I was a Sidekick user from 4/2004 until 10/2008. There had been only one 'catastrophic' failure in that time that left Sidekick users without data service for an extended period.
In other words, they already had one opportunity to question their reliance on this service. Lesson learned ?
I tried to sell an "R4" cartridge for the Nintendo DS on ebay. It allows you to run homebrew software, play music, and watch movies on the DS. But because it *can* be used to run pirated software, ebay claimed my item violated the DMCA, canceled my auction, and threatened to pull my account if I relisted the item.
You tried to sell an illegal item, whereas the OP tried to sell a legal one.
Yeah, unfortunately eBay will pretty much always follow through on a requested auction takedown from a content producer. They just don't want to be involved in their lawsuit.
eBay's business is in the second-hand sale. They have a strong interest in this practice to be legal.
My wife still runs MacOS 9 on an old G3 Gossamer. It does everything she wants and needs.
If one day she needs to upgrade (for instance because her favorite website expects a more recent browser than the most recent she can find of OS 9), the cheapest alternative is to install XUbuntu on the machine.
I'm lucky enough to have a iMac (not using it right now) with OS 9 and IE 5 and the internet is pretty much unusable. Flash doesn't work, so no youtube, and webmail sites like hotmail, gmail and yahoo also do not work.
While my brand new iMac was being repaired (hard disk), I only had a very old iMac left (PowerPC, 128 MB of RAM...). What saved me was Ubuntu, or more precisely the minimalistic XUbuntu variant. It ran a very recent FireFox, the only missing thing was the Flash player.
Please Microsoft, keep Apple at work, else they will become another lazy monopolist !
Will become?
As long as nobody is *forced* to buy Apple products, they are not in a monopoly situation. The same can't be said of Microsoft, whose two cash cows (Windows and Office) are often bought because "we need more Office licences" or "the OS came with the PC".
Of course, Apple would love to be in such a situation; it is our tasks, as customers, to buy products which don't make us dependent on them (e.g. MP3 vs. Fairplay DRM).
A very smart move, if they really implement it as described.
But remember that there will be a price to pay : google may easily provide you with an export of all the information you gave them, but they will certainly keep a copy.
This doesn't make sense. If my data plan includes XYZ MB per month (or XYZ $ per MB), why do they care whether I use it from my iPhone or from my latpop ?
In fact, Apple and the carriers should even *promote* tethering, as a way to quickly eat your monthly data allowance, and pay extra for additional MB.
In Europe carriers subscribe to a common standard for telephony that dates back to when the GSM was invented.
There is *no* concept of "carrying" a phone in Europe, either the phone conforms to the network standard or it doesn't (and if it doesn't nobody sells it).
*all* you need is a SIM card for the basic service, and a data plan if you want 3G stuff.
This is 90% correct for the iPhone : a few of its proprietary features require an explicit support from the operator : at least visual voicemail and push notifications. The non-support of the latter is a shame, because push notifications even work on the iPod touch, which isn't even a phone....
Here I am in Switzerland and there are two providers: Orange, and Swisscom. Swisscom refuses to unlock the device at any cost. Orange sells you an unlocked device, but the operator very carefully said, "be careful it is not all you think it is."
And redsn0w unlocks it for you for free. Sure it is not official, but Apple doesn't seem to really care about it.
And my iPhone is working nicely on Sunrise, Switzerland's 3rd operator (the one which doesn't sell the iPhone).
Take a step back and ask if you believe that (a) Americans are genetically more likely to die young;
Remember that, genetically speaking, white Americans are mostly a subset of European genes, but not a representative one : in all centuries, those who left Europe for the US were certainly more adventurous than those who stayed.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that this results in a violent country, where people are more likely to die young.
Obesity causes more health problems, and as a result more spending. But of course, Moore wouldn't say that, because now instead of blaming the big, bad corporations and government, he would be asking his viewers to take some personal responsibility (which seems to be a progressive idea).
Maybe he didn't say that simply because he is, well, fat.
What this means is that if you run Truecrypt, they can send you to jail, even if you honestly do not have a hidden partition. There's no way for you to prove that there is no hidden partition. Anybody running Truecrypt in the UK could go to jail for this reason.
This is why we need TrueCrypt to be installed by default on as many Linux distributions as possible. Hence, the single fact of having TrueCrypt installed on your machine will not be anymore a hint that you use it.
My first reaction : this is extremely arrogant from Apple (not a surprise from them), and as the same time also very stupid (bad PR), which is less common from Apple.
Second reaction : if it was really so dangerous so modify the baseband (assuming that the the GSM protocol is so badly designed that a bad behaving client can trash the network...), then Apple has a very simple solution at hand : stop doing SIM-locking. Nobody would then need to change the baseband software, which is not required for jailbreaking (only unlocking requires to change the baseband software).
Third reaction : Apple now has a semi-good reason to stop SIM-locking phone. When they do it:
Changing the baseband software becomes uncommon
Operators such as AT&T are pissed
Apple sells a few iPhones more
From Apple's point of view, three good reasons to do it !
No, I won't compare Apple's market share to Mercedes' . But just think in absolute terms : even if Macs cost double more than an average PC, the difference is only a few hundredths of dollars, which is the extra price you pay to have a "luxury" item. Now think of cars : how many people spend thousands of dollars (or your favourite currency) to have a flashier car ?
I spend much more time in front of my computer than driving my car. Hence, I am ready to spend a little more to have a luxury computer...
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I was a Sidekick user from 4/2004 until 10/2008. There had been only one 'catastrophic' failure in that time that left Sidekick users without data service for an extended period.
In other words, they already had one opportunity to question their reliance on this service. Lesson learned ?
To be fair, Sidekick users didn't have a viable means to back up their personal data that was being pulled from Microsoft/Danger servers.
At this point, they should have asked themselves if it was safe to depend from a single point of failure, and look for an other solution.
"many handset makers are betting their futures on Android, while Apple is just one company."
And for the same reason, Linux's market share should be much high than Mac OS X's. Oh, wait...
I tried to sell an "R4" cartridge for the Nintendo DS on ebay. It allows you to run homebrew software, play music, and watch movies on the DS. But because it *can* be used to run pirated software, ebay claimed my item violated the DMCA, canceled my auction, and threatened to pull my account if I relisted the item.
You tried to sell an illegal item, whereas the OP tried to sell a legal one.
Yeah, unfortunately eBay will pretty much always follow through on a requested auction takedown from a content producer. They just don't want to be involved in their lawsuit.
eBay's business is in the second-hand sale. They have a strong interest in this practice to be legal.
My wife still runs MacOS 9 on an old G3 Gossamer. It does everything she wants and needs.
If one day she needs to upgrade (for instance because her favorite website expects a more recent browser than the most recent she can find of OS 9), the cheapest alternative is to install XUbuntu on the machine.
I'm lucky enough to have a iMac (not using it right now) with OS 9 and IE 5 and the internet is pretty much unusable. Flash doesn't work, so no youtube, and webmail sites like hotmail, gmail and yahoo also do not work.
While my brand new iMac was being repaired (hard disk), I only had a very old iMac left (PowerPC, 128 MB of RAM...). What saved me was Ubuntu, or more precisely the minimalistic XUbuntu variant. It ran a very recent FireFox, the only missing thing was the Flash player.
Slow, but usable.
Please Microsoft, keep Apple at work, else they will become another lazy monopolist !
Will become?
As long as nobody is *forced* to buy Apple products, they are not in a monopoly situation. The same can't be said of Microsoft, whose two cash cows (Windows and Office) are often bought because "we need more Office licences" or "the OS came with the PC".
Of course, Apple would love to be in such a situation; it is our tasks, as customers, to buy products which don't make us dependent on them (e.g. MP3 vs. Fairplay DRM).
Why do they only sell the Zune it in the US ? If they don't have the complexity of an application store, it should be relatively easy.
You have to wonder if Microsoft really wants to sell Zunes... As an iPod user, I would welcome a stronger competition.
Please Microsoft, keep Apple at work, else they will become another lazy monopolist !
A very smart move, if they really implement it as described.
But remember that there will be a price to pay : google may easily provide you with an export of all the information you gave them, but they will certainly keep a copy.
This doesn't make sense. If my data plan includes XYZ MB per month (or XYZ $ per MB), why do they care whether I use it from my iPhone or from my latpop ?
In fact, Apple and the carriers should even *promote* tethering, as a way to quickly eat your monthly data allowance, and pay extra for additional MB.
We want a phone we can hack LEGALLY, that doesn't have Steve Jobs giant head staring at us 24x7 telling us what we can and cannot do with it.
I always thought that hacking was more fun when it was illegal.
You must be american to be worried about the legality of playing with hardware that belongs to you...
In Europe carriers subscribe to a common standard for telephony that dates back to when the GSM was invented. There is *no* concept of "carrying" a phone in Europe, either the phone conforms to the network standard or it doesn't (and if it doesn't nobody sells it). *all* you need is a SIM card for the basic service, and a data plan if you want 3G stuff.
This is 90% correct for the iPhone : a few of its proprietary features require an explicit support from the operator : at least visual voicemail and push notifications. The non-support of the latter is a shame, because push notifications even work on the iPod touch, which isn't even a phone....
Here I am in Switzerland and there are two providers: Orange, and Swisscom. Swisscom refuses to unlock the device at any cost. Orange sells you an unlocked device, but the operator very carefully said, "be careful it is not all you think it is."
And redsn0w unlocks it for you for free. Sure it is not official, but Apple doesn't seem to really care about it. And my iPhone is working nicely on Sunrise, Switzerland's 3rd operator (the one which doesn't sell the iPhone).
Apparently Switzerland, Norway, and Canada have a problem with violent resurrections.
Explanation, please ?
Take a step back and ask if you believe that (a) Americans are genetically more likely to die young;
Remember that, genetically speaking, white Americans are mostly a subset of European genes, but not a representative one : in all centuries, those who left Europe for the US were certainly more adventurous than those who stayed.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that this results in a violent country, where people are more likely to die young.
Here is a comparison of life expectancies between the US and Europe.
I guess it is based on bullshit data. For instance, Switzerland has a much higher life expentancy, see here. 80 years for men, 84 for women.
adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries
Why this adjustment ? Oh, to make data fit to your conclusion ? You live in a violent country, deal with it.
Obesity causes more health problems, and as a result more spending. But of course, Moore wouldn't say that, because now instead of blaming the big, bad corporations and government, he would be asking his viewers to take some personal responsibility (which seems to be a progressive idea).
Maybe he didn't say that simply because he is, well, fat.
but is the spec useable ? bugfree ?
And does it match the user or system needs ? And how easily can it be modified to cover new needs ?
That just opens any Linux user up to jail time.
Including the French police ? See this
What this means is that if you run Truecrypt, they can send you to jail, even if you honestly do not have a hidden partition. There's no way for you to prove that there is no hidden partition. Anybody running Truecrypt in the UK could go to jail for this reason.
This is why we need TrueCrypt to be installed by default on as many Linux distributions as possible. Hence, the single fact of having TrueCrypt installed on your machine will not be anymore a hint that you use it.
E-mail is an application that only makes sense if there's a network connection
Have you ever been in a train or plane with three days of e-mails to catch up with ? Obviously not :-)
I will gladly bet that Microsoft will still be a highly profitable company in twenty years.
And I will gladly bet that Microsoft will become just like IBM in much less than twenty years : still as big, but not relevant anymore.
Second reaction : if it was really so dangerous so modify the baseband (assuming that the the GSM protocol is so badly designed that a bad behaving client can trash the network...), then Apple has a very simple solution at hand : stop doing SIM-locking. Nobody would then need to change the baseband software, which is not required for jailbreaking (only unlocking requires to change the baseband software).
Third reaction : Apple now has a semi-good reason to stop SIM-locking phone. When they do it:
From Apple's point of view, three good reasons to do it !
No, I won't compare Apple's market share to Mercedes' . But just think in absolute terms : even if Macs cost double more than an average PC, the difference is only a few hundredths of dollars, which is the extra price you pay to have a "luxury" item. Now think of cars : how many people spend thousands of dollars (or your favourite currency) to have a flashier car ?
I spend much more time in front of my computer than driving my car. Hence, I am ready to spend a little more to have a luxury computer...