That's like saying that wheels were originally designed for motorcycle use, not bicycle use. Different markets yes, but you still expect that the wheels on your Ducati will work just as well as the wheels on your kid's training bike.
The mobile market belongs to *nix and Apple. It's just that simple.
Sales figures suggest otherwise. For phones, the market is dominated by Nokia, with many other companies around too (e.g., RIM). If we include netbooks too (as you suggest, with your Chrome comment), then Apple have zero presence there, whilst Windows obviously have a major presence. Even though Microsoft aren't doing too well on handhelds such as phones, netbooks are going to become a major influence on mobile computing.
Well this is Appledot, we can't expect stories about phones from the major companies in the industry like Nokia.
But yes - if not having Flash is a good thing (as some here claim), why isn't there a story for the Motorola V980 not supporting Flash? And if it is a good thing, why aren't there stories for all the phones that do?
I love how things not being supported is twisted to be a good thing - we've seen it before: 3G, MMS, video, copy/paste. That last one in particular, it's amazing the lengths people went to to justify how the UI was improved by not being able to do something as simple as copy/paste, by talking about "new paradigms" (but not ever explaining what those were).
The joke is that when the Iphone finally does add those new features, suddenly the argument that it was better off without them vanishes, and the news is accompanied with much hype and fanfare, as if it was the first phone to ever have such a feature.
I wish I thought of these tactics 10-15 years ago for the Amiga, when development for it was disappearing after Commodore's demise. "Why yes, it doesn't matter that AmigaOS doesn't have Java, in fact, that's a reason why it's better than Windows, because Java is horrible!"
Having worked on Microsoft stuff, I'm wondering why I have to buy a hideously expensive OS, Visual Studio
Nice try, but Visual Studio is available for free (see the Express editions). Plus you don't need to use those, there are other compilers/IDEs available. And you can run on hardware from any manufacturer. And you don't need permission from MS to release your application on their platform.
But apart from all of that, yes, I'm afraid you do need to pay for Windows.
Don't like the hardware prices, don't buy.
Sure, we don't. But all the while there are daily Iphone stories (two today, in fact), it's fair game for people to comment on them. If people don't know about these issues, how will they know not to buy?
My iPhone programming experience is an order of magnitude better than my WinCE and Win Mobile development experience.
Order of magnitude, eh? How do you quantify "experience"?
Compare the real price to get in the door and I think the Apple story is much better.
What's the "real" price, and how does it differ to price?
My monitor is a TV. When I watch TV, like you I do it through my Intel Core Duo PC using my LG TV/monitor. Since HDTV, most TVs also function as monitors - there's no difference.
So it doesn't really make sense to say that TVs are going away, when you obviously still need that "nice screen" to watch things on. All it means is that the monitor and TV markets will converge, which yes is already happening.
A more fundamental change would be the TV channel networks. You still watch the TV, you still need something to watch it on - but you're no longer dependent on the TV channels themselves.
If you're expecting something to challenge Apple OS and Android
Well actually as well as Android and "Apple OS", I was more interested in how it compares to the likes of "Nokia OS", "Blackberry OS" and "Motorola OS". It seems odd that Slashdot only seems to acknowledge the existence of the Iphone and now Android, when the vast majority of the market is made up of other manufacturers...
(Once upon a time it was the case that "smartphones" ran a branded off-the-shelf OS like Symbian or Windows, like Android today, so I could understand doing a comparison of only those... except "Apple OS" doesn't fit into that category anyway.)
Downloading a free trial doesn't help if the trial is fine, but the full game is buggy. I got caught paying for Medieval Total War - crashes all the time, and I've tried on several different computers. The demo was fine though.
No one is talking about the company having to offer up their flaws themselves, the issue is with misrepresentation of customer written reviews. I'm not sure how that can be analogous to an interview, but if you insist, it's like my past jobs writing references, and then me sneaking into the office and tearing up the ones I disagree with, whilst telling the new company that that's all of them, honest.
This isn't quite like Rhapsody or Zune Pass or similar music subscription schemes where you would end up with an annoying pile of encrypted data when your subscription runs out or the company folds. Well, it is, but most people are content with checking out a book once, reading it, and checking it back in.
Yes this is why everyone borrows from a library, and no one buys books. Oh wait.
And this argument could apply to films and TV too, in that people usually only want to watch them once, but that doesn't mean people are happy with DRM there either.
Seriously though - opening 12 web pages and editing documents could be done on a 2MB Amiga. However, there are people who need computers for more than web pages and editing documents, and these needs will continue to provide a reason for more requirements in future. Games, CAD, video editing, software development, 3D rendering.
Although I do agree that the OP's comment about 2GB not being enough for anyone was rather silly. My home computers are still happy on 1GB (although my work computer at 3GB is sometimes a bit too small, and I wish that extra GB wasn't wasted by using a 32 bit OS).
Do you have evidence that white people have more trouble passing through US airports, than say, Asian looking people?
Your ACLU link is irrelevant - they happily defend the rights of white people just as much, not to mention people who follow another religion, or indeed aren't religious at all. I mean what, are you seriously suggesting they shouldn't defend the rights of someone who is a follower of Islam? Or are you seriously believing the fallacy that if they defend a case of a muslim, they therefore don't defend any other people?
I don't doubt that white people get plenty of hassle - but all the OP said was it's even worse for non-white people, and I'm looking for the evidence for your claims?
"a sign that users are already abandoning the oft-ridiculed operating system in favor of the new Windows 7"
I'm amused that this is twisted to be a bad point, against Vista. When Vista's uptake was seen as slow, it was held up not as a sign that XP was just too good, but as a sign that Vista was bad. When Apple fans are queing up to get the latest OS X release, or the new Iphone, it's not taken as a sign that the old OS was bad, or that people were desperate after not having ancient features like 3G for so long, but as a sign that the new products are great. But now that 7's uptake is fast, it's held up as a sign that Vista is bad...
Still, at least it correctly notes that the share is going to 7, as opposed to the fallacy of "Vista is losing share, therefore it must be going to OS X/BSD/etc".
Compared to what? I never had problems with Windows 2000 - perhaps there were still some problems getting support, but overall it was a vast step up from the disaster of the Windows 9x line. I was glad to be able to finally move to a stable OS.
If you're comparing to Linux, well true, it had the stability first (although only of the kernel - in practice back in 2000, I was having trouble with the window manager crashing, leaving me having to reboot; the fact that Linux itself might still be running was not much consolation...) but back then I didn't like it for other reasons (too much dependency on a command prompt - the very thing I hated DOS for). It also had far bigger problems with hardware/driver support than Windows 2000 (every distribution I tried had problems with my graphics card - Red Hat only ran in 320x200 (!), and the rest left me with flickering pixels).
I was never a fan of MS before then, but Windows 2000 was (and indeed, still is) a good OS.
Just because language evolves, doesn't mean that we can discard rules altogether and claim that anything's right. No matter how many long words you use.
I guess we should accept "virii" as a word then, since people use it?
Indeed. Personally I prefer to "think different" by not having an Ipod/phone/whatever.
And who would settle for a device that just works? Although, considering this latest news about crippling phones, I guess they think people should think themselves lucky if works at least.
Apple have pioneered the new feature of Just Doesn't Work! True, many other companies have provided phones and computers with features that were crippled or otherwise didn't work, but Apple were the first ones to popularise it. They were the first ones to integrate it so it didn't work properly, and provide a seemless user experience of not working. Other phones, you have to really try to break them, but Apple have perfected it - so that crippling your phone Just Works, so that it Just Doesn't Work. That's right, it Doesn't Work Just Works.
I was alive in the 90s (and the 80s, and 70s just about). And that's precisely why I'm now concerned about Apple's behaviour - I know exactly what sort of consequences bad monopolies can have.
On the contrary, I'd say it's those people now cheering Apple on, wanting them to become the dominant platform in mobile computing, who either have short memories or weren't alive in the 90s, when we went through this with MS on the desktop.
I thought this too. Although already they refer to "OS X 10.5". I wouldn't be surprised if we do see "OS X 11" (assuming they don't ditch the OS for another platform, again).
To be honest, since "OS X" is really the brand name, and it was a new OS, it should have started off as OS X 1.
Slashdot Mirror
Or Linux. Or BeOS. Or AmigaOS. etc.
That's like saying that wheels were originally designed for motorcycle use, not bicycle use. Different markets yes, but you still expect that the wheels on your Ducati will work just as well as the wheels on your kid's training bike.
That's like saying a really bad analogy.
The mobile market belongs to *nix and Apple. It's just that simple.
Sales figures suggest otherwise. For phones, the market is dominated by Nokia, with many other companies around too (e.g., RIM). If we include netbooks too (as you suggest, with your Chrome comment), then Apple have zero presence there, whilst Windows obviously have a major presence. Even though Microsoft aren't doing too well on handhelds such as phones, netbooks are going to become a major influence on mobile computing.
Well this is Appledot, we can't expect stories about phones from the major companies in the industry like Nokia.
But yes - if not having Flash is a good thing (as some here claim), why isn't there a story for the Motorola V980 not supporting Flash? And if it is a good thing, why aren't there stories for all the phones that do?
I love how things not being supported is twisted to be a good thing - we've seen it before: 3G, MMS, video, copy/paste. That last one in particular, it's amazing the lengths people went to to justify how the UI was improved by not being able to do something as simple as copy/paste, by talking about "new paradigms" (but not ever explaining what those were).
The joke is that when the Iphone finally does add those new features, suddenly the argument that it was better off without them vanishes, and the news is accompanied with much hype and fanfare, as if it was the first phone to ever have such a feature.
I wish I thought of these tactics 10-15 years ago for the Amiga, when development for it was disappearing after Commodore's demise. "Why yes, it doesn't matter that AmigaOS doesn't have Java, in fact, that's a reason why it's better than Windows, because Java is horrible!"
Having worked on Microsoft stuff, I'm wondering why I have to buy a hideously expensive OS, Visual Studio
Nice try, but Visual Studio is available for free (see the Express editions). Plus you don't need to use those, there are other compilers/IDEs available. And you can run on hardware from any manufacturer. And you don't need permission from MS to release your application on their platform.
But apart from all of that, yes, I'm afraid you do need to pay for Windows.
Don't like the hardware prices, don't buy.
Sure, we don't. But all the while there are daily Iphone stories (two today, in fact), it's fair game for people to comment on them. If people don't know about these issues, how will they know not to buy?
My iPhone programming experience is an order of magnitude better than my WinCE and Win Mobile development experience.
Order of magnitude, eh? How do you quantify "experience"?
Compare the real price to get in the door and I think the Apple story is much better.
What's the "real" price, and how does it differ to price?
My monitor is a TV. When I watch TV, like you I do it through my Intel Core Duo PC using my LG TV/monitor. Since HDTV, most TVs also function as monitors - there's no difference.
So it doesn't really make sense to say that TVs are going away, when you obviously still need that "nice screen" to watch things on. All it means is that the monitor and TV markets will converge, which yes is already happening.
A more fundamental change would be the TV channel networks. You still watch the TV, you still need something to watch it on - but you're no longer dependent on the TV channels themselves.
If you're expecting something to challenge Apple OS and Android
Well actually as well as Android and "Apple OS", I was more interested in how it compares to the likes of "Nokia OS", "Blackberry OS" and "Motorola OS". It seems odd that Slashdot only seems to acknowledge the existence of the Iphone and now Android, when the vast majority of the market is made up of other manufacturers...
(Once upon a time it was the case that "smartphones" ran a branded off-the-shelf OS like Symbian or Windows, like Android today, so I could understand doing a comparison of only those ... except "Apple OS" doesn't fit into that category anyway.)
Downloading a free trial doesn't help if the trial is fine, but the full game is buggy. I got caught paying for Medieval Total War - crashes all the time, and I've tried on several different computers. The demo was fine though.
No one is talking about the company having to offer up their flaws themselves, the issue is with misrepresentation of customer written reviews. I'm not sure how that can be analogous to an interview, but if you insist, it's like my past jobs writing references, and then me sneaking into the office and tearing up the ones I disagree with, whilst telling the new company that that's all of them, honest.
This isn't quite like Rhapsody or Zune Pass or similar music subscription schemes where you would end up with an annoying pile of encrypted data when your subscription runs out or the company folds. Well, it is, but most people are content with checking out a book once, reading it, and checking it back in.
Yes this is why everyone borrows from a library, and no one buys books. Oh wait.
And this argument could apply to films and TV too, in that people usually only want to watch them once, but that doesn't mean people are happy with DRM there either.
You could distribute source on Windows too.
What use could I possibly have for 4GB?
Windows 7.
Seriously though - opening 12 web pages and editing documents could be done on a 2MB Amiga. However, there are people who need computers for more than web pages and editing documents, and these needs will continue to provide a reason for more requirements in future. Games, CAD, video editing, software development, 3D rendering.
Although I do agree that the OP's comment about 2GB not being enough for anyone was rather silly. My home computers are still happy on 1GB (although my work computer at 3GB is sometimes a bit too small, and I wish that extra GB wasn't wasted by using a 32 bit OS).
Do you have evidence that white people have more trouble passing through US airports, than say, Asian looking people?
Your ACLU link is irrelevant - they happily defend the rights of white people just as much, not to mention people who follow another religion, or indeed aren't religious at all. I mean what, are you seriously suggesting they shouldn't defend the rights of someone who is a follower of Islam? Or are you seriously believing the fallacy that if they defend a case of a muslim, they therefore don't defend any other people?
I don't doubt that white people get plenty of hassle - but all the OP said was it's even worse for non-white people, and I'm looking for the evidence for your claims?
"a sign that users are already abandoning the oft-ridiculed operating system in favor of the new Windows 7"
I'm amused that this is twisted to be a bad point, against Vista. When Vista's uptake was seen as slow, it was held up not as a sign that XP was just too good, but as a sign that Vista was bad. When Apple fans are queing up to get the latest OS X release, or the new Iphone, it's not taken as a sign that the old OS was bad, or that people were desperate after not having ancient features like 3G for so long, but as a sign that the new products are great. But now that 7's uptake is fast, it's held up as a sign that Vista is bad...
Still, at least it correctly notes that the share is going to 7, as opposed to the fallacy of "Vista is losing share, therefore it must be going to OS X/BSD/etc".
What - you can still get XP on a Mac?
Compared to what? I never had problems with Windows 2000 - perhaps there were still some problems getting support, but overall it was a vast step up from the disaster of the Windows 9x line. I was glad to be able to finally move to a stable OS.
If you're comparing to Linux, well true, it had the stability first (although only of the kernel - in practice back in 2000, I was having trouble with the window manager crashing, leaving me having to reboot; the fact that Linux itself might still be running was not much consolation...) but back then I didn't like it for other reasons (too much dependency on a command prompt - the very thing I hated DOS for). It also had far bigger problems with hardware/driver support than Windows 2000 (every distribution I tried had problems with my graphics card - Red Hat only ran in 320x200 (!), and the rest left me with flickering pixels).
I was never a fan of MS before then, but Windows 2000 was (and indeed, still is) a good OS.
Hardly pwnage, unless using long words counts. No citations were given, for starters.
Just because language evolves, doesn't mean that we can discard rules altogether and claim that anything's right. No matter how many long words you use.
I guess we should accept "virii" as a word then, since people use it?
Indeed. Personally I prefer to "think different" by not having an Ipod/phone/whatever.
And who would settle for a device that just works? Although, considering this latest news about crippling phones, I guess they think people should think themselves lucky if works at least.
Apple - It Just Doesn't Work!
Apple have pioneered the new feature of Just Doesn't Work! True, many other companies have provided phones and computers with features that were crippled or otherwise didn't work, but Apple were the first ones to popularise it. They were the first ones to integrate it so it didn't work properly, and provide a seemless user experience of not working. Other phones, you have to really try to break them, but Apple have perfected it - so that crippling your phone Just Works, so that it Just Doesn't Work. That's right, it Doesn't Work Just Works.
The fact that Apple acts like what for other phones is your boss or your parents is exactly why people are criticising them.
The ignorance of this site is getting embarrassing.
Isn't it!
I was alive in the 90s (and the 80s, and 70s just about). And that's precisely why I'm now concerned about Apple's behaviour - I know exactly what sort of consequences bad monopolies can have.
On the contrary, I'd say it's those people now cheering Apple on, wanting them to become the dominant platform in mobile computing, who either have short memories or weren't alive in the 90s, when we went through this with MS on the desktop.
I thought this too. Although already they refer to "OS X 10.5". I wouldn't be surprised if we do see "OS X 11" (assuming they don't ditch the OS for another platform, again).
To be honest, since "OS X" is really the brand name, and it was a new OS, it should have started off as OS X 1.
Of course extradition happens from the US to the UK
Straw man. No one said it never happens, but this agreement that is being discussed was one way.