No, but the "in-app purchasing" framework IS owned by Apple. They wrote it, and provide it on their devices. App developers are just making use of it.
Apple has a license to the tech, and made a implementation of that tech, which they require app developers use. The developers aren't implementing anything. They just plug into an API.
What Lodsys is doing is really like requiring a license for using a hammer, instead of making one. Of course, analogies about software and patents and cars never go over well, or make perfect sense, but.
Even if this patent is valid and legitimate (of which I have serious doubts, but IANAL) -- the whole point of this little TFA is that Apple did buy a license; Apple then implemented the technology in their OS, in their devices. That license covers the implementation of in-app purhcases used by app developers: they are covered.
Lodsys (who was NOT the company nor the "inventor" who first patented the "technology") is trying to extort more money and require licenses from people who do not owe them anything. These people are merely using what Apple is providing. Lodsys claims Apple's license doesn't cover all the app developers who are using Apple-provided and Apple-mandated technology: and Apple's legal department begs to differ.
IIUC, Lodsys didn't actually get any money out of this, and the original "inventor" sold all his patents quite a long time ago -- to Intellectual Ventures (eventually: its possible they changed hands a few times before IV got them)
They're the one who Apple signed a license deal with, and if I'm not mistaken, it was a pretty broad license to quite a lot of patents. These were just a couple included. It wouldn't surprise me if the bundle included a lot of junk to shore up the numbers in the deal -- after all, IV later sold these off to Lodsys, so they can't really have thought they were that valuable.
Lodsys wants to grow up and be an IV-scale patent troll, but alas, they wasted their money.
Apple devices are very densely packed: they're the ones who are pushing for this, so other "phones" don't matter -- its not like they're pushing to mandate everyone use these.
Yeah, the Micro SIM is pretty small: its getting small enough that it might be a pain for some people to handle if it gets smaller. But Apple doesn't care -- and not for absurd paranoid rantings about this being a lock-in attempt (seriously? This would be the lamest and most pointless strategy to go about that) -- but because MOST people don't really care about the hot-swapability of a SIM card-- it won't stop people from buying the phones for the most part. If they could reduce that tiny space by 20%, or even 50%, they could maybe fit in a whole new sensor -- or another chip, or more battery room. Who knows what? But it'd open the possibility for them to grow the features and capability even more... which WILL sell phones.
They want EVERYTHING to get smaller. The iPhone will never get any bigger, and I doubt it'll get much smaller, but the stuff inside will continue to shrink -- except for the battery -- until the laws of physics put a stop to it, and Apple will keep cramming the shell as absolutely full as they can figure out how.
Apple buys chips for their iDevices on a seriously awesome scale, in advance. They have a epic boatload of cash which they drop on suppliers, and get very, very good deals as a result.
Intel has serious fab capacity, and although this may not really fit with their "x86" or "Atom" strategy, maybe they wouldn't mind having some more BILLIONS dumped on them to produce epic tons of chips for Apple?
Currently Samsung does a lot of that: Apple is their single biggest customer, but Samsung in another unit is directly competitng with Apple's biggest cash cows. This creates an interesting and problematic relationship. Although Intel has Atom strategies they want to get out there, and although Intel wants to move their chips into the mobile arena -- they aren't in the same business as Samsung, and aren't in the same business as Apple.
It doesn't *hurt* Intel's strategy to get this side-job and make a boat load of money, because this is a customer that they would never have had any chance at before. Its all billions of dollars gravy for them (if they have the fab capacity, which I wouldn't really doubt they do). And if in some future world they manage to make a super-cool, energy-efficient, fast little moblie processor that can really compete with the ARM cores -- they'll already have a good relationship with Apple to sell it to them.
That said: the site is slashdotted, so I have no idea if its real, and I'm doubtful until I see it from some more reputable sources. But, it isn't illogical to think it may be.
These people are often able to automate what they know to a degree that I couldn't without a lot of Googling and trial and error: and others I've encountered have been just the same on MacOS (7, 8, 9, etc). Its not about "experience" (how are you grading that? time? in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of the system?), its about how some people approach the computer. It doesn't matter what OS they use. None are better then any other. I've had to deal with some of the most god-awful custom little programs with the most horrid user interfaces -- and in the end, there is this significant class of user to whom that's not different then the well-designed, elegant interfaces. Sure, one may take longer then the other to develop the rotes -- but one class of user will use the computer as a computer, and another will use it via a series of rote actions they perform to achieve an end.
Some will always approach it as a specific tool to set towards a specific use: these people have no vested interest or desire (for any number of reasons) in learning to master it or understand it. It is, to them, simply an "application appliance".
Details like "minimize" and "close" are meaningless. The task at hand is there in front of them, or it is not.
The appliance does precisely what they expect, exactly, without any even slight deviation -- including wording, where items are and precisely how they are represented in the interface, and nuances of behavior. They are able to use this tool through pure muscle-memory. Its not because the interface is "bad": its because of how they learned it and use it. Its not even that they're stupid, or even old, or illiterate, or.. anything.
It's just how real people end up using things they don't care about, aren't interested in, and just... use.
The computer (its OS, and the applications) is a means to an end: its metaphors are an attempt to engage and express on a level that a lot of people just don't give a shit about.
And no matter how great you make it, how wonderful the interface, how programmable and automatable (? such a strange claim for you to put forth-- that programmability and automation have something to do with these users not really understanding their system -- I wonder if you've ever been tech support, be it for family, or commercially) it is, how simple it all seems to be. There'll be the people who won't invest. And use it as a series of rote actions.
My day job involves software targeted towards small to medium sized businesses... and let me tell you, the most TINY and seemingly trivial change in appearance (including color), behavior, or operation is noticed, felt, and a source of huge training issues, complaints, and drama, on a day to day basis.
Recent versions of windows are only OK because the hardware the businesses run on generally can't do Aero -- but even then, the Start Menu changes in Windows Vista and such were a huge source of drama. Fortunately, desktop shortcuts are there and haven't changed, so people just don't click on Start anymore.
That "ribbon" UI thing MIcrosoft is doing with its latest batch of Office, though? That's so totally unworkably different that we've had quite a few customers suddenly looking towards OpenOffice/just because/ the differences were less stark... whereas a few years ago, those differences (the/little/ bits) were things they couldn't get the time or resources to deal with.
I'm talking about people who don't understand that there's a difference between minimizing and closing an application: (let alone the difference between a document and an application). And this isn't some obscure, rare group we've run into: and neither is it a new phenomenon.
There's a frankly HUGE chunk of people out there who use a computer as a series of rote actions, with no real understanding of what's going on, and no -attempt- to understand the metaphors or flow of the process or programs. They know the entire operation as a firm, strict and unyielding series of precise steps and the slightest deviation throws them completely out of the loop. (And, half of these people are quite capable of doing their jobs very fast and efficiently this way).
Seriously. This is reality in a LOT of areas and a LOT of businesses and its not going to go away for a decade or three when they all retire and are replaced by a younger generation that grew up more computer-literate. (Its not even KINDA there now, in '11. Not even kinda.)
It says nothing about PayPal demanding "unrestricted access" to a bank account. It further goes on to state that they are _not_ seeking the ability to unilaterally withdraw money from the bank account.
PayPal simply requires that all non-profit accounts be linked to a bank account-- among other things you have to go through too, to confirm your non-profit status. In return for this sort of thing, PayPal charges less on the transaction fees.
Its actually a pretty clearly spelled out policy... non-profit accounts have to be linked to a bank account. That _doesn't_ mean you have to grant PayPal the ability to roam around the bank account and do anything they want to.
And you took that software and were able to update your Droid to the latest release whenever you wanted, right?
If so, congratulations!
If not, that's pretty much the definition of tivoization.
Getting the source code is nice and all.
Being able to USE the source ON any of your devices that run a previous version of it is what defines open and free.
This, "Android is Open" thing is just sorta a lie to consumers. Fortunately, to most consumers they don't understand or care. Unfortunately, the consumers that should know the difference (I'm looking at you all), it seems you don't understand or care either.
Jobs has an unusually keen sense of marketing and solid charisma, but his contribution to Apple's success isn't marketing.
No, he's not a designer-- nor a crack programmer-- nor an engineer. He's a leader, and one with a strong POV and enough knowledge to be able to direct the varied scope of separate things involved with bringing about a modern consumer piece of technology to market. If you think that leadership and direction from management isn't incredibly valuable and decisive in getting a good product out the door, then, well, I'm sorry for you. You've clearly only worked with bad management. That's not terribly unsurprising, since most is awful.
Yeah, Jobs created the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and the like. Its a legitimate claim, as he lead the company during its creation: yes, it took many, many, many other skilled individuals contributing their efforts and knowledge to get there, and they too can rightfully claim to have had a hand in it. But he led it: and its a lot more then aesthetics, "Hey, that looks good" -- read the interviews. He's a very hands on CEO and butts into a whole lot that most CEO's let underlings manage. Maybe that is annoying as all hell, maybe that makes it harder for some things to get done -- but it sure as hell seems to work for Apple.
Sure, we're anti-Microsoft. And a lot of people here are anti-Apple, anti-closed-source, anti-patent-troll, anti-evil. But a lot of people aren't one or more of those anti's, too. There is no overmind.
But, as for this article -- maybe we're "anti-piece-of-shit".
This is/Netgear/ we're talking about here, you know. Apple has plenty of faults, and plenty of problems -- but this guy's throwing stones in his glass house that's full of shit. Come on.
Mac sales-- just macs, not counting iWhatever's and the like-- ended up having record results right in the middle of the crisis, and they have been pretty consistant for years now in out-growing the PC market. I.e., increasing market share.
Sure, its still a minority player. But its a minority player that's making truckloads of money and growing continually and seems to be almost completely unaffected by global economic disaster.
Yeah, I noticed Amazon doing that. It led to me sending a few very angry mails and eventually canceling my Prime subscription and only using Amazon as a last resort.
I used to get on average 2-3 packages a week from Amazon, all by UPS, every one arrived on time and only once was there any sort of damage at all. Then Amazon decides to switch out to some other carrier and suddenly my packages inevitably get flat out *dropped* on the ground outside my door and at most a vague sort of knock to alert me of its presence. The thump of the package hitting the ground was louder.
The main problem being not the drop, but that leaving packages on the doorstep of an *apartment building* is ridiculously stupid... especially without even the slightest attempt to knock on the door.
There's lots of horror stories about UPS on this story, but honestly I've had hundreds of packages delivered by them and almost no issues: but Amazon switching to these obscure little carriers for shipping lost them one customer here.
Err, maybe because the C in OPEC stands for... Countries.
You can't exactly regulate the behavior of *nations* in quite the same way as you can companies, even when those nations are acting as businesses in an industry.
Since they have like, sovereignty, and all. That, and a few of them wouldn't even recognize our legal authority to ask them to to wash their hands after taking a dump.
You're misinterpreting an admittedly poorly worded statement. He's talking about crashes that happen on Macs, not the entire OS crashing. The latter is caused by hardware more then anything else, but is exceedingly rare. The former is caused by Flash a lot -- Apple collects statistics for any program crash if people choose to click the Send to Apple button after. Lots of people do. The stats include a backtrace and all kinds of information. Of those reported, its a huge percentage which are caused by Flash. I heard something like about half, but I can't be sure of that.
Yes, his little open letter was not worded very well nor precise, but its speaking to The Average Joe, and maybe someone did a bad job on making sure it kept itself as accurate as it should be at the same time. Its referring to crashes on the mac, not crashes/of/ the mac-- the former stat with regard to Flash being the cause of a most of them has been reported various times for the last few years, this is just a reiteration of it.
Hrm. I was pretty firmly on the side of Mark and the WordPress people until this argument, now I'm not so sure.
Isn't this really a re-telling of the same arguments that have been going on forever about the linux kernel and binary blogs/proprietary modules? I thought the general understanding of that debate (with some fringe people on either side never agreeing), was that -distributing- linux -with- the proprietary modules would be a GPL violation. But someone adding it onto their own box is free and clear (as GPL only wakes up and starts asserting rules in at the point of distribution).
Given that as a totally non-legal precedent (i.e., the distinction isn't court tested), isn't Thesis in the clear? They're not distributing Wordpress, just something end-users can use to plug into Wordpress.
I dunno, IANAL, and also a big fan of the expat and similar 'meh, its still mine, but you can do whatever, just don't sue me if you die as a result' licenses, however they end up being worded.
The thing is, the previous formula *was* stupid / wrong. Its not really redefining reality: its that really, the previous definition was completely out of wack.
"5 bars" was actually a *very* broad range of signal strength. The difference between the lower end of 5 and the max was more then all the other bars combined... yet the difference between 4 bars and 3 was actually quite small, and between 3 and 2 even smaller. Etc.
So this created a situation where someone could be on the low end of 5 and think, hey! My signal is great. Then you hold it just so, drop 20 some odd points (in whatever the metric is, I forget), and suddenly most of your bars get sliced off at once. But, if you're even in a place where you're at the high or even middle end of 5, you hold it just so-- and you're still 5 bars.
Now, there is a legitimate question as to why the definition of '5' was so absurdly broad before: probably marketing. The iPhone has great reception! Look, 5 bars! The reality though is that it didn't at all convey to users who good their *actual* reception is.
The iPhone 4's antenna isn't perfect-- but you can get similar results(just less dramatic appearing) in nearly all phones, the place where your water filled conductive hand interferes just varies-- but it does provide significantly better reception then the previous generation, including being able to operate quite well at just one bar. But yes, if you're at a place with one bar and you hold it just so, it can drop you below the threshold of being able to maintain a signal. But a big part of this problem really is just image. People are under the impression they're in an area with great signal, but that just holding the phone drops you from great to nothing. In reality, their reception is only middling at best and the difference between the low level bars is hair-thin.
Yes, the guest network can be locked out of the secure private network-- And it works fine behind a router. It just does it's own NAT for it's clients.
That said: the guest network can be given a password too-- it's not an open/insecure access point. Its just a secondary ssid that it listens to in addition to your other two secure ones (the 5 and 2.4mhz bands), and while the latter two can talk to each other as a single locals network the guest only gets to talk to the Internet.
Its really a very different question if you're talking about a company, a school (for minors? or adults? public? private?), or the government.
For a company-- absolutely they have the right. They own the connection and the computer. They have every right to set any policy they see fit in this regard. Your rights are to choose to accept the terms of your employment (which include, 'follow policy'), or not.
For a school of minors-- this is irritating to me, as I feel we treat our youth far too much like idiots and do not encourage their actual questioning and independent growth, BUT-- a school acts in loco parentis. They have a responsibility to monitor the children in their care. We take that to stupid lengths, but that's another topic.
A private school for adults-- absolutely they have the right. Largely the same argument as company above, save you probably own your own computer, and are just using their network by whatever terms you've agreed to.
A publicly funded school for adults-- this is where I start questioning. The university may in a way 'own' the network, and the machine, but the public ultimately does. Just like in a library, an adult should be able to do anything not-illegal that they want.
The government-- in its capacity as a government, absolutely not without court order. In its capacity as employeer (especially employeer of someone who may have access to sensitive data), absolutely.
It would mean that once you have a customer, you're now obligated basically forever to handle all the traffic that comes to their address -- and after a certain number of customers, that can become quite a bit -- for free. Suddenly its not just your paid customers who are eating up your bandwidth, but *past* customers too?
Now sure, AOL has plenty of bandwidth. But still, that's not the point. The design of the email system isn't like phone numbers-- there's not a centralized and organized series of exchanges which route where numbers need to go and arrange for them to arrive at their proper destination... there's just "aol.com". AOL/has/ to receive and process that mail. And now you think they should forward that off forever?
Sure, it'd be *nice* of them, as a service.
Obligating someone to serve a former-customer forever is sort of silly though, even if they are dicks to said former-customer. The remedy to being the customer of a dick, is to stop being their customer.
If the potential cost of someone not finding you at your new email address is worth more then dealing with a dick-- you're free to make that choice.
Re:Oh good! The trolls are out in full force!
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iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The way you fanboys defend
The way you dismiss those who defend as "fanboys" is childish.
There is more then one point of view; there are reasoned arguments to be made on more then one side, and there are more then one objective criteria that matters can be judged on, and more then one principle that can be important to people.
Its tired. No one can be even vaguely positive towards anything Apple does without being dismissed as a "fanboy" -- even if you criticize something Apple does a breath after you praise another thing they've done. Hell, you can be only moderately-pro-Apple and then luxuriate praise on something Android does and yet if you point out even one flaw or weakness -- even if its purely objective -- and your entire point of view is immediately dismissed as a "fanboy". The *automatic* vitriol that a lot of Android supporters (Fandroids?:P) spew at anything even vaguely pro-Apple is absurd.
Grow up and drop the ad-hominem nonsense: if you need it to win an argument, you are just utter fail. Recognize there are *actual reasons* people *actually like* Apple products. Recognize there are *actual reasons* why people *actually do not like* Apple products.
Recognize that these reasons may be *different* for *different people*, and that it doesn't make anyone stupid, brainwashed, or some mindless cult without any sort of reason.
I'm confused. Why do you think there is some strange new thing going on here which needs precedent?
The Berne Convention(and newer treaties, including the WIPO) requires that signatories recognize the copyright of those in other nationalities as they recognize the copyright of their own citizens. The treaties (as amended through the years) basically mean that we grant copyright-holders in other countries the same rights and privileges as our own; we treat foreign copyright-holders the same as our own.
This is a good thing.
Yes, there are some problems with copyright law. There are some nutty points, especially related to some fair use concerns. The DCMA has some issues. But its based on copyright, and copyright is a good thing-- Copyright is what gives the GPL its power.
But all that aside, why all this shock and thinking this is weird or new? We're a Berne Convention signatory, we have agreed to a sort of normalization internationally in relation to our treatment of copyright. This isn't some strange or new thing. The US finally agreed to the treaty in 198[8|9]. Its been awhile since then.
One is an effete over-sexed pretty thing with wispy powers living among us banal people, the other is a banal list of every minute change made to a piece of logic.
No real difference.
(And no, I never did play Changeling: the Dreaming. Honest. And yes, I know not all Changelings are pretty. But come on. Everyone did Sidhe-sexing. Be real.)
Aren't we being a little bit too squealy and melodramatic about the whole thing?
The vendor did not push some software to your system that does some strange and darkly sinister purpose.
As part of a regular "service pack", they fixed bugs and issues throughout the system and its included apps and highlighted many of these changes. They also fixed many bugs which are security issues-- those which had CVE-ID's, they made sure to document officially.
But do you really think they need to publish a changeling with every single little change in the system? This update was *configuration*. It was a change to a text file marking a certain signature to watch out for. Microsoft doesn't do that. Adobe doesn't. No one does. And why should they? If you want to see a commit log of every single change possible -- don't use Mac. Or anything which is not entirely open source.
If that's what you need, great. Go for it.
For the rest of the people out there, what they need to know they were very clearly told in the notes. Various bugs were fixed, various public security concerns that CVE noted were fixed.
There's no deception; there's no lie, unless you have totally bizarre expectations for commercial software updates. You get the highlights. You get notices of fixes to reported issues. Otherwise, flaws and refinements quite likely are being fixed without any specific note unless they are things that seem important.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but the "in-app purchasing" framework IS owned by Apple. They wrote it, and provide it on their devices. App developers are just making use of it.
Apple has a license to the tech, and made a implementation of that tech, which they require app developers use. The developers aren't implementing anything. They just plug into an API.
What Lodsys is doing is really like requiring a license for using a hammer, instead of making one. Of course, analogies about software and patents and cars never go over well, or make perfect sense, but.
Umm, hello?
Even if this patent is valid and legitimate (of which I have serious doubts, but IANAL) -- the whole point of this little TFA is that Apple did buy a license; Apple then implemented the technology in their OS, in their devices. That license covers the implementation of in-app purhcases used by app developers: they are covered.
Lodsys (who was NOT the company nor the "inventor" who first patented the "technology") is trying to extort more money and require licenses from people who do not owe them anything. These people are merely using what Apple is providing. Lodsys claims Apple's license doesn't cover all the app developers who are using Apple-provided and Apple-mandated technology: and Apple's legal department begs to differ.
I know which one I'd bet on.
IIUC, Lodsys didn't actually get any money out of this, and the original "inventor" sold all his patents quite a long time ago -- to Intellectual Ventures (eventually: its possible they changed hands a few times before IV got them)
They're the one who Apple signed a license deal with, and if I'm not mistaken, it was a pretty broad license to quite a lot of patents. These were just a couple included. It wouldn't surprise me if the bundle included a lot of junk to shore up the numbers in the deal -- after all, IV later sold these off to Lodsys, so they can't really have thought they were that valuable.
Lodsys wants to grow up and be an IV-scale patent troll, but alas, they wasted their money.
Look what we've done now, our polluting ways have gone and broken Saturn too. :(
Uhh, not really, no. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4-Teardown/3130/1
Apple devices are very densely packed: they're the ones who are pushing for this, so other "phones" don't matter -- its not like they're pushing to mandate everyone use these.
Yeah, the Micro SIM is pretty small: its getting small enough that it might be a pain for some people to handle if it gets smaller. But Apple doesn't care -- and not for absurd paranoid rantings about this being a lock-in attempt (seriously? This would be the lamest and most pointless strategy to go about that) -- but because MOST people don't really care about the hot-swapability of a SIM card-- it won't stop people from buying the phones for the most part. If they could reduce that tiny space by 20%, or even 50%, they could maybe fit in a whole new sensor -- or another chip, or more battery room. Who knows what? But it'd open the possibility for them to grow the features and capability even more... which WILL sell phones.
They want EVERYTHING to get smaller. The iPhone will never get any bigger, and I doubt it'll get much smaller, but the stuff inside will continue to shrink -- except for the battery -- until the laws of physics put a stop to it, and Apple will keep cramming the shell as absolutely full as they can figure out how.
Every little bit counts.
Hint: Intel != x86
Apple buys chips for their iDevices on a seriously awesome scale, in advance. They have a epic boatload of cash which they drop on suppliers, and get very, very good deals as a result.
Intel has serious fab capacity, and although this may not really fit with their "x86" or "Atom" strategy, maybe they wouldn't mind having some more BILLIONS dumped on them to produce epic tons of chips for Apple?
Currently Samsung does a lot of that: Apple is their single biggest customer, but Samsung in another unit is directly competitng with Apple's biggest cash cows. This creates an interesting and problematic relationship. Although Intel has Atom strategies they want to get out there, and although Intel wants to move their chips into the mobile arena -- they aren't in the same business as Samsung, and aren't in the same business as Apple.
It doesn't *hurt* Intel's strategy to get this side-job and make a boat load of money, because this is a customer that they would never have had any chance at before. Its all billions of dollars gravy for them (if they have the fab capacity, which I wouldn't really doubt they do). And if in some future world they manage to make a super-cool, energy-efficient, fast little moblie processor that can really compete with the ARM cores -- they'll already have a good relationship with Apple to sell it to them.
That said: the site is slashdotted, so I have no idea if its real, and I'm doubtful until I see it from some more reputable sources. But, it isn't illogical to think it may be.
It'd be win-win for Intel.
I make no such assumption.
These people are often able to automate what they know to a degree that I couldn't without a lot of Googling and trial and error: and others I've encountered have been just the same on MacOS (7, 8, 9, etc). Its not about "experience" (how are you grading that? time? in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of the system?), its about how some people approach the computer. It doesn't matter what OS they use. None are better then any other. I've had to deal with some of the most god-awful custom little programs with the most horrid user interfaces -- and in the end, there is this significant class of user to whom that's not different then the well-designed, elegant interfaces. Sure, one may take longer then the other to develop the rotes -- but one class of user will use the computer as a computer, and another will use it via a series of rote actions they perform to achieve an end.
Some will always approach it as a specific tool to set towards a specific use: these people have no vested interest or desire (for any number of reasons) in learning to master it or understand it. It is, to them, simply an "application appliance".
Details like "minimize" and "close" are meaningless. The task at hand is there in front of them, or it is not.
The appliance does precisely what they expect, exactly, without any even slight deviation -- including wording, where items are and precisely how they are represented in the interface, and nuances of behavior. They are able to use this tool through pure muscle-memory. Its not because the interface is "bad": its because of how they learned it and use it. Its not even that they're stupid, or even old, or illiterate, or.. anything.
It's just how real people end up using things they don't care about, aren't interested in, and just... use.
The computer (its OS, and the applications) is a means to an end: its metaphors are an attempt to engage and express on a level that a lot of people just don't give a shit about.
And no matter how great you make it, how wonderful the interface, how programmable and automatable (? such a strange claim for you to put forth-- that programmability and automation have something to do with these users not really understanding their system -- I wonder if you've ever been tech support, be it for family, or commercially) it is, how simple it all seems to be. There'll be the people who won't invest. And use it as a series of rote actions.
My day job involves software targeted towards small to medium sized businesses... and let me tell you, the most TINY and seemingly trivial change in appearance (including color), behavior, or operation is noticed, felt, and a source of huge training issues, complaints, and drama, on a day to day basis.
Recent versions of windows are only OK because the hardware the businesses run on generally can't do Aero -- but even then, the Start Menu changes in Windows Vista and such were a huge source of drama. Fortunately, desktop shortcuts are there and haven't changed, so people just don't click on Start anymore.
That "ribbon" UI thing MIcrosoft is doing with its latest batch of Office, though? That's so totally unworkably different that we've had quite a few customers suddenly looking towards OpenOffice /just because/ the differences were less stark... whereas a few years ago, those differences (the /little/ bits) were things they couldn't get the time or resources to deal with.
I'm talking about people who don't understand that there's a difference between minimizing and closing an application: (let alone the difference between a document and an application). And this isn't some obscure, rare group we've run into: and neither is it a new phenomenon.
There's a frankly HUGE chunk of people out there who use a computer as a series of rote actions, with no real understanding of what's going on, and no -attempt- to understand the metaphors or flow of the process or programs. They know the entire operation as a firm, strict and unyielding series of precise steps and the slightest deviation throws them completely out of the loop. (And, half of these people are quite capable of doing their jobs very fast and efficiently this way).
Seriously. This is reality in a LOT of areas and a LOT of businesses and its not going to go away for a decade or three when they all retire and are replaced by a younger generation that grew up more computer-literate. (Its not even KINDA there now, in '11. Not even kinda.)
Did... you read the article you said you read?
It says nothing about PayPal demanding "unrestricted access" to a bank account. It further goes on to state that they are _not_ seeking the ability to unilaterally withdraw money from the bank account.
PayPal simply requires that all non-profit accounts be linked to a bank account-- among other things you have to go through too, to confirm your non-profit status. In return for this sort of thing, PayPal charges less on the transaction fees.
Its actually a pretty clearly spelled out policy... non-profit accounts have to be linked to a bank account. That _doesn't_ mean you have to grant PayPal the ability to roam around the bank account and do anything they want to.
And you took that software and were able to update your Droid to the latest release whenever you wanted, right?
If so, congratulations!
If not, that's pretty much the definition of tivoization.
Getting the source code is nice and all.
Being able to USE the source ON any of your devices that run a previous version of it is what defines open and free.
This, "Android is Open" thing is just sorta a lie to consumers. Fortunately, to most consumers they don't understand or care. Unfortunately, the consumers that should know the difference (I'm looking at you all), it seems you don't understand or care either.
Jobs has an unusually keen sense of marketing and solid charisma, but his contribution to Apple's success isn't marketing.
No, he's not a designer-- nor a crack programmer-- nor an engineer. He's a leader, and one with a strong POV and enough knowledge to be able to direct the varied scope of separate things involved with bringing about a modern consumer piece of technology to market. If you think that leadership and direction from management isn't incredibly valuable and decisive in getting a good product out the door, then, well, I'm sorry for you. You've clearly only worked with bad management. That's not terribly unsurprising, since most is awful.
Yeah, Jobs created the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and the like. Its a legitimate claim, as he lead the company during its creation: yes, it took many, many, many other skilled individuals contributing their efforts and knowledge to get there, and they too can rightfully claim to have had a hand in it. But he led it: and its a lot more then aesthetics, "Hey, that looks good" -- read the interviews. He's a very hands on CEO and butts into a whole lot that most CEO's let underlings manage. Maybe that is annoying as all hell, maybe that makes it harder for some things to get done -- but it sure as hell seems to work for Apple.
Sure, we're anti-Microsoft. And a lot of people here are anti-Apple, anti-closed-source, anti-patent-troll, anti-evil. But a lot of people aren't one or more of those anti's, too. There is no overmind.
But, as for this article -- maybe we're "anti-piece-of-shit".
This is /Netgear/ we're talking about here, you know. Apple has plenty of faults, and plenty of problems -- but this guy's throwing stones in his glass house that's full of shit. Come on.
Seriously, you're making this argument?
Mac sales-- just macs, not counting iWhatever's and the like-- ended up having record results right in the middle of the crisis, and they have been pretty consistant for years now in out-growing the PC market. I.e., increasing market share.
Sure, its still a minority player. But its a minority player that's making truckloads of money and growing continually and seems to be almost completely unaffected by global economic disaster.
Yeah, I noticed Amazon doing that. It led to me sending a few very angry mails and eventually canceling my Prime subscription and only using Amazon as a last resort.
I used to get on average 2-3 packages a week from Amazon, all by UPS, every one arrived on time and only once was there any sort of damage at all. Then Amazon decides to switch out to some other carrier and suddenly my packages inevitably get flat out *dropped* on the ground outside my door and at most a vague sort of knock to alert me of its presence. The thump of the package hitting the ground was louder.
The main problem being not the drop, but that leaving packages on the doorstep of an *apartment building* is ridiculously stupid... especially without even the slightest attempt to knock on the door.
There's lots of horror stories about UPS on this story, but honestly I've had hundreds of packages delivered by them and almost no issues: but Amazon switching to these obscure little carriers for shipping lost them one customer here.
Err, maybe because the C in OPEC stands for ... Countries.
You can't exactly regulate the behavior of *nations* in quite the same way as you can companies, even when those nations are acting as businesses in an industry.
Since they have like, sovereignty, and all. That, and a few of them wouldn't even recognize our legal authority to ask them to to wash their hands after taking a dump.
You're misinterpreting an admittedly poorly worded statement. He's talking about crashes that happen on Macs, not the entire OS crashing. The latter is caused by hardware more then anything else, but is exceedingly rare. The former is caused by Flash a lot -- Apple collects statistics for any program crash if people choose to click the Send to Apple button after. Lots of people do. The stats include a backtrace and all kinds of information. Of those reported, its a huge percentage which are caused by Flash. I heard something like about half, but I can't be sure of that.
Yes, his little open letter was not worded very well nor precise, but its speaking to The Average Joe, and maybe someone did a bad job on making sure it kept itself as accurate as it should be at the same time. Its referring to crashes on the mac, not crashes /of/ the mac-- the former stat with regard to Flash being the cause of a most of them has been reported various times for the last few years, this is just a reiteration of it.
Hrm. I was pretty firmly on the side of Mark and the WordPress people until this argument, now I'm not so sure.
Isn't this really a re-telling of the same arguments that have been going on forever about the linux kernel and binary blogs/proprietary modules? I thought the general understanding of that debate (with some fringe people on either side never agreeing), was that -distributing- linux -with- the proprietary modules would be a GPL violation. But someone adding it onto their own box is free and clear (as GPL only wakes up and starts asserting rules in at the point of distribution).
Given that as a totally non-legal precedent (i.e., the distinction isn't court tested), isn't Thesis in the clear? They're not distributing Wordpress, just something end-users can use to plug into Wordpress.
I dunno, IANAL, and also a big fan of the expat and similar 'meh, its still mine, but you can do whatever, just don't sue me if you die as a result' licenses, however they end up being worded.
The thing is, the previous formula *was* stupid / wrong. Its not really redefining reality: its that really, the previous definition was completely out of wack.
"5 bars" was actually a *very* broad range of signal strength. The difference between the lower end of 5 and the max was more then all the other bars combined... yet the difference between 4 bars and 3 was actually quite small, and between 3 and 2 even smaller. Etc.
So this created a situation where someone could be on the low end of 5 and think, hey! My signal is great. Then you hold it just so, drop 20 some odd points (in whatever the metric is, I forget), and suddenly most of your bars get sliced off at once. But, if you're even in a place where you're at the high or even middle end of 5, you hold it just so-- and you're still 5 bars.
Now, there is a legitimate question as to why the definition of '5' was so absurdly broad before: probably marketing. The iPhone has great reception! Look, 5 bars! The reality though is that it didn't at all convey to users who good their *actual* reception is.
The iPhone 4's antenna isn't perfect-- but you can get similar results(just less dramatic appearing) in nearly all phones, the place where your water filled conductive hand interferes just varies-- but it does provide significantly better reception then the previous generation, including being able to operate quite well at just one bar. But yes, if you're at a place with one bar and you hold it just so, it can drop you below the threshold of being able to maintain a signal. But a big part of this problem really is just image. People are under the impression they're in an area with great signal, but that just holding the phone drops you from great to nothing. In reality, their reception is only middling at best and the difference between the low level bars is hair-thin.
Yes, the guest network can be locked out of the secure private network-- And it works fine behind a router. It just does it's own NAT for it's clients.
That said: the guest network can be given a password too-- it's not an open/insecure access point. Its just a secondary ssid that it listens to in addition to your other two secure ones (the 5 and 2.4mhz bands), and while the latter two can talk to each other as a single locals network the guest only gets to talk to the Internet.
I'm of somewhat mixed opinions on this subject.
Its really a very different question if you're talking about a company, a school (for minors? or adults? public? private?), or the government.
For a company-- absolutely they have the right. They own the connection and the computer. They have every right to set any policy they see fit in this regard. Your rights are to choose to accept the terms of your employment (which include, 'follow policy'), or not.
For a school of minors-- this is irritating to me, as I feel we treat our youth far too much like idiots and do not encourage their actual questioning and independent growth, BUT-- a school acts in loco parentis. They have a responsibility to monitor the children in their care. We take that to stupid lengths, but that's another topic.
A private school for adults-- absolutely they have the right. Largely the same argument as company above, save you probably own your own computer, and are just using their network by whatever terms you've agreed to.
A publicly funded school for adults-- this is where I start questioning. The university may in a way 'own' the network, and the machine, but the public ultimately does. Just like in a library, an adult should be able to do anything not-illegal that they want.
The government-- in its capacity as a government, absolutely not without court order. In its capacity as employeer (especially employeer of someone who may have access to sensitive data), absolutely.
But that's a completely absurd thing to expect.
It would mean that once you have a customer, you're now obligated basically forever to handle all the traffic that comes to their address -- and after a certain number of customers, that can become quite a bit -- for free. Suddenly its not just your paid customers who are eating up your bandwidth, but *past* customers too?
Now sure, AOL has plenty of bandwidth. But still, that's not the point. The design of the email system isn't like phone numbers-- there's not a centralized and organized series of exchanges which route where numbers need to go and arrange for them to arrive at their proper destination... there's just "aol.com". AOL /has/ to receive and process that mail. And now you think they should forward that off forever?
Sure, it'd be *nice* of them, as a service.
Obligating someone to serve a former-customer forever is sort of silly though, even if they are dicks to said former-customer. The remedy to being the customer of a dick, is to stop being their customer.
If the potential cost of someone not finding you at your new email address is worth more then dealing with a dick-- you're free to make that choice.
The way you fanboys defend
The way you dismiss those who defend as "fanboys" is childish.
There is more then one point of view; there are reasoned arguments to be made on more then one side, and there are more then one objective criteria that matters can be judged on, and more then one principle that can be important to people.
Its tired. No one can be even vaguely positive towards anything Apple does without being dismissed as a "fanboy" -- even if you criticize something Apple does a breath after you praise another thing they've done. Hell, you can be only moderately-pro-Apple and then luxuriate praise on something Android does and yet if you point out even one flaw or weakness -- even if its purely objective -- and your entire point of view is immediately dismissed as a "fanboy". The *automatic* vitriol that a lot of Android supporters (Fandroids? :P) spew at anything even vaguely pro-Apple is absurd.
Grow up and drop the ad-hominem nonsense: if you need it to win an argument, you are just utter fail. Recognize there are *actual reasons* people *actually like* Apple products. Recognize there are *actual reasons* why people *actually do not like* Apple products.
Recognize that these reasons may be *different* for *different people*, and that it doesn't make anyone stupid, brainwashed, or some mindless cult without any sort of reason.
I'm confused. Why do you think there is some strange new thing going on here which needs precedent?
The Berne Convention(and newer treaties, including the WIPO) requires that signatories recognize the copyright of those in other nationalities as they recognize the copyright of their own citizens. The treaties (as amended through the years) basically mean that we grant copyright-holders in other countries the same rights and privileges as our own; we treat foreign copyright-holders the same as our own.
This is a good thing.
Yes, there are some problems with copyright law. There are some nutty points, especially related to some fair use concerns. The DCMA has some issues. But its based on copyright, and copyright is a good thing-- Copyright is what gives the GPL its power.
But all that aside, why all this shock and thinking this is weird or new? We're a Berne Convention signatory, we have agreed to a sort of normalization internationally in relation to our treatment of copyright. This isn't some strange or new thing. The US finally agreed to the treaty in 198[8|9]. Its been awhile since then.
Changeling. Changelog. What's the difference?
One is an effete over-sexed pretty thing with wispy powers living among us banal people, the other is a banal list of every minute change made to a piece of logic.
No real difference.
(And no, I never did play Changeling: the Dreaming. Honest. And yes, I know not all Changelings are pretty. But come on. Everyone did Sidhe-sexing. Be real.)
Aren't we being a little bit too squealy and melodramatic about the whole thing?
The vendor did not push some software to your system that does some strange and darkly sinister purpose.
As part of a regular "service pack", they fixed bugs and issues throughout the system and its included apps and highlighted many of these changes. They also fixed many bugs which are security issues-- those which had CVE-ID's, they made sure to document officially.
But do you really think they need to publish a changeling with every single little change in the system? This update was *configuration*. It was a change to a text file marking a certain signature to watch out for. Microsoft doesn't do that. Adobe doesn't. No one does. And why should they? If you want to see a commit log of every single change possible -- don't use Mac. Or anything which is not entirely open source.
If that's what you need, great. Go for it.
For the rest of the people out there, what they need to know they were very clearly told in the notes. Various bugs were fixed, various public security concerns that CVE noted were fixed.
There's no deception; there's no lie, unless you have totally bizarre expectations for commercial software updates. You get the highlights. You get notices of fixes to reported issues. Otherwise, flaws and refinements quite likely are being fixed without any specific note unless they are things that seem important.
If you don't like that... don't buy software.