'The fear is hackers may be experimenting and gathering research that will increase the dangers of a more malicious attack in the near future. It is clear at least one writer -- the author of this piece at Web Worker Daily -- thinks that the iPhone should be left on the dresser in the morning. She offers several reasons that the device isn't a good corporate tool.'
So the summary starts off being nothing more than FUD, and since that won't hold water descends quickly -- albeit nonsensically -- into a completely different topic.
I guess Zonk hates the iPhone. Or is looking for page views. Or something. *shrug* Whatever, none of this makes a lick of sense.
If you don't like it don't buy it. But get off your sanctimonious high-horse, your false belief that your purchasing decisions are the One True Way and that anyone who differs is a fucking idiot. What you chose to buy does not make you better than other people.
"No nothing"? Except for... a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 gig of RAM, 802.11n wireless, USB2, backlit keyboard, built-in iSight, LED display, 5 hour battery life. Not to mention the software.
Yeah, I guess other than that nothing. If I were a business traveler I'd want one of these. I'm not, so I don't. But I'm not such a child as to think that I'm better than anyone who might.
You used 10.1 and made your final decision then? Hey man, news flash: there have been four new versions of the OS released since then! Four!
If I buy Apple, I pay more for hardware and then have to spend another ~$150 every 3 years to update the OS and maintain security support.
Bollocks. (a) Updates are free through Software Update. Unless you're talking about paid support, which as a home user I somehow doubt. (b) No one forces you to buy the new OS. I'm still running 10.4 on all machines and am chugging away quite happily, still getting software updates.
Apple costs a lot more.
Bollocks. Apple machines have been price competitive-to-cheaper than their counterparts in the PC world for a long, long time, especially when you take into account the software that you get in the deal. Google is your friend. Apple laptops are especially a deal, not even taking software into account.
It has its rabid fanboys and girls
There are two kinds of people who use the word "fanboy" seriously in a sentence: idiots and trolls. Which are you?
I'm not sure the entire issue was that it wasn't released day 1 with Leopard, but that there wasn't any information on it... It's the not knowing which is causing *most* of the frustration, not the fact that it's not here right now.
I tend to agree with you, and meant to mention this in my original post. What was frustrating to me was the persistent subtext of "Apple has abandoned Java!" throughout the discussions I saw. Java releases have always trailed OS releases by 8 months or so. Patience -- not an infinite amount, but *some* -- seems not just wiser but historically justified.
Having said that I also wish Apple were more communicative.
When your livelihood is at stake, you might get a bit bitchy.
Yeah, but if someone is basing their livelihood on a beta version of a product... Well, don't expect sympathy if that beta is yanked.
Java 6 was released in 2006. Java 5 is from 2004. People aren't crying "we want Java 6 now," they're saying "we'd like your 'first-class' citizen to be updated to something written in the last three years." I don't think that this is unreasonable.
Java5 is available now. Has been for a while. Java6 is not, but that's not three years.
There was a huge, huge stink in the Java community when Leopard was released without Java6. Teeth were gnashed, complaints were shouted from the rooftops, great offense was taken. Threads of truly astonishing lengths were generated.
Watching all of this transpire made me incredibly embarrassed of the Java community. (Note: Predictable smart-ass comments can be inserted after the previous sentence.) The hue and cry was simply amazing and, let's face it, immature. "I want Java6 *now* and since it's not there I'm abandoning the Mac as my platform!" In other words: "I'm taking my toys and going home." Very, very few of the complaints were from people who actually depend upon Java6, i.e. are building apps with it. Instead, there was a large sense of entitlement that was unjustified and exhibitied a childish impatience that was amazing to watch, with a strong dose of the usual fanboy/hater streetfight.
*shrug* There were two choices that were much less reactionary: (a) wait for the Apple release Java6 or (b) work on the OpenJDK project. Kudos to Landon for doing this. It's a big start, and will hopefully generate enough interest to move it forward significantly.
Of course, people like to bitch, and neither of those choices fulfills that need.
Five years ago or so there was a traveling exhibit that came through Dallas called Videotopia. It showed up at The Science Place (Dallas's science museum) and took up the vast majority of available floor space. It was amazing. Basically it had every video game. (Note the period at the end of the previous sentence; I'm exaggerating only slightly.) They were arranged chronologically, starting with Pong and moving onward to Space Invaders and so forth. This was all in one place and every game was a quarter. It was amazing. They even had a sit-down version of Sinistar, one of my all time faves.
What excited me greatly was that they had working versions of all the "vector" games: Asteroids, BattleZone, Tempest, Star Wars. It also had all the laser disk games: Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc. All the games were in *great* shape.
Anyway, this is only borderline on-topic, but I wanted to share anyway. I'd be surprised if these guys weren't consulted for the documentary. A brief search shows that the name of the exhibit was Videotopia, but it doesn't look like it's touring anymore, which is really, really too bad.
1) Do you think that what separates you is your immunity to groupthink? 2) Is there a single right answer to the question of buying or not buying Apple stuff? 3) Do you believe that the answer to the previous question will be obvious to anyone intelligent?
Why should Google placing a helmet or other cartoon on their home page mean anything, and why should I care?
It's a cheap way for certain political groups to make themselves feel good about "supporting the troops." Of course, if you mention that 1 out of every 4 homeless people is a vet they'll pretend not to hear. Fixing that would require putting their money where their mouth is. ("Socialism!")
It's much easier to bitch at search engine companies about their logo. It certainly makes the world a better place for vets, that's for sure.
Regardless of whether or not that is true, it underscores the critical thing about design and function-- it's a delicate balance, and designers must be careful not to trade too much functionality for aesthetics and vice versa. Everyone's tastes differ, but Apple frequently makes design choices that I find detrimental to function with no benefit beyond aesthetics
Yes. But the broader point remains: Apple is the only electronics company who values design and seems to understand that there is more to good design than just looking cool. Good design encompasses every part of the device, both software and hardware. Certainly some of their decisions are questionable -- the translucent menu bar in Leopard is just dumb, for example. But by and large they are successful, and people respond to this.
There is no way you can place the iPhone as the top "Invention". It is a phone just like any other but with a lot of features you would expect on a phone removed.
RTFA.
The reason they chose to give it to the iPhone wasn't based upon a checklist of features, but because of how well it was designed and the impact it has had. Apple knows how to make products that people enjoy using. That is a difficult thing to do.
The only thing that it has going for it is that it looks nice.
Looks nice and behaves nice.
Most geeks don't understand design, and in fact disregard design considerations as nothing more than eye candy. This is foolish. Design is about taking the human into consideration. Frank Lloyd Wright is a good example: while his structures were beautiful, a large part of their elegance was due to the consideration he gave to his users. He never once forgot that he was creating something that would be used by people.
Apple understands that strong design makes for strong products. The mistake people like you make is that you think design is about looks: skins for Winamp, etc. It's not. Design is about the whole experience, of which elegance and beauty is a part, but only a part.
Actually that's not quite correct. You can't have a monopoly without government assistance, so any market in which a monopoly exists is not a truly free one.
Fucking libertarians.
Tell you what you need to do: go to Somalia. Now, set up competition in the gun running business. Or drug running. Or hell, making eye openers for the Wal Mart crowd Let's see how long you last.
Oh but WAIT, I can hear you so valiantly protest, the warlords are a DE FACTO government, thus my original point stands! Taxation is theft, just like those guys! Taaa-daa!
And that IS the reason you are wrong, but you're too much of a fucking evangelical nutbag to see it: social organisms -- of which an ECONOMY is one -- cannot successfully exist without governments, and the best governments are democratically controlled. Where there is a power vacuum warlords will rise to fill it. The pseudo-anarchy advocated by libertarians is not successful. Never has been, unless you want to go back to the neolithic period for examples.
Fuck I hate libertarians. I also hate the free market, mainly because I'm so sick and goddamn tired about hearing how perfect and holy it is, when it's nothing more than an ethereal Platonic ideal that a bunch of zealots hold up as their own personal Jesus.
Here is what I've come to learn from the mainstream IT media:
If you prefer Linux to Windows, and encourage its use to others, you are a fanboy and/or fantaic
If you prefer OS X to Windows, and encourage its use to others, you are a fanboy and/or fanatic
Corollary: If someone makes a ridiculous claim about Linux or OS X (e.g. "Yeah but you can't read PDFs in Linux!") and you attempt to show this to be wrong, then you are a fanboy.
Linux/OS X fanboys are ridiculous. No one wants to be ridiculous. Therefore, don't use anything other than Windows.
There are far more fanboys in the minds of reporters than in reality, by a factor of approximately 1000:1.
Jesus fuck I'm getting tired of this shit. Every "reporter" who uses the word "fanboy" -- except to decry the stupidity of the word -- should be forced to wear a scarlet letter "F" around their neck.
The Civil War cut across the entire Marvel universe. Yes, this was a marketing gimmick. No, I didn't care, and bought most of them. It was a lot of fun. You don't need all of them, but you will probably wonder about why various things are.
Having said that, you definitely don't need the Young Avengers or Heroes for Hire.
And I get the same creepy feeling from the Apple fans that I did from the others.
Ad hominem, as I'm sure you're aware.
Apple's products -- like anyone's -- will succeed or fail based upon a variety of factors. Based upon my experience Apple makes high-quality products that I have been happy with over time. Others feel similarly. Complaints about "fanboism" are vapid at best, and cannot fully -- or even partially -- explain Apple's continued success. In fact, it seems that complaints about mythical fanbois have become more common than the actual appearance of said fanbois.
I think the author are referring to the Apple fanboys that go on messageboards and discussion-sites (like, say, slashdot) and defends Apple to the teeth, claiming that the safari-browser is really catching on, despite a bogus downloading number and the mountains of criticism it it has gotten. You know, the type that claims that apple fans really are the greatest computer users ever, that they do hold apple up to a huge standard that apple (and only apple) can possibly meet! It's not only apple that's the greatest computer company of all time, they also have the best greatest fans!
Ever seen those kind of posts?
No.
What I do see are people claiming loudly and repeatedly that those people do, in fact, exist. The myth of the Apple fanboi is far more pervasive that its reality.
Slashdot Mirror
'The fear is hackers may be experimenting and gathering research that will increase the dangers of a more malicious attack in the near future. It is clear at least one writer -- the author of this piece at Web Worker Daily -- thinks that the iPhone should be left on the dresser in the morning. She offers several reasons that the device isn't a good corporate tool.'
So the summary starts off being nothing more than FUD, and since that won't hold water descends quickly -- albeit nonsensically -- into a completely different topic.
I guess Zonk hates the iPhone. Or is looking for page views. Or something. *shrug* Whatever, none of this makes a lick of sense.
Fuck you, my insecure little cupcake.
If you don't like it don't buy it. But get off your sanctimonious high-horse, your false belief that your purchasing decisions are the One True Way and that anyone who differs is a fucking idiot. What you chose to buy does not make you better than other people.
"No nothing"? Except for... a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 gig of RAM, 802.11n wireless, USB2, backlit keyboard, built-in iSight, LED display, 5 hour battery life. Not to mention the software.
Yeah, I guess other than that nothing. If I were a business traveler I'd want one of these. I'm not, so I don't. But I'm not such a child as to think that I'm better than anyone who might.
Obviously you don't live in Texas. Getting into a black car in August is hellish.
Of course, my car is black, so I'm a huge hypocrite. BUT the point is that white is a very popular color here, and for damn good reason.
Also, Apple has tried several times to block users wanting to put in their own home-made ringtones.
And now? Create Custom iPhone Ringtones the Free and Apple Way
The IP laws around ringtones are complicated. Apple is no fan of DRM. Happy now?
I was a user of OSX 10.1. I moved to Windows
You used 10.1 and made your final decision then? Hey man, news flash: there have been four new versions of the OS released since then! Four!
If I buy Apple, I pay more for hardware and then have to spend another ~$150 every 3 years to update the OS and maintain security support.
Bollocks. (a) Updates are free through Software Update. Unless you're talking about paid support, which as a home user I somehow doubt. (b) No one forces you to buy the new OS. I'm still running 10.4 on all machines and am chugging away quite happily, still getting software updates.
Apple costs a lot more.
Bollocks. Apple machines have been price competitive-to-cheaper than their counterparts in the PC world for a long, long time, especially when you take into account the software that you get in the deal. Google is your friend. Apple laptops are especially a deal, not even taking software into account.
It has its rabid fanboys and girls
There are two kinds of people who use the word "fanboy" seriously in a sentence: idiots and trolls. Which are you?
I'm not sure the entire issue was that it wasn't released day 1 with Leopard, but that there wasn't any information on it... It's the not knowing which is causing *most* of the frustration, not the fact that it's not here right now.
I tend to agree with you, and meant to mention this in my original post. What was frustrating to me was the persistent subtext of "Apple has abandoned Java!" throughout the discussions I saw. Java releases have always trailed OS releases by 8 months or so. Patience -- not an infinite amount, but *some* -- seems not just wiser but historically justified.
Having said that I also wish Apple were more communicative.
When your livelihood is at stake, you might get a bit bitchy.
Yeah, but if someone is basing their livelihood on a beta version of a product... Well, don't expect sympathy if that beta is yanked.
Java 6 was released in 2006. Java 5 is from 2004. People aren't crying "we want Java 6 now," they're saying "we'd like your 'first-class' citizen to be updated to something written in the last three years." I don't think that this is unreasonable.
Java5 is available now. Has been for a while. Java6 is not, but that's not three years.
(Note: I am a Java developer by day.)
There was a huge, huge stink in the Java community when Leopard was released without Java6. Teeth were gnashed, complaints were shouted from the rooftops, great offense was taken. Threads of truly astonishing lengths were generated.
Watching all of this transpire made me incredibly embarrassed of the Java community. (Note: Predictable smart-ass comments can be inserted after the previous sentence.) The hue and cry was simply amazing and, let's face it, immature. "I want Java6 *now* and since it's not there I'm abandoning the Mac as my platform!" In other words: "I'm taking my toys and going home." Very, very few of the complaints were from people who actually depend upon Java6, i.e. are building apps with it. Instead, there was a large sense of entitlement that was unjustified and exhibitied a childish impatience that was amazing to watch, with a strong dose of the usual fanboy/hater streetfight.
*shrug* There were two choices that were much less reactionary: (a) wait for the Apple release Java6 or (b) work on the OpenJDK project. Kudos to Landon for doing this. It's a big start, and will hopefully generate enough interest to move it forward significantly.
Of course, people like to bitch, and neither of those choices fulfills that need.
No it's not. That's J2SE 5, release 6.
Five years ago or so there was a traveling exhibit that came through Dallas called Videotopia. It showed up at The Science Place (Dallas's science museum) and took up the vast majority of available floor space. It was amazing. Basically it had every video game. (Note the period at the end of the previous sentence; I'm exaggerating only slightly.) They were arranged chronologically, starting with Pong and moving onward to Space Invaders and so forth. This was all in one place and every game was a quarter. It was amazing. They even had a sit-down version of Sinistar, one of my all time faves.
What excited me greatly was that they had working versions of all the "vector" games: Asteroids, BattleZone, Tempest, Star Wars. It also had all the laser disk games: Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, etc. All the games were in *great* shape.
Anyway, this is only borderline on-topic, but I wanted to share anyway. I'd be surprised if these guys weren't consulted for the documentary. A brief search shows that the name of the exhibit was Videotopia, but it doesn't look like it's touring anymore, which is really, really too bad.
A few questions.
1) Do you think that what separates you is your immunity to groupthink?
2) Is there a single right answer to the question of buying or not buying Apple stuff?
3) Do you believe that the answer to the previous question will be obvious to anyone intelligent?
Why should Google placing a helmet or other cartoon on their home page mean anything, and why should I care?
It's a cheap way for certain political groups to make themselves feel good about "supporting the troops." Of course, if you mention that 1 out of every 4 homeless people is a vet they'll pretend not to hear. Fixing that would require putting their money where their mouth is. ("Socialism!")
It's much easier to bitch at search engine companies about their logo. It certainly makes the world a better place for vets, that's for sure.
Ok, I concede the point.
Regardless of whether or not that is true, it underscores the critical thing about design and function-- it's a delicate balance, and designers must be careful not to trade too much functionality for aesthetics and vice versa. Everyone's tastes differ, but Apple frequently makes design choices that I find detrimental to function with no benefit beyond aesthetics
Yes. But the broader point remains: Apple is the only electronics company who values design and seems to understand that there is more to good design than just looking cool. Good design encompasses every part of the device, both software and hardware. Certainly some of their decisions are questionable -- the translucent menu bar in Leopard is just dumb, for example. But by and large they are successful, and people respond to this.
There is no way you can place the iPhone as the top "Invention". It is a phone just like any other but with a lot of features you would expect on a phone removed.
RTFA.
The reason they chose to give it to the iPhone wasn't based upon a checklist of features, but because of how well it was designed and the impact it has had. Apple knows how to make products that people enjoy using. That is a difficult thing to do.
The only thing that it has going for it is that it looks nice.
Looks nice and behaves nice.
Most geeks don't understand design, and in fact disregard design considerations as nothing more than eye candy. This is foolish. Design is about taking the human into consideration. Frank Lloyd Wright is a good example: while his structures were beautiful, a large part of their elegance was due to the consideration he gave to his users. He never once forgot that he was creating something that would be used by people.
Apple understands that strong design makes for strong products. The mistake people like you make is that you think design is about looks: skins for Winamp, etc. It's not. Design is about the whole experience, of which elegance and beauty is a part, but only a part.
You are comparing rsync to Time Machine?
You, sir, are a fucking joke.
The moderator who bothered to mod the parent as flamebait is a worthless turd. Was it REALLY worth the mod point?
Frequent restarts of things on my computer make me furious
Shit Taco, what OS are you using? FF leaks on my OS X box too over time, but quitting the app seems to free up the memory.
Or maybe I'm not paying close enough attention.
Actually that's not quite correct. You can't have a monopoly without government assistance, so any market in which a monopoly exists is not a truly free one.
Fucking libertarians.
Tell you what you need to do: go to Somalia. Now, set up competition in the gun running business. Or drug running. Or hell, making eye openers for the Wal Mart crowd Let's see how long you last.
Oh but WAIT, I can hear you so valiantly protest, the warlords are a DE FACTO government, thus my original point stands! Taxation is theft, just like those guys! Taaa-daa!
And that IS the reason you are wrong, but you're too much of a fucking evangelical nutbag to see it: social organisms -- of which an ECONOMY is one -- cannot successfully exist without governments, and the best governments are democratically controlled. Where there is a power vacuum warlords will rise to fill it. The pseudo-anarchy advocated by libertarians is not successful. Never has been, unless you want to go back to the neolithic period for examples.
Fuck I hate libertarians. I also hate the free market, mainly because I'm so sick and goddamn tired about hearing how perfect and holy it is, when it's nothing more than an ethereal Platonic ideal that a bunch of zealots hold up as their own personal Jesus.
Jesus fuck I'm getting tired of this shit. Every "reporter" who uses the word "fanboy" -- except to decry the stupidity of the word -- should be forced to wear a scarlet letter "F" around their neck.
The "F" is for "FAIL".
I have one of these. It's called a bong.
The Civil War cut across the entire Marvel universe. Yes, this was a marketing gimmick. No, I didn't care, and bought most of them. It was a lot of fun. You don't need all of them, but you will probably wonder about why various things are. Having said that, you definitely don't need the Young Avengers or Heroes for Hire.
And I get the same creepy feeling from the Apple fans that I did from the others.
Ad hominem, as I'm sure you're aware.
Apple's products -- like anyone's -- will succeed or fail based upon a variety of factors. Based upon my experience Apple makes high-quality products that I have been happy with over time. Others feel similarly. Complaints about "fanboism" are vapid at best, and cannot fully -- or even partially -- explain Apple's continued success. In fact, it seems that complaints about mythical fanbois have become more common than the actual appearance of said fanbois.
People want these phones because they fit a need.
I think the author are referring to the Apple fanboys that go on messageboards and discussion-sites (like, say, slashdot) and defends Apple to the teeth, claiming that the safari-browser is really catching on, despite a bogus downloading number and the mountains of criticism it it has gotten. You know, the type that claims that apple fans really are the greatest computer users ever, that they do hold apple up to a huge standard that apple (and only apple) can possibly meet! It's not only apple that's the greatest computer company of all time, they also have the best greatest fans!
Ever seen those kind of posts?
No.
What I do see are people claiming loudly and repeatedly that those people do, in fact, exist. The myth of the Apple fanboi is far more pervasive that its reality.
That guy is a auto troll. That message pops up in just about every story related to Macs; I've seen it 5 or 6 times now.