...and you'll see it's a window that looks like it's had some rocks thrown through it-- there are cracks and holes in the panes. Subtle commentary at its best.
I don't know why Apple doesn't pick up this ball and run like hell with it.
Well, they have always been lacking in the OS X marketing arena, but they will especially not do anything now because Apple's having enough trouble filling the current demand for their machines from people who've already imbibed the Kool Aid-- it took them two months to fill my dual 2.5GHz G5 order. The iMac is the machine targeted at the "average user," and Apple has absolutely none of those right now, nor will they for a few more weeks at least. So basically, they don't want any new customers right now.:-)
Having said that, though, I'd love to see some damned OS X commercials that specifically target people who are sick and tired of being plagued by Windows' vulnerabilities and all the work that must be done by the end user to mitigate them.
Hell, they could even do 'tie-in' ads that mention the iPod: "Tired of Windows worms and viruses and spyware? Wouldn't you like a computer that just worked, like how your iPod just works? Well, check out a Mac running OS X!"
Too bad it will, for whatever reason, probably never happen.
Windows 98 is 6 years old and isn't sold with computers anymore.
Irrelevant. Windows 98 is still the primary OS of a lot of computers, because for many people upgrading to XP would mean having to buy a new computer.
There are still plenty of people who may need to wipe their existing Win98 PC and reinstall everything... they won't be willing to take the time to download the megs and megs of updates that exist for 98, even on broadband.
Conclusion: It's very relevant to take this 6 year-old OS and sit a box running it (with no patches installed) on the public internet to see what happens-- because there are likely still thousands of computers just like it in daily use.
If you are refering to the "iLamp" flat panel iMacs
No, the poster was referring to the Revision E iMacs (aka "iMac DV" series) that featured slot-loading DVD drives. Those were convection-cooled, and damned quiet.
These days I suspect they would have died had they permitted the clones to continue
Yup. Apple came close to dying because of the clones, not because they killed the clones. I don't know why more people on here don't see that.
The cloners were supposed to take the low end of the Mac market and leave the high-end for Apple. Instead, they started cranking out high end machines and in some cases offered faster machines than Apple, for comparable if not slightly lower prices.
Apple funds their R&D with the proceeds from their hardware sales, which were drying up thanks to the cloners. When Jobs returned, he had to do some fancy footwork with the licensing to kill the cloners before Apple went into a Netscape-esque death spiral. The loophole that Jobs used was this: Since the cloners were only licensed to distribute versions of Mac OS 7.x with their machines, a Mac OS revision that really should have been numbered 7.7 was called Mac OS 8.0, and Apple declined to allow the cloners to distribute it with their machines. Goodbye, cloners.
This is why anyone who thinks Apple could crank out a boxed version of OS X for x86-based commodity hardware for the same $129 Mac users pay now is suffering from rectocranial inversion. Apple would have to make up the money from lost Mac sales somehow, and that would be to jack up the price of OS X for x86 to something that none of those whining jackals who want OS X on x86 would pay. Everyone would pirate it (probably even if it was still only $129), and there goes the money that Apple needs to fund future OS X development. And there's your death-spiral again.
In a C|Net article from May 31, 2003, a Microsoft rep said, "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
Cut to a year and change later, Longhorn is taking too long to arrive and people are getting sick/scared enough of all the security deficiencies in IE to actually look for a better browser. Because informed consumers are their worst enemy, Microsoft gets a little nervous that their lock on the browser market might be in jeopardy, and POW! Miracle of miracles, it is suddenly possible to further improve standalone versions of IE on non-Longhorn versions of Windows! Whoda thunk it?
Technically such an improved beast should be called IE 6.5. If they actually do call it 7, it's purely for marketing reasons-- they'll launch some flashy commercials to try to snow people into thinking this is some totally reworked wonder that fixes everything they didn't like about IE 6, when in reality it will just be IE 6 with some bugs fixed and some extra shit grafted on. Too bad their campaign will probably work on the uninformed.
Don't roll over and take this, people! Keep informing your friends/family/clients that there are better browsers out there, and install your alternative browser of choice wherever possible. Don't let them listen to whatever sunshine Microsoft will be blowing up their asses about the "new, improved" IE.
This is Slashdot, people! I don't know about you, but pretty much every article in the Apple section that I've read has posts from virgins incorrectly accusing Apple of being a monopoly.
Microsoft should put more of an investment into their public image
Bah! Talk about throwing money down the crapper!
There is absolutely nothing that Microsoft could do or say to make me like/respect them as a company, and I'm far from alone in that sentiment. They have pumped out shitty software for too long and made too many false claims about the quality of said software. Hell, I've made a career out of cleaning up the mess when their shoddy products shit the bed, and my boss has built a multimillion dollar business around it. Their behavior during the antitrust trial was reprehensible, and when it was over and they got their little wrist-slap, they were completely unrepentant and for the most part went right back to doing all the same shit that landed them in court in the first place.
Microsoft has earned its horrid reputation, and at this point no PR firm in the universe could improve it (though I'm sure some would love for Microsoft to give them a few dump trucks full of money to try). In light of that, Microsoft might as well put that money to better use and pay a few more people to try to fix Windows XP.
~Philly
Re:I remember my time machine....
on
Primer
·
· Score: 1
There was a great "What if JFK lived?" episode of the New Twilight Zone, called "Profiles in Silver."
First off, Apple not wanting competition has nothing to do with their objection to Real doing this. Real is not competing, they are riding on the coattails of another company's success. If Real was competing, they'd be selling a portable player that played MP3 and Real Media files. Any competition was over when the prospective customer for that player chose an iPod instead.
Secondly, Apple makes a pittance from iTMS sales. iPod sales are where the money is. "But wait," you say, "Then wouldn't Apple be all for anything that might sell more iPods?" No, and here's why:
Apple's user experience is due to them controlling "the whole widget," as they say-- hardware and software. If Real wedges some of their own software into the iPod, that could cause problems for Apple.
Do you think Real will go out of their way to inform iPod-owning customers of their music store that their iPod implementation is nothing but a hack, liable to be broken (either purposely or accidentally) at any time by future iPod upgrades from Apple? Doubtful.
Who's going to look bad if Apple had no qualms with Real's hack and then a future iPod firmware revision broke it? Apple, not Real.
Who's to say Real's hack won't end up frying some percentage of the iPods on which it is installed? Will Real be paying to get those repaired? Nope. Will Apple bear the brunt of a shitstorm from pissed-off people who fried their iPod and were rightly refused free warranty service by Apple because they broke the terms of their warranty/EULA? Yup.
To sum up, Real would be reaping all the rewards of this unauthorized "joint venture," and Apple would be taking all the risks. Any increase in iPod sales as a result of Real's hack opening up the iPod could be very quickly offset by negative publicity, if the the Real hack proved problematic. All it takes is a couple assholes with a grudge and a blog, and next thing you know big media spins it into some kind of defect in the iPod that is Apple's fault.
For Christ's sake, the iPod has been out for almost three years now and a CNN article from two days ago implies that it ONLY plays songs purchased from the iTMS. These people are more concerned with getting the article out than getting the details right.
Real is nothing but a bunch of parasites who make crappy software, I'm all for Apple fighting them over this.
If they're going to hobble the project so severely, why even keep it at all? Just deorbit the damn thing and maybe we can all get a free taco out of it-- I think that'd be a better return than what we're currently getting for all our tax money that was poured into the ISS.
Does the average person need to carry 4 gigs of music around with them and if so is it worth 250$? Probably not even if it is cool.
Based on how many iPods Apple has sold and the fact that a weekly news magazine has done a cover story on how the iPod has become a pop-culture icon/phenomenon, I'd say yes, the average person does need to carry 4GB of music around, and will happily pay the $250 to do it. Especially if to do so is deemed cool.
My iBook goes with me everywhere in my backpack when I'm on the job, along with a toolkit and a large soft case full of software CDs. I got a Sleevecase from Waterfield Designs, and it provides pretty good protection. The only thing I'd do differently with my next laptop is place something (like a sheet of felt or something else soft and about the same thickness) between the two halves when it's closed-- the weight of the other items in my backpack presses them together, and the finish around the display bezel has worn off in some spots. It's purely cosmetic, but I'm anal-retentive when it comes to keeping my equipment looking as new as possible.
When you put the iBook to sleep, it does spin down the drive-- you wouldn't be able to tell that it was on at all, if not for the pulsing sleep light. Even though it does spin the drive down, though, the iBook wakes up very quickly-- by the time you've got the screen opened and tilted back to where you like it, the iBook is ready for you to resume typing/mousing/whatever.
Almost certainly - now that 3rd-party products (like the BMW connector and Dension ICELink) are using that dock connector, Apple will most likely stick with it for some time-- and I believe it was designed with that in mind.
Does is still use the same remote connector?
Dunno, but probably.
Will there be a "line in" dock?
Doubtful, since the article makes no mention of built-in recording features. You still need a third-party accessory to record, so it would be up to one of those devices to allow line-in.
Is the screen size the same?
The screen size looks the same. The article says the 4G is a bit thinner, but that's apparently it in terms of form factor changes.
Will the 3g iPod be upgradeable to some of the new features?
Wouldn't surprise me at all, it certainly looks feasible. We'll probably get an iPod Firmware Update out of it to add some new features-- I'd guess that the 3G will probably get firmware revision 2.5, and the 4G's firmware will be called 3.0.
If the powersavings is mostly done in software, will 3g iPods get more life with a firmware upgrade?
It's certainly possible, and as a 3G owner, I'd love to see improved battery life in my exisiting unit though I have only run out of juice once in the year that I've had mine.
This was done years ago. Apple made some cards, and Orange Micro made some. They worked okay, but they weren't great. Now modern PCs need a huge ass heatsink and/or fan, and there's no way you're gonna squeeze adequate cooling into the space a PCI card uses.
If you need to run Windows apps and Virtual PC isn't good enough, just get a cheap PC and a KVM, or if the PC has XP Pro on it, use RDC on the Mac to control it.
You forget, these are the same people who claimed that they lost money on Forrest Gump, so they wouldn't have to pay Winston Groom, who wrote it (or at least the book on which it was based) the profit-based percentage he was owed.
In light of that, I fail to see how you expect them to be honest with minimum-wage theater workers who won't be able to afford legal recourse if they get stiffed. Sure, $500 is less than a percentage of millions, but these are some greedy motherfuckers we're talking about here-- no dollar amount is too small to weasel out of paying.
"Pac-Man is still as compelling today as it was 30 or 40 years ago," said Genna Goldberg, spokeswoman for Jakks Pacific, a company that sells a classic Atari joystick loaded with 10 games from the original 1970s Atari home console.
2004-1980 = 30 or 40??? That must be that "new math" I'm hearing so much about.
Instead of requiring this monitoring/updating service, it should be offered as an option to those who don't want to be bothered with maintain their own machines and/or lack the know-how to do it themselves.
Those who didn't want to use the service and preferred to patch their machines would be welcome to do so-- but would be charged a reconnection fee (~$100) if their PC got owned and had to be disconnected from the network. I'd add a "three strikes" aspect to this, so the third time the same person's PC got owned, they'd have to pay the fine and be required to use the monitoring/updating service.
Of course, your argument falls apart when you're dealing with a competent network admin who locks down systems and installs AV software.
Competently-admined systems are not the problem, it's the millions of unsecured Windows boxes sitting on cable and DSL, whose owners can't even be bothered to run Windows Update once in a while much less renew their AV subscription when it expires or download, install and regularly use Spybot.
Also, backward compatibility isn't the real reason that MS is targeted, it's marketshare. I bet if Apple had more people using their OS, there'd be more people targeting OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
...and you'll see it's a window that looks like it's had some rocks thrown through it-- there are cracks and holes in the panes. Subtle commentary at its best.
~Philly
I don't know why Apple doesn't pick up this ball and run like hell with it.
:-)
Well, they have always been lacking in the OS X marketing arena, but they will especially not do anything now because Apple's having enough trouble filling the current demand for their machines from people who've already imbibed the Kool Aid-- it took them two months to fill my dual 2.5GHz G5 order. The iMac is the machine targeted at the "average user," and Apple has absolutely none of those right now, nor will they for a few more weeks at least. So basically, they don't want any new customers right now.
Having said that, though, I'd love to see some damned OS X commercials that specifically target people who are sick and tired of being plagued by Windows' vulnerabilities and all the work that must be done by the end user to mitigate them.
Hell, they could even do 'tie-in' ads that mention the iPod: "Tired of Windows worms and viruses and spyware? Wouldn't you like a computer that just worked, like how your iPod just works? Well, check out a Mac running OS X!"
Too bad it will, for whatever reason, probably never happen.
~Philly
Windows 98 is 6 years old and isn't sold with computers anymore.
Irrelevant. Windows 98 is still the primary OS of a lot of computers, because for many people upgrading to XP would mean having to buy a new computer.
There are still plenty of people who may need to wipe their existing Win98 PC and reinstall everything... they won't be willing to take the time to download the megs and megs of updates that exist for 98, even on broadband.
Conclusion: It's very relevant to take this 6 year-old OS and sit a box running it (with no patches installed) on the public internet to see what happens-- because there are likely still thousands of computers just like it in daily use.
~Philly
If you are refering to the "iLamp" flat panel iMacs
No, the poster was referring to the Revision E iMacs (aka "iMac DV" series) that featured slot-loading DVD drives. Those were convection-cooled, and damned quiet.
~Philly
...has a nice ring to it.
These days I suspect they would have died had they permitted the clones to continue
Yup. Apple came close to dying because of the clones, not because they killed the clones. I don't know why more people on here don't see that.
The cloners were supposed to take the low end of the Mac market and leave the high-end for Apple. Instead, they started cranking out high end machines and in some cases offered faster machines than Apple, for comparable if not slightly lower prices.
Apple funds their R&D with the proceeds from their hardware sales, which were drying up thanks to the cloners. When Jobs returned, he had to do some fancy footwork with the licensing to kill the cloners before Apple went into a Netscape-esque death spiral. The loophole that Jobs used was this: Since the cloners were only licensed to distribute versions of Mac OS 7.x with their machines, a Mac OS revision that really should have been numbered 7.7 was called Mac OS 8.0, and Apple declined to allow the cloners to distribute it with their machines. Goodbye, cloners.
This is why anyone who thinks Apple could crank out a boxed version of OS X for x86-based commodity hardware for the same $129 Mac users pay now is suffering from rectocranial inversion. Apple would have to make up the money from lost Mac sales somehow, and that would be to jack up the price of OS X for x86 to something that none of those whining jackals who want OS X on x86 would pay. Everyone would pirate it (probably even if it was still only $129), and there goes the money that Apple needs to fund future OS X development. And there's your death-spiral again.
~Philly
In a C|Net article from May 31, 2003, a Microsoft rep said, "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
Cut to a year and change later, Longhorn is taking too long to arrive and people are getting sick/scared enough of all the security deficiencies in IE to actually look for a better browser. Because informed consumers are their worst enemy, Microsoft gets a little nervous that their lock on the browser market might be in jeopardy, and POW! Miracle of miracles, it is suddenly possible to further improve standalone versions of IE on non-Longhorn versions of Windows! Whoda thunk it?
Technically such an improved beast should be called IE 6.5. If they actually do call it 7, it's purely for marketing reasons-- they'll launch some flashy commercials to try to snow people into thinking this is some totally reworked wonder that fixes everything they didn't like about IE 6, when in reality it will just be IE 6 with some bugs fixed and some extra shit grafted on. Too bad their campaign will probably work on the uninformed.
Don't roll over and take this, people! Keep informing your friends/family/clients that there are better browsers out there, and install your alternative browser of choice wherever possible. Don't let them listen to whatever sunshine Microsoft will be blowing up their asses about the "new, improved" IE.
~Philly
This is Slashdot, people! I don't know about you, but pretty much every article in the Apple section that I've read has posts from virgins incorrectly accusing Apple of being a monopoly.
~Philly
Microsoft should put more of an investment into their public image
Bah! Talk about throwing money down the crapper!
There is absolutely nothing that Microsoft could do or say to make me like/respect them as a company, and I'm far from alone in that sentiment. They have pumped out shitty software for too long and made too many false claims about the quality of said software. Hell, I've made a career out of cleaning up the mess when their shoddy products shit the bed, and my boss has built a multimillion dollar business around it. Their behavior during the antitrust trial was reprehensible, and when it was over and they got their little wrist-slap, they were completely unrepentant and for the most part went right back to doing all the same shit that landed them in court in the first place.
Microsoft has earned its horrid reputation, and at this point no PR firm in the universe could improve it (though I'm sure some would love for Microsoft to give them a few dump trucks full of money to try). In light of that, Microsoft might as well put that money to better use and pay a few more people to try to fix Windows XP.
~Philly
There was a great "What if JFK lived?" episode of the New Twilight Zone, called "Profiles in Silver."
~Philly
First off, Apple not wanting competition has nothing to do with their objection to Real doing this. Real is not competing, they are riding on the coattails of another company's success. If Real was competing, they'd be selling a portable player that played MP3 and Real Media files. Any competition was over when the prospective customer for that player chose an iPod instead.
Secondly, Apple makes a pittance from iTMS sales. iPod sales are where the money is. "But wait," you say, "Then wouldn't Apple be all for anything that might sell more iPods?" No, and here's why:
Apple's user experience is due to them controlling "the whole widget," as they say-- hardware and software. If Real wedges some of their own software into the iPod, that could cause problems for Apple.
Do you think Real will go out of their way to inform iPod-owning customers of their music store that their iPod implementation is nothing but a hack, liable to be broken (either purposely or accidentally) at any time by future iPod upgrades from Apple? Doubtful.
Who's going to look bad if Apple had no qualms with Real's hack and then a future iPod firmware revision broke it? Apple, not Real.
Who's to say Real's hack won't end up frying some percentage of the iPods on which it is installed? Will Real be paying to get those repaired? Nope. Will Apple bear the brunt of a shitstorm from pissed-off people who fried their iPod and were rightly refused free warranty service by Apple because they broke the terms of their warranty/EULA? Yup.
To sum up, Real would be reaping all the rewards of this unauthorized "joint venture," and Apple would be taking all the risks. Any increase in iPod sales as a result of Real's hack opening up the iPod could be very quickly offset by negative publicity, if the the Real hack proved problematic. All it takes is a couple assholes with a grudge and a blog, and next thing you know big media spins it into some kind of defect in the iPod that is Apple's fault.
For Christ's sake, the iPod has been out for almost three years now and a CNN article from two days ago implies that it ONLY plays songs purchased from the iTMS. These people are more concerned with getting the article out than getting the details right.
Real is nothing but a bunch of parasites who make crappy software, I'm all for Apple fighting them over this.
~Philly
"Approaching intersection, please close eyes."
Nuts to that. I'll just get the Peril-Sensitive(TM) Window Glass option.
~Philly
If they're going to hobble the project so severely, why even keep it at all? Just deorbit the damn thing and maybe we can all get a free taco out of it-- I think that'd be a better return than what we're currently getting for all our tax money that was poured into the ISS.
~Philly
If it were me, I'd try this guy.
~Philly
Does the average person need to carry 4 gigs of music around with them and if so is it worth 250$? Probably not even if it is cool.
Based on how many iPods Apple has sold and the fact that a weekly news magazine has done a cover story on how the iPod has become a pop-culture icon/phenomenon, I'd say yes, the average person does need to carry 4GB of music around, and will happily pay the $250 to do it. Especially if to do so is deemed cool.
~Philly
My iBook goes with me everywhere in my backpack when I'm on the job, along with a toolkit and a large soft case full of software CDs. I got a Sleevecase from Waterfield Designs, and it provides pretty good protection. The only thing I'd do differently with my next laptop is place something (like a sheet of felt or something else soft and about the same thickness) between the two halves when it's closed-- the weight of the other items in my backpack presses them together, and the finish around the display bezel has worn off in some spots. It's purely cosmetic, but I'm anal-retentive when it comes to keeping my equipment looking as new as possible.
When you put the iBook to sleep, it does spin down the drive-- you wouldn't be able to tell that it was on at all, if not for the pulsing sleep light. Even though it does spin the drive down, though, the iBook wakes up very quickly-- by the time you've got the screen opened and tilted back to where you like it, the iBook is ready for you to resume typing/mousing/whatever.
~Philly
Does it still use the dock?
Almost certainly - now that 3rd-party products (like the BMW connector and Dension ICELink) are using that dock connector, Apple will most likely stick with it for some time-- and I believe it was designed with that in mind.
Does is still use the same remote connector?
Dunno, but probably.
Will there be a "line in" dock?
Doubtful, since the article makes no mention of built-in recording features. You still need a third-party accessory to record, so it would be up to one of those devices to allow line-in.
Is the screen size the same?
The screen size looks the same. The article says the 4G is a bit thinner, but that's apparently it in terms of form factor changes.
Will the 3g iPod be upgradeable to some of the new features?
Wouldn't surprise me at all, it certainly looks feasible. We'll probably get an iPod Firmware Update out of it to add some new features-- I'd guess that the 3G will probably get firmware revision 2.5, and the 4G's firmware will be called 3.0.
If the powersavings is mostly done in software, will 3g iPods get more life with a firmware upgrade?
It's certainly possible, and as a 3G owner, I'd love to see improved battery life in my exisiting unit though I have only run out of juice once in the year that I've had mine.
~Philly
You wouldn't go to sleep one night with your compass pointing north and suddenly have it point south when you woke up.
No. In fact, frequently the opposite is what actually happens.
~Philly
His most recent is a 1980 Volkswagen rigged to run on solar power.
Wouldn't this make him Afghanistan's Ed Begley, Jr.?
~Philly
You wouldn't happen to have a mullet, would you?
~Philly
This was done years ago. Apple made some cards, and Orange Micro made some. They worked okay, but they weren't great. Now modern PCs need a huge ass heatsink and/or fan, and there's no way you're gonna squeeze adequate cooling into the space a PCI card uses.
If you need to run Windows apps and Virtual PC isn't good enough, just get a cheap PC and a KVM, or if the PC has XP Pro on it, use RDC on the Mac to control it.
~Philly
C'mon, renege on the $500 bonus?
You forget, these are the same people who claimed that they lost money on Forrest Gump, so they wouldn't have to pay Winston Groom, who wrote it (or at least the book on which it was based) the profit-based percentage he was owed.
In light of that, I fail to see how you expect them to be honest with minimum-wage theater workers who won't be able to afford legal recourse if they get stiffed. Sure, $500 is less than a percentage of millions, but these are some greedy motherfuckers we're talking about here-- no dollar amount is too small to weasel out of paying.
~Philly
"Pac-Man is still as compelling today as it was 30 or 40 years ago," said Genna Goldberg, spokeswoman for Jakks Pacific, a company that sells a classic Atari joystick loaded with 10 games from the original 1970s Atari home console.
2004-1980 = 30 or 40??? That must be that "new math" I'm hearing so much about.
~Philly
Instead of requiring this monitoring/updating service, it should be offered as an option to those who don't want to be bothered with maintain their own machines and/or lack the know-how to do it themselves.
Those who didn't want to use the service and preferred to patch their machines would be welcome to do so-- but would be charged a reconnection fee (~$100) if their PC got owned and had to be disconnected from the network. I'd add a "three strikes" aspect to this, so the third time the same person's PC got owned, they'd have to pay the fine and be required to use the monitoring/updating service.
~Philly
Of course, your argument falls apart when you're dealing with a competent network admin who locks down systems and installs AV software.
Competently-admined systems are not the problem, it's the millions of unsecured Windows boxes sitting on cable and DSL, whose owners can't even be bothered to run Windows Update once in a while much less renew their AV subscription when it expires or download, install and regularly use Spybot.
Also, backward compatibility isn't the real reason that MS is targeted, it's marketshare. I bet if Apple had more people using their OS, there'd be more people targeting OS X.
Please explain why Apache, which enjoys a significantly larger marketshare than IIS, also has signficantly fewer exploits for it. Now whose argument falls apart?
~Philly