Get the latest Ubuntu Live CD and boot it. Now compare this to the UI of the Apple Lisa."
The Lisa "borrowed heavily" from the Xerox Star, the hardware for which was done in Palo Alto and the software in El Segundo.
Bitmapped graphics, mice, icons are what made the Star what it was (never mind Xerox couldn't and bever has had a commercially viable product).
First of all, Apple was already working on a graphical user interface before they visited Xerox, so they already had stuff like the mouse and bitmapped graphics, and probably some kind of windowing system. Second, I never disputed that Apple took ideas from Xerox. I simply dispute that they copied Xerox's system wholesale and sold it as their own. As I already wrote, you only have to compare screenshots to figure this out.
Do you really believe if Apple hadn't copied from this heavily then we'd never have got where we are now?
Straw man. I never said anything like this. Just the opposite: I don't
Iconic interfaces are a time saving tool. I contend we would have ended up here anyway even if Apple had never existed.
Oh, yeah, we would have some kind of graphical user interface. Just probably a very different one - whether it would be better or not, nobody can say:-)
Oh I know, but my point is that it's the "came up with" that's important here, not "made popular".
I would argue that both are equally important - without coming up with stuff, you have nothing to make popular, and stuff you come up with and don't make popular is basically worthless. Either way, Apple did a lot of both. Maybe more of the "making popular" than the "coming up with," but they definitely originated a lot of the concepts that we still use to this day.
By all means give credit for what Apple came up with first - but it's hard to know what they did come up with first, because you usually only hear from people who seem to think that Apple created the GUI as a whole (or people who only ever go on about "Apple made it popular").
I think if you take a Lisa or an original Mac and subtract everything that is also in the Xerox systems, you get a pretty good idea of what Apple came up with.
Here's a screenshot of the Alto (if the link doesn't work, googling for images of xerox alto returns a bunch of screenshots). Doesn't look a whole lot like a modern Windows, Mac or Linux system. Here's the Lisa. The parallels to modern systems are very, very obvious.
As I say, other operating systems followed quickly after Apple, each introducing new bits here and there.
Sure, everyone contributed, and everyone copied. All I'm saying is that the people who claim that Apple copied Xerox wholesale and added nothing are wrong. Of all the companies involved, Apple probably contributed most of the concepts we use in today's grahical computer user interfaces.
Well, I would encourage you to do three things: First, stop being such an ass. Second, try learning about punctuation. And third, go have a look at an actual Xerox Alto. You might be astonished to find out that it looks nothing at all like the Lisa's UI. It's graphical, yes. It's not, however, "a UI that everyone can use."
So thanks for calling me a moron, but I actually suspect the person with a lack of knowledge is you, not me. Have a nice day, uninformed asshat.
Ok, so now ENGINEERING talent is all about marketing?
A few engineers inventing a new UI does not a revolution make.
What about who INVENTED it all?
You think Xerox invented the Lisa's UI? Have you even ever seen the Alto's UI?
I know "Apple stole it all from Xerox" is a popular idea for Microsoft apologists. After all, if Apple copied it all, it can't be too bad that Microsoft did the same. Except Apple didn't actually take that many ideas from Xerox. The simple fact is that the original Lisa and Mac teams had some of the best UI designers. People like Jef Raskin were on that team. They took ideas from Xerox, sure, but the Mac's UI is a new, original take on a graphical user interface, and not a copy of a Xerox UI.
Ah but which is it - came up with, or made popular?
A lot of both.
People always seem to think that Xerox had a finished Mac in its lab. Apple simply went in, took a look, and copied it wholesale. Not the case. Xerox's system was very, very different from the Lisa and the Mac.
No. Unlike Sony, Apple did nothing to prevent homebrew app development. They have publicly said that they don't care one way or the other, unless you SIM-unlock the phone.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I get it :-)
You did not get modded down for "moderation." What you probably saw was "Moderation -1." This means that somebody applied a moderation of -1 to your post, not that your post got modded down for moderation! The reason it got modded down is below the "Moderation -1" part: "100% Flamebait". So somebody thought your post was flamebait.
Apple isn't pushing out an upgrade via WLAN either. You're perfectly free to not install the upgrade if you're afraid it might brick your phone. It's not even clear whether the update actually will disable the phone, or whether Apple is simply trying to preempt the shitstorm that will start if it accidentally does.
Bricking hacked iPhones helps Apple not at all. In fact, all the support calls will cost Apple, and people are not going to stop hacking their iPhones, they are just going to stop installing updates. In fact, the installing of apps isn't what Apple is after at all. They have publicly said that they will do nothing about this. What they are after are SIM unlocks, and they go after these because they have to; it's very likely part of their contract with AT&T. Also, they get money from cell phone contracts iPhone users have with AT&T, so it makes monetary sense to go after this.
You're using past tense for something that hasn't even happened yet.
Apple isn't not evil, it's just that we have to look at different things differently:
The day I unlocked my iPhone, I stopped updating iTunes on the Mac I sync my iPhone with. The unlocked phone is in a weird state which the updater doesn't expect. It's likely to cause issues, and we all knew it when we hacked our phones.
Dude, if you write stuff like "Consumers who want to jack up their iPhones by HACKING it, don't deserve consumer rights", you should not be surprised that you get modded down. I don't even think you understand what "hacking" means.
It's not even that. I'm getting my iPhone today, and first think I'll do is unlock it. I never expected to be able to install any updates from Apple after that, so this whole brouhaha seems totally absurd. I just won't update iTunes on the Mac I sync the iPhone with anymore, and that's that.
Yeah, I don't disagree with that, and Horn - who was only in the Mac team, I think - points it out in the quote, too.
This is sarcasm, right?
The illegal drugs are only cooked up in backyard sheds because they are illegal. Not to mention that the dope I used to grow on my balcony was also an illegal drug, even though it has nothing "mixed in for effect" and probably does a lot less damage to my brain than the legal pills I eat when I have a headache.
As far as console movers go, the 360 has nothing coming up after Halo 3. The PS3 has MGS and FF.
Don't forget that Apple has to pay the credit card companies. If a person only buys a single song, Apple probably takes a loss, all things considered.
And 20-25% goes to the credit card companies, so there's not a whole lot left for Apple. Not to mention that the label margins on CDs are way lower than 70%.
Let's face it, they don't actually have anything to complain, but they're greedy bastards, so they complain anyway.
Well, iTunes seems to pay the most of all online stores (as per macjournals). Let's do the maths: The labels get 70%, the credit card companies get 20-25%, and Apple gets 5%. How is that gouging the labels? I doubt Apple makes much money on iTunes at all; most of the money is probably spent on R&D, bandwidth and similar stuff.
And that's where I stopped reading your post. Let me guess: you've never actually used a Mac, have you? I don't think you quite understand that particular feature. Do you seriously think it's about the browsing? It's not. It's about Apple keeping track of dynamic IPs so you can easily connect to your other Macs when you're not in your home network.
I guess the rest of your post is similarly misguided/uninformed/intentionally mean spirited (take your pick).
Yeah, me too :-)
I just don't see how the iPhone actually is better. It's shinier, yes, but my SCH-U740 is stable and usable already. I suppose it could stand to take one less button press to find a contact, but that's what voice dialing is for. The music player is ugly and makes poor use of screen space, but I already have an iPod, and I'm not about to replace it with a phone that can only hold 1/3 of my music. Other than that, all the glitz in the iPhone's interface just seems like fixing what isn't broken.Well, it's broken for me. What I want from a phone is:
That's not a lot, but all the phones that seem to provide this and that I own (I've owned or currently own a P800, a Treo 650 and a P990i) are crap. The Treo is a pretty nice and usable phone, but it does no multithreading. So if I read something in the browser and then reply to an SMS, the browser forgets where on the page I was. The Symbian phones have multithreading, but they crash. A lot. And when they do, they insult me by telling me that "the phone had to be restarted to improve performance," as if I was too stupid to figure out that it crashed. Furthermore, entering a new appointment takes 14 steps on my P990i. Did anyone actually try using these things? Finally, the P990i is fat. If I put it in my trousers' pocket, it looks like... well, I don't want to go into details.
What Apple does really, really well is:
I have no idea about stability, but so far, I haven't heard any complaints other than Safari crashing from time to time.
Also, it has the neat threaded display of SMS messages, which is a huge plus for how I use SMS.
So I think Apple really nailed what I want from a cell phone.
Ah, fair point. But since Apple has a 5-year exclusive contract with AT&T, that particular train has left the station. Personally, I think Apple would have stood to gain a lot more from releasing an unlocked phone from the beginning, and let people continue using their current contract. Sure, they'd have lost the money from AT&T's contracts, but long term, I think it would have helped Apple.
Bruce Horn and Andy Hertzfeld wrote essays about this on folklore.org.
Horn writes:
First of all, Apple was already working on a graphical user interface before they visited Xerox, so they already had stuff like the mouse and bitmapped graphics, and probably some kind of windowing system. Second, I never disputed that Apple took ideas from Xerox. I simply dispute that they copied Xerox's system wholesale and sold it as their own. As I already wrote, you only have to compare screenshots to figure this out.
Do you really believe if Apple hadn't copied from this heavily then we'd never have got where we are now?Straw man. I never said anything like this. Just the opposite: I don't
Iconic interfaces are a time saving tool. I contend we would have ended up here anyway even if Apple had never existed.Oh, yeah, we would have some kind of graphical user interface. Just probably a very different one - whether it would be better or not, nobody can say :-)
Oh, and Bruce Horn and Andy Hertzfeld wrote essays about this on folklore.org.
I would argue that both are equally important - without coming up with stuff, you have nothing to make popular, and stuff you come up with and don't make popular is basically worthless. Either way, Apple did a lot of both. Maybe more of the "making popular" than the "coming up with," but they definitely originated a lot of the concepts that we still use to this day.
By all means give credit for what Apple came up with first - but it's hard to know what they did come up with first, because you usually only hear from people who seem to think that Apple created the GUI as a whole (or people who only ever go on about "Apple made it popular").I think if you take a Lisa or an original Mac and subtract everything that is also in the Xerox systems, you get a pretty good idea of what Apple came up with.
Here's a screenshot of the Alto (if the link doesn't work, googling for images of xerox alto returns a bunch of screenshots). Doesn't look a whole lot like a modern Windows, Mac or Linux system. Here's the Lisa. The parallels to modern systems are very, very obvious.
As I say, other operating systems followed quickly after Apple, each introducing new bits here and there.Sure, everyone contributed, and everyone copied. All I'm saying is that the people who claim that Apple copied Xerox wholesale and added nothing are wrong. Of all the companies involved, Apple probably contributed most of the concepts we use in today's grahical computer user interfaces.
Well, I would encourage you to do three things: First, stop being such an ass. Second, try learning about punctuation. And third, go have a look at an actual Xerox Alto. You might be astonished to find out that it looks nothing at all like the Lisa's UI. It's graphical, yes. It's not, however, "a UI that everyone can use."
So thanks for calling me a moron, but I actually suspect the person with a lack of knowledge is you, not me. Have a nice day, uninformed asshat.
A few engineers inventing a new UI does not a revolution make.
You think Xerox invented the Lisa's UI? Have you even ever seen the Alto's UI?
I know "Apple stole it all from Xerox" is a popular idea for Microsoft apologists. After all, if Apple copied it all, it can't be too bad that Microsoft did the same. Except Apple didn't actually take that many ideas from Xerox. The simple fact is that the original Lisa and Mac teams had some of the best UI designers. People like Jef Raskin were on that team. They took ideas from Xerox, sure, but the Mac's UI is a new, original take on a graphical user interface, and not a copy of a Xerox UI.
A lot of both.
People always seem to think that Xerox had a finished Mac in its lab. Apple simply went in, took a look, and copied it wholesale. Not the case. Xerox's system was very, very different from the Lisa and the Mac.
Yeah, all GSM phones do that. I think it's funny when it freaks out Americans. Over here in Europe, we got used to that years ago :-)
No. Unlike Sony, Apple did nothing to prevent homebrew app development. They have publicly said that they don't care one way or the other, unless you SIM-unlock the phone.