Apple already has.mac for home users, so it would make sense for them to expand in a pro direction. Or they could use the expertise to make.mac free again as it was in the beginning. Or they could use it to lower the cost of running the iTMS. It's hard to say at this point.
Whatever Apple does, it's about integration with Apple hardware or to fill gaps others leave open.
$199 gets a 5-user license, which covers most households. Apple trusts you to not go over the limit, and thus doesn't try to place all sorts of locks in the way. Just thought I'd mention this since you could be misinterpreted as meaning some $200 price difference between the Mac mini and whatever box is being touted as cheaper.
That's the biggest issue here: Apple trusts its customers more than Microsoft does. Part of Apple's allure has been this trust, this treating its customers as honest.
Granted, since Apple gets the bulk of its money from hardware sales, they can be generous and leave out copy restrictions that might slow down performance. Customers appreciate this and are more willing to be honest. Accuse them of being potential thieves and they're more likely to resent it and resent paying you.
One minor quibble here: whatever OS the "rest of the world" is using is less important than you may think. After all, the UI between one version of Microsoft Office and the other changes more than, say, the UI of KDE and Windows 2000. Linux has evolved enough that the children will be able to deal with moving to Windows when they go elsewhere. There is very little unique about Microsoft's products that would make a learning curve in later life steeper. If anything, moving from a Posix environment to a Windows environment is easier than the other way 'round.
Remember, until the mid 1990's "IBM-compatible" computers were dominated by CLI interfaces: today's Windows bears more resemblance to what the little beige boxes Apple sold, so learning the "dominant OS" back then wasn't really an advantage for students. Even later, students who used (for example) Apple's System 7.x weren't at a disadvantage to those using Windows 95.
In my opinion, a school computer should provide the tools that the teacher needs to manage the class, and for the students to create their own projects. Learning software has less impact than these two factors. Kids learn more when they make their own stuff, but most schools seem to see computers as glorified videorecorders/overhead projectors.
Where is it specifically technology in "News for nerds, stuff that matters"? As long as I've been reading Slashdot, the only criteria is that the site's editors consider it newsworthy. It's a popular site because they post what they care about, not what some impersonal mission statement defines.
Now, if you want to see more hardware or Linux stories instead of politics, then I suggest you take a look at the left column. You can narrow your criteria there, and even see articles that didn't make it to the main page.
I think the post you were replying to was only half-right. In terms of stability, a properly configured Windows machine is on par with a properly-configured Mac OS X machine.
Properly configured, mind you.
I think Apple's biggest strength lies not in stability per se, but in the consistency that Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and its program API offers: most keyboard shortcuts are consistant from one programme to the other, and thanks to the HIG even most third-party software offerings behave in a consistant, predictable manner. That means more stability by reducing errors made by the user. Getting rid of MacOS X means losing that consistancy since it goes deeper than just the GUI.
So you think that the key point is the DRM only being available for Apple-approved devices, and the lock-in is in the limit of available portable music devices? Well, that sounds more like a problem with the whole concept of DRM than with the iPod/iTunes lock-in. And that is an issue that belongs at the doorstep of the RIAA, not Apple, as Apple is fighting tooth and nail to keep the prices down. I suspect it's the RIAA that insisted on the iPod-only lock-in.
As for getting music in MP3 format, I legally download tonnes of music in MP3 format from bands. The songs are offered as demos, unpublished rares or as presents to their fans. Granted, most of these artists are independant, but some of these artists that offer mp3's are with major labels like Robbie Williams.
As many posts have pointed out, you have the option to burn your DRM music in audio CD format, but I think the problem is in how the relationship between the iTunes Music Store and the iPod is perceived: the iTMS was conceived of as an acessory to the iPod, as a way for iPod owners to legally buy music without the CD. It's like sueing BMW because the accessories he bought can only be used with the BMW Z3 and not his Ford Taurus.
The value to Apple isn't often measured in dollars or profit, but in coolness. Apple is playing a different game than the rest of the hardware community, as it concentrates on making things Steve himself wants. It's that mindset of playing a different game that drives the rest of the industry batty: while everybody else is playing Monopoly, Apple's goal is to make the coolest gizmo.
Any value coming from buyig Palm wouldn't be measured in terms of ROI but in whether the Apple engineers could make a cool device out of the ideas and experience Palm would bring.
I have to disagree with you, as there is no more "lock-in" with Apple than most other hardware manufacturers. Apple's operating system is fine-tuned to its hardware, true, but there is nothing preventing you from installing a Linux variant. Apple has also stated that it is also not going to prevent people from installing Windows on an intel-based Mac, only that they won't help.
From my experience, the Apple platform is actually a lot more open than the MSWindows platform, especially in handling files. A Photoshop file is a Photoshop file, whether created with the Mac OS version or the Windows version. I often trade files between Office XP and Office:Mac. Even programs written for other forms of Unix are easily recompiled for Mac OS X.
I must thus assume that you have little working experience with Apple hardware, let alone software. Otherwise you would know that Apple makes perfect sense for education, due to its higher return on investment (longer running life, lower maintenance costs).
I also find your argument about the iPod somewhat dishonest: the iPod has no problem playing audio files without DRM, but to get the iTunes Music Store up and running Apple had to promise the studios DRM, and forced them to lower prices than the studios wanted. If Apple refuses to buy a license for other DRM models, then more power to them. (Note that I am assuming you mean the iTunes Music Store and not the Apple Store for ordering hardware online. If that were the case, your argument would have been fantasy.)
There is one critical point in where movies and games differ, and that is how far along in the story the audience goes. With a novel, play or a movie, the audience waits until the end, since their participation isn't necessary to advance the plot. All they need is patience.
With a game, however, that isn't guaranteed. Many, many players drop out long before the plot reaches its climax. Some don't have the skills necessary to finish the missions, others don't have the patience or time necessary. Or some are like me, writing off the story as a monotone bloodfest after barely entering the story*.
Now I'm going out on a limb here, since I haven't played GUN, but the important thing is that a lot of players will leave before the protagonist switches sides. If, IF the story does no foreshadowing, then I can see the standpoint of the boycotters. And judging from the critical comments I've seen here, it could well be the case that the Apache are shown as 100% evil at the beginning.
*I did this with Diablo II and the original Marathon, for example. I am not claiming that I have ever player GUN.
Read the first part, about how one of his favourite authors lifted it to a literary style. He would be flattered if there were more mash-ups of his work, mixing and combining it with other authors.
I think he's secretly disappointed that there isn't more fanfics about what happened to the fusion of Wintermute/Neuromancer between Neuromancer and Count Zero, about Screaming Fist or any of the other events he only names but never explains.
I was in the same dilemma as the parent poster: I was mightily interested in the Amiga, but the lackluster sales drones in the local computer store and the confusing (for newbies) articles in the Amiga magazines suggested that you needed a mainboard. Terms were thrown around that suggested that it was a closed club with a secret handshake.
Add to this a bunch of clueless advertisers who try to fit their entire catalog into the smallest possible ad block in the magazine, and the confusion was complete. I threw up my hands in despair and bought a Mac Plus instead.
The Amiga was a great machine, but it was hampered by bad marketing (and, I suspect, a little FUD from the IBM-compatible crowd).
Um, not quite. Claris Works was born of a different codebase entirely. Back in the days of 20MB hard drives and widespread floppy use, there were a lot of these "works" programs that sacrificed functions for integration into an all-in-one package. Microsoft had its Works program, Claris had one, and there were a couple other offers around back then as well. The only one I know of that still is hanging on is RagTime.
Claris had Resolve, MacWrite, FileMaker, MacDraw for their "professional" users, and ClarisWorks for the smaller budgets. They also had a business document tool called Impact, but (even though I have a copy) I don't think most people remember that it ever existed.
My guess is that Apple would love to remove the wall between itself and its daughter FileMaker, but they sell enough Windows copies of FileMaker that they are afraid of scaring those users away.
Running WINE would be a lot like running X11 on the Mac now: something you could do in a pinch, but the funkiness reminds you that it isn't Cocoa/Carbon. Little niggling things that grate when compared to true Mac programs.
I do not doubt that some clever programmers will port WINE to the Intel Mac, but the first releases will be without Apple's approval or (official) help. Besides, it's not the games that Apple is really interested in, but getting the enterprise/business market to transition. If that means giving them a clean, virus-free environment to handle their internet needs out of the box and a chance to migrate their other programs at a gradual pace, it may work (especially when they compare MS Office to MS Office:mac).
If you're going to make a function available, you have to plan a way to get at that function. Whether it's the GUI or a command-line interface, you have to know how the user is going to interact with a function before you make it. This goes back to the days of CP/M and ProDOS.
In modern GUI-based software, that means figuring out how the user will activate the command, use the device, whatever, and then fleshing out the functionality. Why write a subroutine that will never be accessed by the user? (This is of course oversimplified: the biggest cliché nowadays is the Undocumented Feature, but those are outliers).
This may actually be a part of Microsoft's problem: thinking up nifty routines and commands, but putting off user interaction until the last minute. For some reason they can't grasp how a tool is only as good as its handle...
It is pretty telling that all of the photos they show have no cables attached. Not even the Mac mini power and monitor cable.
It would be neat if they had positioned the ports right under the expected Mac mini hookups, then made a special bridge adapter. It might also be a good idea for the next version to put one or two of the Firewire/USB ports on the front of the box for digital cameras.
Oh well. It's pretty good, but I wouldn't call it great...
I don't quite get your beef: are you upset that Apple made the Dock the way they did, or are you confusing Exposé with the Dock? Which is the task-switching you find better: the old System 7-Mac OS 9 way of showing the program icon in the corner, the NextStep way or (shudder!) the Windows Taskbar way? Or do you miss having Alt-Tab? In other words, you've never used control-tab?
Your writing is a little confusing, but it seems to me that you've little experience in the differences between Jaguar and Panther, or that you've ever done more than a little futzing around with a Mac that was on display at a computer store. If that is not the case, then please clarify.
Number One has never worked like that. Please get this into your head: nevernevernever. Strategic Bombing against civilian targets only incites revenge and makes it easier for the opponent to wrap themselves in "victim's sanctity". See Sherman's March to the Sea, Gettysburg, Battle of Britain, Dresden...
Attacking a soldier's pay isn't going to have the desired effect either, since most soldiers are going to beleive that the pay thing will get straightened out eventually.
Your last point is valid, but admittedly untested. Most likely when ordered to shoot, most will deliberately aim low (aiming high means the bullet comes down somewhere else), but the panic that the shots create will be the real cause of bloodbath. Consider also the example of Tianmen Square and Kent State. In a prolonged conflict you may see mass desertion, but before that a lot of innocents will be killed.
Armed revolution is messy, barbaric, and causes years of trauma. Do not dupe yourself into thinking that it can be easy.
On a couple of my DVD's (Region 2, bought in Germany) they bring the copyright warning in every EU language/nation (Austria, Germany and Switzerland all have different warnings) without a chance to blip past. Others bring the warning according to the chosen language.
I'm not going to hold my breath, but I suspect once a country or a group like the EU breaks ranks and lets manufacturers get away with shipping easy-override players, then the floodgates will open. The desire to restrict access always loses to the desire to make money. We just have to show the IP bottleneckers that they are only committing financial suicide with their current practices.
One of the reasons Photoshop is the last professional bitmap editor standing is the fact that its interface was one of the best in that field. It gave professional users almost all of the tools they needed where they could quickly get to them. I remember some real dogs out there like Macromedia XRes, and the Fireworks interface was crap for its first few versions as well (now it's OK as I know my way around).
Sure, new users and hobbyists futzing around with a pirated copy are going to get lost and frustrated, but they aren't the target audience anyways. It's like complaining that the Airbus isn't as easy to use as a single-seat propeller aircraft.
Just want to point out that Adobe stopped developing LiveMotion. It never made it into the CS family, and they don't mention it in their lineup.
I suspect Fireworks will replace/merge with ImageReady, as Adobe never really managed to turn it into a successful standalone. ImageReady had the better imaging, but Fireworks had the better editing tools. If we're lucky we may keep the Fireworks tools and get the picture quality of ImageReady.
Dreamweaver and GoLive are so different in programming, but my hope is that we get Dreamweaver's coding/layout GoLive's site management tools. I just hope they maintain Dreamweaver's codebase, as I loved their plugin architecture.
Director may actually see a revival, but I suspect that Director may end up like PageMaker: a tool that the users refuse to let die, so Adobe will stilll half-heartedly develop it further.
Poor Freehand. It used to be my favorite software. I wrote letters with it, made all sorts of illustrations and multipage layouts. A huge amount of my docs and illustrations are in FH8/FH9/FH11 format. Will another company come and "rescue" Freehand again? I doubt it: instead we may see some FreeHand tools integrated intro Illustrator (but not the multipage: Adobe's philosophy doesn't accomidate that).
To me, Apple is best described as a company that makes the cool stuff that Steve Jobs wants to own. It seems to be a policy that works.
Yes, Apple does make the lion's share of its money selling gizmos, and yes, they also make some of the best professional software tools around, but it's the orientation to what the Big Guy wants that drives a lot of the products being made.
I think that was the thing that set Steve apart from the managers in between his two reigns. With the possible exception of Sculley, most of the others tried to second-guess what customers would buy; Steve brought back the thinking to what he would want if he were the customer.
I think you misinterpreted the parent post. I read it to be a "what if GNOME just worked" for the hypothetical distributor.
As it is, I think you just made the parent's point for him (why Apple was so successful with the Mac OS X transition and why the Windows-to-Linux transition hasn't really started yet).
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Apple already has .mac for home users, so it would make sense for them to expand in a pro direction. Or they could use the expertise to make .mac free again as it was in the beginning. Or they could use it to lower the cost of running the iTMS. It's hard to say at this point.
Whatever Apple does, it's about integration with Apple hardware or to fill gaps others leave open.
Just to be clear here:
$199 gets a 5-user license, which covers most households. Apple trusts you to not go over the limit, and thus doesn't try to place all sorts of locks in the way. Just thought I'd mention this since you could be misinterpreted as meaning some $200 price difference between the Mac mini and whatever box is being touted as cheaper.
That's the biggest issue here: Apple trusts its customers more than Microsoft does. Part of Apple's allure has been this trust, this treating its customers as honest.
Granted, since Apple gets the bulk of its money from hardware sales, they can be generous and leave out copy restrictions that might slow down performance. Customers appreciate this and are more willing to be honest. Accuse them of being potential thieves and they're more likely to resent it and resent paying you.
One minor quibble here: whatever OS the "rest of the world" is using is less important than you may think. After all, the UI between one version of Microsoft Office and the other changes more than, say, the UI of KDE and Windows 2000. Linux has evolved enough that the children will be able to deal with moving to Windows when they go elsewhere. There is very little unique about Microsoft's products that would make a learning curve in later life steeper. If anything, moving from a Posix environment to a Windows environment is easier than the other way 'round.
Remember, until the mid 1990's "IBM-compatible" computers were dominated by CLI interfaces: today's Windows bears more resemblance to what the little beige boxes Apple sold, so learning the "dominant OS" back then wasn't really an advantage for students. Even later, students who used (for example) Apple's System 7.x weren't at a disadvantage to those using Windows 95.
In my opinion, a school computer should provide the tools that the teacher needs to manage the class, and for the students to create their own projects. Learning software has less impact than these two factors. Kids learn more when they make their own stuff, but most schools seem to see computers as glorified videorecorders/overhead projectors.
Where is it specifically technology in "News for nerds, stuff that matters"? As long as I've been reading Slashdot, the only criteria is that the site's editors consider it newsworthy. It's a popular site because they post what they care about, not what some impersonal mission statement defines.
Now, if you want to see more hardware or Linux stories instead of politics, then I suggest you take a look at the left column. You can narrow your criteria there, and even see articles that didn't make it to the main page.
I think the post you were replying to was only half-right. In terms of stability, a properly configured Windows machine is on par with a properly-configured Mac OS X machine.
Properly configured, mind you.
I think Apple's biggest strength lies not in stability per se, but in the consistency that Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and its program API offers: most keyboard shortcuts are consistant from one programme to the other, and thanks to the HIG even most third-party software offerings behave in a consistant, predictable manner. That means more stability by reducing errors made by the user. Getting rid of MacOS X means losing that consistancy since it goes deeper than just the GUI.
So you think that the key point is the DRM only being available for Apple-approved devices, and the lock-in is in the limit of available portable music devices? Well, that sounds more like a problem with the whole concept of DRM than with the iPod/iTunes lock-in. And that is an issue that belongs at the doorstep of the RIAA, not Apple, as Apple is fighting tooth and nail to keep the prices down. I suspect it's the RIAA that insisted on the iPod-only lock-in.
As for getting music in MP3 format, I legally download tonnes of music in MP3 format from bands. The songs are offered as demos, unpublished rares or as presents to their fans. Granted, most of these artists are independant, but some of these artists that offer mp3's are with major labels like Robbie Williams.
As many posts have pointed out, you have the option to burn your DRM music in audio CD format, but I think the problem is in how the relationship between the iTunes Music Store and the iPod is perceived: the iTMS was conceived of as an acessory to the iPod, as a way for iPod owners to legally buy music without the CD. It's like sueing BMW because the accessories he bought can only be used with the BMW Z3 and not his Ford Taurus.
The value to Apple isn't often measured in dollars or profit, but in coolness. Apple is playing a different game than the rest of the hardware community, as it concentrates on making things Steve himself wants. It's that mindset of playing a different game that drives the rest of the industry batty: while everybody else is playing Monopoly, Apple's goal is to make the coolest gizmo.
Any value coming from buyig Palm wouldn't be measured in terms of ROI but in whether the Apple engineers could make a cool device out of the ideas and experience Palm would bring.
I have to disagree with you, as there is no more "lock-in" with Apple than most other hardware manufacturers. Apple's operating system is fine-tuned to its hardware, true, but there is nothing preventing you from installing a Linux variant. Apple has also stated that it is also not going to prevent people from installing Windows on an intel-based Mac, only that they won't help.
From my experience, the Apple platform is actually a lot more open than the MSWindows platform, especially in handling files. A Photoshop file is a Photoshop file, whether created with the Mac OS version or the Windows version. I often trade files between Office XP and Office:Mac. Even programs written for other forms of Unix are easily recompiled for Mac OS X.
I must thus assume that you have little working experience with Apple hardware, let alone software. Otherwise you would know that Apple makes perfect sense for education, due to its higher return on investment (longer running life, lower maintenance costs).
I also find your argument about the iPod somewhat dishonest: the iPod has no problem playing audio files without DRM, but to get the iTunes Music Store up and running Apple had to promise the studios DRM, and forced them to lower prices than the studios wanted. If Apple refuses to buy a license for other DRM models, then more power to them. (Note that I am assuming you mean the iTunes Music Store and not the Apple Store for ordering hardware online. If that were the case, your argument would have been fantasy.)
There is one critical point in where movies and games differ, and that is how far along in the story the audience goes. With a novel, play or a movie, the audience waits until the end, since their participation isn't necessary to advance the plot. All they need is patience.
With a game, however, that isn't guaranteed. Many, many players drop out long before the plot reaches its climax. Some don't have the skills necessary to finish the missions, others don't have the patience or time necessary. Or some are like me, writing off the story as a monotone bloodfest after barely entering the story*.
Now I'm going out on a limb here, since I haven't played GUN, but the important thing is that a lot of players will leave before the protagonist switches sides. If, IF the story does no foreshadowing, then I can see the standpoint of the boycotters. And judging from the critical comments I've seen here, it could well be the case that the Apache are shown as 100% evil at the beginning.
*I did this with Diablo II and the original Marathon, for example. I am not claiming that I have ever player GUN.
Analog Rights Management, or ARM. Since a lot of effort is being made, you could say Scholastic is strong-ARM'ing the book.
Or maybe we could call it Analog Reproduction Rights Restrictions, or ARRR to highlight the piratical practices of the Potter publishers*?
*I couldn't resist: a penchant for poetry prevailed over petty precicesness.
Read the first part, about how one of his favourite authors lifted it to a literary style. He would be flattered if there were more mash-ups of his work, mixing and combining it with other authors.
I think he's secretly disappointed that there isn't more fanfics about what happened to the fusion of Wintermute/Neuromancer between Neuromancer and Count Zero, about Screaming Fist or any of the other events he only names but never explains.
I was in the same dilemma as the parent poster: I was mightily interested in the Amiga, but the lackluster sales drones in the local computer store and the confusing (for newbies) articles in the Amiga magazines suggested that you needed a mainboard. Terms were thrown around that suggested that it was a closed club with a secret handshake.
Add to this a bunch of clueless advertisers who try to fit their entire catalog into the smallest possible ad block in the magazine, and the confusion was complete. I threw up my hands in despair and bought a Mac Plus instead.
The Amiga was a great machine, but it was hampered by bad marketing (and, I suspect, a little FUD from the IBM-compatible crowd).
Um, not quite. Claris Works was born of a different codebase entirely. Back in the days of 20MB hard drives and widespread floppy use, there were a lot of these "works" programs that sacrificed functions for integration into an all-in-one package. Microsoft had its Works program, Claris had one, and there were a couple other offers around back then as well. The only one I know of that still is hanging on is RagTime.
Claris had Resolve, MacWrite, FileMaker, MacDraw for their "professional" users, and ClarisWorks for the smaller budgets. They also had a business document tool called Impact, but (even though I have a copy) I don't think most people remember that it ever existed.
My guess is that Apple would love to remove the wall between itself and its daughter FileMaker, but they sell enough Windows copies of FileMaker that they are afraid of scaring those users away.
Running WINE would be a lot like running X11 on the Mac now: something you could do in a pinch, but the funkiness reminds you that it isn't Cocoa/Carbon. Little niggling things that grate when compared to true Mac programs.
I do not doubt that some clever programmers will port WINE to the Intel Mac, but the first releases will be without Apple's approval or (official) help. Besides, it's not the games that Apple is really interested in, but getting the enterprise/business market to transition. If that means giving them a clean, virus-free environment to handle their internet needs out of the box and a chance to migrate their other programs at a gradual pace, it may work (especially when they compare MS Office to MS Office:mac).
If you're going to make a function available, you have to plan a way to get at that function. Whether it's the GUI or a command-line interface, you have to know how the user is going to interact with a function before you make it. This goes back to the days of CP/M and ProDOS.
In modern GUI-based software, that means figuring out how the user will activate the command, use the device, whatever, and then fleshing out the functionality. Why write a subroutine that will never be accessed by the user? (This is of course oversimplified: the biggest cliché nowadays is the Undocumented Feature, but those are outliers).
This may actually be a part of Microsoft's problem: thinking up nifty routines and commands, but putting off user interaction until the last minute. For some reason they can't grasp how a tool is only as good as its handle...
It is pretty telling that all of the photos they show have no cables attached. Not even the Mac mini power and monitor cable.
It would be neat if they had positioned the ports right under the expected Mac mini hookups, then made a special bridge adapter. It might also be a good idea for the next version to put one or two of the Firewire/USB ports on the front of the box for digital cameras.
Oh well. It's pretty good, but I wouldn't call it great...
I don't quite get your beef: are you upset that Apple made the Dock the way they did, or are you confusing Exposé with the Dock? Which is the task-switching you find better: the old System 7-Mac OS 9 way of showing the program icon in the corner, the NextStep way or (shudder!) the Windows Taskbar way? Or do you miss having Alt-Tab? In other words, you've never used control-tab?
Your writing is a little confusing, but it seems to me that you've little experience in the differences between Jaguar and Panther, or that you've ever done more than a little futzing around with a Mac that was on display at a computer store. If that is not the case, then please clarify.
Number One has never worked like that. Please get this into your head: nevernevernever. Strategic Bombing against civilian targets only incites revenge and makes it easier for the opponent to wrap themselves in "victim's sanctity". See Sherman's March to the Sea, Gettysburg, Battle of Britain, Dresden...
Attacking a soldier's pay isn't going to have the desired effect either, since most soldiers are going to beleive that the pay thing will get straightened out eventually.
Your last point is valid, but admittedly untested. Most likely when ordered to shoot, most will deliberately aim low (aiming high means the bullet comes down somewhere else), but the panic that the shots create will be the real cause of bloodbath. Consider also the example of Tianmen Square and Kent State. In a prolonged conflict you may see mass desertion, but before that a lot of innocents will be killed.
Armed revolution is messy, barbaric, and causes years of trauma. Do not dupe yourself into thinking that it can be easy.
Why do I get the feeling that Longhorn is Microsoft's Copeland? (Y'know, that may be yet another case of MS copying Apple...)
On a couple of my DVD's (Region 2, bought in Germany) they bring the copyright warning in every EU language/nation (Austria, Germany and Switzerland all have different warnings) without a chance to blip past. Others bring the warning according to the chosen language.
I'm not going to hold my breath, but I suspect once a country or a group like the EU breaks ranks and lets manufacturers get away with shipping easy-override players, then the floodgates will open. The desire to restrict access always loses to the desire to make money. We just have to show the IP bottleneckers that they are only committing financial suicide with their current practices.
One of the reasons Photoshop is the last professional bitmap editor standing is the fact that its interface was one of the best in that field. It gave professional users almost all of the tools they needed where they could quickly get to them. I remember some real dogs out there like Macromedia XRes, and the Fireworks interface was crap for its first few versions as well (now it's OK as I know my way around).
Sure, new users and hobbyists futzing around with a pirated copy are going to get lost and frustrated, but they aren't the target audience anyways. It's like complaining that the Airbus isn't as easy to use as a single-seat propeller aircraft.
Just want to point out that Adobe stopped developing LiveMotion. It never made it into the CS family, and they don't mention it in their lineup.
I suspect Fireworks will replace/merge with ImageReady, as Adobe never really managed to turn it into a successful standalone. ImageReady had the better imaging, but Fireworks had the better editing tools. If we're lucky we may keep the Fireworks tools and get the picture quality of ImageReady.
Dreamweaver and GoLive are so different in programming, but my hope is that we get Dreamweaver's coding/layout GoLive's site management tools. I just hope they maintain Dreamweaver's codebase, as I loved their plugin architecture.
Director may actually see a revival, but I suspect that Director may end up like PageMaker: a tool that the users refuse to let die, so Adobe will stilll half-heartedly develop it further.
Poor Freehand. It used to be my favorite software. I wrote letters with it, made all sorts of illustrations and multipage layouts. A huge amount of my docs and illustrations are in FH8/FH9/FH11 format. Will another company come and "rescue" Freehand again? I doubt it: instead we may see some FreeHand tools integrated intro Illustrator (but not the multipage: Adobe's philosophy doesn't accomidate that).
To me, Apple is best described as a company that makes the cool stuff that Steve Jobs wants to own. It seems to be a policy that works.
Yes, Apple does make the lion's share of its money selling gizmos, and yes, they also make some of the best professional software tools around, but it's the orientation to what the Big Guy wants that drives a lot of the products being made.
I think that was the thing that set Steve apart from the managers in between his two reigns. With the possible exception of Sculley, most of the others tried to second-guess what customers would buy; Steve brought back the thinking to what he would want if he were the customer.
Step 1: Set up cheap vacation offers. Advertise them heavily in Blue States.
Step 2: On the bus trip up, collect passports "for quicker porcessing". Conveniently forget to return them after crossing the border.
Step 3: When victims are sleeping in their hotel rooms, bus goes back to the States. Passports are still in bus.
Step 4: FNORD
Step 5: When victims try to return, accuse them of being foreigners pretending to be stranded tourists.
I think you misinterpreted the parent post. I read it to be a "what if GNOME just worked" for the hypothetical distributor.
As it is, I think you just made the parent's point for him (why Apple was so successful with the Mac OS X transition and why the Windows-to-Linux transition hasn't really started yet).