Branching the sources isn't the only way to do it. It's just how things seem to work. That the assorted manufacturers and carriers are particularly shitty FLOSS software development collaborators, and that the smartphone hardware ecosystem is basically a collection of one-offs... that's a hard thing to fix.
While that seems vaguely plausible on the surface, I honestly have to wonder if the vendors branch the sources because it is the most direct way to accomplish their goals. Which again seems plausible, unless we consider that maybe branching the sources is the most direct way precisely because Google didn't give them a better way to do it.
There seem to be three possibilities: 1) The vendors don't actually have a better way than branching the sources 2) Google gave them an abstraction layer, but the vendors are chumps and choose to ignore it 3) Google gave them an abstraction layer which sucked and the vendors rightly bypassed it.
From my perspective, #1 and #3 are inexcusable, and squarely at Google's feet. #2 is fixable by contract (except for rogue players like Amazon), which is still squarely at Google's feet.
Let me put it another way: if Google isn't happy about this situation, why the fuck didn't they fix it a long time ago?
You're point was just wrong. And I actually explained *why* your point is wrong. Simply reasserting your point doesn't count as supporting evidence for your point.
I wasn't repeating my point. I was laughing at you.
They might've believed having an "open" handset operating system would break the various carrier/manufacturer strangleholds on the market similar to how MS-DOS and the PC affected the computing market years ago.
But for that to work, they would have had to have a meaningful way to abstract HW from SW. Branching the sources (or customizing the distribution, or whatever you want to call it) is simply not a mechanism that lends itself to widespread availability of updates. And this is the crux of my point: they SHOULD have known that. If they didn't know that, then why not?
So because they just can't figure out why a rational person would buy an Apple product, they come with their ridiculous interpretations that there must be a "cult", or that people must be "sheep", or that an iPhone is "fashion" (without trying to figure out _why_ it is fashion), or that Apple has brainwashed for example half the US smartphone buyers (how would Apple have done that? )
I've been saying for years that this is cognitive dissonance. When a whole bunch of people like something, and someone else doesn't, they would rather invent conspiracy theories or chalk it up to "sheeple" rather than accept the possibility that (a) they might be wrong, or (b) different people are legitimately allowed to like different things.
I find it curious that so many Slashdoters have no problem when a company uses all the advantages of society and yet refuses to contribute to keeping the society going.
This is consistent with slashdot's well-known Libertarian streak. That is the essence of the Libertarian platform, is it not?
China and other international markets are now also there biggest revenue source.
Then why was Americas revenue listed as ~$30B and Greater China revenue listed as ~$16B?
If you read the quarterly announcement, you'll see that international sales made up 65% of revenue. "China and other international markets" is in fact a larger proportion (by revenue) than the US.
Apple's Corporate HQ, Executive Management, and Principal engineering happen on US soil in Cupertino California, yet they they claim not to be a US Company.
That's 100% false. They are registered as a US corporation and make US corporate filings.
The vast majority of their Sales are to Americans.
Also false. As of the latest quarter, international sales accounted for 65% of revenue.
Go take your Anti-American sentiment and shove-it.
If you're going to get high-and-mighty, you damn sure better have your facts straight.
Wrong. Most hot hatches lift their outside rear wheel if you corner aggressively. The VW GTI being the most famous example. It's fine. It's not a design defect.
It's a design defect if it's coupled with traction control, dipshit.
Google had a bug in their product, and they have fixed it. The carriers are the ones not allowing their customers to install the fixed version.
That's a very nice rationalization. But I think it's pretty obvious that the entirety of Android -- including the manner in which it is propagated through the HW vendors and carriers -- is in fact Google's design. They set the terms, they designed the system, they left out sensible HW abstraction.
Sorry, but no. Google is on the hook for this. You can fanboy all you want, but it's ultimately not very convincing.
Why would they bother to fix it if the carriers aren't going to deploy the fix? Again, this isn't on Google, but on the carriers.
That's a convenient excuse. But ultimately, the consumer is still screwed, so it's pretty meaningless. And I would remind you that Google invented the entire mechanism that requires individual customization for each new phone, rather than having well-thought-out HW abstraction.
And it's pretty darn obvious from what Google's been doing in the last few years that this is not a situation that Google is happy with, nor is it a situation they could reasonably do much more about.
But it's a situation that they could reasonably have foreseen. But they didn't. There are two possible explanations for this: 1) They did not actually foresee this, in which case they're just stupid. 2) They did not actually give a shit, in which they (and everyone who bought an Android phone) got exactly what they deserve.
I wouldn't blame Google for this, the problem lies with the carriers not upgrading their fleet of phones.
I would blame Google for creating this situation in the first place. A system that requires customization of the OS for each phone is naturally going to create a bottleneck for software updates. Any software engineer who has ever shipped a single piece of software could have seen this coming years ahead of time, and yet Google (which is ostensibly filled with software engineers) utterly failed to notice that fixing security vulnerabilities would be hampered by unwilling hardware vendors.
Google does not have control over the hardware platforms they support.
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Google took a page from Microsoft's playbook and positioned Android as a product that would run on multiple hardware platforms. Unfortunately, the page they took from Microsoft did not include the rest of Microsoft's strategy regarding standardization and qualification of drivers that allows individuals to update their own PCs without intervention from the HW vendor. Google could have baked in a comprehensive update strategy, but they simply couldn't be bothered to think through the ramifications of what they were doing.
No, they just don't give a shit like any other massive software company. My 1 year old Post-Google Moto phone will never see an official 4.4/5.0 release. Clearly they just can't be fucked to try.
Except that google isn't charging for their new software. They aren't abandoning android. They are actively improving it and not charging people to upgrade to the new version. This is totally different from microsoft refusing to fix XP bugs, given that upgrading is purchasing a new product.
XP is a version of Windows. Android 4.3 is a version of Android. They aren't just roughly analogous, they are exactly analogous.
The new version of android *is* the patch.
That is easily the dumbest statement I've seen on this thread.
Real world example: My car has traction control. It also is relatively light, has front wheel drive, and has an anti-roll bar on the rear suspension.
So here's what happens
You seem to be arguing that automated driving aids tend to interfere with real-world situations, while describing a real-world situation that is actually a glaring example of a horrible design defect with your car. You should have four wheels on the ground in all "real world" situations, end-of.
Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.
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Branching the sources isn't the only way to do it. It's just how things seem to work. That the assorted manufacturers and carriers are particularly shitty FLOSS software development collaborators, and that the smartphone hardware ecosystem is basically a collection of one-offs... that's a hard thing to fix.
While that seems vaguely plausible on the surface, I honestly have to wonder if the vendors branch the sources because it is the most direct way to accomplish their goals. Which again seems plausible, unless we consider that maybe branching the sources is the most direct way precisely because Google didn't give them a better way to do it.
There seem to be three possibilities:
1) The vendors don't actually have a better way than branching the sources
2) Google gave them an abstraction layer, but the vendors are chumps and choose to ignore it
3) Google gave them an abstraction layer which sucked and the vendors rightly bypassed it.
From my perspective, #1 and #3 are inexcusable, and squarely at Google's feet. #2 is fixable by contract (except for rogue players like Amazon), which is still squarely at Google's feet.
Let me put it another way: if Google isn't happy about this situation, why the fuck didn't they fix it a long time ago?
You're point was just wrong. And I actually explained *why* your point is wrong. Simply reasserting your point doesn't count as supporting evidence for your point.
I wasn't repeating my point. I was laughing at you.
They might've believed having an "open" handset operating system would break the various carrier/manufacturer strangleholds on the market similar to how MS-DOS and the PC affected the computing market years ago.
But for that to work, they would have had to have a meaningful way to abstract HW from SW. Branching the sources (or customizing the distribution, or whatever you want to call it) is simply not a mechanism that lends itself to widespread availability of updates. And this is the crux of my point: they SHOULD have known that. If they didn't know that, then why not?
If you don't understand what is being discussed, then your retarded opinion about what is dumb and what isn't is meaningless.
Thank you for reinforcing my point.
Perhaps, quite large part of you also go to church every week and believe the world is 4000 years old. And also consider your football as a sport.
Oh look, another asshole European taking potshots at the US!
Color me surprised.
So because they just can't figure out why a rational person would buy an Apple product, they come with their ridiculous interpretations that there must be a "cult", or that people must be "sheep", or that an iPhone is "fashion" (without trying to figure out _why_ it is fashion), or that Apple has brainwashed for example half the US smartphone buyers (how would Apple have done that? )
I've been saying for years that this is cognitive dissonance. When a whole bunch of people like something, and someone else doesn't, they would rather invent conspiracy theories or chalk it up to "sheeple" rather than accept the possibility that (a) they might be wrong, or (b) different people are legitimately allowed to like different things.
I find it curious that so many Slashdoters have no problem when a company uses all the advantages of society and yet refuses to contribute to keeping the society going.
This is consistent with slashdot's well-known Libertarian streak. That is the essence of the Libertarian platform, is it not?
China and other international markets are now also there biggest revenue source.
Then why was Americas revenue listed as ~$30B and Greater China revenue listed as ~$16B?
If you read the quarterly announcement, you'll see that international sales made up 65% of revenue. "China and other international markets" is in fact a larger proportion (by revenue) than the US.
because it trades on the US market, mayhap?
Simple rule: if you trade on the floor, you pay the fucking rent.
Are you suggesting that they don't pay US corporate taxes? Because they provably do.
Apple's Corporate HQ, Executive Management, and Principal engineering happen on US soil in Cupertino California, yet they they claim not to be a US Company.
That's 100% false. They are registered as a US corporation and make US corporate filings.
The vast majority of their Sales are to Americans.
Also false. As of the latest quarter, international sales accounted for 65% of revenue.
Go take your Anti-American sentiment and shove-it.
If you're going to get high-and-mighty, you damn sure better have your facts straight.
Apple's sales revenues in the US are routed through this holding company in Ireland
This statement is 100% false. You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
I'm unaware of any religions that have planned obsolescence. Too few of them have any auto-correct features either.
I'd say the Shakers come pretty close.
the inside rear wheel lifting is acceptable behavior in a light front wheel drive car in a hard turn, and is not dangerous.
It's certainly a design defect if traction control kicks in for an expected behavior.
Wrong. Most hot hatches lift their outside rear wheel if you corner aggressively. The VW GTI being the most famous example. It's fine. It's not a design defect.
It's a design defect if it's coupled with traction control, dipshit.
Google had a bug in their product, and they have fixed it. The carriers are the ones not allowing their customers to install the fixed version.
That's a very nice rationalization. But I think it's pretty obvious that the entirety of Android -- including the manner in which it is propagated through the HW vendors and carriers -- is in fact Google's design. They set the terms, they designed the system, they left out sensible HW abstraction.
Sorry, but no. Google is on the hook for this. You can fanboy all you want, but it's ultimately not very convincing.
How did apple force the hardware vendors to send the patch to their customers? Because they *are* the hardware vendor.
Once you open up your code to 3rd parties, you can't control how it is used.
And yet Microsoft manages to issue security updates on a regular basis.
Why would they bother to fix it if the carriers aren't going to deploy the fix? Again, this isn't on Google, but on the carriers.
That's a convenient excuse. But ultimately, the consumer is still screwed, so it's pretty meaningless. And I would remind you that Google invented the entire mechanism that requires individual customization for each new phone, rather than having well-thought-out HW abstraction.
And it's pretty darn obvious from what Google's been doing in the last few years that this is not a situation that Google is happy with, nor is it a situation they could reasonably do much more about.
But it's a situation that they could reasonably have foreseen. But they didn't. There are two possible explanations for this:
1) They did not actually foresee this, in which case they're just stupid.
2) They did not actually give a shit, in which they (and everyone who bought an Android phone) got exactly what they deserve.
I wouldn't blame Google for this, the problem lies with the carriers not upgrading their fleet of phones.
I would blame Google for creating this situation in the first place. A system that requires customization of the OS for each phone is naturally going to create a bottleneck for software updates. Any software engineer who has ever shipped a single piece of software could have seen this coming years ahead of time, and yet Google (which is ostensibly filled with software engineers) utterly failed to notice that fixing security vulnerabilities would be hampered by unwilling hardware vendors.
Duh.
Why did you buy your phone from your congressman?
Because he offered them cheap and with a screen the size of my head.
Google does not have control over the hardware platforms they support.
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. Google took a page from Microsoft's playbook and positioned Android as a product that would run on multiple hardware platforms. Unfortunately, the page they took from Microsoft did not include the rest of Microsoft's strategy regarding standardization and qualification of drivers that allows individuals to update their own PCs without intervention from the HW vendor. Google could have baked in a comprehensive update strategy, but they simply couldn't be bothered to think through the ramifications of what they were doing.
BZZZT! Apple has never, ever had a monopoly position in the phone market. Try again.
No, they just don't give a shit like any other massive software company. My 1 year old Post-Google Moto phone will never see an official 4.4/5.0 release. Clearly they just can't be fucked to try.
This.
Except that google isn't charging for their new software. They aren't abandoning android. They are actively improving it and not charging people to upgrade to the new version. This is totally different from microsoft refusing to fix XP bugs, given that upgrading is purchasing a new product.
XP is a version of Windows. Android 4.3 is a version of Android. They aren't just roughly analogous, they are exactly analogous.
The new version of android *is* the patch.
That is easily the dumbest statement I've seen on this thread.
Real world example: My car has traction control. It also is relatively light, has front wheel drive, and has an anti-roll bar on the rear suspension.
So here's what happens
You seem to be arguing that automated driving aids tend to interfere with real-world situations, while describing a real-world situation that is actually a glaring example of a horrible design defect with your car. You should have four wheels on the ground in all "real world" situations, end-of.
Your car is broken. And that's a piss-poor reason to be against automated driving aids.