Funny, my 30-day old MacBook Pro included official Apple instructions for upgrading both the memory and the hard drive.
Try it with an MBA, and let me know how you go.
I think the difference though is that where Apple often makes choices (like no upgradable phone memory) they provide built-in capacities that satisfy the average consumer. Sony's choices, like memory stick, don't tend to satisfy the average consumer (any more).
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
Er, no. An average PC today would come with a Core i-series processor and, if the purchaser had any interest in gaming, a discrete GPU.
Those parts were average in the PC world a year or more ago, not today.
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
What do you mean "aside from internal expandability" ? That's the raison d'être for the machine, enabling the features that differentiate it from the Mini or iMac. You can't handwave it away.
However, even for professional users, the only internal expandability that is lacking on the iMac or Mac mini is GPU and HD (well, the HD is expandable, but not nearly as easily as on a tower).
Plus RAM and misc expansion cards. Don't forget, also, that "GPU and HD expandability" cover a multitude of options, from RAID1 to four monitors.
I suppose there would be a small amount of demand for a lower end Mac Pro, but it's hard to see how there would be a very large market of people for whom the iMac is too limited but the Mac Pro is too powerful.
The issue is not one of power, but capabilities and price. The entry-level Mac Pro costs about $1000 more than it needs to for the functionality a large proportion of its customers are interested in (multiple video cards and/or expansion cards, multiple hard disks, larger amounts of RAM).
Unfortunately I can't find any statistics about which Mac Pro configuration is the biggest seller (and I imagine Apple keeps such information very confidential). In my experience (including knowing several owners of Apple stores) it's definitely the entry-level quad-core machine, but official numbers would tell the real story.
Like I said, the only groups that really have any demand for an xMac would be high-end gamers and hobbyists. For everyone else, Apple has a Mac that serves them well.
And, like I said, the demand for an "xMac" has a huge overlap with the people currently buying the quad-core Mac Pro. Which is why those Apple customers have been screaming for it for years (since they don't want to spend the extra grand) and Apple haven't released such a machine (because they want the extra profit).
You cannot dismiss this group of people just because, today, they can buy a Mac Pro for $2500, when they could otherwise buy an "xMac" for $1500 that meets their needs. Nor can you disingenuously pretend that the only customers for such a machine would be PC hobbyists.
A big bulky case, and slots for hardware that they can't use? If you have a Mac Pro, you know you have to choose specifically Mac compatible hardware. If you are a former PC user (or current low-end Mac user) getting an xMac, you'll be annoyed by the process of finding compatible cards, which is the major reason to make it a tower in the first place.
I'm confused. Are you arguing against the existence of an "xMac" or the Mac Pro ?
You mean, "an exceptionally small number of Apple customers".
No, I meant a lot of Apple customers. Based on my experience with some hundreds of Mac Pro users, about 90% of them would have been equally well served by an "xMac", and a thousand dollars better off to boot.
Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
When you beg the question to get the answer you want - as you have with pretty much every statement in your reply - that's not a valid argument.
The honest question would be to ask purchasers of the quad-core Mac Pro if they would have been equally happy with a machine costing $1000 less that had a quad-core CPU, 3 expansion slots, two internal drives and supported up to 24GB of RAM. My expectation is they would, based on my experience that the vast majority of Mac Pro purchasers bought machines at or below that specification.
There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective. For desktops, the Mac mini is the mid-range tower.
You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?
Really, the only two markets that the iMac misses by not being a tower are high-end gamers and hobbyists, and both are fairly niche.
You forgot the majority of professional users, who are far more interested in a small amount of internal expandability/upgradeability/flexibility than they are in multi-CPU Xeon workstations. The problem with the Mac Pro is its baseline price is too high.
A "Mini Mac Pro", specced similarly to a Dell Precision T1500 (or, basically, half a Mac Pro) and priced around the $1399 mark for a quad-core i5/3GB/1TB would sell faster than Apple could make them.
However, it would also slaughter high-margin Mac Pro sales, which is precisely why Apple don't do it.
iPod nano, iPad, iPhone are three examples of them doing exactly this.
No they're not. The iPod Nano _replaced_ the iPod Mini. The iPad is clearly meant to supplement an existing laptop and/or desktop Mac, as it's incapable of replacing either. The iPhone's music-playing capability is just to be feature-competitive with every other mobile phone released in the last 5-10 years.
The 13" MB is the only somewhat odd machine out in the laptop lineup, though that has more to do with the "Pro" laptops lacking defining features that are considered standard in the professional PC laptop world, like a docking station. It still fills a solid niche for the price-sensitive consumer who needs a laptop capable of being their only computer, however, something the MBA cannot really do due to its limited storage capacity and (to a lesser extent) slow CPU.
The thing is, as long as you're buying something from Apple, they are happy. If an xMac would cannibalize the iMac, Mac mini, or maybe even the Mac Pro market, Apple wouldn't care. What they do care about is not selling a product that will frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer than their current offerings, which is exactly what the xMac would do.
There is no conceivable way a mid-range tower would "frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer". Apple customers have been *begging* for such a machine ever since its equivalent was discontinued back in the early 2000s, and the closest Apple have ever come to throwing them a bone is releasing a quad-core Mac Pro at a ludicrous price point.
The "xMac", as you call it, would slot in perfectly between the 27" iMac and the bottom-end Mac Pro. It would take a small percentage of high-end iMac customers who grudgingly accept its limitations to save a thousand or more dollars, and a whole boatload of low-end Mac Pro customers who are annoyed at having to pay $2500 just to be able to use two (or more) of their own screens, have two internal drives and add an expansion card. The overlap between iMac and Mac Mini customers and "xMac" customers would be nearly zero.
So what prevents them launching malware that can do the same thing, like they do now ?
The user will be able to configure which files are sensitive enough not to belong to any virtual session that is less privileged than his/her files.
That makes no sense, but I think I know what you meant.
To which my answer is: if users were capable of making those sorts of decisions, we wouldn't have the malware problem we do today.
Your loss, not mine pal. There are plenty of real-time operating systems created with Ada.
For example ?
If you knew Ada, you would know that is exactly like C when it comes to low-level control, yet advanced enough to be able to protect the system from the major flaws of C.
I'm aware of Ada. Several of my CS degree subjects used it.
The summary doesn't state "disruptive." The summary stated that they were coming out with products that disrupted their own product lines.
When Apple release a mid-range tower to address the gaping hole in their computer lineup, I'll be willing to believe they're ready to disrupt their own product lines. Right now all I see is them targeting the small gaps in between their existing products.
They might have had a header on the motherboard. But there probably wasn't a port on the case that you could plug a device into.
Motherboards started shipping with USB ports on the back (along with motherboard headers) around mid-late 1996. Somewhere in one of my boxes I have a Tyan Tomcat IV with a couple of 166Mhz Pentium MMX CPUs on it dating from 1997, and it has two USB ports on the back.
Two years after USB was introduced on PCs, when the first iMac was released, pretty much every new desktop PC and laptop sold - along with even many _servers_ - had at least a couple of USB ports.
You've been making that claim for a full decade now, and never could prove it.
Huh ? The "proof" is trivially easy to find - just look up the specs for an average laptop of the day like an Inspiron 7000, or a typical DIY PC motherboard like an Asus P2L97. All have USB ports on them.
The first Intel southbridge supporting USB was released mid-1996. The first PC motherboards and systems with USB ports were released at pretty much the same time. By two years later when the first iMac was released, even servers typically had a couple of USB ports on them, and regular desktop PCs and laptops had already had them for a solid 6-12 months.
That doesn't even make sense.
The suggestion was that "all" USB peripherals at the time having translucent blue plastic somehow supported the argument that PCs didn't have USB. My point was that it's a non-sequitur.
Sure... if you pay for a service, you have a right to have the service performed as agreed; how much are you paying them to do the job, exactly, and do you have paperwork from the bank signed by an employee that the bank will do X on Y date?
My banks services guide states: "Payments made to BPAY billers by 3pm (EST time) Monday to Friday will be processed the same day."
And the bank will fix the credit of those who missed mortgage payments? I highly doubt it.
Australia, fortunately, does not have a credit system remotely like the insanity in the US, so a missed mortgage payment in this situation wouldn't cause anyone any major problems.
Nor does it need to. If the bank says it's going to do X, then fails to do X, it is the bank's fault to rectify any penalties incurred from its failure to do X.
When I schedule a payment using BPay, or a transfer between accounts, the bank says that transfer will be completed before opening of business the next day (or often instantly, for transfers within the same institution). If they fail to deliver that service, the fault is theirs, not mine.
It is not my responsibility to ensure the bank does the job I am paying them for. It is the bank's responsibility to ensure they deliver those services as promised, and also their responsibility to make amends if they fail to do so.
FYI, in the U.S. it is often but not always the next day.
Well, it's two days for all the payees in my Wells Fargo BillPay, except for the Wells Fargo Credit Card, which is one day.
The above all is about going to your bank's website and scheduling a transfer out. For nearly all the big bills (mortgage, credit cards, car payment), you can go directly to your creditor's web site and schedule the transfer in for the date due. They will initiate the transfer on that date and credit your account on that date, and then the debit will hit your account in 1 or 2 days, depending on the banks involved. That's the way I do it.
I have had bad experiences with direct debits in the past, and try to avoid them wherever possible (unless it's within the same institution). I'd be even less inclined to trust them in the US.
This is no different than if you mail a check 2 days before it's due and the postal service takes an extra day to get the item, so it arrives after the due date.
Actually it is, because in Australian banking systems transactions are expected to be instantaneous, or at worst batch-processed at CoB each day.
The correct analagous situation is if I mail a cheque in a "guaranteed next day delivery" envelope, and it doesn't arrive the next day. In that situation the postal service is absolutely at fault, and I would expect them to pay any fees or charges that may have accrued due to their screwup.
The fact of the matter... you have an obligation to ensure you meet your obligations, including deadlines, while anticipating common obstacles, such as reasonable delays in postal service, and other services you utilize to send payments.
There's no such thing as a "reasonable" multi-day delay in a modern banking system. That's the whole point. Banks aren't mailing cheques or shipping gold bars between themselves to complete transactions, they're flipping bits in a computer.
Indeed, there's little justification for a confirmed transaction not being instantaneous, in this day and age, at least within the same country.
Well, legally that is not what has happened. You scheduled a payment to be made, and until the payment is actually made, as scheduled, the obligation is not yet met. You have merely taken an action that can be expected to meet the obligation; if that action fails, it's still your responsibility.
No, it's not. If I instruct my bank to take an action, and they fail to take that action, the fault is theirs and theirs alone.
On the other hand, if you scheduled a "bill payment" on date X from a different bank that you do not owe the money to, and they initiated payment in their system, but it took them a day or two days to transfer funds, and the extra day delay caused you to incur a late fee, then No, the bank is not responsible, delays of that nature are to be expected, you are responsible, not either bank.
No, they're not to be expected in the Australian banking system. If I make an online bill payment on day X (either directly or scheduled) then I expect that payment to have been credited to the target account on day X+1. Anything less is a failure of the bank to deliver the service I'm paying for.
The *only* scenario where I would not expect this to happen is one of an international transfer, since that has to deal with non-Australian banking institutions.
Again, if you're an American you might not be used to this sort of thing, but it's how it's been in Australia for 10+ years now. So long as I schedule my transfer or bill payment before my bank's cutoff time for the day, then if that transaction hasn't arrived at the target institution by open of business the next day, it's the banks' fault (either mine or the payee's), and consequently their responsibility to remedy.
and it's normal not to have any money on your accounts and live from payday to payday?
For some people, yes.
Welcome to the real world.
okay, the banks made an error and should compensate... but do people really find it normal not to save any money and be screwed when the tinyest thing goes wrong?
Some people don't earn enough to "save any money". When 90% of your income goes in basic and essential expenses, being able to save even 10% is a luxury not always afforded should any emergency expenses come up.
If you have a payment due on X date, you wait until day X - 1, and something goes wrong and delays you by one day, this is your fault, not your bank's fault.
No, it's the bank's fault. To whit:
Matters would be different if there was a problem at day X - 7 that lasted for 7 days, or X - 14 that lasted for 14 days.
There is no difference between trying to pay at X-7 and trying to pay at X-1 and either failing, due to a bank problem. The bank is still at fault.
It is not reasonable to expect there will never be any problems with electronic payment systems.
Correct. It is, however, entirely reasonable to expect that the *bank* will handle any problems that result from their inability to process payments.
Rest assured, that if you are unable to pay the bank on time for some random and unexpected reason, that they will be unlikely to show you any leniency. The converse should similarly be true.
In other words, these consumers should get stuck with these late fees, and learn about a valuable lesson in taking reasonable steps to ensure their obligations are met, even if something goes not quite as expected with the payment.
My obligation is met the instant I schedule a transfer or payment with the bank's online system (assuming I have sufficient funds when that transfer comes due). While I can understand Americans who are still stuck in the stoneage of banking not grokking this, the rest of us have higher standards. When I schedule a transfer or bill payment to happen on a particular date, and it doesn't because the bank screwed up, that's not my problem, it's the bank's problem, as are any additional fees, charges, penalties, or whatever "I" might happen to be charged as a result of their screwup.
I hold my bank to the same standards they hold me. No more and no less. I pay them a (relative) fortune in fees every year, and for that I expect good service.
Thats something a LOT of laptop users have wanted for a very long time [...]
And by "a lot" you mean "the handful of people who haven't been buying one of dozens of PC laptops that have had a docking option for the last decade or two", right ?
The last time I didn't have a laptop that couldn't do what you describe, was when a 486SX processor was still cutting edge.
Don't worry. Like USB in the 90s, this technology will eventually become standard on PCs thanks to Apple forcing device manufacturers to support it for the Mac.
USB was already "standard" on PCs when the iMac was released and had been for a year or so.
There's also rumors that they're dropping the optical drive. That makes room for a better CPU, better GPU and bigger batteries. Still need an optical drive? Use an external one connected via USB.
Personally, I was astounded they kept the optical drive when they moved to the "unibody" MBPs. Surely there's no meaningful proportion of users out there who actually need a built-in optical drive ?
We were talking about "left over junk from older OSes". See that part about "older OSes"? For clarity, I'll ask if you see that part about " older OSes".
What classifies as "older" ?
See, to the literate reader this implies that at least some code from older versions of Windows has been re-used and included in newer versions of Windows.
Yeah, I kinda got that. Hence my question to clarify what you mean by "older".
Nope.
Then what are you trying to say ? Because it's hard to interpret "If this bug is as you say, and it exploits "left over junk from older OSes" that only means one thing: there has been more than adequate time for an internal security audit to have found and fixed this bug" any other way than "bugs should not survive multiple releases", when you don't provide any definition for what you consider "older".
Still, if any part of this post is confusing or ambiguous, please re-read it thoroughly and take careful note of what I did and did not say. If anything is still unclear, let me know and I'll set you straight. Now, can we finally put to rest this epidemic of "reading one thing and then responding to some shit you made up" that's destroying the quality of discussion here on Slashdot?
If you don't want people to make inferences, don't make statements that require them to do so.
Not if the user's files do not belong in the virtual session that the malware belongs.
So how does the user launch applications that can access their files ? Or are you proposing they are bombarded with even more "are you sure" dialogs every time some app wants to access a file and/or the network ?
Sorry, I am not gonna do anything like that. Google is your friend.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny, my 30-day old MacBook Pro included official Apple instructions for upgrading both the memory and the hard drive.
Try it with an MBA, and let me know how you go.
I think the difference though is that where Apple often makes choices (like no upgradable phone memory) they provide built-in capacities that satisfy the average consumer. Sony's choices, like memory stick, don't tend to satisfy the average consumer (any more).
In your opinion.
Oh, please elaborate on this! Even the least powerful Apple products have parts that are not even close to substandard. The two that come to mind are the Core2Duos and Nvidia 320Ms in the lower end Macs. Even those parts are above average in the PC world, and those are the worst Apple offers!
Er, no. An average PC today would come with a Core i-series processor and, if the purchaser had any interest in gaming, a discrete GPU.
Those parts were average in the PC world a year or more ago, not today.
Aside from internal expandability, what features are you talking about?
What do you mean "aside from internal expandability" ? That's the raison d'être for the machine, enabling the features that differentiate it from the Mini or iMac. You can't handwave it away.
However, even for professional users, the only internal expandability that is lacking on the iMac or Mac mini is GPU and HD (well, the HD is expandable, but not nearly as easily as on a tower).
Plus RAM and misc expansion cards. Don't forget, also, that "GPU and HD expandability" cover a multitude of options, from RAID1 to four monitors.
I suppose there would be a small amount of demand for a lower end Mac Pro, but it's hard to see how there would be a very large market of people for whom the iMac is too limited but the Mac Pro is too powerful.
The issue is not one of power, but capabilities and price. The entry-level Mac Pro costs about $1000 more than it needs to for the functionality a large proportion of its customers are interested in (multiple video cards and/or expansion cards, multiple hard disks, larger amounts of RAM).
Unfortunately I can't find any statistics about which Mac Pro configuration is the biggest seller (and I imagine Apple keeps such information very confidential). In my experience (including knowing several owners of Apple stores) it's definitely the entry-level quad-core machine, but official numbers would tell the real story.
Like I said, the only groups that really have any demand for an xMac would be high-end gamers and hobbyists. For everyone else, Apple has a Mac that serves them well.
And, like I said, the demand for an "xMac" has a huge overlap with the people currently buying the quad-core Mac Pro. Which is why those Apple customers have been screaming for it for years (since they don't want to spend the extra grand) and Apple haven't released such a machine (because they want the extra profit).
You cannot dismiss this group of people just because, today, they can buy a Mac Pro for $2500, when they could otherwise buy an "xMac" for $1500 that meets their needs. Nor can you disingenuously pretend that the only customers for such a machine would be PC hobbyists.
A big bulky case, and slots for hardware that they can't use? If you have a Mac Pro, you know you have to choose specifically Mac compatible hardware. If you are a former PC user (or current low-end Mac user) getting an xMac, you'll be annoyed by the process of finding compatible cards, which is the major reason to make it a tower in the first place.
I'm confused. Are you arguing against the existence of an "xMac" or the Mac Pro ?
You mean, "an exceptionally small number of Apple customers".
No, I meant a lot of Apple customers. Based on my experience with some hundreds of Mac Pro users, about 90% of them would have been equally well served by an "xMac", and a thousand dollars better off to boot.
Imagine polling people walking out of an Apple store and asking if they wish Apple sold a standard "PC Desktop" style Mac. The vast majority of consumers have no desire whatsoever to muck around inside their computer. Those that do are a small minority, although on various online forums they can make up a much larger and more vocal minority (such as here on Slashdot).
When you beg the question to get the answer you want - as you have with pretty much every statement in your reply - that's not a valid argument.
The honest question would be to ask purchasers of the quad-core Mac Pro if they would have been equally happy with a machine costing $1000 less that had a quad-core CPU, 3 expansion slots, two internal drives and supported up to 24GB of RAM. My expectation is they would, based on my experience that the vast majority of Mac Pro purchasers bought machines at or below that specification.
There is no gaping hole from a consumer perspective. For desktops, the Mac mini is the mid-range tower.
You mean despite having none of the features of a mid-range tower ?
Really, the only two markets that the iMac misses by not being a tower are high-end gamers and hobbyists, and both are fairly niche.
You forgot the majority of professional users, who are far more interested in a small amount of internal expandability/upgradeability/flexibility than they are in multi-CPU Xeon workstations. The problem with the Mac Pro is its baseline price is too high.
A "Mini Mac Pro", specced similarly to a Dell Precision T1500 (or, basically, half a Mac Pro) and priced around the $1399 mark for a quad-core i5/3GB/1TB would sell faster than Apple could make them.
However, it would also slaughter high-margin Mac Pro sales, which is precisely why Apple don't do it.
iPod nano, iPad, iPhone are three examples of them doing exactly this.
No they're not. The iPod Nano _replaced_ the iPod Mini. The iPad is clearly meant to supplement an existing laptop and/or desktop Mac, as it's incapable of replacing either. The iPhone's music-playing capability is just to be feature-competitive with every other mobile phone released in the last 5-10 years.
The 13" MB is the only somewhat odd machine out in the laptop lineup, though that has more to do with the "Pro" laptops lacking defining features that are considered standard in the professional PC laptop world, like a docking station. It still fills a solid niche for the price-sensitive consumer who needs a laptop capable of being their only computer, however, something the MBA cannot really do due to its limited storage capacity and (to a lesser extent) slow CPU.
The thing is, as long as you're buying something from Apple, they are happy. If an xMac would cannibalize the iMac, Mac mini, or maybe even the Mac Pro market, Apple wouldn't care. What they do care about is not selling a product that will frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer than their current offerings, which is exactly what the xMac would do.
There is no conceivable way a mid-range tower would "frustrate or otherwise be worse for the average consumer". Apple customers have been *begging* for such a machine ever since its equivalent was discontinued back in the early 2000s, and the closest Apple have ever come to throwing them a bone is releasing a quad-core Mac Pro at a ludicrous price point.
The "xMac", as you call it, would slot in perfectly between the 27" iMac and the bottom-end Mac Pro. It would take a small percentage of high-end iMac customers who grudgingly accept its limitations to save a thousand or more dollars, and a whole boatload of low-end Mac Pro customers who are annoyed at having to pay $2500 just to be able to use two (or more) of their own screens, have two internal drives and add an expansion card. The overlap between iMac and Mac Mini customers and "xMac" customers would be nearly zero.
For example: laptops that can't have additional memory installed. Cameras that use an expensive proprietary flash card format.
Sounds just like Apple to me.
Normally, like they do now.
So what prevents them launching malware that can do the same thing, like they do now ?
The user will be able to configure which files are sensitive enough not to belong to any virtual session that is less privileged than his/her files.
That makes no sense, but I think I know what you meant.
To which my answer is: if users were capable of making those sorts of decisions, we wouldn't have the malware problem we do today.
Your loss, not mine pal. There are plenty of real-time operating systems created with Ada.
For example ?
If you knew Ada, you would know that is exactly like C when it comes to low-level control, yet advanced enough to be able to protect the system from the major flaws of C.
I'm aware of Ada. Several of my CS degree subjects used it.
The summary doesn't state "disruptive." The summary stated that they were coming out with products that disrupted their own product lines.
When Apple release a mid-range tower to address the gaping hole in their computer lineup, I'll be willing to believe they're ready to disrupt their own product lines. Right now all I see is them targeting the small gaps in between their existing products.
They might have had a header on the motherboard. But there probably wasn't a port on the case that you could plug a device into.
Motherboards started shipping with USB ports on the back (along with motherboard headers) around mid-late 1996. Somewhere in one of my boxes I have a Tyan Tomcat IV with a couple of 166Mhz Pentium MMX CPUs on it dating from 1997, and it has two USB ports on the back.
Two years after USB was introduced on PCs, when the first iMac was released, pretty much every new desktop PC and laptop sold - along with even many _servers_ - had at least a couple of USB ports.
You've been making that claim for a full decade now, and never could prove it.
Huh ? The "proof" is trivially easy to find - just look up the specs for an average laptop of the day like an Inspiron 7000, or a typical DIY PC motherboard like an Asus P2L97. All have USB ports on them.
The first Intel southbridge supporting USB was released mid-1996. The first PC motherboards and systems with USB ports were released at pretty much the same time. By two years later when the first iMac was released, even servers typically had a couple of USB ports on them, and regular desktop PCs and laptops had already had them for a solid 6-12 months.
That doesn't even make sense.
The suggestion was that "all" USB peripherals at the time having translucent blue plastic somehow supported the argument that PCs didn't have USB. My point was that it's a non-sequitur.
Sure... if you pay for a service, you have a right to have the service performed as agreed; how much are you paying them to do the job, exactly, and do you have paperwork from the bank signed by an employee that the bank will do X on Y date?
My banks services guide states: "Payments made to BPAY billers by 3pm (EST time) Monday to Friday will be processed the same day."
And the bank will fix the credit of those who missed mortgage payments? I highly doubt it.
Australia, fortunately, does not have a credit system remotely like the insanity in the US, so a missed mortgage payment in this situation wouldn't cause anyone any major problems.
expected does not mean guaranteed.
Nor does it need to. If the bank says it's going to do X, then fails to do X, it is the bank's fault to rectify any penalties incurred from its failure to do X.
When I schedule a payment using BPay, or a transfer between accounts, the bank says that transfer will be completed before opening of business the next day (or often instantly, for transfers within the same institution). If they fail to deliver that service, the fault is theirs, not mine.
It is not my responsibility to ensure the bank does the job I am paying them for. It is the bank's responsibility to ensure they deliver those services as promised, and also their responsibility to make amends if they fail to do so.
Sure, just that almost all PCs didn't have an actual USB plug.
Yes they did. You would have had to have searched long and hard in 1998 to find a PC being sold without USB ports. Even servers had them by then.
And the fact that most early USB peripherals came in translucent blue was so they matched the BSOD you oh so often got when operating them on Windows.
That most USB peripherals at the time existed to help Apple shift costs to the customer has no relevance to whether or not PCs had USB ports.
FYI, in the U.S. it is often but not always the next day.
Well, it's two days for all the payees in my Wells Fargo BillPay, except for the Wells Fargo Credit Card, which is one day.
The above all is about going to your bank's website and scheduling a transfer out. For nearly all the big bills (mortgage, credit cards, car payment), you can go directly to your creditor's web site and schedule the transfer in for the date due. They will initiate the transfer on that date and credit your account on that date, and then the debit will hit your account in 1 or 2 days, depending on the banks involved. That's the way I do it.
I have had bad experiences with direct debits in the past, and try to avoid them wherever possible (unless it's within the same institution). I'd be even less inclined to trust them in the US.
Yes they have the same owner, which is a pity since it used to be one of our better rags.
Based on the month I just spent back home, it still is.
This is no different than if you mail a check 2 days before it's due and the postal service takes an extra day to get the item, so it arrives after the due date.
Actually it is, because in Australian banking systems transactions are expected to be instantaneous, or at worst batch-processed at CoB each day.
The correct analagous situation is if I mail a cheque in a "guaranteed next day delivery" envelope, and it doesn't arrive the next day. In that situation the postal service is absolutely at fault, and I would expect them to pay any fees or charges that may have accrued due to their screwup.
The fact of the matter... you have an obligation to ensure you meet your obligations, including deadlines, while anticipating common obstacles, such as reasonable delays in postal service, and other services you utilize to send payments.
There's no such thing as a "reasonable" multi-day delay in a modern banking system. That's the whole point. Banks aren't mailing cheques or shipping gold bars between themselves to complete transactions, they're flipping bits in a computer.
Indeed, there's little justification for a confirmed transaction not being instantaneous, in this day and age, at least within the same country.
The way the banking system is here in AU. it would be bad financial management to have 18 month worth of cash in the bank if you have a mortgage.
Not when you have it in an offset or redraw account.
Well, legally that is not what has happened. You scheduled a payment to be made, and until the payment is actually made, as scheduled, the obligation is not yet met. You have merely taken an action that can be expected to meet the obligation; if that action fails, it's still your responsibility.
No, it's not. If I instruct my bank to take an action, and they fail to take that action, the fault is theirs and theirs alone.
On the other hand, if you scheduled a "bill payment" on date X from a different bank that you do not owe the money to, and they initiated payment in their system, but it took them a day or two days to transfer funds, and the extra day delay caused you to incur a late fee, then No, the bank is not responsible, delays of that nature are to be expected, you are responsible, not either bank.
No, they're not to be expected in the Australian banking system. If I make an online bill payment on day X (either directly or scheduled) then I expect that payment to have been credited to the target account on day X+1. Anything less is a failure of the bank to deliver the service I'm paying for.
The *only* scenario where I would not expect this to happen is one of an international transfer, since that has to deal with non-Australian banking institutions.
Again, if you're an American you might not be used to this sort of thing, but it's how it's been in Australia for 10+ years now. So long as I schedule my transfer or bill payment before my bank's cutoff time for the day, then if that transaction hasn't arrived at the target institution by open of business the next day, it's the banks' fault (either mine or the payee's), and consequently their responsibility to remedy.
and it's normal not to have any money on your accounts and live from payday to payday?
For some people, yes.
Welcome to the real world.
okay, the banks made an error and should compensate... but do people really find it normal not to save any money and be screwed when the tinyest thing goes wrong?
Some people don't earn enough to "save any money". When 90% of your income goes in basic and essential expenses, being able to save even 10% is a luxury not always afforded should any emergency expenses come up.
If you have a payment due on X date, you wait until day X - 1, and something goes wrong and delays you by one day, this is your fault, not your bank's fault.
No, it's the bank's fault. To whit:
Matters would be different if there was a problem at day X - 7 that lasted for 7 days, or X - 14 that lasted for 14 days.
There is no difference between trying to pay at X-7 and trying to pay at X-1 and either failing, due to a bank problem. The bank is still at fault.
It is not reasonable to expect there will never be any problems with electronic payment systems.
Correct. It is, however, entirely reasonable to expect that the *bank* will handle any problems that result from their inability to process payments.
Rest assured, that if you are unable to pay the bank on time for some random and unexpected reason, that they will be unlikely to show you any leniency. The converse should similarly be true.
In other words, these consumers should get stuck with these late fees, and learn about a valuable lesson in taking reasonable steps to ensure their obligations are met, even if something goes not quite as expected with the payment.
My obligation is met the instant I schedule a transfer or payment with the bank's online system (assuming I have sufficient funds when that transfer comes due). While I can understand Americans who are still stuck in the stoneage of banking not grokking this, the rest of us have higher standards. When I schedule a transfer or bill payment to happen on a particular date, and it doesn't because the bank screwed up, that's not my problem, it's the bank's problem, as are any additional fees, charges, penalties, or whatever "I" might happen to be charged as a result of their screwup.
I hold my bank to the same standards they hold me. No more and no less. I pay them a (relative) fortune in fees every year, and for that I expect good service.
Thats something a LOT of laptop users have wanted for a very long time [...]
And by "a lot" you mean "the handful of people who haven't been buying one of dozens of PC laptops that have had a docking option for the last decade or two", right ?
The last time I didn't have a laptop that couldn't do what you describe, was when a 486SX processor was still cutting edge.
Don't worry. Like USB in the 90s, this technology will eventually become standard on PCs thanks to Apple forcing device manufacturers to support it for the Mac.
USB was already "standard" on PCs when the iMac was released and had been for a year or so.
There's also rumors that they're dropping the optical drive. That makes room for a better CPU, better GPU and bigger batteries. Still need an optical drive? Use an external one connected via USB.
Personally, I was astounded they kept the optical drive when they moved to the "unibody" MBPs. Surely there's no meaningful proportion of users out there who actually need a built-in optical drive ?
We were talking about "left over junk from older OSes". See that part about "older OSes"? For clarity, I'll ask if you see that part about " older OSes".
What classifies as "older" ?
See, to the literate reader this implies that at least some code from older versions of Windows has been re-used and included in newer versions of Windows.
Yeah, I kinda got that. Hence my question to clarify what you mean by "older".
Nope.
Then what are you trying to say ? Because it's hard to interpret "If this bug is as you say, and it exploits "left over junk from older OSes" that only means one thing: there has been more than adequate time for an internal security audit to have found and fixed this bug" any other way than "bugs should not survive multiple releases", when you don't provide any definition for what you consider "older".
Still, if any part of this post is confusing or ambiguous, please re-read it thoroughly and take careful note of what I did and did not say. If anything is still unclear, let me know and I'll set you straight. Now, can we finally put to rest this epidemic of "reading one thing and then responding to some shit you made up" that's destroying the quality of discussion here on Slashdot?
If you don't want people to make inferences, don't make statements that require them to do so.
Not if the user's files do not belong in the virtual session that the malware belongs.
So how does the user launch applications that can access their files ? Or are you proposing they are bombarded with even more "are you sure" dialogs every time some app wants to access a file and/or the network ?
Sorry, I am not gonna do anything like that. Google is your friend.
Your reluctance says far more than Google does.