Does anyone here recall when Apple released the iPod? The story here on slashdot contained two sentences after the submission. One of which simply read (and I quote): "Lame."
I think it's fair to say that "Slashdot wisdom" concerning these things isn't exactly a great indicator of success or failure. Everyone here on slashdot either has an iPod or wants one. Yeah, even if it doesn't run Linux.
Slashdot readership as a whole may contain a lot of knowledge and wisdom. That's why I come here. But it certainly doesn't have a finger on the pulse of consumer-oriented technology.
And for the record, I think Apple has gotten this thing about 95% right straight out of the gate. Clearly it is going to be the model for how this is done for everyone else. Kudos to them. They deserve it.
Yup, that is just the app I needed ported to Windows to cause me to switch. Oh, wait, there's still iDVD, iPhoto, Safari, Aqua, etc, etc.
Well, if you had all of them on Windows wouldn't that be a disincentive to switch to a Macintosh? I mean you'd already have all the coolest software! I guess there's the option of making it non-feature complete, either deliberately or just because of differences between the host OSs, but still.
No, I think the real reason they're doing this is to sell music and to promote the AAC standard over proprietary formats. For more on that idea, see this c|net news.com story.
If you can't afford a Mac then you can always wait for the Windows version of the service which will be out "by the end of the year."
Of course, I would expect the existing (crappy) music downloading services to acquire Apple's much improved set of CD burning sharing and streaming rights. So maybe the other services will become slightly less noxious than they have been in the past.
My favorite part of this discussion is where slashdotters believe that they, the open source community and Ogg in particular are foremost in the minds of people like Steve Jobs as he unveils his new music service.
Get a clue already. Apple went with AAC because it's great quality, supports the (fairly mild and necessary to get the RIAA onboard) DRM restrictions for the service, and is a subset of the excellent MPEG4 video codec.
Even if Ogg is better quality at lower bitrate (a point that I am not convinced of, "waveform comparisons" notwithstanding), Apple has legitimate reasons for going AAC that have nothing to do with The Man trying to keep you and the open source community down. Jesus, it's not always about you, mkay?
it's a rotary dial...just like...those old telephones
I should have quoted a little more extensively in my original post apparently, because some of you seem to think nit picking the issue of whether or not this mechanism can be meaningfully called a "dial" or not is somehow negating my point. Sure, in engineering class you would call it a dial. If you wanted someone on the street to understand what this was, however, you wouldn't compare it to a rotary phone. Unless you specifically wanted them to think it was lame. Anyone who reads the bit about "those old telephones" will immediately misunderstand what this mechanism is. Therefore, I reiterate - more carefully this time - no, it isn't like a rotary dial phone).
The fact that the entire discussion about this "news" has been about one-button mouse jokes, misinformation, whining about the cost of Macs, speculation about when OS X is going to come out for x86, and why Apple will go out of business within 18 months really is the crux of my point. That it's frustrating not to be able to wade through all that bullshit to get to a decent discussion about the Macintosh platform here on slashdot. That point is in no way threatened by the fact that the mechanism in the story goes round and round like the wheels on the bus, mkay?
First off let me remind you that this isn't an actual product. Nobody at Apple or anywhere else has stated that this is The Future Of Pointing Devices. Someone had an idea, made a prototype, legal got a patent Just In Case. That's how I read it.
It's a rotary dial
No, it's not. It's amazing how many Apple experts are in the slashdot house when a story pops up. The kind of experts that haven't used a Mac regularly since before the days of the Color Classic.
I'm sure all the apple zelots will crawl out of the woodwork to tell us why this is the greatest thing ever, and how having anything less would be like living in the stone age
I'm sure hundreds of ANTI-Apple zealots will crawl out of the woodwork to inform everyone that the iPod is "like a rotary dial phone." More of them will crawl out to mod the comment up as "+1 Informative." Another bunch will show up to make 1-button mouse jokes and then mod them up as "+1 Funny." One brave non-Mac user will publicly proclaim his desire to use OS X on his cheap-ass x86 box. It wil be immediately moderated up to "+5 Interesting" because so many of Windows/Linux users have OS envy.
The voices of the remaining seven people on slashdot who might have had something interesting to contribute to the discussion will be either a) drowned out completely or b) sucked into arguing with anti-Mac trolls. (Today, I'm the latter I guess.)
Such is the nature of front page Mac news at slashdot. (And why is this front-page news? You got me. Let's see if tomorrow's brand new music downloading service makes the front page. The success or failure of that initiative is going to make a lot of people stand up and take note. That'll be news.)
Why do we have to have a story about "MacOS on x86" every few months on Slashdot?!
Because so many x86 users want Mac OS X on their cheap-ass boxes, and so many Mac users want Mac OS X on a cheap-ass box. Put simply: wishful thinking.
you might want to get your head out of Steve Job's ass
Whoah there buddy. Is that really necessary?
And I use "did you know" with my Mac users far more often than I do with my Windows users.
I agree that most computer users don't know what they are doing, regardless of platform. But there's no use in denying that when Apple does something they usually don't bother until/unless they have made it highly accessible to novices. Take DV editing. Sure you could do it before, but it was so complicated that almost nobody did. Now it's different.
And why would you want them to hide a wonderful feature?
Primarily because I have no desire to field the support calls from people who need to be told that their computer is slower today because their son logged out leaving a Quake III server running. Because most people will not understand the consequences of this feature.
calling OS X new and original is a load of crap. It's new to the Mac hardware, but it's all old ideas.
Well I'd say the main "new" thing about OS X is the fact that nobody has ever had a unix GUI worth a damn before. That's new enough.
I don't think anyone at Apple would say they're "leapfrogging" Windows with a "fast user switching" work-alike feature. I think they would say, however, that they're going to do it better. And I bet they do.
Well maybe not better by nerd standards. Better in the sense that a lot more of the user base actually finds the feature understandable and easy enough to actually use instead of being one of those wierd "did you know?" features of windows that only nerds use.
Actually I hope they hide the feature away in some rarely-looked at place. Your average user who doesn't know the difference between a document and a program certainly doesn't know the difference between logging out and logging out while leaving applications running. I mean just think of the people who have come to you and said "mydocument is gone!" because it no longer appeared in the "recently used" list.
We'll see. I think it's been their wet dream to have a digital download business model that was both sucessful and had DRM. But so far nobody has been able to pull it off. The position of Mr. Jobs, however, has been "let people manage their media on any and all devices they own" etc. He's been against DRM from the start and been quite outspoken about it. (It's sort of irritating to keep running into slashdotters who believe Apple is the DRM king or something. Dunno where they got that idea.)
So who won the fight? Apple or the RIAA? I guess we'll see. I hope Steve won. Because if he did there won't be any post-purchase restrictions on the downloaded files.
understating the importance of open standards when it comes to something as ubiquitous as digital music, is a mistake.
Ogg support isn't important in terms of customer demand, that's all I'm saying. Add it, don't add it, almost nobody will care or even notice. I am not saying that standard formats aren't important from a "general benefit to the consumer/public" perspective.
And, BTW, in what way is it more open than AAC? Specifically? MPEG4 is, after all, a real standard. What am I missing?
"iPimp. The digital pimp for your digital lifestyle."(tm) Yes, Apple has avoided DRM so far, but it's coming.
I have no way to know what Apple is and isn't going to do with regard to DRM. Neither do you. All we have is what they have (and haven't) done in the past. I refer you again to this link. What reason do you really have for insisting that Apple is all about DRM all of a sudden?
No, Apple is going with AAC. I think slashdotters tend to overestimiate the importance of OGG. Like "if only Apple would add OGG support to their iPod they'd sell a million more of them! Shooting themselves in the foot again. WTF is their problem??" Reality: if they did go to the trouble and expense nobody* would notice.
* Well not "nobody" exactly. About 27 people on slashdot would notice, but only after arguing viciously for months about whether or not Apple implimented it correctly, after which approximately 2 of those 27 would actually purchase an iPod.
What's different between FreeBSD and RedHat, that you think might be the same between FreeBSD and Mac OS X Server?
Well, I would have thought that there was plenty in common between OS X and FreeBSD, seeing as OS X actually incorporates an entire BSD Unix under the hood. Plenty more in common that between either of them and any Linux distro. I mean nobody would say that RedHat was more like FreeBSD than Mac OS X was. Or, as I asked before, am I missing something?
It is revealing that OS X is evidently not covered in this book
What do you think it reveals? Could it be that the authors didn't see as much a market for the book in OS X admin circles, either because not enough folks are using X Server or because there's already enough books on the subject. Or something else?
is so different from other Unixes
I'm not expert enough to speak with final authority on it, perhaps, but it sure seems like the difference between RedHat Linux and FreeBSD is greater than that between FreeBSD and OS X. Or am I missing something here?
Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the text of the last time I responded to this question. (And here is the link.) Please distribute this text/link to every nerd on earth so that we can dispense with this question once and for all.
The lack of clones is the major problem with Apple? Sure, it keeps prices high and marketshare low. It's true. It is the worst thing about the platform.
And yet, it is also the one single thing that makes them unique in the market and gives them value. The vertical integration they have (hardware/os/iapps) allows them to a) innovate their product line faster and more radically than some other hardware/software makers and b) allows them to sell an entire end-to-end solution (like firewire-imovie-idvd-superdrive) with a user experience better than anyone elses. These things are at the core of what makes Apple Apple. Take them away - take away the vertical integration by doing clones - and what you get is cheaper boxes and much rejoicing...and a dead/dying platform within 2 years because it has lost that which made it valuable to begin with.
Bonus point: Why should anyone care? Certainly Mac users should care, but others should, too. Apple has an influence on the personal computer industry that is vastly disproportionate to its marketshare. They innovate. Others follow. Therefore, a healthy Apple is good for the industry. Mac clones = bad for Apple = bad for the pc industry.
I can't help but laugh at them on some of the stuff they applaud Apple for...They claim it is faster, but I just don't see how that is possible.
Mac users can be a bit silly with these things, it's true. But as a non-Mac user you probably take some things for granted - like having a fast web browser. One that is highly optimized for your OS. We've never really had that and it does make a difference, network bottlenecks notwithstanding.
That's "Advanced Audio Coding" and yes it's completely open and non-proprietary. But I'm sure you knew that before taking a swipe at Apple, right? Riiight.
Don't be so quick to sound the anti-consumer alarm there, pal. Apple will be almost certainly be going with a high-quality, standard audio file format - ACC
You raise some good points but I think there's an important piece of this equation that you're missing. The lack of clones is the major problem with Apple? Sure, it keeps prices high and marketshare low. It's true. It is the worst thing about the platform.
And yet, it is also the one single thing that makes them unique in the market and gives them value. The vertical integration they have (hardware/os/iapps) allows them to a) innovate their product line faster and more radically than some other hardware/software makers and b) allows them to sell an entire end-to-end solution (like firewire-imovie-idvd-superdrive) with a user experience better than anyone elses. These things are at the core of what makes Apple Apple. Take them away - take away the vertical integration by doing clones - and what you get is cheaper boxes and much rejoicing...and a dead/dying platform within 2 years because it has lost that which made it valuable to begin with.
Bonus point: Why should anyone care? Certainly Mac users should care, but others should, too. Apple has an influence on the personal computer industry that is vastly disproportionate to its marketshare. They innovate. Others follow. Therefore, a healthy Apple is good for the industry. Mac clones = bad for Apple = bad for the pc industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent points and I stand corrected.
Does anyone here recall when Apple released the iPod? The story here on slashdot contained two sentences after the submission. One of which simply read (and I quote): "Lame."
I think it's fair to say that "Slashdot wisdom" concerning these things isn't exactly a great indicator of success or failure. Everyone here on slashdot either has an iPod or wants one. Yeah, even if it doesn't run Linux.
Slashdot readership as a whole may contain a lot of knowledge and wisdom. That's why I come here. But it certainly doesn't have a finger on the pulse of consumer-oriented technology.
And for the record, I think Apple has gotten this thing about 95% right straight out of the gate. Clearly it is going to be the model for how this is done for everyone else. Kudos to them. They deserve it.
Yup, that is just the app I needed ported to Windows to cause me to switch. Oh, wait, there's still iDVD, iPhoto, Safari, Aqua, etc, etc.
Well, if you had all of them on Windows wouldn't that be a disincentive to switch to a Macintosh? I mean you'd already have all the coolest software! I guess there's the option of making it non-feature complete, either deliberately or just because of differences between the host OSs, but still.
No, I think the real reason they're doing this is to sell music and to promote the AAC standard over proprietary formats. For more on that idea, see this c|net news.com story.
Yes I do. First, because it's subscription-based. There may be other reasons, too, but I haven't had a chance to look around.
Not that I'll bother. I found my solution.
If you can't afford a Mac then you can always wait for the Windows version of the service which will be out "by the end of the year."
Of course, I would expect the existing (crappy) music downloading services to acquire Apple's much improved set of CD burning sharing and streaming rights. So maybe the other services will become slightly less noxious than they have been in the past.
My favorite part of this discussion is where slashdotters believe that they, the open source community and Ogg in particular are foremost in the minds of people like Steve Jobs as he unveils his new music service.
Get a clue already. Apple went with AAC because it's great quality, supports the (fairly mild and necessary to get the RIAA onboard) DRM restrictions for the service, and is a subset of the excellent MPEG4 video codec.
Even if Ogg is better quality at lower bitrate (a point that I am not convinced of, "waveform comparisons" notwithstanding), Apple has legitimate reasons for going AAC that have nothing to do with The Man trying to keep you and the open source community down. Jesus, it's not always about you, mkay?
it's a rotary dial...just like...those old telephones
I should have quoted a little more extensively in my original post apparently, because some of you seem to think nit picking the issue of whether or not this mechanism can be meaningfully called a "dial" or not is somehow negating my point. Sure, in engineering class you would call it a dial. If you wanted someone on the street to understand what this was, however, you wouldn't compare it to a rotary phone. Unless you specifically wanted them to think it was lame. Anyone who reads the bit about "those old telephones" will immediately misunderstand what this mechanism is. Therefore, I reiterate - more carefully this time - no, it isn't like a rotary dial phone).
The fact that the entire discussion about this "news" has been about one-button mouse jokes, misinformation, whining about the cost of Macs, speculation about when OS X is going to come out for x86, and why Apple will go out of business within 18 months really is the crux of my point. That it's frustrating not to be able to wade through all that bullshit to get to a decent discussion about the Macintosh platform here on slashdot. That point is in no way threatened by the fact that the mechanism in the story goes round and round like the wheels on the bus, mkay?
First off let me remind you that this isn't an actual product. Nobody at Apple or anywhere else has stated that this is The Future Of Pointing Devices. Someone had an idea, made a prototype, legal got a patent Just In Case. That's how I read it.
It's a rotary dial
No, it's not. It's amazing how many Apple experts are in the slashdot house when a story pops up. The kind of experts that haven't used a Mac regularly since before the days of the Color Classic.
I'm sure all the apple zelots will crawl out of the woodwork to tell us why this is the greatest thing ever, and how having anything less would be like living in the stone age
I'm sure hundreds of ANTI-Apple zealots will crawl out of the woodwork to inform everyone that the iPod is "like a rotary dial phone." More of them will crawl out to mod the comment up as "+1 Informative." Another bunch will show up to make 1-button mouse jokes and then mod them up as "+1 Funny." One brave non-Mac user will publicly proclaim his desire to use OS X on his cheap-ass x86 box. It wil be immediately moderated up to "+5 Interesting" because so many of Windows/Linux users have OS envy.
The voices of the remaining seven people on slashdot who might have had something interesting to contribute to the discussion will be either a) drowned out completely or b) sucked into arguing with anti-Mac trolls. (Today, I'm the latter I guess.)
Such is the nature of front page Mac news at slashdot. (And why is this front-page news? You got me. Let's see if tomorrow's brand new music downloading service makes the front page. The success or failure of that initiative is going to make a lot of people stand up and take note. That'll be news.)
Why do we have to have a story about "MacOS on x86" every few months on Slashdot?!
Because so many x86 users want Mac OS X on their cheap-ass boxes, and so many Mac users want Mac OS X on a cheap-ass box. Put simply: wishful thinking.
you might want to get your head out of Steve Job's ass
Whoah there buddy. Is that really necessary?
And I use "did you know" with my Mac users far more often than I do with my Windows users.
I agree that most computer users don't know what they are doing, regardless of platform. But there's no use in denying that when Apple does something they usually don't bother until/unless they have made it highly accessible to novices. Take DV editing. Sure you could do it before, but it was so complicated that almost nobody did. Now it's different.
And why would you want them to hide a wonderful feature?
Primarily because I have no desire to field the support calls from people who need to be told that their computer is slower today because their son logged out leaving a Quake III server running. Because most people will not understand the consequences of this feature.
calling OS X new and original is a load of crap. It's new to the Mac hardware, but it's all old ideas.
Well I'd say the main "new" thing about OS X is the fact that nobody has ever had a unix GUI worth a damn before. That's new enough.
Yeah I know. Just getting back at the "MAC" crowd ;)
Actually, I didn't know. Thanks!
I don't think anyone at Apple would say they're "leapfrogging" Windows with a "fast user switching" work-alike feature. I think they would say, however, that they're going to do it better. And I bet they do.
Well maybe not better by nerd standards. Better in the sense that a lot more of the user base actually finds the feature understandable and easy enough to actually use instead of being one of those wierd "did you know?" features of windows that only nerds use.
Actually I hope they hide the feature away in some rarely-looked at place. Your average user who doesn't know the difference between a document and a program certainly doesn't know the difference between logging out and logging out while leaving applications running. I mean just think of the people who have come to you and said "mydocument is gone!" because it no longer appeared in the "recently used" list.
The music execs wouldn't go for it without that.
We'll see. I think it's been their wet dream to have a digital download business model that was both sucessful and had DRM. But so far nobody has been able to pull it off. The position of Mr. Jobs, however, has been "let people manage their media on any and all devices they own" etc. He's been against DRM from the start and been quite outspoken about it. (It's sort of irritating to keep running into slashdotters who believe Apple is the DRM king or something. Dunno where they got that idea.)
So who won the fight? Apple or the RIAA? I guess we'll see. I hope Steve won. Because if he did there won't be any post-purchase restrictions on the downloaded files.
understating the importance of open standards when it comes to something as ubiquitous as digital music, is a mistake.
Ogg support isn't important in terms of customer demand, that's all I'm saying. Add it, don't add it, almost nobody will care or even notice. I am not saying that standard formats aren't important from a "general benefit to the consumer/public" perspective.
And, BTW, in what way is it more open than AAC? Specifically? MPEG4 is, after all, a real standard. What am I missing?
"iPimp. The digital pimp for your digital lifestyle."(tm) Yes, Apple has avoided DRM so far, but it's coming.
I have no way to know what Apple is and isn't going to do with regard to DRM. Neither do you. All we have is what they have (and haven't) done in the past. I refer you again to this link. What reason do you really have for insisting that Apple is all about DRM all of a sudden?
MP4 has the necessary DRM capabilities that MP3 doesn't.
I wasn't aware that it had DRM capabilities. What do you mean by this? Apple has been almost alone standing against DRM since the beginning even though it has paid a business price for it.
No, Apple is going with AAC. I think slashdotters tend to overestimiate the importance of OGG. Like "if only Apple would add OGG support to their iPod they'd sell a million more of them! Shooting themselves in the foot again. WTF is their problem??" Reality: if they did go to the trouble and expense nobody* would notice.
* Well not "nobody" exactly. About 27 people on slashdot would notice, but only after arguing viciously for months about whether or not Apple implimented it correctly, after which approximately 2 of those 27 would actually purchase an iPod.
What's different between FreeBSD and RedHat, that you think might be the same between FreeBSD and Mac OS X Server?
Well, I would have thought that there was plenty in common between OS X and FreeBSD, seeing as OS X actually incorporates an entire BSD Unix under the hood. Plenty more in common that between either of them and any Linux distro. I mean nobody would say that RedHat was more like FreeBSD than Mac OS X was. Or, as I asked before, am I missing something?
It is revealing that OS X is evidently not covered in this book
What do you think it reveals? Could it be that the authors didn't see as much a market for the book in OS X admin circles, either because not enough folks are using X Server or because there's already enough books on the subject. Or something else?
is so different from other Unixes
I'm not expert enough to speak with final authority on it, perhaps, but it sure seems like the difference between RedHat Linux and FreeBSD is greater than that between FreeBSD and OS X. Or am I missing something here?
Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the text of the last time I responded to this question. (And here is the link.) Please distribute this text/link to every nerd on earth so that we can dispense with this question once and for all.
The lack of clones is the major problem with Apple? Sure, it keeps prices high and marketshare low. It's true. It is the worst thing about the platform.
And yet, it is also the one single thing that makes them unique in the market and gives them value. The vertical integration they have (hardware/os/iapps) allows them to a) innovate their product line faster and more radically than some other hardware/software makers and b) allows them to sell an entire end-to-end solution (like firewire-imovie-idvd-superdrive) with a user experience better than anyone elses. These things are at the core of what makes Apple Apple. Take them away - take away the vertical integration by doing clones - and what you get is cheaper boxes and much rejoicing...and a dead/dying platform within 2 years because it has lost that which made it valuable to begin with.
Bonus point: Why should anyone care? Certainly Mac users should care, but others should, too. Apple has an influence on the personal computer industry that is vastly disproportionate to its marketshare. They innovate. Others follow. Therefore, a healthy Apple is good for the industry. Mac clones = bad for Apple = bad for the pc industry.
I can't help but laugh at them on some of the stuff they applaud Apple for...They claim it is faster, but I just don't see how that is possible.
Mac users can be a bit silly with these things, it's true. But as a non-Mac user you probably take some things for granted - like having a fast web browser. One that is highly optimized for your OS. We've never really had that and it does make a difference, network bottlenecks notwithstanding.
That's "Advanced Audio Coding" and yes it's completely open and non-proprietary. But I'm sure you knew that before taking a swipe at Apple, right? Riiight.
Yeah I know I got the acronym wrong. AAC
Don't be so quick to sound the anti-consumer alarm there, pal. Apple will be almost certainly be going with a high-quality, standard audio file format - ACC
This is the major problem with Apple, I think.
You raise some good points but I think there's an important piece of this equation that you're missing. The lack of clones is the major problem with Apple? Sure, it keeps prices high and marketshare low. It's true. It is the worst thing about the platform.
And yet, it is also the one single thing that makes them unique in the market and gives them value. The vertical integration they have (hardware/os/iapps) allows them to a) innovate their product line faster and more radically than some other hardware/software makers and b) allows them to sell an entire end-to-end solution (like firewire-imovie-idvd-superdrive) with a user experience better than anyone elses. These things are at the core of what makes Apple Apple. Take them away - take away the vertical integration by doing clones - and what you get is cheaper boxes and much rejoicing...and a dead/dying platform within 2 years because it has lost that which made it valuable to begin with.
Bonus point: Why should anyone care? Certainly Mac users should care, but others should, too. Apple has an influence on the personal computer industry that is vastly disproportionate to its marketshare. They innovate. Others follow. Therefore, a healthy Apple is good for the industry. Mac clones = bad for Apple = bad for the pc industry.