I work in a real estate office of about 50 people. Around 30 or so of them have Treos. A few others have Blackberries. Very few have just plain old regular cell phones. You want to know why these folks got Treos? Because they had Palm PDAs before hand and got tired of carrying around a Palm PDA AND a Cell Phone. The overwhelming majority of them don't even Install the Palm Desktop software to sync with their computers and install new apps. This is not a rare occurance. People in other offices act this way as well. This is the NORM. Getting people to sync things is DIFFICULT. You have to give them a reason to do so, something better than "it provides you with a data backup in case your device crashes and loses all its data." I've tried and tried and tried to get people to install their Palm Desktop software to no avail. Want to know one thing they DO have on their computers? iTunes which just so happens to sync with the iPod and iPhone.
The number of people who actually install 3rd party applications onto Palm OS/WM smartphones has been GROSSLY over estimated. The bare basic PIM functions of these smartphones is all most of these folks are looking for. With the Smartphone we had gone from 2 devices to 1 but then the iPod came out bringing us back to 2 devices. For some folks who haven't upgraded to Smartphones yet they're actually still at 3 devices now. The iPhone is THE convergence device that will bring nearly everyone back to having just one device. And Apple will be able to intice more people to install 3rd party applications onto their iPhones than all other smartphones COMBINED.
So to recap, the lack of an SDK here is a non-event. Its totally immaterial. It just doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The iPhone is going to sell like hotcakes, out selling all other smartphones individually and combined because of its INTERFACE, not because you can or cannot install 3rd party apps on it from launch.
The way you said it, the SDK would be a major reason why no one would be buying an iPhone when you know FULL WELL that most people don't even know what an SDK is and will be buying the iPhone ANYWAY.
How many people who own Palm OS Treos or Windows Mobile Phones or Symbian Nokia phones install 3rd party apps on their own? 4% of the userbase? 10%?
Please explain how in ANY way THAT would be a barrier to consumer adoption of the iPhone!
You can rest assured that MANY companies work for the federal government. So unless you are prepared to give up...well pretty much every item produced by any corporation today, you really need to give it a rest.
By the way, until the people demand that the government not do this, then its got popular support.
If any tool requires you to use "critical thinking skills" in comparison to a competing tool that does not, than the former tool "fails" at being the best it can be. Critical thinking skills should be reserved for making actual decisions, not simply getting a product to work.
"Decent" interfaces that you point out on competing smartphones just aren't good enough anymore when something better comes along. That something better is the iPhone. All that "decent" stuff that came before is although still quite usable, now dated and obsolete. Its yesterdays news.
Your position is almost comical. People spend hundreds of dollars on these devices and you are actually opposed to a product so easy to use that its "chewing your food for you." You personally, after spending this much money on a device actually WANT to have to do mental work to get the most out of it. Thats like spending full price for a car that you have to put together yourself when everyone else's is pre-constructed and drivable off the lot. Ha ha worked a car analogy in! Damn these users for wanting to get the most bang for their buck! Why they're wimps! REAL users know better than to expect exlimplary service and products when they hand over their cash!
Perhaps you should start a company that would sell devices based on your design preferences.
1. A hammer that has a loose neck that will only stiffen strong enough to be used after you enter into a keypad on the handle the first 56 digits of Pi. 2. A light switch that requires you to recite the Gettysburgh Address in order to function. 3. A weight scale that requires you to tap dance like Fred Astaire for 15 minutes before it will tell you your weight. 4. And lastly a dishwasher with a panel on the front that will require you to specify the exact amounts of water used, at what pressure and what temperatures and what amounts of detergent to be released at 50 different intervals during the wash cycle before you can use it.
After all, we want to make sure that absolutely NO ONE is forced to use a product that makes completeing tasks TOO EASY. If you are forced to use a product that spoon feeds you everything it stifles the development of CRITICAL THINKING skills.
You could call your company, Idiot Enterprises Incorporated.
What are you, being sarcastic or something? If you want to know how many files are in any folder you just go to the parent folder, select the folder you want to know about and right click for "Get Info".
Or you could type in all that gobledygook into the terminal as you demonstrated.
You don't understand how Apple has this effect because you, like everyone else who's a registered member of Slashdot, are a geek.
Geeks have a higher tolerance for poor user interface design, I mean heck look at how popular Linux, BSD and Unix are amongst the geek set. The "CLI" or Command Line Interface is actually PREFERRED by this set. You take two computers, say either a Windows based PC or Macintosh and compare it to a GUI'less Linux setup and a geek would know that both computers can do anything. A regular person however would consider the Linux computer to be useless because they wouldn't know how to nor would they be interested in taking the time to learn how to use it. If it isn't point and click, it loses. Geeks don't mind investing the time though, they LOVE to tinker.
This is why you consider the iPhone to be nothing special. I own a Treo 700p that can already do all the things the iPod can do just about and there are certainly Windows Mobile and Symbian phones that also do most of what the iPhone does at a much lower price. But thats NOT THE POINT. Its not about matching features for features. Its about making sure that people will actually be able and WILLING to use the features that your product DOES have.
I am absolutely positively certain that regular folks will get more use out of their iPhones then they will out of their Treos, HTCs, Motorola Qs, Blackberries, Nokias...etc simply because the iPhone has the better interface. Regular folks have higher standards when it comes to interfaces. Either its going to be well designed or it won't be used. Geeks on the other hand will put up with crappy user interfaces because they are blinded by the features underneath. The truest test is when a user buys a device on their own and no longer needs their "geek" friend/neighbor/co-worker to set it up for them. Thats the iPhone.
If you lack basic intiuition thats not my problem. There's millions of Mac users on the planet. If you really believe most of them are computer literate folks then nothing is ever going to change your mind. I happen to believe there's a very small percentage of computer literate people among the greater computer using population whether they're using Windows or Mac OS X. I don't have the facts and figures, neither do you. Your one sample of thousands of people is not the entire population. And you have the Mac stereo type wrong. The Mac stereo type are Photoshop using creative professionals, not scientists. I know Mac OS X is huge in the sciences world but there still aren't as many scientists using it as there are artists.
I know there's a difference between empirical knowledge and intuition but in the abscense of the former you go with the latter. If YOU have a complete breakdown of the Mac using market I'll await to be PROVEN wrong. Until then I'm going to go with my educated guess that most Mac users would not be using Firefox because they wouldn't even know where to find it.
Are we sure we aren't over estimating the amount of corruption here? A corporation is a group of people. To a certain extent all of those people in the corporation have similar goals. If a piece of policy favors that corporation it stands to reason that most of the people working for that company would support it. So do their votes not count because they all work for the same company or industry?
I own two Macs, a Mac Mini Core Duo and a Macbook Core 2 Duo and I run Tiger on both of them. They're my fulltime machines. I've also converted friends and co-workers to Macs. I also own a computer that has Kubuntu Linux on it and another with Windows XP. Care to make any OTHER baseless accusations? You just hit me with friendly fire, I'm a Mac user just like you.
Most Mac users aren't graphic designers just as most Windows users aren't accountants. I'm talking about the regular people who use Macs, not the professionals. Ease of use is great for everyone of course but those with the know how to get around obstacles don't demand it as much as regular non-technical folks do. I've converted friends and co-workers to Macs and STILL had to tell them about Firefox and how to download/install it. I've had to do the same for folks on Windows. I'm just pointing out what should be obvious: That there's no way shape or form that there's more Mac users using Firefox than there are using the built in Safari. In order for that to be so there'd have to be more computer literate people using Macs then there are using PCs.
Yeah I'm a frustrated PC user who's been a Mac user pretty much all of my life. I own two Macs, a Mac Mini Core Duo and a Macbook Core 2 Duo and I run Tiger on both of them. They're my fulltime machine. I've also converted friends and co-workers to Macs. I also own a computer that has Kubuntu Linux on it and another with Windows XP. Care to make any OTHER baseless accusations? You just hit me with friendly fire, I'm a Mac user just like you.
The Apple Macintosh is THE platform for computer illiterate folks. The vast majority of Mac users love Macs because they are so easy to use in comparison to Microsoft Windows. Windows is extremely hard to use for most folks. The same folks can get more use out of their Macs without any additional learning. But these same people are in no way shape or form motivated or usually capable of downloading and installing software on their own. THOSE are the folks I'm talking about because they're the ones I have to tell how to install Firefox MYSELF.
The Mac's main selling point and or claim to fame is that it is easier to use than a Windows based PC. That means that the regular Mac buyer is someone who finds a Windows based PC too hard to use. Such a person would not be the type to download and install Firefox on their own.
The Mac userbase by definition is mostly comprised of people who are in no way shape or form computer literate. So what on earth makes you think the majority of Mac users are going to Mozilla.org to download and install Firefox on their own instead of using the built in Safari web browser?
Doesn't sound like it makes sense to you either when you say it to yourself does it?
I don't see where you get that MP3 wasn't killed as well. I mean nothing is 100% dead, not even WMA but not only are all the songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store in AAC, but most of the already owned/shared/copied CDs ripped onto iTunes are in AAC format. So where does that leave MP3s? With every other non-iPod PMP? Thats 22% of the market but even there all of that 22% doesn't belong to MP3s because with some music services, such as Rhapsody you only get the songs in WMA format. So I'm seriously interested in why you think MP3 isn't dead right now.
Vista is not a great comparion to Mac OS X 10.4. Heck its not a great comparison to Mac OS X 10.2 if you want to get serious. Personal preferences are king but you alluded to possibly having too much of a "corporate" perspective. I don't know what you're trying to say the Mac can't do there. I find Mail.app to be very capable but if you don't like it there's Thunderbird, Evolution or Microsoft's Entourage. And I personally stopped buying Microsoft's Office Suites a LONG time ago. Its Open/NeoOffice for me on Windows and Mac OS X respectively.
But yes, Bootcamp has certainly raised Apple's marketshare and most of the folks who buy Macs that used to own PCs stick with OS X and leave Windows behind. There will always be the few like you who cling to Windows though, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The parent is incorrect. Thanks to Apple's iPod and iTunes which default settings make all CDs ripped rip to the AAC format the overwhelming majority of music on all portable music players is in AAC format not MP3s. Since The iPod has around 78% of the PMP market that means most of the music on PMPs is in the AAC format, not MP3 and not WMA. So the grandparent is correct. Apple killed WMA. They also killed MP3. They both exist of course but they'll never be anywhere near as dominant as they once were. In addition any music downloaded and bought from the iTunes Music Store is ALSO in AAC format.
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I work in a real estate office of about 50 people. Around 30 or so of them have Treos. A few others have Blackberries. Very few have just plain old regular cell phones. You want to know why these folks got Treos? Because they had Palm PDAs before hand and got tired of carrying around a Palm PDA AND a Cell Phone. The overwhelming majority of them don't even Install the Palm Desktop software to sync with their computers and install new apps. This is not a rare occurance. People in other offices act this way as well. This is the NORM. Getting people to sync things is DIFFICULT. You have to give them a reason to do so, something better than "it provides you with a data backup in case your device crashes and loses all its data." I've tried and tried and tried to get people to install their Palm Desktop software to no avail. Want to know one thing they DO have on their computers? iTunes which just so happens to sync with the iPod and iPhone.
The number of people who actually install 3rd party applications onto Palm OS/WM smartphones has been GROSSLY over estimated. The bare basic PIM functions of these smartphones is all most of these folks are looking for. With the Smartphone we had gone from 2 devices to 1 but then the iPod came out bringing us back to 2 devices. For some folks who haven't upgraded to Smartphones yet they're actually still at 3 devices now. The iPhone is THE convergence device that will bring nearly everyone back to having just one device. And Apple will be able to intice more people to install 3rd party applications onto their iPhones than all other smartphones COMBINED.
So to recap, the lack of an SDK here is a non-event. Its totally immaterial. It just doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The iPhone is going to sell like hotcakes, out selling all other smartphones individually and combined because of its INTERFACE, not because you can or cannot install 3rd party apps on it from launch.
The way you said it, the SDK would be a major reason why no one would be buying an iPhone when you know FULL WELL that most people don't even know what an SDK is and will be buying the iPhone ANYWAY.
How many people who own Palm OS Treos or Windows Mobile Phones or Symbian Nokia phones install 3rd party apps on their own? 4% of the userbase? 10%?
Please explain how in ANY way THAT would be a barrier to consumer adoption of the iPhone!
Well you've certainly convinced me with your sound logic. Better to not break the law just so you can have enough money to buy food!
Silly Mexican illegal immigrants!
1. Do you think the migrant workers are going to be hapy to be out of jobs?
2. What will you say when automation renders YOUR occupation redundant?
You can rest assured that MANY companies work for the federal government. So unless you are prepared to give up...well pretty much every item produced by any corporation today, you really need to give it a rest.
By the way, until the people demand that the government not do this, then its got popular support.
If any tool requires you to use "critical thinking skills" in comparison to a competing tool that does not, than the former tool "fails" at being the best it can be. Critical thinking skills should be reserved for making actual decisions, not simply getting a product to work.
"Decent" interfaces that you point out on competing smartphones just aren't good enough anymore when something better comes along. That something better is the iPhone. All that "decent" stuff that came before is although still quite usable, now dated and obsolete. Its yesterdays news.
Your position is almost comical. People spend hundreds of dollars on these devices and you are actually opposed to a product so easy to use that its "chewing your food for you." You personally, after spending this much money on a device actually WANT to have to do mental work to get the most out of it. Thats like spending full price for a car that you have to put together yourself when everyone else's is pre-constructed and drivable off the lot. Ha ha worked a car analogy in! Damn these users for wanting to get the most bang for their buck! Why they're wimps! REAL users know better than to expect exlimplary service and products when they hand over their cash!
Perhaps you should start a company that would sell devices based on your design preferences.
1. A hammer that has a loose neck that will only stiffen strong enough to be used after you enter into a keypad on the handle the first 56 digits of Pi.
2. A light switch that requires you to recite the Gettysburgh Address in order to function.
3. A weight scale that requires you to tap dance like Fred Astaire for 15 minutes before it will tell you your weight.
4. And lastly a dishwasher with a panel on the front that will require you to specify the exact amounts of water used, at what pressure and what temperatures and what amounts of detergent to be released at 50 different intervals during the wash cycle before you can use it.
After all, we want to make sure that absolutely NO ONE is forced to use a product that makes completeing tasks TOO EASY. If you are forced to use a product that spoon feeds you everything it stifles the development of CRITICAL THINKING skills.
You could call your company, Idiot Enterprises Incorporated.
What are you, being sarcastic or something? If you want to know how many files are in any folder you just go to the parent folder, select the folder you want to know about and right click for "Get Info".
Or you could type in all that gobledygook into the terminal as you demonstrated.
You don't understand how Apple has this effect because you, like everyone else who's a registered member of Slashdot, are a geek.
Geeks have a higher tolerance for poor user interface design, I mean heck look at how popular Linux, BSD and Unix are amongst the geek set. The "CLI" or Command Line Interface is actually PREFERRED by this set. You take two computers, say either a Windows based PC or Macintosh and compare it to a GUI'less Linux setup and a geek would know that both computers can do anything. A regular person however would consider the Linux computer to be useless because they wouldn't know how to nor would they be interested in taking the time to learn how to use it. If it isn't point and click, it loses. Geeks don't mind investing the time though, they LOVE to tinker.
This is why you consider the iPhone to be nothing special. I own a Treo 700p that can already do all the things the iPod can do just about and there are certainly Windows Mobile and Symbian phones that also do most of what the iPhone does at a much lower price. But thats NOT THE POINT. Its not about matching features for features. Its about making sure that people will actually be able and WILLING to use the features that your product DOES have.
I am absolutely positively certain that regular folks will get more use out of their iPhones then they will out of their Treos, HTCs, Motorola Qs, Blackberries, Nokias...etc simply because the iPhone has the better interface. Regular folks have higher standards when it comes to interfaces. Either its going to be well designed or it won't be used. Geeks on the other hand will put up with crappy user interfaces because they are blinded by the features underneath. The truest test is when a user buys a device on their own and no longer needs their "geek" friend/neighbor/co-worker to set it up for them. Thats the iPhone.
You don't have to thank me for doing what everyone should be expected to do. You my friend are very welcome!
If you lack basic intiuition thats not my problem. There's millions of Mac users on the planet. If you really believe most of them are computer literate folks then nothing is ever going to change your mind. I happen to believe there's a very small percentage of computer literate people among the greater computer using population whether they're using Windows or Mac OS X. I don't have the facts and figures, neither do you. Your one sample of thousands of people is not the entire population. And you have the Mac stereo type wrong. The Mac stereo type are Photoshop using creative professionals, not scientists. I know Mac OS X is huge in the sciences world but there still aren't as many scientists using it as there are artists.
I know there's a difference between empirical knowledge and intuition but in the abscense of the former you go with the latter. If YOU have a complete breakdown of the Mac using market I'll await to be PROVEN wrong. Until then I'm going to go with my educated guess that most Mac users would not be using Firefox because they wouldn't even know where to find it.
Are we sure we aren't over estimating the amount of corruption here? A corporation is a group of people. To a certain extent all of those people in the corporation have similar goals. If a piece of policy favors that corporation it stands to reason that most of the people working for that company would support it. So do their votes not count because they all work for the same company or industry?
Why would anyone donate money to a system where they can't decide where the money ends up and may be used by someone they don't like?
I own two Macs, a Mac Mini Core Duo and a Macbook Core 2 Duo and I run Tiger on both of them. They're my fulltime machines. I've also converted friends and co-workers to Macs. I also own a computer that has Kubuntu Linux on it and another with Windows XP. Care to make any OTHER baseless accusations? You just hit me with friendly fire, I'm a Mac user just like you.
Most Mac users aren't graphic designers just as most Windows users aren't accountants. I'm talking about the regular people who use Macs, not the professionals. Ease of use is great for everyone of course but those with the know how to get around obstacles don't demand it as much as regular non-technical folks do. I've converted friends and co-workers to Macs and STILL had to tell them about Firefox and how to download/install it. I've had to do the same for folks on Windows. I'm just pointing out what should be obvious: That there's no way shape or form that there's more Mac users using Firefox than there are using the built in Safari. In order for that to be so there'd have to be more computer literate people using Macs then there are using PCs.
Yeah I'm a frustrated PC user who's been a Mac user pretty much all of my life. I own two Macs, a Mac Mini Core Duo and a Macbook Core 2 Duo and I run Tiger on both of them. They're my fulltime machine. I've also converted friends and co-workers to Macs. I also own a computer that has Kubuntu Linux on it and another with Windows XP. Care to make any OTHER baseless accusations? You just hit me with friendly fire, I'm a Mac user just like you.
The Apple Macintosh is THE platform for computer illiterate folks. The vast majority of Mac users love Macs because they are so easy to use in comparison to Microsoft Windows. Windows is extremely hard to use for most folks. The same folks can get more use out of their Macs without any additional learning. But these same people are in no way shape or form motivated or usually capable of downloading and installing software on their own. THOSE are the folks I'm talking about because they're the ones I have to tell how to install Firefox MYSELF.
Because if they don't, they'll be fired.
The Mac's main selling point and or claim to fame is that it is easier to use than a Windows based PC. That means that the regular Mac buyer is someone who finds a Windows based PC too hard to use. Such a person would not be the type to download and install Firefox on their own.
Seeing as how we just found out male circumcision cuts HIV infection rates in half how could you possibly be against that?
The Mac userbase by definition is mostly comprised of people who are in no way shape or form computer literate. So what on earth makes you think the majority of Mac users are going to Mozilla.org to download and install Firefox on their own instead of using the built in Safari web browser?
Doesn't sound like it makes sense to you either when you say it to yourself does it?
What is this "community" you speak of and who makes it up?
I don't see where you get that MP3 wasn't killed as well. I mean nothing is 100% dead, not even WMA but not only are all the songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store in AAC, but most of the already owned/shared/copied CDs ripped onto iTunes are in AAC format. So where does that leave MP3s? With every other non-iPod PMP? Thats 22% of the market but even there all of that 22% doesn't belong to MP3s because with some music services, such as Rhapsody you only get the songs in WMA format. So I'm seriously interested in why you think MP3 isn't dead right now.
Vista is not a great comparion to Mac OS X 10.4. Heck its not a great comparison to Mac OS X 10.2 if you want to get serious. Personal preferences are king but you alluded to possibly having too much of a "corporate" perspective. I don't know what you're trying to say the Mac can't do there. I find Mail.app to be very capable but if you don't like it there's Thunderbird, Evolution or Microsoft's Entourage. And I personally stopped buying Microsoft's Office Suites a LONG time ago. Its Open/NeoOffice for me on Windows and Mac OS X respectively.
But yes, Bootcamp has certainly raised Apple's marketshare and most of the folks who buy Macs that used to own PCs stick with OS X and leave Windows behind. There will always be the few like you who cling to Windows though, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The parent is incorrect. Thanks to Apple's iPod and iTunes which default settings make all CDs ripped rip to the AAC format the overwhelming majority of music on all portable music players is in AAC format not MP3s. Since The iPod has around 78% of the PMP market that means most of the music on PMPs is in the AAC format, not MP3 and not WMA. So the grandparent is correct. Apple killed WMA. They also killed MP3. They both exist of course but they'll never be anywhere near as dominant as they once were. In addition any music downloaded and bought from the iTunes Music Store is ALSO in AAC format.
Next to die, Internet Explorer!
Man Apple is sneaky.
It looks to me like a bunch of folks are afraid of Apple's Safari achieving success on Windows. Especially the Mozilla folks.
Anyone who knows me knows I like em big. Thats no insult in my parts, friend!
Why is it wrong to kill a whale and not a cow or pig or chicken?
I eat all three, so why should I care for Willy the Whale?