Clang, LLVM, WebKit, launchd, Grand Central Dispatch. CUPS web interface went from "13 year old with HTML" to "This is usable" after Apple hired the developer.
I left Apple product a while ago. But I can say for almost certain that I wouldn't have the career I have now or a household running FreeBSD/Linux if it wasn't for OS X' underpinnings.
Ironically I've actually used some of my PPC knowledge at work because a lot of embedded automotive controllers are based on the e200 cores.
The important outward appearance that's different is that they're not making money off your data by advertising. They have a pretty strong track record of protecting your privacy, not deliberately mining your data.
From all outward appearances they are pretty much exactly the same as any of their competitors. Worse in some ways. They appear to make their products in other countries and import the products into the USA. They appear to evade paying taxes whenever possible. They try to force customers who have paid for an imported hardware product to only buy software from their store. Which part am I mistaken about?
As you said "The same as any of their competitors." Except for your mis-statement
"Try to force customers... to only buy software from their store".
Macs have NEVER been "Apple Store Only".
iOS Devices haven't been "Apple Store Only" since 2014.
Expensive? You mean like the iPhone X, that costs a whopping $50 more than the Samsung Note 8?
Limited Features? Like FOUR USB-C Ports on a Laptop, for an aggregate 80 Gb/s I/O bandwidth, and which can be easily and inexpensively broken-out into a MYRIAD of different configurations, up to FIFTY-TWO SIMULTANEOUS "Legacy" Ports?
Highly Controlling? Like for example, the fact that, since iOS 8, Apple has officially allowed "Sideloading" of Apps on iOS Devices, both through Open Source XCode Application-Building, and through the loading of precompiled.ipa files using Cydia Impactor, which runs on every desktop platform?
Abandoned Product Lines? Every OEM drops products and sometimes whole product-lines. So?
Erratic Decision-Making? As compared with, say, Microsoft? Yeahrightsure...
Naw, and I think you just illustrated the point I'm about to make.
HP, Dell, ASUS, Acer, et al. Those are hardware-only companies. They produce computers to Microsoft's specs and Microsoft takes care of the software. Got a low-budget laptop? Crap video drivers from three years ago won't play nice with the latest update? Want to run that game but the specs are too low? Too bad. Should have spent more money. Hell, MS won't even guarantee Windows will run on any given system, let alone an application.
Apple is both a hardware and a software vendor. They create the hardware and the software together for maximum compatibility. Does everything work all the time? Hell no. Do things fail in bunches because Apple's vendors got cheap? Hell yeah. Is Apple perfect. Nope. But, if you buy an apple system you can bet the OS will run flawlessly on that hardware and you can bet that any problems your apps have are from the app vendor and not from Apple.
Tl;Dr. People assume Apple is just another PC maker these days but Apple is an OS maker, too. The OS and the hardware go hand in hand at Cupertino.
Well, my iPhone did swell up and busted the case, but I can't praise the old ImageWriter LQ enough! It could even print PostSript.
Well, you can praise a wonderful Imagewriter Driver, actually.
It "simply" rasterized the PS output, and the ImageWriter (still a FINE Dot Matrix Printer!) simply "painted" the resultant rasterized image onto the paper.
But I don't think that most people actually MISunderstand. More like "Willful Ignorance".
Some people constantly and reflexively run to the most over-the-top, avaricious, out of all reasonable control and above all, SINISTER, "motives" behind each and every utterance, change, mistake or announcement that Apple makes.
That, and the constant meme of "Well, I can do that for $10" or "Nobody but (100s of millions of) sheeple buy CRapple Products."
It just gets old. Apple certainly isn't perfect; but if their products and/or policies don't suit you, there's a whole world of other stuff out there for you. I promise: Apple won't mind one little bit if you don't buy their products.
But then again, that's what REALLY bothers those people, isn't it?
You're right. Open Source Projects just get abandoned.
Out of curiosity, are there any open source projects that immediately come to mind as having been abandoned despite being an invaluable tool?
No. Because I immediately forgot about them, once I found they had been abandoned.
That isn't nearly as snarky as it sounds. What I mean is, I would read about some wonderful Open Source Project that was of interest, and then, when I went to github or wherever to see if there was a download, or if there was recent activity (within the past year or so), all I would find are a bunch of "open" bug reports, some years old, and the last "commit" or update being so far back there was simply no hope for someone not able to pick up the Source and simply "run with it" themselves (I am an embedded Developer; but don't really have any experience writing a big, modern Application).
So I just close the browser Tab and forget about it. Sorry. Don't keep a log. Do you?
C. Nice try to attempt to obsfucate the REAL reason that Swype (or any keyboard) would need "Location Services"; to wit: To transmit the User's LOCATION back to some unwanted server for datamining purposes.
a KEYBOARD APP that asks to use "Location Services" (what it is called on iOS) would get UNINSTALLED, PRONTO!!!
Are you trying to imply that a keyboard that automatically adds the correct spelling of nearby landmarks to its dictionary is inferior to one without this feature? Or should the keyboard instead require each user to manually choose the center of the landmark search area on a map?
They're not actually magic. They'll attenuate high frequency EMI, not remove it completely. They'll also be the first thing a cheap manufacturer cuts to save on BOM cost.
I was making a small joke, because they always seem to be an RFI band-aid "Let's try some ferrite rings", rather than part of a well-thought-out RFI suppression strategy.
But OTOH, they ARE somewhat effective at reducing induced RF from escaping out of a device onto power and/or signal cabling...
they bought us out @ equitrac at 3x valuation to fire everyone connected to the old products that they never could best. It was stupid and emotional, but Nuance has made so much money on the back of Apple via the IBM voice patents (Dragon dictate) that they are the violent bully with a pocket full of cash.
And now they are having to re-focus as their core business is devastated, they wasted so much money on absolutely pointless things, and have been neglecting their accidental empire.
I've often wondered how long it'll take for either Apple to do their own thing, or someone to basically 'ogg' their 'mp3'.
Apple built "Dictation" into macOS (and I think iOS, too) a few years ago (like five), and they even made it so you could d/l the libraries and keep the whole speech-recognition thing local. And their algorithms are speaker-independent and require no training.
So, in that regard, Apple "Did their own thing" a bit ago...
Maybe they couldn't find an under-the-table market for all the tracking data they had. Swype is notorious for activating your GPS and calling home with it, ostensibly to determine if it should load "regional words" into the dictionary, however the frequency it did it was staggeringly more often than required for the stated reason. It was obvious they were doing something with that data, because they switched from a pay-for-the-app to a free app where you just paid for the keyboard skins. No one is shelling out real money for a keyboard skin, so it's pretty clear their funding was from elsewhere.
I don't know about Android; but on iOS it would have to ASK first. And I don't know about anyone else; but a KEYBOARD APP that asks to use "Location Services" (what it is called on iOS) would get UNINSTALLED, PRONTO!!!
The government stopped allowing people to use personal devices on classified military bases any longer, after they saw the maps those things were generating. And an entire market dried up!
Hmmm. That WAS just a couple of months ago, wasn't it?
Simply having the source code available is not the same as a project being sustainable. Sustainability is a factor of usage, leadership, code quality, continued development, and the ability to potentially continue a project after original developers have abandoned it. Open source may simplify some of the preceding elements, but it's no guarantee of sustainability.
One of my favorite graphics editors (Fireworks) was discontinued a few years ago. Open-source is something I'm looking for in my next editor so I don't have to worry about it being discontinued.
...or abandoned?
Honestly, what is the percentage of F/OSS Projects that simply die on the vine? It feels like it's pretty high.
Proprietary software is not sustainable, because it's shut down for simple reasons like "it doesn't fit our business direction any longer" or "it's not making money" that would be irrelevant to an Open Source project.
You're right. Open Source Projects just get abandoned.
And Bruce, I don't know why I often find myself on the opposite side of an issue with you; I actually am in awe of your talent, knowledge and persistence-of-vision...
But that doesn't stop me from poking the bear now and again! Pay it no mind, please!
No, However giving a trivia answer without explanation supports little to adding knowledge to the group.
Neither does telling someone that they should die horribly in a fire. But I've had those insults hurled at me on this site, JUST for supporting Apple, more times than I care to remember.
And it wasn't a "Trivia Answer". Anyone older than about 45 or so is likely to remember that "Standards War". Kind of like the "DVD-HD" vs. "BluRay" Standards War, or of course, the VHS vs. Betamax Standards war. Going back a ways (even earlier than me), there was the FM-Stereo Standards War (the shitty Standard won).
The lack of choice is that the merchant isn't allowed by the credit card to charge more to users of credits cards (including Apple Pay). The lack of choice is also the bank isn't allowed by Apple to charge more to merchants when Apple Pay is used.
and the primary and secondary of a smps are generally capacitively coupled. If the common mode choke on the input isn't enough to stop the EMI, it will go straight through. They're generally only big enough to stop the power supply itself from causing too much conducted EMI.
Ok, perhaps. But then, what about those magic Ferrite Rings?
Slashdot Mirror
I guess to not be labelled troll or fanboy, the poster should have included some negative ways that Apple has influenced them?
Exactly. The Slashtards are out with for the "Night of the long-mod-points"!!!
Clang, LLVM, WebKit, launchd, Grand Central Dispatch. CUPS web interface went from "13 year old with HTML" to "This is usable" after Apple hired the developer.
I left Apple product a while ago. But I can say for almost certain that I wouldn't have the career I have now or a household running FreeBSD/Linux if it wasn't for OS X' underpinnings.
Ironically I've actually used some of my PPC knowledge at work because a lot of embedded automotive controllers are based on the e200 cores.
MODS??? How is the Parent a TROLL, FFS?!?
Just STOP THE PUNISH-MODS!!!
The important outward appearance that's different is that they're not making money off your data by advertising. They have a pretty strong track record of protecting your privacy, not deliberately mining your data.
BINGO!!!!
From all outward appearances they are pretty much exactly the same as any of their competitors. Worse in some ways. They appear to make their products in other countries and import the products into the USA. They appear to evade paying taxes whenever possible. They try to force customers who have paid for an imported hardware product to only buy software from their store.
Which part am I mistaken about?
As you said "The same as any of their competitors." Except for your mis-statement ... to only buy software from their store".
"Try to force customers
Macs have NEVER been "Apple Store Only".
iOS Devices haven't been "Apple Store Only" since 2014.
So, demonstrably incorrect.
Likely flamebait, but I'll bite:
My assessment of Apple:
Pros: simple to use, appealing and reliable hardware, decent hardware-software integration, frequent software updates, generally secure, mature ecosystem, privacy tolerant
Cons: expensive, limited features, highly controlling, abandoned product lines, erratic decisionmaking
Expensive? You mean like the iPhone X, that costs a whopping $50 more than the Samsung Note 8?
Limited Features? Like FOUR USB-C Ports on a Laptop, for an aggregate 80 Gb/s I/O bandwidth, and which can be easily and inexpensively broken-out into a MYRIAD of different configurations, up to FIFTY-TWO SIMULTANEOUS "Legacy" Ports?
Highly Controlling? Like for example, the fact that, since iOS 8, Apple has officially allowed "Sideloading" of Apps on iOS Devices, both through Open Source XCode Application-Building, and through the loading of precompiled .ipa files using Cydia Impactor, which runs on every desktop platform?
Abandoned Product Lines? Every OEM drops products and sometimes whole product-lines. So?
Erratic Decision-Making? As compared with, say, Microsoft? Yeahrightsure...
The Light is out at Apple.
Cook is a mere reflection of what used to shine.
Apple is coasting on decades of momentum, and slowing down with every "new" product that isn't actually new.
Really? What technology company do YOU run?
What consumer products have YOU designed that have sold millions upon millions of units?
Thought so.
Naw, and I think you just illustrated the point I'm about to make.
HP, Dell, ASUS, Acer, et al. Those are hardware-only companies. They produce computers to Microsoft's specs and Microsoft takes care of the software. Got a low-budget laptop? Crap video drivers from three years ago won't play nice with the latest update? Want to run that game but the specs are too low? Too bad. Should have spent more money. Hell, MS won't even guarantee Windows will run on any given system, let alone an application.
Apple is both a hardware and a software vendor. They create the hardware and the software together for maximum compatibility. Does everything work all the time? Hell no. Do things fail in bunches because Apple's vendors got cheap? Hell yeah. Is Apple perfect. Nope. But, if you buy an apple system you can bet the OS will run flawlessly on that hardware and you can bet that any problems your apps have are from the app vendor and not from Apple.
Tl;Dr. People assume Apple is just another PC maker these days but Apple is an OS maker, too. The OS and the hardware go hand in hand at Cupertino.
FINALLY, an AC that I can agree-with!
Kudos!
There USED to be something special to misunderstand or underappreciated.
But that's all done now.
Apple is now just another HP or Dell
Seriously?
HP or Dell writes their own OS and Application Software from the ground-up (HP's shitty Printer and Scanner crap doesn't count!)?
I am thinking it must be a slow news day and the article's title is a big fat troll to start an Apple flame-war.
ANY Article with the word "Apple" in the Title is enough to do that around here...
proven by single anecdote
Well, my iPhone did swell up and busted the case, but I can't praise the old ImageWriter LQ enough! It could even print PostSript.
Well, you can praise a wonderful Imagewriter Driver, actually.
It "simply" rasterized the PS output, and the ImageWriter (still a FINE Dot Matrix Printer!) simply "painted" the resultant rasterized image onto the paper.
Everything.
But I don't think that most people actually MISunderstand. More like "Willful Ignorance".
Some people constantly and reflexively run to the most over-the-top, avaricious, out of all reasonable control and above all, SINISTER, "motives" behind each and every utterance, change, mistake or announcement that Apple makes.
That, and the constant meme of "Well, I can do that for $10" or "Nobody but (100s of millions of) sheeple buy CRapple Products."
It just gets old. Apple certainly isn't perfect; but if their products and/or policies don't suit you, there's a whole world of other stuff out there for you. I promise: Apple won't mind one little bit if you don't buy their products.
But then again, that's what REALLY bothers those people, isn't it?
You're right. Open Source Projects just get abandoned.
Out of curiosity, are there any open source projects that immediately come to mind as having been abandoned despite being an invaluable tool?
No. Because I immediately forgot about them, once I found they had been abandoned.
That isn't nearly as snarky as it sounds. What I mean is, I would read about some wonderful Open Source Project that was of interest, and then, when I went to github or wherever to see if there was a download, or if there was recent activity (within the past year or so), all I would find are a bunch of "open" bug reports, some years old, and the last "commit" or update being so far back there was simply no hope for someone not able to pick up the Source and simply "run with it" themselves (I am an embedded Developer; but don't really have any experience writing a big, modern Application).
So I just close the browser Tab and forget about it. Sorry. Don't keep a log. Do you?
C. Nice try to attempt to obsfucate the REAL reason that Swype (or any keyboard) would need "Location Services"; to wit: To transmit the User's LOCATION back to some unwanted server for datamining purposes.
But you already knew that...
a KEYBOARD APP that asks to use "Location Services" (what it is called on iOS) would get UNINSTALLED, PRONTO!!!
Are you trying to imply that a keyboard that automatically adds the correct spelling of nearby landmarks to its dictionary is inferior to one without this feature? Or should the keyboard instead require each user to manually choose the center of the landmark search area on a map?
Nice try.
They're not actually magic. They'll attenuate high frequency EMI, not remove it completely.
They'll also be the first thing a cheap manufacturer cuts to save on BOM cost.
I was making a small joke, because they always seem to be an RFI band-aid "Let's try some ferrite rings", rather than part of a well-thought-out RFI suppression strategy.
But OTOH, they ARE somewhat effective at reducing induced RF from escaping out of a device onto power and/or signal cabling...
they bought us out @ equitrac at 3x valuation to fire everyone connected to the old products that they never could best. It was stupid and emotional, but Nuance has made so much money on the back of Apple via the IBM voice patents (Dragon dictate) that they are the violent bully with a pocket full of cash.
And now they are having to re-focus as their core business is devastated, they wasted so much money on absolutely pointless things, and have been neglecting their accidental empire.
I've often wondered how long it'll take for either Apple to do their own thing, or someone to basically 'ogg' their 'mp3'.
Apple built "Dictation" into macOS (and I think iOS, too) a few years ago (like five), and they even made it so you could d/l the libraries and keep the whole speech-recognition thing local. And their algorithms are speaker-independent and require no training.
So, in that regard, Apple "Did their own thing" a bit ago...
Maybe they couldn't find an under-the-table market for all the tracking data they had. Swype is notorious for activating your GPS and calling home with it, ostensibly to determine if it should load "regional words" into the dictionary, however the frequency it did it was staggeringly more often than required for the stated reason. It was obvious they were doing something with that data, because they switched from a pay-for-the-app to a free app where you just paid for the keyboard skins. No one is shelling out real money for a keyboard skin, so it's pretty clear their funding was from elsewhere.
I don't know about Android; but on iOS it would have to ASK first. And I don't know about anyone else; but a KEYBOARD APP that asks to use "Location Services" (what it is called on iOS) would get UNINSTALLED, PRONTO!!!
Maybe it's Good Riddance, afterall...
The government stopped allowing people to use personal devices on classified military bases any longer, after they saw the maps those things were generating. And an entire market dried up!
Hmmm. That WAS just a couple of months ago, wasn't it?
Coincidence?
Simply having the source code available is not the same as a project being sustainable. Sustainability is a factor of usage, leadership, code quality, continued development, and the ability to potentially continue a project after original developers have abandoned it. Open source may simplify some of the preceding elements, but it's no guarantee of sustainability.
Exactly.
One of my favorite graphics editors (Fireworks) was discontinued a few years ago. Open-source is something I'm looking for in my next editor so I don't have to worry about it being discontinued.
...or abandoned?
Honestly, what is the percentage of F/OSS Projects that simply die on the vine? It feels like it's pretty high.
Proprietary software is not sustainable, because it's shut down for simple reasons like "it doesn't fit our business direction any longer" or "it's not making money" that would be irrelevant to an Open Source project.
You're right. Open Source Projects just get abandoned.
And Bruce, I don't know why I often find myself on the opposite side of an issue with you; I actually am in awe of your talent, knowledge and persistence-of-vision...
But that doesn't stop me from poking the bear now and again! Pay it no mind, please!
No, However giving a trivia answer without explanation supports little to adding knowledge to the group.
Neither does telling someone that they should die horribly in a fire. But I've had those insults hurled at me on this site, JUST for supporting Apple, more times than I care to remember.
And it wasn't a "Trivia Answer". Anyone older than about 45 or so is likely to remember that "Standards War". Kind of like the "DVD-HD" vs. "BluRay" Standards War, or of course, the VHS vs. Betamax Standards war. Going back a ways (even earlier than me), there was the FM-Stereo Standards War (the shitty Standard won).
Anyone else care to contribute?
Ok, well maybe it IS a Trivia Answer, LOL!!!
You're just speculating that Apple would raise their fees.
I am speculating that a corporation wants to make as much money as possible.
There's that "speculating" word again...
You clearly don't get sarcasm.
Yes I do. I just didn't detect any.
The lack of choice is that the merchant isn't allowed by the credit card to charge more to users of credits cards (including Apple Pay).
The lack of choice is also the bank isn't allowed by Apple to charge more to merchants when Apple Pay is used.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
and the primary and secondary of a smps are generally capacitively coupled.
If the common mode choke on the input isn't enough to stop the EMI, it will go straight through. They're generally only big enough to stop the power supply itself from causing too much conducted EMI.
Ok, perhaps. But then, what about those magic Ferrite Rings?