I wasn't the one claiming the iOS platform was superior due to the number of apps. My point is another platform - Android, Blackberry, even Symbian - can have far less apps but still be just as useful especially since many Apps on the iOS platform are the result of developers jumping on the bandwagon and pushing out worthless rubbish.
Wait, you have used 3 recent apple products, one of which was an eMac, which was discontinued 5 years ago?
That's still relatively recent.
My first Apple product was an Apple IIe. Shortly after buying that the distribution chain was changed and department stores no longer sold Apple software. I was stuck with a computer I couldn't get software for. The Mac was out at the time but the Apple salesmen were doing their best to push the II series out the door and we got screwed there to.
I hate Apple. I have reason to. Their products haven't just worked for me. They have been overpriced and problematic.
I never bought Apple stuff for trendiness, I've always bought apple stuff for functionality. Functionality I've seldom seen from any other tech company
I have news for you. If you're just viewing media, browsing the web and editing the odd word processor document or spreadsheet you can do that equally well on Windows, Mac or Linux. If you have more specific needs they're probably to do with interoperability.
What can you do with a Mac that I can't on Win7 or WinXP or Linux exactly?
I use windows but it's more to do with the software than the OS. I can run MS Flight Sim 2004 and X, Chessmaster etc., Realflight R/C flight simulator. I can also use stuff available on other systems like sky/star simulation and mapping, data analysis and emulators. No other system gives me as wide a variety of software. If one did I'd jump on it.
I would argue the point about iOS devices being more about form than function. With the explosion of apps, iOS devices are just as functional, if not more functional than Blackberry
Explosions immediately make me think of fart apps. 40 fart apps do not a functional platform make.How many distinct apps are useful and serve a purpose? If you eliminate games and redundant rubbish (a media player that plays sound files is far more useful than a fart app) you end up wonderign what the fuss is about. The most useful apps tend to have alternatives on other platforms.
It's not just branding, Apple in general makes stuff of very high quality and with a lot of effort in usability design.
I have used 3 recent Apple products - 2 iPods (personal, mine and my wife's) and an eMac (work - very light use - occassional web browser compatibility testing). They have been JUNK. The iPod had a faulty click wheel from day 1 and return policies here in Australia (subsequently changed after consumer watchdog pressure) meant if I sent it in I could be without it for months. My wife's iPod has been okay but a "Photo" iPod shouldn't have such a delicate scratchable screen. The emac died within 2-3 weeks of purchase.
The entire annual gross revenue of movies from the MPAA member studios (about $10 billion) is only a little bigger than Google's annual profit (about $7 billion).
Either qualify that with the a phrase like "percentage wise" buster or you can hand out $3B in chump change to every slashdot reader that comes across your post!
Interesting. I live in Australia too, and I've had explicit clauses in every contract I've signed in the last decade and a half (3 jobs) that stated that we were not permitted to discuss wages. Presumably employers just don't want the hassle of justifying why one employee is paid more or less than another. I don't consider it a big deal because I have no intention of disclosing my earnings to all and sundry but I've always wondered about those clauses.
...are some of the most loyal on the planet. My experience is that a lot of them buy the device to be trendy and not for it's functionality. In the same way that fashion brands for shoes, perfumes or clothing may not be functionally the best but are still sold because people have bought into the brand. So like other fashion victims Apple users when confronted will often insist the device just works flawlessly and that they've never had a problem even if it doesn't. A lot of them don't use any advanced functionality, so they're oblivious to restrictions.
Apple's genius is in the marketing, like many of the big brands. It's easy to argue that McDonalds don't make the best burgers (and aren't as cheap as they once were!), Nike don't make the best shoes etc. yet they are still worth a mint and their product still sells in large numbers. It's not about phone engineering. It's about social engineering.
Watch this get modded as troll/flamebait. It's not.
Yes, it's true you can become an expert in anything these days. I've done it, going from one research field to another, and I'm expert enough to get paid to do the research. But you still have to know a lot of stuff, because it takes 300 milliseconds to pull a fact up from the ol' grey matter and it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 hours to find it on the internet. If you need the internet to answer basic questions about your area of expertise, you aren't an expert. Or, at least your a verrrrrrrrry sloooooow expert.
You can't become an expert. You are certainly more empowered but expertise is equally about practice and the application of knowledge. It doesn't matter how much you google piloting an aircraft, you're not going to have a feel for the controls of one until you spend some time doing it.
Education needs to be freely available and de-standardized. Exam grades can't and never prove anything.
I agree on the freely available part but...
De-standardising and getting rid of exams wouldn't be any good either. In some cases standards are a good thing. There are certain things that you want your qualified doctor or qualified electrician or qualified accountant to know and to be able to apply. Would you want to visit a doctor who couldn't take your vitals? Or an electrician that never learnt to wire lights? Or an accountant that couldn't keep a ledger or do your taxes?
Because that worked so well for Nokia.... They tend to be so extremely technology oriented that they get completely lost in all the features that should be included, all the bells and whistles, and seem to regard an interface as something you paste on afterwards
This stereotype is being modded up on slashdot? Seriously?
Nokia's failures have everything to do with engineering. It's not just the UI. Symbian is out-dated, and it's not just the interface that's the problem.
What you need is engineers with a UI focus. They exist. They are not mythical. The marketing guys at Apple and elsewhere couldn't put together a coherent and consistent user interface if their lives depended on it. It's engineers there too, even if the marketing guys have more input than elsewhere.
It is sad how far off the rails the Firefox development process has gone.
AMEN!!! Firefox USE to be a pleasure to use. Now I use it for just one reason - the extensions....and each new version leaves some of them behind. (Not to mention the stability issues they cause)
8. Walk on water. (Why not, should be a synch after simultaneously achieving all those goals) 9. Introduce as many new changes to the UI that most users don't want as possible (Awfulbar anyone?) so that no user wants to use our product anymore 10. Pull a childish face, and implode
We get paid by the vendor to put it there, so that's money to us regardless of the price you pay for the machine. You'll buy the machine regardless of what we put on the desktop, so there is no economic reason to remove it.
No we won't. We'll buy tablets or other gadgets with the money that don't turn our spare time into an endless struggle. That's the point being made here. Being dense like this is ruining your industry and will likely have you out of a job. Wake up.
I'm a judge at one of the major Canadian Science Fairs and we've been given direction that we can't criticize and only good comments are allowed. Some of the projects are absolute CRAP for the age level... thrown together overnight... judges should be able to say "Your project is CRAP... prepare for a job at Burger King"
I'm all for constructive criticism, but "prepare for a job at Burger King" is nothing but abuse.
Worse, it makes buyers consider avoiding your pain in the arse game pirated or otherwise. It's suppose to be fun, not a bunch of hoops to jump through. Idiot executives have forgotten that.
No, privacy threats plus Sony's willingness to impose phone-home DRM plus consumers' and legislators' willingness to accept DRM were all contributors.
It needs my authorisation to run too. I have to be willing to buy it. But I'm not. Fuck you Sony. Fuck you PS3 and fuck you gaming companies. Right now they don't care but only because they haven't pissed enough people off. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for the PS3.
Employees will just create multiple profiles. Idiot companies can monitor the public one, while the alter egos come out and play at night.
Stop trying to monetise, captilalise and otherwise sodomise both social networks and your employees and return to a culture where performance is rewarded instead of babysitting braindead employees.
Slashdot Mirror
I wasn't the one claiming the iOS platform was superior due to the number of apps. My point is another platform - Android, Blackberry, even Symbian - can have far less apps but still be just as useful especially since many Apps on the iOS platform are the result of developers jumping on the bandwagon and pushing out worthless rubbish.
Wait, you have used 3 recent apple products, one of which was an eMac, which was discontinued 5 years ago?
That's still relatively recent.
My first Apple product was an Apple IIe. Shortly after buying that the distribution chain was changed and department stores no longer sold Apple software. I was stuck with a computer I couldn't get software for. The Mac was out at the time but the Apple salesmen were doing their best to push the II series out the door and we got screwed there to.
I hate Apple. I have reason to. Their products haven't just worked for me. They have been overpriced and problematic.
That's why meta moderation is rather important.
Actually that's why moderation is broken
I never bought Apple stuff for trendiness, I've always bought apple stuff for functionality. Functionality I've seldom seen from any other tech company
I have news for you. If you're just viewing media, browsing the web and editing the odd word processor document or spreadsheet you can do that equally well on Windows, Mac or Linux. If you have more specific needs they're probably to do with interoperability.
What can you do with a Mac that I can't on Win7 or WinXP or Linux exactly?
I use windows but it's more to do with the software than the OS. I can run MS Flight Sim 2004 and X, Chessmaster etc., Realflight R/C flight simulator. I can also use stuff available on other systems like sky/star simulation and mapping, data analysis and emulators. No other system gives me as wide a variety of software. If one did I'd jump on it.
I would argue the point about iOS devices being more about form than function. With the explosion of apps, iOS devices are just as functional, if not more functional than Blackberry
Explosions immediately make me think of fart apps. 40 fart apps do not a functional platform make.How many distinct apps are useful and serve a purpose? If you eliminate games and redundant rubbish (a media player that plays sound files is far more useful than a fart app) you end up wonderign what the fuss is about. The most useful apps tend to have alternatives on other platforms.
It's not just branding, Apple in general makes stuff of very high quality and with a lot of effort in usability design.
I have used 3 recent Apple products - 2 iPods (personal, mine and my wife's) and an eMac (work - very light use - occassional web browser compatibility testing). They have been JUNK. The iPod had a faulty click wheel from day 1 and return policies here in Australia (subsequently changed after consumer watchdog pressure) meant if I sent it in I could be without it for months. My wife's iPod has been okay but a "Photo" iPod shouldn't have such a delicate scratchable screen. The emac died within 2-3 weeks of purchase.
I know that I'm sounding a bit like a fanboy,
YES!
By what authority does the MPAA have the power to disconnect ANYONE from the internet?
Chuck Norris!
I think the word you're looking for is "barratry".
Sounds like something Dogberry would come up with .
A salt and barratry
The entire annual gross revenue of movies from the MPAA member studios (about $10 billion) is only a little bigger than Google's annual profit (about $7 billion).
Either qualify that with the a phrase like "percentage wise" buster or you can hand out $3B in chump change to every slashdot reader that comes across your post!
Interesting. I live in Australia too, and I've had explicit clauses in every contract I've signed in the last decade and a half (3 jobs) that stated that we were not permitted to discuss wages. Presumably employers just don't want the hassle of justifying why one employee is paid more or less than another. I don't consider it a big deal because I have no intention of disclosing my earnings to all and sundry but I've always wondered about those clauses.
...are some of the most loyal on the planet. My experience is that a lot of them buy the device to be trendy and not for it's functionality. In the same way that fashion brands for shoes, perfumes or clothing may not be functionally the best but are still sold because people have bought into the brand. So like other fashion victims Apple users when confronted will often insist the device just works flawlessly and that they've never had a problem even if it doesn't. A lot of them don't use any advanced functionality, so they're oblivious to restrictions.
Apple's genius is in the marketing, like many of the big brands. It's easy to argue that McDonalds don't make the best burgers (and aren't as cheap as they once were!), Nike don't make the best shoes etc. yet they are still worth a mint and their product still sells in large numbers. It's not about phone engineering. It's about social engineering.
Watch this get modded as troll/flamebait. It's not.
Ya gotta cache in the brain.
Yes, it's true you can become an expert in anything these days. I've done it, going from one research field to another, and I'm expert enough to get paid to do the research. But you still have to know a lot of stuff, because it takes 300 milliseconds to pull a fact up from the ol' grey matter and it takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 hours to find it on the internet. If you need the internet to answer basic questions about your area of expertise, you aren't an expert. Or, at least your a verrrrrrrrry sloooooow expert.
You can't become an expert. You are certainly more empowered but expertise is equally about practice and the application of knowledge. It doesn't matter how much you google piloting an aircraft, you're not going to have a feel for the controls of one until you spend some time doing it.
Education needs to be freely available and de-standardized. Exam grades can't and never prove anything.
I agree on the freely available part but...
De-standardising and getting rid of exams wouldn't be any good either. In some cases standards are a good thing. There are certain things that you want your qualified doctor or qualified electrician or qualified accountant to know and to be able to apply. Would you want to visit a doctor who couldn't take your vitals? Or an electrician that never learnt to wire lights? Or an accountant that couldn't keep a ledger or do your taxes?
And about 97% of drivers "velocitycheat", or drive faster than the posted speed limit. See, I can make up new words too!
Yeah but don't let your wife catch you cybercheating or your balls will be cut off - no cyber about it.
Engineers making decisions?
Because that worked so well for Nokia.... They tend to be so extremely technology oriented that they get completely lost in all the features that should be included, all the bells and whistles, and seem to regard an interface as something you paste on afterwards
This stereotype is being modded up on slashdot? Seriously?
Nokia's failures have everything to do with engineering. It's not just the UI. Symbian is out-dated, and it's not just the interface that's the problem.
What you need is engineers with a UI focus. They exist. They are not mythical. The marketing guys at Apple and elsewhere couldn't put together a coherent and consistent user interface if their lives depended on it. It's engineers there too, even if the marketing guys have more input than elsewhere.
It is sad how far off the rails the Firefox development process has gone.
AMEN!!! Firefox USE to be a pleasure to use. Now I use it for just one reason - the extensions....and each new version leaves some of them behind. (Not to mention the stability issues they cause)
Idiots.
8. Walk on water. (Why not, should be a synch after simultaneously achieving all those goals)
9. Introduce as many new changes to the UI that most users don't want as possible (Awfulbar anyone?) so that no user wants to use our product anymore
10. Pull a childish face, and implode
We get paid by the vendor to put it there, so that's money to us regardless of the price you pay for the machine. You'll buy the machine regardless of what we put on the desktop, so there is no economic reason to remove it.
No we won't. We'll buy tablets or other gadgets with the money that don't turn our spare time into an endless struggle. That's the point being made here. Being dense like this is ruining your industry and will likely have you out of a job. Wake up.
Seems like you're abusing the BK employees there.
Are they somehow inferior to you, lebbo?
It was clearly meant to be a slur and you're clearly a rascist trouble making piece of shit.
I'm a judge at one of the major Canadian Science Fairs and we've been given direction that we can't criticize and only good comments are allowed. Some of the projects are absolute CRAP for the age level... thrown together overnight... judges should be able to say "Your project is CRAP... prepare for a job at Burger King"
I'm all for constructive criticism, but "prepare for a job at Burger King" is nothing but abuse.
Or you could get ready now, so when they flip the switch you're good to go.
By which time some new standard will render your current equipment obsolete. Not a good plan if your current hardware works fine.
Pirates will pirate.
Buyers will buy.
But DRM makes buyers look into piracy.
Worse, it makes buyers consider avoiding your pain in the arse game pirated or otherwise. It's suppose to be fun, not a bunch of hoops to jump through. Idiot executives have forgotten that.
No, privacy threats plus Sony's willingness to impose phone-home DRM plus consumers' and legislators' willingness to accept DRM were all contributors.
It needs my authorisation to run too. I have to be willing to buy it. But I'm not. Fuck you Sony. Fuck you PS3 and fuck you gaming companies. Right now they don't care but only because they haven't pissed enough people off. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end for the PS3.
Employees will just create multiple profiles. Idiot companies can monitor the public one, while the alter egos come out and play at night.
Stop trying to monetise, captilalise and otherwise sodomise both social networks and your employees and return to a culture where performance is rewarded instead of babysitting braindead employees.
Porn wants to be free.
I'm pretty sure RMS and Eric S Raymond do not feature. So this wouldn't be the Cathedral or the Bazaar, it'd be the Brothel?