For power users, sure, it's pretty bad losing a 20" screen that you've forked out for. The iMac isn't really geared to us though.
I've had a hell of a time trying to figure out why my friends have been buying awful computers (a Compaq, for example, just one month ago! Wonder how long that brand is going to last...) without consulting me. After some prodding, it turns out they don't like me telling them what isn't and isn't good about the new machine they're getting, they just want what they can see. Like a big screen. Then they buy it, because they make some assumption that all computers are the same nowadays, and treat these things like appliances no more complex than a dishwasher. Once it's had it's day, you throw it all out and buy a new one. Obviously they're ignoring the fact they are on their own when it comes to support. You don't ask me, you don't get my help later on:D
Which is where Apple is with the iMac. It's disposable computing. Every 3-4 years, chuck it out and get a new one. To be fair, it's a very tempting option over the extra outlay of the tower and monitor to begin with. My 3 year old 17" monitor is about to give up on me, but the screen is looking weak in comparison by today's standards anyway. Why not buy it all cheaper now then get a nice spangly 24" iMac with super-bright-no-dead-pixel technology or something down the line? Certainly for most people (the people that double take when I drag a window from my Powerbook to my monitor) having two workareas is crazy enough as it is, let alone paying extra for the privalege!:)
How does The Sunday Times reporting the very same story strike you? I bet you feel like that is a *much* better paper.
Except, of course, The Times part of News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch, which also owns the Sun. It's crazy how these stories appear in both papers, except the story that's been spun for the lower echelons of Britain is "crap" whilst the Sunday Times gets a "reputable" from the very same nay-sayers.
The unerlying facts are no different. The spin and implications are (notice how The Sun aren't in court for libel everyday, they're very cunning in the way they "misreport"). The guys at The Sun know exactly what they're doing, they're just as intelligent (I would say more so) than the journos at The Times that write for the same audience that they themselves reside in. I couldn't write for The Sun's readership.
Thank you for taking in my points at such length. It's nice to see people actually reading what I have to say.
I can't say I agree with all your points, either through my own miseducation to not be able to comment further or simply don't agree as a matter of opinion, but your last comments about Nintendo Europe are interesting.
I think it might be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I find it difficult to believe that the same Nintendo that has someone as inspired as Shiguru Miyamoto swaying major influence within the company would allow Nintendo Europe to continue disillusioning customers as it has done. People have made comments. I remember an excellent interview by well-respected (ie not plastered with EXCLUSIVE on the cover) games magazine Edge with the head of Nintendo Europe. He doggedly insisted that Pokemon Turquoise or whatever colours they're using now, should have taken precedence over AC. He truly believed they knew what the consumer wants, but only be telling them what they want. Doshin the Giant was meant to fill the gap in the GC line-up!
So talking doesn't appear to work with Nintendo Europe either. For some time I've dreamed the same idea you have come up with; Nintendo UK and Australia, whacking on a PAL conversion on most games (not AC of course) then churning them out in a much quicker turnaround. I doubt it'll happen before Nintendo goes the way of Sega.
My cannon wasn't aiming at the e-Reader. It looks like another crude Nintendo method of trying to extract funds out of the stagnant GBA market due to the high pricing of their carts, but that's another story.
I agree that hate was too strong a word, but they must certainly dislike the territory, which I think is mostly their own doing. MS and Sony have never shown such contempt. They don't complain and fob off, they get it done, with or without EU legislation.
I think Nintendo is running a risky financial course by running with these strictly monetary decisions. The bottom line looks better now, but it's continued erosion of it's fanbase is going to lead to even larger numbers of gamers telling Nintendo where to stick their next Not-As-Good-As-They-Used-To-Be franchise game.
Maybe this is where Microsoft's megabucks will eventually win the day. They're wooing gamers now whilst making a loss, in an attempt to buy their way into gamer's brand loyalties. And they would have done it with Xbox 1, had they had the third-party hit games there. It can't be long before MS cracks it and buries Nintendo's hardware division.
Fair point, well made. I certainly think this is true of Konami: Where exactly is the GC version of Winning Eleven? The GC is crying out for a decent football game.
Do you not think that Microsoft, for all the Xboxes failings, have done a pretty decent job in getting games here in an almost reasonable time? I don't recall the last time I heard someone complain that such and such was out in the US, but the game's release in Europe was any greater than about three months. Xbox Live has gotton off to a decent start as well, something I thought was certain to be implemented half-arsed over here.
I'd hazard that about 60% of wanted games from Nintendo clock in at a longer lead time than that. I think three months is pretty much the magic barrier on how long the lower-hardcore (educated gamers, but not desparately clawing for every game straight away) are prepared to wait before they end up in importing instead.
Having purchased AC on import, the argument that the localisation is significantly more difficult holidays-wise appears to be very much tosh.
There really aren't that many unique days in it, let alone country-specific. (Meteor Shower? Town day?) The special things that happen on the remaining days could easily be switched around; the 4th July fireworks on Coronation Day for example or some other equally irrelevant holiday;)
Switch a bit of code, rewrite some lines of text (which would have been occuring during translation anyway).
As for them knowing more than me, I quite agree. I'd just like to know what this process actually involves, and simply how they can manage to draw it out for so long. I understand translating gameplay tweaks and the massive language barrier between the US and Japan, but once you're out of the East I can't see that much else needs doing...
BTW: You know what we got instead of Animal Crossing? Doshin the Giant. Ahem.
Multi-language? Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.
Different display format?
Aussies are quite happy with PAL as well.
Different regional legislation?
Slap on a blood patch for Germany. Hang on, Nintendo haven't had any blood in their games in the UK since they begun. They haven't been censoring us have they?!
Different cultures
This argument I simply couldn't buy. Tastes are different everywhere. UK tastes are different to US, US is different to Japan. I can't name one country that has radically different games they enjoy than the rest of Europe.
There are only two answers. Nintendo is incompentant in Europe and arrogant towards Europe. It has always given Europe the shaft; it's not a new idea for them. Seeing as all the excuses they could come up with are as thin as Japanese paper walls, I have to say that the split must be 50:50 between the two issues. They don't need Europe, they're only the third biggest games market. They're a company trying to save cash, when in fact they're pushing themselves further over the edge by cutting out a major territory. Their business plan consists of: "If it ain't no work to convert, then ship it 6 months later and clamp down on importers in the mean time!" No joke, they sent cease and desist letters to all importers last month trying to get them all to stop selling the games that Euro Nintendo users want but can't get.
Total. Bloody. Genius.
Re:10.1.4 Office x.X Entourage update issues
on
Mega Monday Updates
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· Score: 1
I was disappointed that Entourage still doesn't sync to the Address Book. *sigh* Roll on v.X2...
Chief, you need to calm it down. The site violates every single human interface design idea in the book. That's fine. But give me an option to turn the display off and read it the way the web was intended, and I'll be a happy bunny.
I love Digitiser as much as anyone, but to say that just because it was Teletext needs it means to be Teletext is an insane argument. Paul Rose (Mr. Biffo himself!) did plenty fine when he launched the now-defunct Bubblegun.com using the aforementioned characters.
It is fine journalism, yes, but don't make me think, or I'll be as angry as Mr. T having his bins knocked over. Independant journalism won't die, remember at least two of the journos (Gillen and Rose) there work contribute to Future Publishing magazines, and I never found either of them to be bent. I'll stick to Edge and the free GameCentral (the very decent Digitiser replacement) for now. You know, using display formats suitable for their medium?
It's a nice idea, but it's the first to admit it doesn't stop spam, you'd still need to black mark the munged address.
Finding the spammer really appears to be more trouble than it's worth, I doubt individual peons such as you or I could get anywhere with such noble pursuits.
I'm going to stick with my current spam cure, SpamAssassin running as cron checking my IMAP server, and wait for the House of Commons to sort out the prevention.
Ahhh...no. The issue is not that the game itself is not very good indeed. I whole-heartedly reckon it will be rather amazing. My point is that it will be overlooked by the Western masses because it eschews 3D. Ikaragua anyone?
I have to disagree. I would be very surprised if Viewtiful Joe does as well in the West as it has done in Japan.
Despite the fact that Gamecube owners are generally a bit more hardcore than their Playstation bretheren, we've seen time and again the mass-market (and some die-hards too) being very judgemental about 2D, whereas the same cynicism simply doesn't exist in Japan. As all our platformers moved to 3D, they simply got worse, not better. Those Mario Sunshine levels that emulated the old-school days are impossible to control.
Japan realises that and doesn't have the same bias, one of the reasons why the Saturn did much better (seeing as it was a very good 2D machine) in the East than it did in the West. It's a shame that the global economy means more companies can't make the statement that Capcom have done (that means you, Miyamoto-san).
I would define integrated in that an X11 program didn't need a wrapper application to run, as it is and, from what I've seen, continue to be. If I want to run Gimp, I want to double click the application and *tada* it's bouncing happily away in my dock. That's integration. Having to boot up X11 then opening from within Gimp is not.
Damn right it is! It's exaserbated by the fact that if you have "Show Info" checked for your desktop, under your drive icon it displays your available space. But only *ever* refreshes when you double click it's icon. Result? I ran out of disk space completely during a massive Fink download and suddenly things started getting screwy, but I had no idea why because I still "had" 800mbs left. I reboot, and, to my horror, stuff loses its preferences, including those managed by System Preferences itself (display resolutions, title bar icons...).
What the hell sort of behaviour is that? You don't even get a warning that your disk drive is low, let alone some message text reading:
"Please reboot your system so it can finish deleting your preferences"
Everything applies to Apple. It's a company one and the same and it does leak things. It's not special.
It takes a monumental amount of incompetence to leak a single page accidently on a site as mission critical as Apple's. The company would have at least one staging server, if not more. They'd have people double checking everything. When I worked at Dyson, every upload to the live site had me quaking in my boots, even after the three times I checked the stage server to make sure everything was working A-OK.
I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that at least the first tabbed version of Safari was leaked intentionally (I'm using this as the most recent example). Apple builds up hype just like everyone else. Mac fanboys (including myself) are pretty much excited all year round because of rumour sites, why not cash in with a few tactical leaks here and there so they can get the word around? Why have one slashdot story when you can nab three? Another example that just came to mind: Whenever some new hardware is coming soon, Apple always bump up the shipping dates. If they wanted to be oh-so-careful, they wouldn't bother and give out false information on the public pages. Then on the customer account pages simply write something like the computer is still being built, rather than making it obvious what's going on.
Apple has done it before and it will do it again. There have been leaks that shouldn't have happened, and heads have publically rolled, such as the mirror-faced PowerMacs on eWeek. I would be amazed to see anyone take a public hit for this one, because it was quite intentional. Taking Safari again, if the leak was *gasp*, such a big deal, then maybe they'd have stopped on the developer seeding and taken legal action? The Apple lawyers love being busy.
This system would be used in conjunction with traction control, anyway (a car that expensive simply *must* have it). As I'm sure you know, traction control during normal conditions would make it pretty hard to skid the car if you weren't trying. However, I would hope it turns off during turning at high speeds. I don't fancy testing out my traction control at 70mph on a sharp turn with brakes.
The question you're asking is quite valid: At what point does technology stop being an assistant (such as traction control, ABS) and start intefering with the driver's wishes? Personally, I don't think this does affect the drivers intentions. I'm sure your driving instructor (at least mine in the UK) tapped the brakes on your car more than once whilst you were taking lessons. Personally, as long as I didn't hit anything I was fine with it! As long as the car is pointing the way I tried to put it, I don't think I could fault the vehicle itself in the event of a crash.
I'm not going to quote Mr. Head of Nintendo Europe, because I feel my paraphrasing is more appropriate (he gives a review in the UK magazine Edge Gamecube special called Equip):
"We didn't have the resources to translate everything, so we decided that we'd translate Pokemon and shelved AC. Because I'm a spacker desparately holding onto a past that is now long gone. Please hurt me.
"Of course, it would be easy to assume that the UK and Australian markets were big enough on their own to justify a PAL conversion without translation, but we couldn't be bothered with all that extra hassle either. Viva la Wigglytuff!"
That last paragraph was me completely putting words in his mouth, but I've often wondered why this isn't done? Is it some really anal distribution channel thing? Surely putting those discs on the right ship out of Taiwan isn't that hard? The game was already translated, and the UK is definitely one of the biggest video gaming markets (couldn't comment on Austrailia).
Perhaps Nintendo Europe don't want to be seen not shafting the non-US/Japan world. Chrono Trigger, anyone?
It's about time they went the same way as Sega, and let some hardware manufacturers who know what the they're doing distribute their titles. We've never seen such appalling treatment by Sony or Microsoft.
I love the way the journalist bottles it during the interview:
Interviewer: Will the sequel to The Wind Waker be sea-faring again or do you plan to include a different mode of transport? Aonuma: Did you find it a hassle to travel by boat? Interviewer: I was playing it through in Japanese at first, so I didn't know about the fish who marks locations on your sea chart, but when I found that it was fine.
I found the sailing excruciating, I actually read a magazine most of the time. I pointed the boat and went. The sailing did create the feeling of epic proportions, and it did show off some amazingly cool scaling effects (looking through the telescope and shouting "Land ho!" never felt so right. Or attracted so many looks) but it was also incredibly tedious. Galloping across Hyrule Field elegantly jumping fences and shooting arrows at evil-doers was far more exciting. There was a better feeling of speed, you controlled your direction (without resorting to stopping, playing the same damned song on Wind Waker, then starting again) and it was *a lot shorter*. There was so much you needed to do in the Wind Waker, as well as travel silly distances (the distances were still silly even with the teleportation). You had to find the Merman. Stop the boat. Feed the Merman. Change the wind direction because you inevitably went off course. If you were lucky, the Merman wouldn't tell you couldn't get on that island yet, you had to go to the other side of the map to get something. It was all padding. All of it. And 80% of the games playing public twigged it very early on. I'd rather have taken a shorter, sweeter game than sitting through 4-5 minutes of monotony. It felt like I had to earn my way into the dungeons by simply enduring.
Seems to me Aonuma-san has already twigged that sailing wasn't great. Otherwise he wouldn't have asked the question, would he?
I have to disagree. I'm a gamer at heart. I'm also now a hardcore Mac user, since switching to a Powerbook last year. I decided to move could finally use UNIX in a nice environment (very useful for my CS degree!), and not having to use an absolute brick of a laptop.
I've played Warcraft 3 and Medal of Honor and such. It's not that Mac users aren't gamers, they actually just can't play any games. The 3D isn't fast enough, no-ones making the games that we all want (*coughcoughcough*Star Wars: Galaxies) without having to wait months after the PC release, or there is no conversion at all.
I wish I could play games on this thing. I love Mac OS X. the next desktop I buy will be a Mac. I've given up on PC gaming for Mac. That is something I never thought I'd do. But there are so many times I wished I could play Counterstrike! If Apple get their act together when it comes to game speed and development, maybe we'll see the final switching barrier removed.
I've bought a Gamecube instead, now. I still love games, and I always will. But I will love them more in Aqua:)
I can confirm that I the update does not have the advanced features of the new iPods. No new games, no on the fly playlisting. Just a new "backlight" button on the main menu, which, unsurprisingly, activates the backlight.
Actually, Apple has a pretty good past record of "leaking" pre-release code. The Register has gotton pretty blaise about it all. You only know if something shouldn't have happenend if heads publically roll, like the time the mirror face PowerMac designs were released to eWeek.
Slashdot Mirror
For power users, sure, it's pretty bad losing a 20" screen that you've forked out for. The iMac isn't really geared to us though.
:D
:)
I've had a hell of a time trying to figure out why my friends have been buying awful computers (a Compaq, for example, just one month ago! Wonder how long that brand is going to last...) without consulting me. After some prodding, it turns out they don't like me telling them what isn't and isn't good about the new machine they're getting, they just want what they can see. Like a big screen. Then they buy it, because they make some assumption that all computers are the same nowadays, and treat these things like appliances no more complex than a dishwasher. Once it's had it's day, you throw it all out and buy a new one. Obviously they're ignoring the fact they are on their own when it comes to support. You don't ask me, you don't get my help later on
Which is where Apple is with the iMac. It's disposable computing. Every 3-4 years, chuck it out and get a new one. To be fair, it's a very tempting option over the extra outlay of the tower and monitor to begin with. My 3 year old 17" monitor is about to give up on me, but the screen is looking weak in comparison by today's standards anyway. Why not buy it all cheaper now then get a nice spangly 24" iMac with super-bright-no-dead-pixel technology or something down the line? Certainly for most people (the people that double take when I drag a window from my Powerbook to my monitor) having two workareas is crazy enough as it is, let alone paying extra for the privalege!
I think if your wife wanted a laptop simply based on it's MP3 jukebox software, she'd probably go mental at the lack of a Start menu anyway! ;)
How does The Sunday Times reporting the very same story strike you? I bet you feel like that is a *much* better paper.
Except, of course, The Times part of News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch, which also owns the Sun. It's crazy how these stories appear in both papers, except the story that's been spun for the lower echelons of Britain is "crap" whilst the Sunday Times gets a "reputable" from the very same nay-sayers.
The unerlying facts are no different. The spin and implications are (notice how The Sun aren't in court for libel everyday, they're very cunning in the way they "misreport"). The guys at The Sun know exactly what they're doing, they're just as intelligent (I would say more so) than the journos at The Times that write for the same audience that they themselves reside in. I couldn't write for The Sun's readership.
Thank you for taking in my points at such length. It's nice to see people actually reading what I have to say.
I can't say I agree with all your points, either through my own miseducation to not be able to comment further or simply don't agree as a matter of opinion, but your last comments about Nintendo Europe are interesting.
I think it might be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I find it difficult to believe that the same Nintendo that has someone as inspired as Shiguru Miyamoto swaying major influence within the company would allow Nintendo Europe to continue disillusioning customers as it has done. People have made comments. I remember an excellent interview by well-respected (ie not plastered with EXCLUSIVE on the cover) games magazine Edge with the head of Nintendo Europe. He doggedly insisted that Pokemon Turquoise or whatever colours they're using now, should have taken precedence over AC. He truly believed they knew what the consumer wants, but only be telling them what they want. Doshin the Giant was meant to fill the gap in the GC line-up!
So talking doesn't appear to work with Nintendo Europe either. For some time I've dreamed the same idea you have come up with; Nintendo UK and Australia, whacking on a PAL conversion on most games (not AC of course) then churning them out in a much quicker turnaround. I doubt it'll happen before Nintendo goes the way of Sega.
I agree that hate was too strong a word, but they must certainly dislike the territory, which I think is mostly their own doing. MS and Sony have never shown such contempt. They don't complain and fob off, they get it done, with or without EU legislation.
I think Nintendo is running a risky financial course by running with these strictly monetary decisions. The bottom line looks better now, but it's continued erosion of it's fanbase is going to lead to even larger numbers of gamers telling Nintendo where to stick their next Not-As-Good-As-They-Used-To-Be franchise game.
Maybe this is where Microsoft's megabucks will eventually win the day. They're wooing gamers now whilst making a loss, in an attempt to buy their way into gamer's brand loyalties. And they would have done it with Xbox 1, had they had the third-party hit games there. It can't be long before MS cracks it and buries Nintendo's hardware division.
Fair point, well made. I certainly think this is true of Konami: Where exactly is the GC version of Winning Eleven? The GC is crying out for a decent football game.
Do you not think that Microsoft, for all the Xboxes failings, have done a pretty decent job in getting games here in an almost reasonable time? I don't recall the last time I heard someone complain that such and such was out in the US, but the game's release in Europe was any greater than about three months. Xbox Live has gotton off to a decent start as well, something I thought was certain to be implemented half-arsed over here.
I'd hazard that about 60% of wanted games from Nintendo clock in at a longer lead time than that. I think three months is pretty much the magic barrier on how long the lower-hardcore (educated gamers, but not desparately clawing for every game straight away) are prepared to wait before they end up in importing instead.
What are your thoughts on this?
Having purchased AC on import, the argument that the localisation is significantly more difficult holidays-wise appears to be very much tosh.
;)
There really aren't that many unique days in it, let alone country-specific. (Meteor Shower? Town day?) The special things that happen on the remaining days could easily be switched around; the 4th July fireworks on Coronation Day for example or some other equally irrelevant holiday
Switch a bit of code, rewrite some lines of text (which would have been occuring during translation anyway).
As for them knowing more than me, I quite agree. I'd just like to know what this process actually involves, and simply how they can manage to draw it out for so long. I understand translating gameplay tweaks and the massive language barrier between the US and Japan, but once you're out of the East I can't see that much else needs doing...
BTW: You know what we got instead of Animal Crossing? Doshin the Giant. Ahem.
Nintendo has no reason to hate Europe:
Multi-language?
Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.
Different display format?
Aussies are quite happy with PAL as well.
Different regional legislation?
Slap on a blood patch for Germany. Hang on, Nintendo haven't had any blood in their games in the UK since they begun. They haven't been censoring us have they?!
Different cultures
This argument I simply couldn't buy. Tastes are different everywhere. UK tastes are different to US, US is different to Japan. I can't name one country that has radically different games they enjoy than the rest of Europe.
There are only two answers. Nintendo is incompentant in Europe and arrogant towards Europe. It has always given Europe the shaft; it's not a new idea for them. Seeing as all the excuses they could come up with are as thin as Japanese paper walls, I have to say that the split must be 50:50 between the two issues. They don't need Europe, they're only the third biggest games market. They're a company trying to save cash, when in fact they're pushing themselves further over the edge by cutting out a major territory. Their business plan consists of: "If it ain't no work to convert, then ship it 6 months later and clamp down on importers in the mean time!" No joke, they sent cease and desist letters to all importers last month trying to get them all to stop selling the games that Euro Nintendo users want but can't get.
Total. Bloody. Genius.
I was disappointed that Entourage still doesn't sync to the Address Book. *sigh* Roll on v.X2...
I love Digitiser as much as anyone, but to say that just because it was Teletext needs it means to be Teletext is an insane argument. Paul Rose (Mr. Biffo himself!) did plenty fine when he launched the now-defunct Bubblegun.com using the aforementioned characters.
It is fine journalism, yes, but don't make me think, or I'll be as angry as Mr. T having his bins knocked over. Independant journalism won't die, remember at least two of the journos (Gillen and Rose) there work contribute to Future Publishing magazines, and I never found either of them to be bent. I'll stick to Edge and the free GameCentral (the very decent Digitiser replacement) for now. You know, using display formats suitable for their medium?
Finding the spammer really appears to be more trouble than it's worth, I doubt individual peons such as you or I could get anywhere with such noble pursuits.
I'm going to stick with my current spam cure, SpamAssassin running as cron checking my IMAP server, and wait for the House of Commons to sort out the prevention.
Ahhh...no. The issue is not that the game itself is not very good indeed. I whole-heartedly reckon it will be rather amazing. My point is that it will be overlooked by the Western masses because it eschews 3D. Ikaragua anyone?
Despite the fact that Gamecube owners are generally a bit more hardcore than their Playstation bretheren, we've seen time and again the mass-market (and some die-hards too) being very judgemental about 2D, whereas the same cynicism simply doesn't exist in Japan. As all our platformers moved to 3D, they simply got worse, not better. Those Mario Sunshine levels that emulated the old-school days are impossible to control.
Japan realises that and doesn't have the same bias, one of the reasons why the Saturn did much better (seeing as it was a very good 2D machine) in the East than it did in the West. It's a shame that the global economy means more companies can't make the statement that Capcom have done (that means you, Miyamoto-san).
I would define integrated in that an X11 program didn't need a wrapper application to run, as it is and, from what I've seen, continue to be. If I want to run Gimp, I want to double click the application and *tada* it's bouncing happily away in my dock. That's integration. Having to boot up X11 then opening from within Gimp is not.
Damn right it is! It's exaserbated by the fact that if you have "Show Info" checked for your desktop, under your drive icon it displays your available space. But only *ever* refreshes when you double click it's icon. Result? I ran out of disk space completely during a massive Fink download and suddenly things started getting screwy, but I had no idea why because I still "had" 800mbs left. I reboot, and, to my horror, stuff loses its preferences, including those managed by System Preferences itself (display resolutions, title bar icons...).
What the hell sort of behaviour is that? You don't even get a warning that your disk drive is low, let alone some message text reading:
"Please reboot your system so it can finish deleting your preferences"
Everything applies to Apple. It's a company one and the same and it does leak things. It's not special.
It takes a monumental amount of incompetence to leak a single page accidently on a site as mission critical as Apple's. The company would have at least one staging server, if not more. They'd have people double checking everything. When I worked at Dyson, every upload to the live site had me quaking in my boots, even after the three times I checked the stage server to make sure everything was working A-OK.
I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that at least the first tabbed version of Safari was leaked intentionally (I'm using this as the most recent example). Apple builds up hype just like everyone else. Mac fanboys (including myself) are pretty much excited all year round because of rumour sites, why not cash in with a few tactical leaks here and there so they can get the word around? Why have one slashdot story when you can nab three? Another example that just came to mind: Whenever some new hardware is coming soon, Apple always bump up the shipping dates. If they wanted to be oh-so-careful, they wouldn't bother and give out false information on the public pages. Then on the customer account pages simply write something like the computer is still being built, rather than making it obvious what's going on.
Apple has done it before and it will do it again. There have been leaks that shouldn't have happened, and heads have publically rolled, such as the mirror-faced PowerMacs on eWeek. I would be amazed to see anyone take a public hit for this one, because it was quite intentional. Taking Safari again, if the leak was *gasp*, such a big deal, then maybe they'd have stopped on the developer seeding and taken legal action? The Apple lawyers love being busy.
This system would be used in conjunction with traction control, anyway (a car that expensive simply *must* have it). As I'm sure you know, traction control during normal conditions would make it pretty hard to skid the car if you weren't trying. However, I would hope it turns off during turning at high speeds. I don't fancy testing out my traction control at 70mph on a sharp turn with brakes.
The question you're asking is quite valid: At what point does technology stop being an assistant (such as traction control, ABS) and start intefering with the driver's wishes? Personally, I don't think this does affect the drivers intentions. I'm sure your driving instructor (at least mine in the UK) tapped the brakes on your car more than once whilst you were taking lessons. Personally, as long as I didn't hit anything I was fine with it! As long as the car is pointing the way I tried to put it, I don't think I could fault the vehicle itself in the event of a crash.
I'm not going to quote Mr. Head of Nintendo Europe, because I feel my paraphrasing is more appropriate (he gives a review in the UK magazine Edge Gamecube special called Equip):
"We didn't have the resources to translate everything, so we decided that we'd translate Pokemon and shelved AC. Because I'm a spacker desparately holding onto a past that is now long gone. Please hurt me.
That last paragraph was me completely putting words in his mouth, but I've often wondered why this isn't done? Is it some really anal distribution channel thing? Surely putting those discs on the right ship out of Taiwan isn't that hard? The game was already translated, and the UK is definitely one of the biggest video gaming markets (couldn't comment on Austrailia)."Of course, it would be easy to assume that the UK and Australian markets were big enough on their own to justify a PAL conversion without translation, but we couldn't be bothered with all that extra hassle either. Viva la Wigglytuff!"
Perhaps Nintendo Europe don't want to be seen not shafting the non-US/Japan world. Chrono Trigger, anyone?
It's about time they went the same way as Sega, and let some hardware manufacturers who know what the they're doing distribute their titles. We've never seen such appalling treatment by Sony or Microsoft.
Interviewer: Will the sequel to The Wind Waker be sea-faring again or do you plan to include a different mode of transport?
Aonuma: Did you find it a hassle to travel by boat?
Interviewer: I was playing it through in Japanese at first, so I didn't know about the fish who marks locations on your sea chart, but when I found that it was fine.
I found the sailing excruciating, I actually read a magazine most of the time. I pointed the boat and went. The sailing did create the feeling of epic proportions, and it did show off some amazingly cool scaling effects (looking through the telescope and shouting "Land ho!" never felt so right. Or attracted so many looks) but it was also incredibly tedious. Galloping across Hyrule Field elegantly jumping fences and shooting arrows at evil-doers was far more exciting. There was a better feeling of speed, you controlled your direction (without resorting to stopping, playing the same damned song on Wind Waker, then starting again) and it was *a lot shorter*. There was so much you needed to do in the Wind Waker, as well as travel silly distances (the distances were still silly even with the teleportation). You had to find the Merman. Stop the boat. Feed the Merman. Change the wind direction because you inevitably went off course. If you were lucky, the Merman wouldn't tell you couldn't get on that island yet, you had to go to the other side of the map to get something. It was all padding. All of it. And 80% of the games playing public twigged it very early on. I'd rather have taken a shorter, sweeter game than sitting through 4-5 minutes of monotony. It felt like I had to earn my way into the dungeons by simply enduring.
Seems to me Aonuma-san has already twigged that sailing wasn't great. Otherwise he wouldn't have asked the question, would he?
I have to disagree. I'm a gamer at heart. I'm also now a hardcore Mac user, since switching to a Powerbook last year. I decided to move could finally use UNIX in a nice environment (very useful for my CS degree!), and not having to use an absolute brick of a laptop.
:)
I've played Warcraft 3 and Medal of Honor and such. It's not that Mac users aren't gamers, they actually just can't play any games. The 3D isn't fast enough, no-ones making the games that we all want (*coughcoughcough*Star Wars: Galaxies) without having to wait months after the PC release, or there is no conversion at all.
I wish I could play games on this thing. I love Mac OS X. the next desktop I buy will be a Mac. I've given up on PC gaming for Mac. That is something I never thought I'd do. But there are so many times I wished I could play Counterstrike! If Apple get their act together when it comes to game speed and development, maybe we'll see the final switching barrier removed.
I've bought a Gamecube instead, now. I still love games, and I always will. But I will love them more in Aqua
I know exactly how you feel about Fandango. I still miss Manny, even though I know he's better off...
It seems a bit harsh to not allow it. From what I can see, the new iPods don't have any extra buttons which you would need for such a thing.
I can confirm that I the update does not have the advanced features of the new iPods. No new games, no on the fly playlisting. Just a new "backlight" button on the main menu, which, unsurprisingly, activates the backlight.
HTH
Chris
The web site can take a helluva lot of hits due to Akami (I can't spell it, sue me), but Software Update is titsup.com ATM.
Chris
Actually, Apple has a pretty good past record of "leaking" pre-release code. The Register has gotton pretty blaise about it all. You only know if something shouldn't have happenend if heads publically roll, like the time the mirror face PowerMac designs were released to eWeek.