"He coined a phrase to describe what lot's of people were already doing;"
[1] He say's himself that it was that way originaly.
and would do in the future, with or without him.
[2] He was concerned they wouldn't be able to, because there would be no base to build on.
[1] contradicts [2]. People had done it, people were doing it, so a base existed. To presume that people would stop doing it for some reason is absurd.
"He wrote a restrictive license to forward an agenda. Before anyone spazs out over the word "restrictive", the GPL is restrictive, it has to be to achieve it's goal. It is restrictive but with benevolent intentions."
A permisive license actually, as in "permits what you wouldn't be allowed to do otherwise".
It is permissive only when you are engaging in behaviors that forward the agenda, otherwise it is restrictive. A BSD style license would be permissive. Note that I am in no way saying one license or the other is better, "better" depends on the goals of the author, and authors certainly have the right to be permissive or restrictive in whatever way they care to.
Same story, year after year after year: PowerPC benchmark flawed, Intel really faster(*). Oh, wait, I see the difference, Apple is on the Intel side this time around.;-)
(*) Yes, I know that for PowerPC and Intel of the *same clockrate* PowerPC is generally 25-30% faster, the problem is PowerPC's perpetual lower clockrates. Brute force may not be elegant but it can prevail.
'Further, Nielsen indicates that iTunes users form a distinct target audience with brand preferences along autos, alcohol beverages, magazines, and television,' he added. "
In other words, iTunes users form a specialty (niche ?) market and the bulk of the population does not use iTunes. So Apple has no DRM lock-in and iPod could be displaced. I'm not arguing that this will happen, I'm just debunking the myth that Apple/iPod is untouchable because of iTunes DRM lock-in. iPod is untouchable at the moment because no competitor makes a product that is competitive.
His "social agenda" is at the very least partially responsible for the loads of free software and **innovation** in the computing industry.
He coined a phrase to describe what lot's of people were already doing; what people had done, and would do in the future, with or without him. He wrote a restrictive license to forward an agenda. Before anyone spazs out over the word "restrictive", the GPL is restrictive, it has to be to achieve it's goal. It is restrictive but with benevolent intentions.
"Well then the lock-in notion is disproven, a $70 investment will not prevent migration."
If there is a music player SIGNIFICANTLY better than the iPod on the market, then no, it won't. But as long as the iPod is similar (and right now it's ahead), the decision will be an easy one. Why rebuy $70 worth of music when the players are about the same?
It is a mistake to fixate on portables like the iPod. They will not be deciding the issue. The issue will be decided by whoever gets their formats supported directly in car stereos, home stereos, dvd/cd players, etc. The bulk of the market is untapped by portables, but these devices will get that bulk moving to digital audio. Apple may allow support, they may not, we'll have to wait. For now all we have is the wishful thinking of early adopters and fans.
I'm not. My entire point is that portables are not going to decide the issue, it's going to be digital audio playback *integrated* into home stereos, car stereos, CD/DVD players, etc. If Apple doesn't let other decode their DRM they will lose these devices, and these are the devices that will decide the issue. To date only the early adopters have been deciding, the bulk of the population is yet to commit one way or the other.... There's nothing stopping Microsoft from shipping a Mac-compatible version of their player...
I believe that personal computers are no more important than portables. The important thing is not whether you have iTunes on Windows of MediaPlayer on MacOS X. It is whose DRM decoder goes into devices mentioned above.
It will be years before we know which way things will go. I'm not arguing that Apple will win or lose, I'm just arguing that most of what I'm reading is wishful thinking.
Fascism is about corporate rule, not the people's government.
No corporation are at the mercy of the fascist government as well. Just like the citizens the corporations will only survive and prosper if they suck up and obey the dictator.
What has confused you is that in the same way that the nuts on the right call everyone communists, the nuts on the left call everyone fascists. They used to just call everyone nazis but then the audience blew them off as the nut cases they are. Dialing the rantings back to fascist helped the nut case's credibility.
Look it up sometime.
You should practice what you preach:
"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent *socioeconomic* controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Fasci sm
In the future you may want the use AC when making posts that dumb.
A lot of people already have big collections of music on iTunes.
My understanding is that the bulk of digital audio in use today is ripped, not purchased. I'm sorry but I don't recall where I read that analysis. Again, I believe the iTMS fans that have such large collections today are early adopters like the Apple II users of the early 80s. People had hundreds of dollars of Apple II software when they decided their next computer will be an IBM PC clone rather than a//gs. They heavy iTMS users will be quickly be dwarfed when the bulk of the population decides to go digital. The bulk, not the early adopters, are going to decide Apple's fate.
Even before the PC Clones, they didn't have that big a market share. Certainly not the majority.
Among business and power users the Apple II did dominate. The Ataris and Commodores were used more like game consoles. The dev tools, the business app, were quite poor. Unlike on the Apple II where they were quite mature, the spreadsheet was really introduced to the mass business market on the Apple II, not the IBM PC. Lots of small businesses bought Apple IIs for no other reason. There were successful 3rd party vendors selling Z80 CP/M coprocessors for Apple IIs so business customers could also get at CP/M based business packages.
That may be practical if you are merely listening with earbuds but when home stereos go digital, which is what I think will get the bulk of the population to go digital - I don't think portables like iPod will do so, the fact that you are starting with a pretty low bit rate source (iTMS) may lead to a quality problem. Apple's current offerings are a great size / quality tradeoff for portables with earbuds but I expect home stereo users will prefer a greater bit rate and quality. We'll have to see if Apple offers some upgrade program when/if they offer a living room appliance, letting customers re-download purchases at a higher bit rate.
That was more of a metaphor. I did refer to a home appliance by Apple or Microsoft, that appliance may be portable or it may be wireless, but there will probably be a central device with the archive. Whether it is in the living room or a closet is irrelevant. My argument still stands.
Or put another way: You have $50 to bet on whether the iPod will be the dominant music player in January, 2009, or will not. You must place your bet, or you forfeit the $50, and you must bet the entire amount either yea or nay. Which way do you bet?
If my rev B iPod died today I'd buy a new iPod without concern a few hours later, however I'd bet against iPod dominance in a three year window for digital audio players. Note that I am not restricting myself to portables. I've been writing with reference to how people listen to digital audio in general, arguing that home and car will decide the mass market not portable players. The three year Window is iffy for portable players, I expect it will be five or so for a different portable player. All bets off if Apple changes it's DRM licensing stance.
Thought so.
To use a phrase you are probably familiar with: Think different.;-)
If that's the case, than Apple already has one home run, and Microsoft already has one major strike against them. Many car stereo companies have already signed onto iPod integration.
It's a $500 upgrade to get the integration kit installed in my car. It integrates into the stereo's on steering wheel controls and dashboard text display. I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives.
However I don't think iPod integration kits matter, they are temporary kludges. I believe that car stereo companies will build digital players directly into their stereos. Upload files, or play digital audio files from a
data CD-R, Apple's DRM might bite back here if they refuse to license decoders. They may hand Microsoft an advantage in this respect.
The bottom line is that whoever wins these battles is always the company that is the most successfull at getting 3rd party support to the point that everyone in the industry NEEDS for that company to stay on top...
I agree, but Apple's refusal to license decoders argues against their being the one on top.
The reason Apple didn't succeed in beating out IBM in the PC wars was because they worked completely unalatorally, they closed off so many doors to 3rd party support that every other company had to throw in with IBM...
I think you are thinking Mac, but the Apple/IBM war was actually decided with the Apple II. The Apple II was open.
I think that Apple has usually done a pretty good job at being very specific and far about their benchmarks.
Like when Apple used old 486 code to test on a Pentium, but used new PPC code on the Mac side?
Like when Apple used an old MMX code to test on a SSE equipped x86 CPU, but used new Altivec code on the Mac side?
Like when Apple's spec results for a particular x86 CPU did not match the official results, Apple used a weaker x86 compiler?
To be fair, this was all in marketing info, not in an engineering analysis, so I guess such games are fair. Apple's "tricks" were disclosed in the fine print.
"I don't think it is inaccurate to state that many humanities majors are there because they need a degree in something to begin some white collar career path."
Just as it could be said that many CS majors entered their field because they were simply following the money.
Sure, but that it irrlevant, it doesn't change the fact that the humanities is the easiest path to a degree, the path of least resistance. The CS degree still has a year or two of Calculus to weed people out. You might go CS for money, but you generally don't go CS to get a degree in "something".
... The folks who stick with Microsoft get to fight over, roughly, twenty percent of the market. The folks that go with Apple would be aligning themselves with what has become the industry standard. The players that license FairPlay would have access to the iTunes store, backwards compatibility with the songs consumers have already purchased, and a chance to compete on a perfectly level playing field with the iPod. It doesn't take a Stanford MBA to deduce that the potential rewards of opting to use FairPlay far outstrip the rewards of going with PlaysForSure...
I own an iPod, I'd be perfectly happy to see Apple win. But declaring the issue already decided, that's just Apple's spin, and the wishful thinking of fans. This could turn out like Apple's mocking welcome of IBM to the personal computer business in the early 1980s.
Apple is not "really" the industry leader for digital audio in any real sense, only in a transitory early adopter phase sense. Calm down, hang on for a few lines... Apple enjoyed a hardware lead and an application software lead when they mocked IBM's entry into the personal computer maketplace. Apple's computer lead then, and their digital audio lean now, may be more similar than many people around here realize. Basically, digital audio is only in it's infancy, as personal computer ownership was in the early 80s. As personal computer ownership became "mainstream" Apple became marginalized. The same could happen with digital audio, the bulk of the population is still not committed to any player/format. Microsoft could, I'm not saying will - only could, be the choice for the bulk of the population for a variety of reasons. One of which is that it is not going to be portable players that decide the digital music issue, it is going to be car stereos, home stereos, etc. Whoever get's their digital media appliance in the living room is probably going to be the ultimate winner. It might be Apple, it might be Microsoft, it will be years before the issue is really decided.
iPod's popularity may be transitory, we don't know how many owners are truly locked in by a large library of DRM'd iTunes Music Store (iTMS) purchases. Whatever people rip themselves with iTunes is not DRM'd and my understanding is that the vast bulk of digital audio is ripped, not from iTMS. Even if a person has DRM'd files that are not portable, the fact that they paid for the music lowers the barrier to their getting replacement files via file sharing, they are not really "stealing" in their own minds, they already "own" the song. It's much like people who in the napster days felt OK downloading a song they owned on vinyl or cassette rather than CD.
I realize there's been some CS bashing in this thread and you're probably feeling defensive, but I'm offended by your characterization of the humanities...
No, I'm not being defensive, I'm just sharing my experience. I took a lot of history and poly sci for fun. My advisor was constantly bitching and moaning about this, "too many units". I have nothing against the humanities, I actually enjoy many of the topics, but the academic rigor just isn't there. I had more interest in history or poly sci than some of the majors. I don't think it is inaccurate to state that many humanities majors are there because they need a degree in something to begin some white collar career path. I recall a seminar on careers for history and poly sci majors. It started out by telling the attendees that they were not going to get jobs in their "field", they were going to get management jobs in banks, large corporations, etc. I think this supports my argument that many poly sci majors are there because they need a degree in "something" and poly sci is one of the easier ones to attain.
... There are more than a few CS majors that couldn't write an analytical paper to save their life...
And there are CS majors who turn in half-assed code every day.
And there are humanity majors who turn in half-assed papers every day.
Now using some of my senior poly sci classmates as examples I often found that their arguments were shallow and/or regurgitations of the professor or of the popular press. Not a lot of critical thinking.
Again, I am not slamming the humanities. I enjoy them. However I have taken advanced classes in history and poly sci while getting a CS degree so I do feel I am well qualified to debunk the GP's thesis that many pre-law students study poly sci so it must be demanding.
Hint: political science is a common undergrad major for law students.
You stopped short:
Hint #2: That let's them get a 4.0 with very little effort.
Hint #3: Very few poly sci majors are pre-law, it's primarily a major for those who have to get a degree in something to be eligible for a military commission, an entry level management position, etc.
I was a CS major, as a freshman I took senior level poly sci classes for fun. Read a few books, write a few 10 page papers, engage in fun classroom debates,... hardly a challenge. Oh, and far more cute girls than CS, math, etc.
Apple could be any kind of company it wants. I'm sure they'd do fine, from a business perspective, if they ditched OS X tomorrow and began manufacturing commodity PCs. Just like they'd do fine converting their business to software-only.
As a software-only company Apple computer would still exist, but they would be a small fraction of their current size, their revuenue would be a small fraction of their current revenue. A ghost of its former self.
Your definition of "platform" fails to include the total user experience, which is exactly what Apple aims to do.
I wrote "Apple could still be a platform company using generic PC hardware". This does not mean end users would not get to pick the hardware, Apple could pick a particular OEM system with a known configuration, ensure quality parts, ensure good drivers, etc. The user experience would not necessarily change.
Let's end the silliness right here. Apple doesn't sell hardware. It doesn't sell software. What it sells is platforms: platforms for checking your email, sorting your photos, communicating with faraway friends and relatives, cutting that documentary you've always wanted to produce. Trying to tear apart the software and hardware aspects of this platform just doesn't make any sense, unless you're a Dell kind of guy.
No, your platform definition is too loose. Apple could still be a platform company using generic PC hardware. To tighten up things you have to qualify the platform as being based on proprietary hardware, which essentially make Apple a hardware company.
For awhile I did some graphics programming in OpenGL with GLUT and SDL
But that often leads to a least common denominator approach. It probably is best for major titles to go with best of breed APIs on their repsective targets and to use platform specific features that enhance the user experience.
"Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs."
Isnt that the same for the new Intel Macs? I thought all Intel Macs could run PPC apps fine(via emulation).
Technically they will run but they will be unplayable. When emulating under Windows you are only emulating the system APIs and not the CPU instructions. With Rosetta the Pentium has to emulate PowerPC CPU instructions.
Someone will soon port wine to Intel Mac, I woudlnt be surprised if transgaming releases cedega for Intel Mac, they could use that. Also apple has said that they are doing nothing to prevent Windows from being run on their machines so once M$ makes Windows XP work with the Macs(and im pretty sure they will quite soon) why not just tell the new Intel Mac users to dual boot with Windows?
Wine may very well turn out to be a disincentive to porting someday. What may save Mac gamers, compared to Linux gamers, is that Mac gamers have a proven track record of spending money. The lower testing costs might help too, Linux's multiple distributions and much wider hardware support makes it more expensive to test. More configuration permutations. But in general I agree that Wine is a long term threat, deja vu OS/2 2.x.
Telling Mac gamers to dual boot is not practical. Linux is different in that Linux gamers already have a history of dual booting and they already tend to have a copy of Windows, Mac gamers have a history of buying native versions of games and not already owning Windows. Yes, it is a chicken-and-egg like problem, but that is Linux's problem not a game developer's problem. Game developer's just go with what is, unless they are also Linux advocates like id.
Microsoft never sold a PC in its life and its market capitalization is four times that of Apple.
You grossly misrepresent MS' success, it was due to hardware sales, IBM's hardware sales. MS' products were bundled. PC-DOS became the defacto standard, IBM clones appeared, only then was MS able to leverage the network effect and sell their substitute good (MS-DOS).
When is Apple going to wake up and realize they could grow a lot bigger if they got over their obsession with selling high-margin computers and licensed an even higher margin OS to PC makers.
Again, you misrepresent. The Apple / IBM war predated the Mac. Apple II's were used in business (some Apple DOS and some CP/M based), were significantly less expensive, but were rolled over by IBM. That specialized niche market you speak of was not Apple's goal, that was what they were left with.
Slashdot Mirror
"He coined a phrase to describe what lot's of people were already doing;"
[1] He say's himself that it was that way originaly.
and would do in the future, with or without him.
[2] He was concerned they wouldn't be able to, because there would be no base to build on.
[1] contradicts [2]. People had done it, people were doing it, so a base existed. To presume that people would stop doing it for some reason is absurd.
"He wrote a restrictive license to forward an agenda. Before anyone spazs out over the word "restrictive", the GPL is restrictive, it has to be to achieve it's goal. It is restrictive but with benevolent intentions."
A permisive license actually, as in "permits what you wouldn't be allowed to do otherwise".
It is permissive only when you are engaging in behaviors that forward the agenda, otherwise it is restrictive. A BSD style license would be permissive. Note that I am in no way saying one license or the other is better, "better" depends on the goals of the author, and authors certainly have the right to be permissive or restrictive in whatever way they care to.
Same story, year after year after year: PowerPC benchmark flawed, Intel really faster(*). Oh, wait, I see the difference, Apple is on the Intel side this time around. ;-)
(*) Yes, I know that for PowerPC and Intel of the *same clockrate* PowerPC is generally 25-30% faster, the problem is PowerPC's perpetual lower clockrates. Brute force may not be elegant but it can prevail.
Unless Google can figure out a way to get this to work with iPods...
Well if there is no DRM it will work just fine.
Apple hasn't so much created a technology as they have a lifestyle ...
[serious]
I hope not, "lifestyle" often equals "fad".
[/serious]
[humorous]
Personally I'm hoping the iPod is not another flower-power or dalmation print iMac.
[/humorous]
'Further, Nielsen indicates that iTunes users form a distinct target audience with brand preferences along autos, alcohol beverages, magazines, and television,' he added. "
In other words, iTunes users form a specialty (niche ?) market and the bulk of the population does not use iTunes. So Apple has no DRM lock-in and iPod could be displaced. I'm not arguing that this will happen, I'm just debunking the myth that Apple/iPod is untouchable because of iTunes DRM lock-in. iPod is untouchable at the moment because no competitor makes a product that is competitive.
His "social agenda" is at the very least partially responsible for the loads of free software and **innovation** in the computing industry.
He coined a phrase to describe what lot's of people were already doing; what people had done, and would do in the future, with or without him. He wrote a restrictive license to forward an agenda. Before anyone spazs out over the word "restrictive", the GPL is restrictive, it has to be to achieve it's goal. It is restrictive but with benevolent intentions.
"Well then the lock-in notion is disproven, a $70 investment will not prevent migration."
If there is a music player SIGNIFICANTLY better than the iPod on the market, then no, it won't. But as long as the iPod is similar (and right now it's ahead), the decision will be an easy one. Why rebuy $70 worth of music when the players are about the same?
It is a mistake to fixate on portables like the iPod. They will not be deciding the issue. The issue will be decided by whoever gets their formats supported directly in car stereos, home stereos, dvd/cd players, etc. The bulk of the market is untapped by portables, but these devices will get that bulk moving to digital audio. Apple may allow support, they may not, we'll have to wait. For now all we have is the wishful thinking of early adopters and fans.
I think SJ said in the keynote last fall that the average number of purchased songs per ITMS customer is ~70.
Well then the lock-in notion is disproven, a $70 investment will not prevent migration.
The bulk of digital audio playback devices other than portables don't bother supporting anyone's DRM.
That is temporary, an artifact that only early adopters are buying digital audio online. This will change at some point.
... and we are talking about portables, now ...
... There's nothing stopping Microsoft from shipping a Mac-compatible version of their player ...
I'm not. My entire point is that portables are not going to decide the issue, it's going to be digital audio playback *integrated* into home stereos, car stereos, CD/DVD players, etc. If Apple doesn't let other decode their DRM they will lose these devices, and these are the devices that will decide the issue. To date only the early adopters have been deciding, the bulk of the population is yet to commit one way or the other.
I believe that personal computers are no more important than portables. The important thing is not whether you have iTunes on Windows of MediaPlayer on MacOS X. It is whose DRM decoder goes into devices mentioned above.
It will be years before we know which way things will go. I'm not arguing that Apple will win or lose, I'm just arguing that most of what I'm reading is wishful thinking.
Fascism is about corporate rule, not the people's government.
i sm
No corporation are at the mercy of the fascist government as well. Just like the citizens the corporations will only survive and prosper if they suck up and obey the dictator.
What has confused you is that in the same way that the nuts on the right call everyone communists, the nuts on the left call everyone fascists. They used to just call everyone nazis but then the audience blew them off as the nut cases they are. Dialing the rantings back to fascist helped the nut case's credibility.
Look it up sometime.
You should practice what you preach:
"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent *socioeconomic* controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Fasc
In the future you may want the use AC when making posts that dumb.
A lot of people already have big collections of music on iTunes.
//gs. They heavy iTMS users will be quickly be dwarfed when the bulk of the population decides to go digital. The bulk, not the early adopters, are going to decide Apple's fate.
My understanding is that the bulk of digital audio in use today is ripped, not purchased. I'm sorry but I don't recall where I read that analysis. Again, I believe the iTMS fans that have such large collections today are early adopters like the Apple II users of the early 80s. People had hundreds of dollars of Apple II software when they decided their next computer will be an IBM PC clone rather than a
Even before the PC Clones, they didn't have that big a market share. Certainly not the majority.
Among business and power users the Apple II did dominate. The Ataris and Commodores were used more like game consoles. The dev tools, the business app, were quite poor. Unlike on the Apple II where they were quite mature, the spreadsheet was really introduced to the mass business market on the Apple II, not the IBM PC. Lots of small businesses bought Apple IIs for no other reason. There were successful 3rd party vendors selling Z80 CP/M coprocessors for Apple IIs so business customers could also get at CP/M based business packages.
"MIX, BURN, RIP"
That may be practical if you are merely listening with earbuds but when home stereos go digital, which is what I think will get the bulk of the population to go digital - I don't think portables like iPod will do so, the fact that you are starting with a pretty low bit rate source (iTMS) may lead to a quality problem. Apple's current offerings are a great size / quality tradeoff for portables with earbuds but I expect home stereo users will prefer a greater bit rate and quality. We'll have to see if Apple offers some upgrade program when/if they offer a living room appliance, letting customers re-download purchases at a higher bit rate.
The living room is obsolete.
That was more of a metaphor. I did refer to a home appliance by Apple or Microsoft, that appliance may be portable or it may be wireless, but there will probably be a central device with the archive. Whether it is in the living room or a closet is irrelevant. My argument still stands.
Or put another way: You have $50 to bet on whether the iPod will be the dominant music player in January, 2009, or will not. You must place your bet, or you forfeit the $50, and you must bet the entire amount either yea or nay. Which way do you bet?
;-)
If my rev B iPod died today I'd buy a new iPod without concern a few hours later, however I'd bet against iPod dominance in a three year window for digital audio players. Note that I am not restricting myself to portables. I've been writing with reference to how people listen to digital audio in general, arguing that home and car will decide the mass market not portable players. The three year Window is iffy for portable players, I expect it will be five or so for a different portable player. All bets off if Apple changes it's DRM licensing stance.
Thought so.
To use a phrase you are probably familiar with: Think different.
If that's the case, than Apple already has one home run, and Microsoft already has one major strike against them. Many car stereo companies have already signed onto iPod integration.
...
It's a $500 upgrade to get the integration kit installed in my car. It integrates into the stereo's on steering wheel controls and dashboard text display. I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives.
However I don't think iPod integration kits matter, they are temporary kludges. I believe that car stereo companies will build digital players directly into their stereos. Upload files, or play digital audio files from a data CD-R, Apple's DRM might bite back here if they refuse to license decoders. They may hand Microsoft an advantage in this respect.
The bottom line is that whoever wins these battles is always the company that is the most successfull at getting 3rd party support to the point that everyone in the industry NEEDS for that company to stay on top
I agree, but Apple's refusal to license decoders argues against their being the one on top.
The reason Apple didn't succeed in beating out IBM in the PC wars was because they worked completely unalatorally, they closed off so many doors to 3rd party support that every other company had to throw in with IBM...
I think you are thinking Mac, but the Apple/IBM war was actually decided with the Apple II. The Apple II was open.
I think that Apple has usually done a pretty good job at being very specific and far about their benchmarks.
Like when Apple used old 486 code to test on a Pentium, but used new PPC code on the Mac side?
Like when Apple used an old MMX code to test on a SSE equipped x86 CPU, but used new Altivec code on the Mac side?
Like when Apple's spec results for a particular x86 CPU did not match the official results, Apple used a weaker x86 compiler?
To be fair, this was all in marketing info, not in an engineering analysis, so I guess such games are fair. Apple's "tricks" were disclosed in the fine print.
"I don't think it is inaccurate to state that many humanities majors are there because they need a degree in something to begin some white collar career path."
Just as it could be said that many CS majors entered their field because they were simply following the money.
Sure, but that it irrlevant, it doesn't change the fact that the humanities is the easiest path to a degree, the path of least resistance. The CS degree still has a year or two of Calculus to weed people out. You might go CS for money, but you generally don't go CS to get a degree in "something".
... The folks who stick with Microsoft get to fight over, roughly, twenty percent of the market. The folks that go with Apple would be aligning themselves with what has become the industry standard. The players that license FairPlay would have access to the iTunes store, backwards compatibility with the songs consumers have already purchased, and a chance to compete on a perfectly level playing field with the iPod. It doesn't take a Stanford MBA to deduce that the potential rewards of opting to use FairPlay far outstrip the rewards of going with PlaysForSure ...
... Apple enjoyed a hardware lead and an application software lead when they mocked IBM's entry into the personal computer maketplace. Apple's computer lead then, and their digital audio lean now, may be more similar than many people around here realize. Basically, digital audio is only in it's infancy, as personal computer ownership was in the early 80s. As personal computer ownership became "mainstream" Apple became marginalized. The same could happen with digital audio, the bulk of the population is still not committed to any player/format. Microsoft could, I'm not saying will - only could, be the choice for the bulk of the population for a variety of reasons. One of which is that it is not going to be portable players that decide the digital music issue, it is going to be car stereos, home stereos, etc. Whoever get's their digital media appliance in the living room is probably going to be the ultimate winner. It might be Apple, it might be Microsoft, it will be years before the issue is really decided.
I own an iPod, I'd be perfectly happy to see Apple win. But declaring the issue already decided, that's just Apple's spin, and the wishful thinking of fans. This could turn out like Apple's mocking welcome of IBM to the personal computer business in the early 1980s.
Apple is not "really" the industry leader for digital audio in any real sense, only in a transitory early adopter phase sense. Calm down, hang on for a few lines
iPod's popularity may be transitory, we don't know how many owners are truly locked in by a large library of DRM'd iTunes Music Store (iTMS) purchases. Whatever people rip themselves with iTunes is not DRM'd and my understanding is that the vast bulk of digital audio is ripped, not from iTMS. Even if a person has DRM'd files that are not portable, the fact that they paid for the music lowers the barrier to their getting replacement files via file sharing, they are not really "stealing" in their own minds, they already "own" the song. It's much like people who in the napster days felt OK downloading a song they owned on vinyl or cassette rather than CD.
I realize there's been some CS bashing in this thread and you're probably feeling defensive, but I'm offended by your characterization of the humanities ...
... There are more than a few CS majors that couldn't write an analytical paper to save their life ...
No, I'm not being defensive, I'm just sharing my experience. I took a lot of history and poly sci for fun. My advisor was constantly bitching and moaning about this, "too many units". I have nothing against the humanities, I actually enjoy many of the topics, but the academic rigor just isn't there. I had more interest in history or poly sci than some of the majors. I don't think it is inaccurate to state that many humanities majors are there because they need a degree in something to begin some white collar career path. I recall a seminar on careers for history and poly sci majors. It started out by telling the attendees that they were not going to get jobs in their "field", they were going to get management jobs in banks, large corporations, etc. I think this supports my argument that many poly sci majors are there because they need a degree in "something" and poly sci is one of the easier ones to attain.
And there are CS majors who turn in half-assed code every day.
And there are humanity majors who turn in half-assed papers every day.
Now using some of my senior poly sci classmates as examples I often found that their arguments were shallow and/or regurgitations of the professor or of the popular press. Not a lot of critical thinking.
Again, I am not slamming the humanities. I enjoy them. However I have taken advanced classes in history and poly sci while getting a CS degree so I do feel I am well qualified to debunk the GP's thesis that many pre-law students study poly sci so it must be demanding.
Hint: political science is a common undergrad major for law students.
... hardly a challenge. Oh, and far more cute girls than CS, math, etc.
You stopped short:
Hint #2: That let's them get a 4.0 with very little effort.
Hint #3: Very few poly sci majors are pre-law, it's primarily a major for those who have to get a degree in something to be eligible for a military commission, an entry level management position, etc.
I was a CS major, as a freshman I took senior level poly sci classes for fun. Read a few books, write a few 10 page papers, engage in fun classroom debates,
Apple could be any kind of company it wants. I'm sure they'd do fine, from a business perspective, if they ditched OS X tomorrow and began manufacturing commodity PCs. Just like they'd do fine converting their business to software-only.
As a software-only company Apple computer would still exist, but they would be a small fraction of their current size, their revuenue would be a small fraction of their current revenue. A ghost of its former self.
Your definition of "platform" fails to include the total user experience, which is exactly what Apple aims to do.
I wrote "Apple could still be a platform company using generic PC hardware". This does not mean end users would not get to pick the hardware, Apple could pick a particular OEM system with a known configuration, ensure quality parts, ensure good drivers, etc. The user experience would not necessarily change.
Let's end the silliness right here. Apple doesn't sell hardware. It doesn't sell software. What it sells is platforms: platforms for checking your email, sorting your photos, communicating with faraway friends and relatives, cutting that documentary you've always wanted to produce. Trying to tear apart the software and hardware aspects of this platform just doesn't make any sense, unless you're a Dell kind of guy.
No, your platform definition is too loose. Apple could still be a platform company using generic PC hardware. To tighten up things you have to qualify the platform as being based on proprietary hardware, which essentially make Apple a hardware company.
For awhile I did some graphics programming in OpenGL with GLUT and SDL
But that often leads to a least common denominator approach. It probably is best for major titles to go with best of breed APIs on their repsective targets and to use platform specific features that enhance the user experience.
"Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs."
Isnt that the same for the new Intel Macs? I thought all Intel Macs could run PPC apps fine(via emulation).
Technically they will run but they will be unplayable. When emulating under Windows you are only emulating the system APIs and not the CPU instructions. With Rosetta the Pentium has to emulate PowerPC CPU instructions.
Someone will soon port wine to Intel Mac, I woudlnt be surprised if transgaming releases cedega for Intel Mac, they could use that. Also apple has said that they are doing nothing to prevent Windows from being run on their machines so once M$ makes Windows XP work with the Macs(and im pretty sure they will quite soon) why not just tell the new Intel Mac users to dual boot with Windows?
Wine may very well turn out to be a disincentive to porting someday. What may save Mac gamers, compared to Linux gamers, is that Mac gamers have a proven track record of spending money. The lower testing costs might help too, Linux's multiple distributions and much wider hardware support makes it more expensive to test. More configuration permutations. But in general I agree that Wine is a long term threat, deja vu OS/2 2.x.
Telling Mac gamers to dual boot is not practical. Linux is different in that Linux gamers already have a history of dual booting and they already tend to have a copy of Windows, Mac gamers have a history of buying native versions of games and not already owning Windows. Yes, it is a chicken-and-egg like problem, but that is Linux's problem not a game developer's problem. Game developer's just go with what is, unless they are also Linux advocates like id.
Microsoft never sold a PC in its life and its market capitalization is four times that of Apple.
You grossly misrepresent MS' success, it was due to hardware sales, IBM's hardware sales. MS' products were bundled. PC-DOS became the defacto standard, IBM clones appeared, only then was MS able to leverage the network effect and sell their substitute good (MS-DOS).
When is Apple going to wake up and realize they could grow a lot bigger if they got over their obsession with selling high-margin computers and licensed an even higher margin OS to PC makers.
Again, you misrepresent. The Apple / IBM war predated the Mac. Apple II's were used in business (some Apple DOS and some CP/M based), were significantly less expensive, but were rolled over by IBM. That specialized niche market you speak of was not Apple's goal, that was what they were left with.