*Googles about this* Blimey, I had no idea - yet another flaw that even dirt cheap feature phones manage to avoid, that curiously the fans never admit to us about. (On Symbian for example, signing up for an Ovi account is entirely optional.)
(And I see a mod abusing his points on an Apple story yet again, mistakenly thinking that "Troll" means "Dares to say something I disagree with".)
No one is claiming the content is being censored; it's the application, which was censored on the Iphone.
No one is making the argument that Apple don't have some right to do it. But equally, we have the right to criticise the Iphone, in that it's a platform where applications are censored. (When someone bashes Windows for something, you don't get Microsoft apologists going "But, but, Microsoft have a right to do it, they're not the Government, you can always get a Mac!"; indeed, on the contrary, saying you are better off with another platform seems like an agreement with the criticism...)
I have no sympathy for the author however - anyone who opts for the Iphone's risky development platform should accept the risks of their application being refused. And if he compares them to a grocer, is he going to move to the next "grocer" and ship the application on open (not to mention more popular) platforms like Symbian, Blackberry and Android? (An honest question - for all I know he already has released it on other platforms.)
What if it was their job to save lives and instead they were slacking off?
Should not doing your job result in a criminal offence? Perhaps at best you could argue it in a case where they were not only slacking off, but then lied about there being no risk, but last time I looked it was innocent until proven guilty; is there any evidence or suggestion that this was the case?
when they say they couldn't have done a better job
Well now you're switching stories. Slacking off and then lying in your report, is different from doing your job, but where perhaps someone could have done better. The latter shouldn't be, and normally isn't, a criminal offence, last time I looked.
It is indeed mad, but note that according to the article, it's even worse than them being sued - being charged with gross negligent manslaughter surely implies a criminal, not civil, charge? (Unless I misunderstand Italian law.)
Even if one could try to argue that they are somehow liable for not doing their jobs, I fail to see what criminal offence they are guilty of. They didn't cause the earthquake. If manslaughter now includes failing to save or prevent a death, even when it's not clear you could have done so, then that could apply to all sorts of absurd situations.
No, he's just pointing out it's overpriced, and expecting people to salvage spare parts that they may or may not have lying around, is not much of a counter-argument.
How is a USB keyboard better than a PS/2 one, OOI? What benefit do I have to paying out again when my keyboard works fine, and also having to waste a USB slot?
Apple, it Just Works, Out Of The Box. You just have to order some special adapter, wait for it to arrive, then have to plug it all together. No wonder people say that even their own grandmother could use a Mac!
Well maybe I can claim that this hard disk is cheaper than a Mac, "because it's aimed at people who already have a motherboard, CPU, box etc to plug into it".
The point is, it's still fair to compare on complete prices. If you already have a mouse and keyboard, then the PC price would be cheaper too (and note that there is far greater flexibility on PCs to only get the new parts you want - can I get a Mac Mini without say a hard disk or DVD drive, if I already have one of those?)
If you want a tiny, low-power-consumption, attractive system that can easily be used as a set-top box, then paying a premium
Then why not get a laptop? Small size, and it's portable. How big is the Mac Mini when you take the rather important screen and keyboard into account?
Not everyone shops only on price - value can be derived from places other than raw computing power.
Not everyone shops only on size - value can be derived from places other than simply having a desktop that's slightly smaller. But do we get a Slashdot article everytime a new PC is released?
But I think the point is, there's little point to them. You have the problems of trying to fit components into a smaller space, as you mention (price, performance - basically having to use laptops), but the benefit of a smaller box is negligible. You don't have portability (especially as you still need a monitor), especially not compared with a similarly priced laptop. And the space saved in a living room isn't much compared with a microATX-based PC in a still reasonably small case (PCs no longer have to be massive tower sized things, unless you want that).
Saying "a large part of that pricing is getting that hardware in such a small package" is hardly an excuse, that's the entire point. Why have a solution that has laptop prices in what's still a desktop?
I don't know about Microsoft (who aren't the competition in the phone market - instead they're competing with Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, RIM etc), but taking pre-orders is commonplace for many companies, not just Apple. There's nothing about "waiting in line" here.
Talking of pre-orders - can we please remember that they've been taking pre-orders, before someone tries to falsely claim "XXX iPhones sold in 1 day!", as people falsely claimed for the Ipad?
Maybe people don't have to wait in line? I read the news about people waiting in line to get 3G on their phone, but I didn't have to wait, as I got it years earlier when it was standard on even cheap feature phones. I'm not going to have to wait in line to get multitasking or a higher resolution either, as my 2 year old 5800 does those fine.
Reports are coming in of Slashdot being flooded with iPhone 4 stories, wreaking havoc with the front page, with people having to skip over an insane number of Apple stories to read something else. Just imagine trying to read this from an iPhone! The demand for the stories surpasses even that of three months of iPad stories, that were necessary before it finally shipped, and makes the traditional "daily iPhone story" seem infrequent in comparison.
What amuses me is how scientists say "this stuff is impossible", and not long later, someone comes along and says "Hey... here's some evidence that it is possible."
Can you cite me an example where scientists said this? E.g., for this story, have scientists said that it's impossible for inertial mass to be different to gravitational mass? I don't think so - whilst they seemed to be the same, it is an open question as to whether they have to be.
I could make an official app of Ash-Fox and distribute it outside of the app store for jail broken iphones.
Oh well that's just great isn't it - you can still get it to work on a minority of phones that have been hacked.
No, this is still a criticism. And people are right to criticise Apple over it and encourage alternative platforms; just as people do when there's a criticism against Google, Microsoft, or whatever else.
For the app store, yes.
For the entire Iphone/Ipad platform, yes.
Not really, nobody is stopping you from showing off your applications, at worst, they're just stopping you from putting it on their store because they don't want it.
You mean: Apple is stopping you from showing off your applications on the Iphone because they don't want it. But you can always develop for another, better, platform instead.
Skipping around on the Moon means technical challenges that foster technological progress. It means more scientists, more engineers, more skilled jobs that cannot be outsourced to Bumfuckay and will stay around for at least a couple of decades, and the indirect benefits of the research and development will find their way into the market, adding to the country's competitivity.
Yes, obviously there are no technical challenges or research and development in medicine. Nor are there any skilled jobs required, and all the doctors can be outsourced.
you're so determined to get medicine to the poor sick people, why don't you give away all the money you don't need to survive?
Why don't you give all your money to NASA?
(Seriously, I'm a fan of manned spaceflight, but your arguments on the false dichotomy between national manned spaceflight and national healthcare don't make sense.)
Good thing most people in power haven't historically shared your worldview, otherwise you'd end up dying from something as simple as breaking your arm, or you were too ill to go and catch some food one day.
Maybe both exploration and medicine (including welfare) are good things...
Being an astronaut is a job at the end of the day, not an entertainment "ride". Last time I looked, people got paid for jobs, not the other way round. If he got the job, good luck to him. Are you going to complain that your taxes are being spent on giving a "foreigner" a ride? That suggests you think the only purpose of manned spaceflight is to give a few Americans an entertaining ride...
We're not talking about creating content (obviously Apple weren't the ones to write this Ulysses app), but about distribution and access to that content.
The barrier to creating content is low. But the barrier to devices to read electronic content - mp3/video players, phones, other portable devices - is very high.
What good is the low barrier to creating content, when you can't get it on the one and only official distribution store? And if you put it on any other server, no one will be able to read it unless they hack their device? Thankfully I don't think there's any way Apple could pull this off for mp3s, but it's the model they're using for mobile applications. (The sad thing is though, that if Apple came out with Ipods that now required all media played on it to be approved by Apple, many people here on Slashdot would be loving it, and saying we shouldn't worry because it's Apple.)
I think you're arguing on the same side here - yes, exactly, there are other better alternatives out there. But that's why people are criticising Apple here, and it's right to do so, so that people are aware of those alternatives (whilst there are many bigger phone sellers to Apple, some people here seem to think that the Iphone is the only phone that can access the Internet, etc).
When people criticise Windows, you don't say "Why are you criticising Windows, you could just use Linux" - on the contrary, the fact that Linux is out there is even more reason to criticise Windows. Similarly, the fact that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, RIM, Google, Microsoft and basically every company in the phone market except Apple don't have this problem adds to the criticism - Apple can't respond with "but that's what everyone else does too".
But similarly, if we're making excuses - I'd love to visit a parallel universe where the Iphones (and Ipad come to that) didn't receive far more media coverage than phones from any other company, and see how (even) fewer they sell.
Just because the many netbooks, tablets and e-readers, that will also do what you want whilst you sit in a comfy chair, support multitasking and spreadsheets, doesn't mean you have to use those features...
the single model iPhone is still outselling it (counting different capacity iPhones as one model of course).
If we count all the different Iphone models as a "single model", then a "single model" is outselling Android?:) (Also note that most sales figures I've seen lump all the different generations of Iphone models together, not simply the different capacities, so it's hard to be sure of the sales of a single model). I don't know if that's true, but anyhow, Nokia still massively outsell them, as do many other companies (Motorola, LG, Samsung, RIM).
You overestimate the average consumer's ability to care about things such as being able to run software from anywhere.
Indeed, but similarly people here overestimate the average consumer's ability to care about whatever things that the Iphone models might do better (e.g., "retina display"). Which is probably why 40-50% of the market are buying better value Symbian or other Nokia phones.
The endless list of would-be iPod/iPhone killers that touted better features but failed to have an impact in the market are evidence of this.
For the Ipod, sure. But for the Iphone? Who cares about what failures you might be referring too, when there have been plenty of successes. Check out the market share, and see how Apple fares compared with Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung and RIM do.
I don't know which failure companies you're talking about (and talking in terms of a "Symbian/Nokia killer" would be more accurate, since they're the market leader) - but if Apple understand what people want in phones, that the companies I list, which sell vastly more phones, certainly understand what people want.
(PS - even for the Ipod, are you sure you want to equate "benefits" with being most succesful? Would you say the reason Windows is most successful is because MS better understand what customers want?)
Slashdot Mirror
*Googles about this* Blimey, I had no idea - yet another flaw that even dirt cheap feature phones manage to avoid, that curiously the fans never admit to us about. (On Symbian for example, signing up for an Ovi account is entirely optional.)
(And I see a mod abusing his points on an Apple story yet again, mistakenly thinking that "Troll" means "Dares to say something I disagree with".)
No one is claiming the content is being censored; it's the application, which was censored on the Iphone.
No one is making the argument that Apple don't have some right to do it. But equally, we have the right to criticise the Iphone, in that it's a platform where applications are censored. (When someone bashes Windows for something, you don't get Microsoft apologists going "But, but, Microsoft have a right to do it, they're not the Government, you can always get a Mac!"; indeed, on the contrary, saying you are better off with another platform seems like an agreement with the criticism...)
I have no sympathy for the author however - anyone who opts for the Iphone's risky development platform should accept the risks of their application being refused. And if he compares them to a grocer, is he going to move to the next "grocer" and ship the application on open (not to mention more popular) platforms like Symbian, Blackberry and Android? (An honest question - for all I know he already has released it on other platforms.)
What if it was their job to save lives and instead they were slacking off?
Should not doing your job result in a criminal offence? Perhaps at best you could argue it in a case where they were not only slacking off, but then lied about there being no risk, but last time I looked it was innocent until proven guilty; is there any evidence or suggestion that this was the case?
when they say they couldn't have done a better job
Well now you're switching stories. Slacking off and then lying in your report, is different from doing your job, but where perhaps someone could have done better. The latter shouldn't be, and normally isn't, a criminal offence, last time I looked.
I hope they'll also be suing
It is indeed mad, but note that according to the article, it's even worse than them being sued - being charged with gross negligent manslaughter surely implies a criminal, not civil, charge? (Unless I misunderstand Italian law.)
Even if one could try to argue that they are somehow liable for not doing their jobs, I fail to see what criminal offence they are guilty of. They didn't cause the earthquake. If manslaughter now includes failing to save or prevent a death, even when it's not clear you could have done so, then that could apply to all sorts of absurd situations.
No, he's just pointing out it's overpriced, and expecting people to salvage spare parts that they may or may not have lying around, is not much of a counter-argument.
How is a USB keyboard better than a PS/2 one, OOI? What benefit do I have to paying out again when my keyboard works fine, and also having to waste a USB slot?
Apple, it Just Works, Out Of The Box. You just have to order some special adapter, wait for it to arrive, then have to plug it all together. No wonder people say that even their own grandmother could use a Mac!
Well maybe I can claim that this hard disk is cheaper than a Mac, "because it's aimed at people who already have a motherboard, CPU, box etc to plug into it".
The point is, it's still fair to compare on complete prices. If you already have a mouse and keyboard, then the PC price would be cheaper too (and note that there is far greater flexibility on PCs to only get the new parts you want - can I get a Mac Mini without say a hard disk or DVD drive, if I already have one of those?)
If you want a tiny, low-power-consumption, attractive system that can easily be used as a set-top box, then paying a premium
Then why not get a laptop? Small size, and it's portable. How big is the Mac Mini when you take the rather important screen and keyboard into account?
Not everyone shops only on price - value can be derived from places other than raw computing power.
Not everyone shops only on size - value can be derived from places other than simply having a desktop that's slightly smaller. But do we get a Slashdot article everytime a new PC is released?
There are other small PCs around.
But I think the point is, there's little point to them. You have the problems of trying to fit components into a smaller space, as you mention (price, performance - basically having to use laptops), but the benefit of a smaller box is negligible. You don't have portability (especially as you still need a monitor), especially not compared with a similarly priced laptop. And the space saved in a living room isn't much compared with a microATX-based PC in a still reasonably small case (PCs no longer have to be massive tower sized things, unless you want that).
Saying "a large part of that pricing is getting that hardware in such a small package" is hardly an excuse, that's the entire point. Why have a solution that has laptop prices in what's still a desktop?
16GB microSD only costs about $30 - where are your sources showing the Android phones as more expensive?
There's more than Android, anyway. E.g., the X6 comes with 16 or 32GB as standard; the N97 with 32GB as standard.
I don't know about Microsoft (who aren't the competition in the phone market - instead they're competing with Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, RIM etc), but taking pre-orders is commonplace for many companies, not just Apple. There's nothing about "waiting in line" here.
Talking of pre-orders - can we please remember that they've been taking pre-orders, before someone tries to falsely claim "XXX iPhones sold in 1 day!", as people falsely claimed for the Ipad?
Maybe people don't have to wait in line? I read the news about people waiting in line to get 3G on their phone, but I didn't have to wait, as I got it years earlier when it was standard on even cheap feature phones. I'm not going to have to wait in line to get multitasking or a higher resolution either, as my 2 year old 5800 does those fine.
Reports are coming in of Slashdot being flooded with iPhone 4 stories, wreaking havoc with the front page, with people having to skip over an insane number of Apple stories to read something else. Just imagine trying to read this from an iPhone! The demand for the stories surpasses even that of three months of iPad stories, that were necessary before it finally shipped, and makes the traditional "daily iPhone story" seem infrequent in comparison.
What amuses me is how scientists say "this stuff is impossible", and not long later, someone comes along and says "Hey... here's some evidence that it is possible."
Can you cite me an example where scientists said this? E.g., for this story, have scientists said that it's impossible for inertial mass to be different to gravitational mass? I don't think so - whilst they seemed to be the same, it is an open question as to whether they have to be.
I could make an official app of Ash-Fox and distribute it outside of the app store for jail broken iphones.
Oh well that's just great isn't it - you can still get it to work on a minority of phones that have been hacked.
No, this is still a criticism. And people are right to criticise Apple over it and encourage alternative platforms; just as people do when there's a criticism against Google, Microsoft, or whatever else.
For the app store, yes.
For the entire Iphone/Ipad platform, yes.
Not really, nobody is stopping you from showing off your applications, at worst, they're just stopping you from putting it on their store because they don't want it.
You mean: Apple is stopping you from showing off your applications on the Iphone because they don't want it. But you can always develop for another, better, platform instead.
I see nothing in the definition of "censorship" that requires it to be done by Government, or that it must be illegal to get round it.
you want medicine you PAY for it
You want manned spaceflight, you pay for it?
Skipping around on the Moon means technical challenges that foster technological progress. It means more scientists, more engineers, more skilled jobs that cannot be outsourced to Bumfuckay and will stay around for at least a couple of decades, and the indirect benefits of the research and development will find their way into the market, adding to the country's competitivity.
Yes, obviously there are no technical challenges or research and development in medicine. Nor are there any skilled jobs required, and all the doctors can be outsourced.
you're so determined to get medicine to the poor sick people, why don't you give away all the money you don't need to survive?
Why don't you give all your money to NASA?
(Seriously, I'm a fan of manned spaceflight, but your arguments on the false dichotomy between national manned spaceflight and national healthcare don't make sense.)
Good thing most people in power haven't historically shared your worldview, otherwise you'd end up dying from something as simple as breaking your arm, or you were too ill to go and catch some food one day.
Maybe both exploration and medicine (including welfare) are good things...
Being an astronaut is a job at the end of the day, not an entertainment "ride". Last time I looked, people got paid for jobs, not the other way round. If he got the job, good luck to him. Are you going to complain that your taxes are being spent on giving a "foreigner" a ride? That suggests you think the only purpose of manned spaceflight is to give a few Americans an entertaining ride...
We're not talking about creating content (obviously Apple weren't the ones to write this Ulysses app), but about distribution and access to that content.
The barrier to creating content is low. But the barrier to devices to read electronic content - mp3/video players, phones, other portable devices - is very high.
What good is the low barrier to creating content, when you can't get it on the one and only official distribution store? And if you put it on any other server, no one will be able to read it unless they hack their device? Thankfully I don't think there's any way Apple could pull this off for mp3s, but it's the model they're using for mobile applications. (The sad thing is though, that if Apple came out with Ipods that now required all media played on it to be approved by Apple, many people here on Slashdot would be loving it, and saying we shouldn't worry because it's Apple.)
I think you're arguing on the same side here - yes, exactly, there are other better alternatives out there. But that's why people are criticising Apple here, and it's right to do so, so that people are aware of those alternatives (whilst there are many bigger phone sellers to Apple, some people here seem to think that the Iphone is the only phone that can access the Internet, etc).
When people criticise Windows, you don't say "Why are you criticising Windows, you could just use Linux" - on the contrary, the fact that Linux is out there is even more reason to criticise Windows. Similarly, the fact that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, RIM, Google, Microsoft and basically every company in the phone market except Apple don't have this problem adds to the criticism - Apple can't respond with "but that's what everyone else does too".
Indeed, clearly he is free to go and download the app from someone else's store, and run it on his phone.
Oh wait... forgot this is Apple.
But similarly, if we're making excuses - I'd love to visit a parallel universe where the Iphones (and Ipad come to that) didn't receive far more media coverage than phones from any other company, and see how (even) fewer they sell.
I don't want to multitask or make spreadsheets.
Just because the many netbooks, tablets and e-readers, that will also do what you want whilst you sit in a comfy chair, support multitasking and spreadsheets, doesn't mean you have to use those features...
the single model iPhone is still outselling it (counting different capacity iPhones as one model of course).
If we count all the different Iphone models as a "single model", then a "single model" is outselling Android? :) (Also note that most sales figures I've seen lump all the different generations of Iphone models together, not simply the different capacities, so it's hard to be sure of the sales of a single model). I don't know if that's true, but anyhow, Nokia still massively outsell them, as do many other companies (Motorola, LG, Samsung, RIM).
You overestimate the average consumer's ability to care about things such as being able to run software from anywhere.
Indeed, but similarly people here overestimate the average consumer's ability to care about whatever things that the Iphone models might do better (e.g., "retina display"). Which is probably why 40-50% of the market are buying better value Symbian or other Nokia phones.
The endless list of would-be iPod/iPhone killers that touted better features but failed to have an impact in the market are evidence of this.
For the Ipod, sure. But for the Iphone? Who cares about what failures you might be referring too, when there have been plenty of successes. Check out the market share, and see how Apple fares compared with Nokia, LG, Motorola, Samsung and RIM do.
I don't know which failure companies you're talking about (and talking in terms of a "Symbian/Nokia killer" would be more accurate, since they're the market leader) - but if Apple understand what people want in phones, that the companies I list, which sell vastly more phones, certainly understand what people want.
(PS - even for the Ipod, are you sure you want to equate "benefits" with being most succesful? Would you say the reason Windows is most successful is because MS better understand what customers want?)