Even the FSF doesn't go that far. It's a marketing gimmick to help Troll Tech establish their platform on phones--a platform that deliberately excludes major other open source toolkits.
And why is this a bad thing? Do you prefer apple to be the only company in control of a mobile smartphone platform? You sound like it's a bad thing for a company to have a successful product. Your hidden assumption is that it's bad to seek profit.
Products are brought to us by companies. Do you prefer a company that locks down their software and prevents modifications, or one that releases it's software under GPL?
Think about it for a second. Let's say that Troll Tech is lucky and picks up some amazing programmers, perhaps some that have a little vision and imagine the whole thing and make it a seamless experience, they even hang out with artist types. Let's say they also do phenomenally well with their phone. Do you think other hardware manufacturers wouldn't jump on it? Forks and different Linux versions would quickly emerge, you'd have the Linux "ready for the desktop, really trully this time" but on commodity phones instead of computers. How is this bad?
You're wrong. What they are modifying is the firmware. The firmware is software, but it's low level enough that hosing it completely requires a hardware fix. If a current Intel mac portable fails a firmware update, you can try using a Firmware Restore CD. If that fails, you need to replace the main board.
On top of that, notice that most of these "unlock" hacks are restore resistant; what does that tell you about the ability of iTunes to restore a firmware (I believe modem firmware) back to factory state. For all we know you can't.
If you do a software hack (like add applications using Installer), they just go away with a restore, no problems at all.
If apple sold the device by itself, it wouldn't have sold very well for two reasons:
1. At the current AT&T prices, you would've paid over $100 a month for what you get now (unlimited data, rollover minutes, messaging, etc.). the iPhone plans are _way_ better than their regular AT&T plans (unless you have some kind of business account, family plan or really old plan). Figure out the prices for unlimited data, messaging, etc. with other carriers and you'll see it's not cheap.
2. How many people would actually go through the hassle of going to AT&T and paying for a full account, setting it up themselves, etc.? About the same number of people that secure their windows boxes, run linux, etc. One of the _big_ selling features is how easy it is to set up. You buy the phone, you go home, click a few buttons, done. Including transferring your old number.
I felt like you did: "I just want a phone, just to make calls, that's it". And so I had a very basic phone for a long time. I hate to sound like a fanboy, but I actually got an iPhone as a present and to be honest: once you can check your email, and browse the web whenever and wherever you want, it's hard to go back.
So the parent believes that because "[since the] battery in it is not replaceable it is clear the the iPhone is designed as a toy". And that was modded +5 insightful? What is wrong with moderators today?
yes yes, i must be new here...
t's a gentle, flimsy and feminine fashion apparel.
Check out PC World, they dropped it, tried to scratch it with a key, etc. Good troll though.
More than one "hate his guts".
I would be interested to know why exactly.
l'll tell you why. I grew up in Venezuela, I'm now in the US, working after getting a degree; hoping for better times. Before you say "oh, you're the elite" I'll have you know that I was part of the _tiny_ middle class in Venezuela (both working parents). I was lucky enough to come to the US because I have some relatives here. If you add up our income we would be considered poor in the US.
Chavez has convinced people that the reason they are poor, is because of the ruling upper class. However, up to 90% of the countries income is fueled by the oil industry. So what that means, is that private business accounts for at most 10-20% of the income of the country. So the truth of the matter is that the reason everyone's poor in Venezuela, is that the income from the oil industry was _wasted_ and never used to create industry and infrastructure.
It has never been argued that there wasn't rampant corruption in the US, and that those in power filled their coffers while the poor continued to get poorer. But equating these incumbents with "the rich" or "the ruling elite" is wrong. Most of everyone I know that had money, had it because they had businesses, factories, etc. Not because their family had anything to do with the government. In fact, it has always been looked down on to have anything to do with the government; as you were most likely corrupt.
Chavez has rewritten history and equated these two groups: the people that got money from their hard work (including a lot of portuguese, spanish and italian immigrants) and actually brought some money into the country; with those that have actively been in the government and wasted and misused money; or have just given it away to the poor.
Chavez is not completely bad, but if you actually see his achievements from the "ground level" you'll see that there's more rhetoric than action. However I must admit that he's probably done more for the poor than any other president: Free Clinics, Free Schools,,etc. However, doing just that will never help the poor prosper, nor will it bring more money into a very poor country. Do the poor live any better than they ever have before? Do they have any more jobs, income, etc? If you look at the numbers, they claim that unemployment is way down as of 2005, lower than it has ever been, yet somehow over 50% of these workers work in the informal sector. How Convenient.
The Claims that the broadcast channel aided the coup are completely ridiculous. But that's for another post. There's just so much to write, so much happened while I was there. There were so many protests. The biggest one happened because he put some decrees in the books that are ridiculous: Do you know they can take your land if you're not actively using it? Do you know that decree 1011 has inspectors, that if they believe a teacher isn't teaching "bolivarian principles" they can get fired? There are so many examples, it's truly scary. Here in the US you get a little scared because of domestic wiretapping, what he's done is so much worse.
If you create a new file on the CLI, it still won't show up right away in Finder. You frequently have to 'prod' Finder into showing it, by closing and re-opening the window, or creating a new folder and then deleting it.
Not true, at least if you're running Tiger (10.4.9 PPC Mac). Here's what I just did:
Opened my user folder in the Finder.
In Terminal.app typed: "touch file": immediately it shows up in the window behind it (the Finder window that is now in the background).
Typed "rm file": it also immediately disappears in the window behind it.
This is probably because of the spotlight notification API, the same thing that allows Smart Folders.
The idea of evil capitalists supressing technology is a hollywood fantasy. If I invented a car that runs on water today, there's not a single thing that Exxon or GM could do to keep me from selling it.
If you're selling, who says they aint buying? I'd give you a boatload of cash, patent the hell out of it, then bury it or develop it in-house as a just-in-case scenario if I ran one of the mentioned companies.
-c
It does not have a corporation oriented sales channel. It does not have corporation oriented support channel either. Its entire model is geared towards end-users (alone or within an educational establishment).
Not true at all. Apple has had an enterprise sales channel for a long time, read this thread for some of the things they do (they offer discounts and such):
If you still have any doubt as to the existence of Apple Enterprise Sales, go to their contact page, scroll down and read "Apple Enterprise Sales (877) 412-7753"
You put in 2 quarters (50 cents) and a penny. You crank the machine and it squishes your penny into one of those souvenir type coins. How are these not outlawed? I've always wondered about these machines, as my native country destroying currency is illegal, thought that it wasn't so in the US when I saw one of these.
Apple is currently investigating that issue. Don't take it into the store just yet, they can't offer a solution. Once apple engineering figures it out then we'll see what the fix is.
As to the heat, yes it's a hot machine, nothing can be done about that. They chose to make the machine quiet (the fan hardly ever spins on) but hot.
As to the wine, if it's excessive they can have things replaced; but there will always be a small whine. It's mainly because of the higher voltages (the macbook pro uses an 80 watt power adapter, by comparison all previous powerbooks, even the 17" high rez, used a 65 watt adapter).
It would probably also be a great idea to have a local softwareupdate server, this way you don't have to download all updates every time, but instead only download them once to a local repository; additionally you could test things first before distribution. Read more info here. Although it seems that a local server will only work for 10.4.
I'm a big Mac fan -- *love* my iMac. But I'm not sure about Leopard. That is, Time Machine and Spaces looks neat. But not neat enough for me to shell out $150 for an upgrade.
I can't believe I'm reading this on slashdot. For all the people that say that these are minor improvements I think: are you kidding me?
Backing up is the bane of everyone's existence. You're either doing it religiously (daily, weekly, monthly, full and incremental backups) or you're going to lose data. For some of you it's not a big deal, but for me I'd prefer not to.
Time Machine by itself is automatic _INSTANT_ backup of all your files. You can literally overwrite a file with a save, then retrieve the previous version that you had 3 seconds earlier. Seriously... If you don't get the concept of immediate automatic incremental backup, probably tied into the spotlight notification system, you're either brain dead or you just use your computer for web surfing.
Sure, VMS had it back in the day, but the interface was not exactly easy. This, your grandmother can figure out.
This feature, by itself, is worth $150 dollars to me.
Worse, I'd like to potentially run parallels on it, and would like to start with 1GB of ram on one chip, so that I can upgrade to 2GB down the road easily. Nope can't do it. I have to shell out $500 bucks for 2GB RAM. (Which is itself ridiculous for RAM)
Sure you can, but you don't want to. The memory needs to be in pairs, I can't find the knowledgebase article for the macbook, but here's a similar one for the macbook pro.
Personally I got the basic macbook with the superdrive, got the 2GB of RAM aftermarket, put in a seagate 7200 100GB drive. It's awesome.
Have you tried it? I watched desperate housewives on my friend's standard resolution big screen. It looked awesome. I was really surprised. You can even pause it and it looks good. Don't knock it till you try it. It's better than VHS quality.
Firewire was great for bandwidth intensive devices before USB 2.0, but now that USB 2.0 is the norm firewire is just about pointless and I hope it disappears fast and we just have one standard port.
FireWire still has several advantages:
1. In real world use it is faster than USB 2.0, even though the theoretical for USB is higher. The reason for this is that FireWire does not tax the CPU like USB can. In sustained transfer rate usually FW drives will score higher.
2. You can daisy chain it, I already have 2 full 4 port hubs, don't want any more.
3. For video work, FireWire just works. Allows you to capture video from any camera. Cameras that only have USB are a pain in the butt that require special software.
I will keep spending my money on much cheaper hardware which has always been easier/cheaper to upgrade/custum build my own computer myself (I have heard Macs are getting better in this area, but I do not know for sure) and also "just work".
My G5 tower is the easiest machine to upgrade, adding ram, hard drives and changing out the video card was a snap. The video card was more expensive than I could've gotten in the PC world, everything else was the same price. And to tell you the truth, I didn't spend that much upgrading to this new machine, since I sold my previous G4 tower for a nice chunk of change (even though it was a bit over 4 years old). I'm sure I would've spent a lot more on a comparable PC tower, since my old PC would've been worthless.
Also I just don't buy the just works. I use PCs and always have to download firefox, install spybot, adaware and av free. Then after I have it nicely set up, there's always additional work that I simply don't have to do on my mac.
I also don't have the pompousness that a lot of Mac owners (such as you) have which I think is much preferable.
You should see my friends that have 5k alienware machines.
Doh, apple stock is at one of the lowest points right now, if you're smart you'll buy a metric load and come back to school you'll gain about 40-50%.
Re:Microsoft and/or Windows have hit the wall?
on
WinFS Gets the Axe
·
· Score: 1
In retrospect, it's remarkable how smart Apple was to go the route they did with OS X, leveraging open source technology so that they didn't have to develop the whole operating system themselves and could concentrate
Technically it was NeXT that did that. Apple just happened to have been bought by NeXT for a negative amount of money.
Incidentally, if you want apple store+iPod anecdotes, someone I know bought a nano at the apple store because they were told that they would get a $50 rebate when they got home, it was allegedly on the apple website.
I call bullshit on this. The only rebate on the iPods is the back to school sale (going on now). There hasn't been any other rebate on the nano since it came out.
Additionally, when an iPod needs replacement in the Apple Store, we have them on hand and simply give you a new one. The only time you have to wait, is when we don't have the part on hand. In that case we order a new part and you come back _with the nano_ to get a replacement (aka we don't send anything out).
Slashdot Mirror
Products are brought to us by companies. Do you prefer a company that locks down their software and prevents modifications, or one that releases it's software under GPL?
Think about it for a second. Let's say that Troll Tech is lucky and picks up some amazing programmers, perhaps some that have a little vision and imagine the whole thing and make it a seamless experience, they even hang out with artist types. Let's say they also do phenomenally well with their phone. Do you think other hardware manufacturers wouldn't jump on it? Forks and different Linux versions would quickly emerge, you'd have the Linux "ready for the desktop, really trully this time" but on commodity phones instead of computers. How is this bad?
-c
You're wrong. What they are modifying is the firmware. The firmware is software, but it's low level enough that hosing it completely requires a hardware fix. If a current Intel mac portable fails a firmware update, you can try using a Firmware Restore CD. If that fails, you need to replace the main board.
On top of that, notice that most of these "unlock" hacks are restore resistant; what does that tell you about the ability of iTunes to restore a firmware (I believe modem firmware) back to factory state. For all we know you can't.
If you do a software hack (like add applications using Installer), they just go away with a restore, no problems at all.
-c
If apple sold the device by itself, it wouldn't have sold very well for two reasons:
1. At the current AT&T prices, you would've paid over $100 a month for what you get now (unlimited data, rollover minutes, messaging, etc.). the iPhone plans are _way_ better than their regular AT&T plans (unless you have some kind of business account, family plan or really old plan). Figure out the prices for unlimited data, messaging, etc. with other carriers and you'll see it's not cheap.
2. How many people would actually go through the hassle of going to AT&T and paying for a full account, setting it up themselves, etc.? About the same number of people that secure their windows boxes, run linux, etc. One of the _big_ selling features is how easy it is to set up. You buy the phone, you go home, click a few buttons, done. Including transferring your old number.
Yes, you won't be able to sync your new iPod Classic or touch.
-ac
I felt like you did: "I just want a phone, just to make calls, that's it". And so I had a very basic phone for a long time. I hate to sound like a fanboy, but I actually got an iPhone as a present and to be honest: once you can check your email, and browse the web whenever and wherever you want, it's hard to go back.
yes yes, i must be new here... Check out PC World, they dropped it, tried to scratch it with a key, etc. Good troll though.
I kid, I kid.
l'll tell you why. I grew up in Venezuela, I'm now in the US, working after getting a degree; hoping for better times. Before you say "oh, you're the elite" I'll have you know that I was part of the _tiny_ middle class in Venezuela (both working parents). I was lucky enough to come to the US because I have some relatives here. If you add up our income we would be considered poor in the US.
Chavez has convinced people that the reason they are poor, is because of the ruling upper class. However, up to 90% of the countries income is fueled by the oil industry. So what that means, is that private business accounts for at most 10-20% of the income of the country. So the truth of the matter is that the reason everyone's poor in Venezuela, is that the income from the oil industry was _wasted_ and never used to create industry and infrastructure.
It has never been argued that there wasn't rampant corruption in the US, and that those in power filled their coffers while the poor continued to get poorer. But equating these incumbents with "the rich" or "the ruling elite" is wrong. Most of everyone I know that had money, had it because they had businesses, factories, etc. Not because their family had anything to do with the government. In fact, it has always been looked down on to have anything to do with the government; as you were most likely corrupt.
Chavez has rewritten history and equated these two groups: the people that got money from their hard work (including a lot of portuguese, spanish and italian immigrants) and actually brought some money into the country; with those that have actively been in the government and wasted and misused money; or have just given it away to the poor.
Chavez is not completely bad, but if you actually see his achievements from the "ground level" you'll see that there's more rhetoric than action. However I must admit that he's probably done more for the poor than any other president: Free Clinics, Free Schools, ,etc. However, doing just that will never help the poor prosper, nor will it bring more money into a very poor country. Do the poor live any better than they ever have before? Do they have any more jobs, income, etc? If you look at the numbers, they claim that unemployment is way down as of 2005, lower than it has ever been, yet somehow over 50% of these workers work in the informal sector. How Convenient.
The Claims that the broadcast channel aided the coup are completely ridiculous. But that's for another post. There's just so much to write, so much happened while I was there. There were so many protests. The biggest one happened because he put some decrees in the books that are ridiculous: Do you know they can take your land if you're not actively using it? Do you know that decree 1011 has inspectors, that if they believe a teacher isn't teaching "bolivarian principles" they can get fired? There are so many examples, it's truly scary. Here in the US you get a little scared because of domestic wiretapping, what he's done is so much worse.
Not true, at least if you're running Tiger (10.4.9 PPC Mac). Here's what I just did:
This is probably because of the spotlight notification API, the same thing that allows Smart Folders.
Not true at all. Apple has had an enterprise sales channel for a long time, read this thread for some of the things they do (they offer discounts and such):
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/apple/top
Go here for their support options on servers. They also have different apple cares, but I'll let you google that yourself.
http://www.apple.com/server/support/
If you still have any doubt as to the existence of Apple Enterprise Sales, go to their contact page, scroll down and read "Apple Enterprise Sales (877) 412-7753"
http://www.apple.com/contact/
-c
Totally. I've had it installed 9 months and it's totally slower.
-John Titor
What about these machines?
Turn Your Penny Into A Souvenir
You put in 2 quarters (50 cents) and a penny. You crank the machine and it squishes your penny into one of those souvenir type coins. How are these not outlawed? I've always wondered about these machines, as my native country destroying currency is illegal, thought that it wasn't so in the US when I saw one of these.
cApple is currently investigating that issue. Don't take it into the store just yet, they can't offer a solution. Once apple engineering figures it out then we'll see what the fix is.
As to the heat, yes it's a hot machine, nothing can be done about that. They chose to make the machine quiet (the fan hardly ever spins on) but hot.
As to the wine, if it's excessive they can have things replaced; but there will always be a small whine. It's mainly because of the higher voltages (the macbook pro uses an 80 watt power adapter, by comparison all previous powerbooks, even the 17" high rez, used a 65 watt adapter).
More info here.
It would probably also be a great idea to have a local softwareupdate server, this way you don't have to download all updates every time, but instead only download them once to a local repository; additionally you could test things first before distribution. Read more info here. Although it seems that a local server will only work for 10.4.
And of course in true slashdot fashion, I transposed the last two operators. Classic.
Here ya go:Oops... forgot slashdot ran on perl...
I can't believe I'm reading this on slashdot. For all the people that say that these are minor improvements I think: are you kidding me?
Backing up is the bane of everyone's existence. You're either doing it religiously (daily, weekly, monthly, full and incremental backups) or you're going to lose data. For some of you it's not a big deal, but for me I'd prefer not to.
Time Machine by itself is automatic _INSTANT_ backup of all your files. You can literally overwrite a file with a save, then retrieve the previous version that you had 3 seconds earlier. Seriously... If you don't get the concept of immediate automatic incremental backup, probably tied into the spotlight notification system, you're either brain dead or you just use your computer for web surfing.
Sure, VMS had it back in the day, but the interface was not exactly easy. This, your grandmother can figure out.
This feature, by itself, is worth $150 dollars to me.
Sure you can, but you don't want to. The memory needs to be in pairs, I can't find the knowledgebase article for the macbook, but here's a similar one for the macbook pro.
Personally I got the basic macbook with the superdrive, got the 2GB of RAM aftermarket, put in a seagate 7200 100GB drive. It's awesome.
Have you tried it? I watched desperate housewives on my friend's standard resolution big screen. It looked awesome. I was really surprised. You can even pause it and it looks good. Don't knock it till you try it. It's better than VHS quality.
FireWire still has several advantages:
1. In real world use it is faster than USB 2.0, even though the theoretical for USB is higher. The reason for this is that FireWire does not tax the CPU like USB can. In sustained transfer rate usually FW drives will score higher.
2. You can daisy chain it, I already have 2 full 4 port hubs, don't want any more.
3. For video work, FireWire just works. Allows you to capture video from any camera. Cameras that only have USB are a pain in the butt that require special software.
My G5 tower is the easiest machine to upgrade, adding ram, hard drives and changing out the video card was a snap. The video card was more expensive than I could've gotten in the PC world, everything else was the same price. And to tell you the truth, I didn't spend that much upgrading to this new machine, since I sold my previous G4 tower for a nice chunk of change (even though it was a bit over 4 years old). I'm sure I would've spent a lot more on a comparable PC tower, since my old PC would've been worthless.
Also I just don't buy the just works. I use PCs and always have to download firefox, install spybot, adaware and av free. Then after I have it nicely set up, there's always additional work that I simply don't have to do on my mac.
You should see my friends that have 5k alienware machines.
Doh, apple stock is at one of the lowest points right now, if you're smart you'll buy a metric load and come back to school you'll gain about 40-50%.
Technically it was NeXT that did that. Apple just happened to have been bought by NeXT for a negative amount of money.
-c
Bullshit. Every notebook has a battery installed, this way we can show off the magsafe connector.
I call bullshit on this. The only rebate on the iPods is the back to school sale (going on now). There hasn't been any other rebate on the nano since it came out.
Additionally, when an iPod needs replacement in the Apple Store, we have them on hand and simply give you a new one. The only time you have to wait, is when we don't have the part on hand. In that case we order a new part and you come back _with the nano_ to get a replacement (aka we don't send anything out).