It's not Apple alone doing it, it's everyone in the industry who is participating in this patent clusterfuck. And you'll notice that these mass waves of smartphones are all from a handful of companies, the only ones not being used are big enough to actually be a threat. But you probably won't see any new arrivals in the marketplace, for fear of being sued into the ground.
It's all about establishing a nasty, thick web of patents not covered by RAND to raise the barrier to entry impossibly high.
This is why I criticize Apple's walled garden, despite not owning one. They're very, very interested in making impossible for those of us who don't want to buy in to actually have a choice.
First we do have a right to travel but no right to travel by air is listed in the Constitution.
We have a right to travel. The government has no business placing unreasonable burdens upon people wishing to travel by any means, which they are definitely doing in airports these days. I can't force an airline to carry me, but as I said earlier, if they've sold me a ticket then it's a done deal.
We also have a legal history of severely limiting travel in times of emergency such as the Civil War. We also made travel very difficult in WWII due to gas and tire rationing and the use of rail and bus moving so many troops as to limit civilian access.
Both cases are completely and totally immaterial to right now, since those were actual wars and not fear parades.
And believe it or not the best answer might be to close air traffic with the exception of certain types of business people and medical transport and rescue.
Err...
A nude beach might cure these prudes.
Wait, now I can't tell if I just gave you a bite or if you're serious.
I know I'm going to anger my fellow Green Party members with this, but a little bit of history is relevant. We were attacked from Afghanistan.
No we weren't. We were attacked by a dissolute terrorist group that was hiding out there. We went in with poor planning, poor resourcing, and no goal by an administration more concerned with routing money to their pet corporations than doing a damn bit of good.
Had we focused on going in, finding bin Laden, and dragging his ass out instead of "nation building" and "liberation" then probably no one would care.
I can't force an airline to carry me, but presumably they have no objection if they've sold me a ticket. When the Feds step in and force me to submit to intrusive, unjustified searches just to board the plane, they're denying me my right to travel.
Sure, I can drive, but that just proves they're full of shit unless they're going to start a Federal Highway Patrol with random stop-and-search under penalty of confiscation of my car for refusal.
I have every right under the sun unless something is explicitly forbidden by law. Don't presume that there are freedoms I do not have unless you can show me the law that has taken it away.
But that would mean less power and money for them, and we can't have that. What gets me is how much the heads of other states are drooling over the prospect of the Russians assassinating people that work for Wikileaks. It's almost like they're too cowardly to take the next step into corruption that they so wish for, so are waiting for an already wholly corrupt government to do their dirty work for them.
Nonsense. This is the free market potentially coming to bear. A suddenly informed populace aware of what scams and screw jobs corporations are pulling can swiftly decide to use the products of another company (assuming they aren't all colluding.) In fact, with the power corporations have this kind of leak is the only way for there to be an informed public, which is the only way a free market could possibly exist.
It's a Libertarian's dream come true, though not mine mostly because I don't think corporations should have the freedom to do this sort of shit.
The alternative is to be a defeatist who gives up and abdicates all control of mobile computing up to self-interested corporations.
I know you really don't want to see it, but apple's lockdown is a part of what makes their products good.
It's entirely peripheral.
Mac OS X *is* more locked down than Linux or windows, or had you forgotten?
It is? At worst it's equal with Windows, last I checked. I don't think they've started requiring kexts to be signed, or prohibit me from running arbitrary applications. Or are you referring to not being easy to install on non-Apple hardware, which is a different problem?
In a perfect world... Sure maybe we wouldn't need DRM or lockdown. And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the world simply won't work without DRM and lock down.
Well, I suggest you give up your PC then. Oh and stop using any open source software. Pretty bad when people on Slashdot will aggressively and loudly defend DRM that serves no one but the vendor.
when it brings a product that is, IMHO, far superior to anything else on the market.
My point is that DRM and lock down are not necessary to bring a superior product.
I firmly believe that the iOS products would not be as good if you simply let users click a button or whatever to turn off the control apple has over the platform.
Then by that logic OS X should be a hellhole. Yet it's not.
People are so shocked that Apple and Microsoft limit the software that can be installed on their phones, but fundamentally, it's the carriers that are primarily responsible for this. If Apple and Microsoft want to play in the smartphone game, they're stuck working with the requirements carriers place on them.
Nah, I have to call shenanigans. Android devices and handset vendors need the discounts, so they have to play ball. Apple does the exact same thing, but they also do it to devices like the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV and none of those have anything to do with the carriers.
By far, Apple and Microsoft are more than happy to lock things down and control their users.
As I understand it, there's a dialog where you can explicitly allow non-Marketplace software, and this was removed only on the AT&T handsets. Rooting isn't necessary for that (while it is for other things) last I checked.
That said, it is crap. They'd hate my N900, that's for sure.
Last I checked only AT&T was doing it, and IIRC they did it to only two handsets (which were rooted anyway.) Do you know of others that don't allow non-Market software?
Why should I have to pay one cent more to use my own property? I've been corrected on the developer having to load the software, but it's still a painfully manual process for users of ad-hoc packages.
Have you even looked at the iPhone business options
Why should I look at business options, I'm not a business.
Why should I have to be a business to write and freely distribute software? Come on, defend DRM and lock down more please.
No, enterprise does not require you to manually distribute it.
Right, but you're still required to be part of a 500 person company.
Ad Hoc certainly has drawbacks, but certainly is doable if necessary but should be easier to distribute.
Considering you have to bend over backwards to install it and are limited to 100 people, that's a huge drawback.
Please, some more uneducated opinions.
I apologize for not being fully studied on all the pitfalls and limitations on software distribution for an extremely restrictive platform that I, myself, would never use.
Lets bash Apple with what we think we know!
Ah, but it's not hard to familiarize yourself with all the restrictions and drawbacks Apple (and Microsoft) impose upon the system. Suffice it to say, you cannot freely distribute software to anyone with an iPhone without going through the App Store or being an Enterprise. You can distribute it to a tiny subset of people, though.
I think he means the option to disable the ability for corporations to push applications to users handsets. I also think he is mistaken in the purpose and functionality of the feature.
If the option exists, then eventually most people will be exposed to an app they really want but requires them to click that button and turn off the safety of the app store.
Nonsense. Most people would likely never leave the safety of the App Store, and with a default of "off" for non-App Store software it's easy to encourage people to be a little more pro-active.
Hell I'd be happy if doing so required you to power the unit down and hold a button as it powered on, so long as you so much as had the option of doing so.
I think it's fine to force people to jailbreak to get that kind if freedom on this kind of platform.
No, jailbreaking means you're forced to violate EULAs and use local exploits to take control over your property from a vendor who very much does not want to let you.
Err, yes they do. On-device testing requires paying the $99 fee and you're limited in the number of handsets you can load it on. Additionally, you must load it on each handset manually as it cannot be distributed to end users directly without going through the App Store.
No, Apple and Microsoft are in the same exact lock down boat here. Only differences are the APIs and the fees.
if they continued with the "open" platform of WM6.5, eventually there would be malware on the platform and the whole ecosystem would be known for being "insecure" just as users bash Windows on their PC for being "insecure"
Really? All they'd have to do is make it a user optional switch with respect to non-store software and flip it to off by default, and make the store prominent. They'd probably never have an issue. Forcibly locking the system down with no opt-out doesn't help security at all.
Like Apple, this is all about total control over the end user and using that control to route them through profit centers (and I don't believe for a moment that these stores will not be profitable, otherwise what's the point.)
Because the community would rather have stable tested apps over the freedom to write and deploy their own apps... which the vast vast majority of them don't have the skills to do in the first place? That's my guess.
You give Microsoft (and Apple) too much credit. It's all about routing users through their respective App Stores, which allow them to have complete control over the platform and turn every bit of functionality into a revenue source for themselves.
Allowing users to sideload software defeats that entirely.
Once again it is over the heads of the community here to see that people really don't want all this freedom in their computing platforms.
Same goes for PCs, and I'm sure Microsoft would love it if you agreed to hand complete control over your PC over to them. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to push this lock down model up in the stack over the next few years. So much for being opposed to Trusted Computing, eh?
They just want it to work. They pay for having a working gadget. Why does this escape the average Slashdotter?
Because, quite frankly, LOCK DOWN NOT REQUIRED FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. Yet stupid arguments like this keep getting made. This kind of restriction serves no one but Apple/Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Weaseling out of what?
It's not Apple alone doing it, it's everyone in the industry who is participating in this patent clusterfuck. And you'll notice that these mass waves of smartphones are all from a handful of companies, the only ones not being used are big enough to actually be a threat. But you probably won't see any new arrivals in the marketplace, for fear of being sued into the ground.
It's all about establishing a nasty, thick web of patents not covered by RAND to raise the barrier to entry impossibly high.
This is why I criticize Apple's walled garden, despite not owning one. They're very, very interested in making impossible for those of us who don't want to buy in to actually have a choice.
We have a right to travel. The government has no business placing unreasonable burdens upon people wishing to travel by any means, which they are definitely doing in airports these days. I can't force an airline to carry me, but as I said earlier, if they've sold me a ticket then it's a done deal.
Both cases are completely and totally immaterial to right now, since those were actual wars and not fear parades.
Err...
Wait, now I can't tell if I just gave you a bite or if you're serious.
No we weren't. We were attacked by a dissolute terrorist group that was hiding out there. We went in with poor planning, poor resourcing, and no goal by an administration more concerned with routing money to their pet corporations than doing a damn bit of good.
Had we focused on going in, finding bin Laden, and dragging his ass out instead of "nation building" and "liberation" then probably no one would care.
Don't be an idiot. I have the right to travel.
I can't force an airline to carry me, but presumably they have no objection if they've sold me a ticket. When the Feds step in and force me to submit to intrusive, unjustified searches just to board the plane, they're denying me my right to travel.
Sure, I can drive, but that just proves they're full of shit unless they're going to start a Federal Highway Patrol with random stop-and-search under penalty of confiscation of my car for refusal.
I have every right under the sun unless something is explicitly forbidden by law. Don't presume that there are freedoms I do not have unless you can show me the law that has taken it away.
Fixed that. Remember that FOSS people are on the outs when it comes to devices like the iPhone and WP7.
But that would mean less power and money for them, and we can't have that. What gets me is how much the heads of other states are drooling over the prospect of the Russians assassinating people that work for Wikileaks. It's almost like they're too cowardly to take the next step into corruption that they so wish for, so are waiting for an already wholly corrupt government to do their dirty work for them.
Yes, as Dolly Parton is known for her rather... large mammaries.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1217&bih=766&q=dolly+parton&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
So I suppose this goes to an earlier poster's point about ignorance, doesn't it?
Nonsense. This is the free market potentially coming to bear. A suddenly informed populace aware of what scams and screw jobs corporations are pulling can swiftly decide to use the products of another company (assuming they aren't all colluding.) In fact, with the power corporations have this kind of leak is the only way for there to be an informed public, which is the only way a free market could possibly exist.
It's a Libertarian's dream come true, though not mine mostly because I don't think corporations should have the freedom to do this sort of shit.
The alternative is to be a defeatist who gives up and abdicates all control of mobile computing up to self-interested corporations.
It's entirely peripheral.
It is? At worst it's equal with Windows, last I checked. I don't think they've started requiring kexts to be signed, or prohibit me from running arbitrary applications. Or are you referring to not being easy to install on non-Apple hardware, which is a different problem?
Well, I suggest you give up your PC then. Oh and stop using any open source software. Pretty bad when people on Slashdot will aggressively and loudly defend DRM that serves no one but the vendor.
My point is that DRM and lock down are not necessary to bring a superior product.
Then by that logic OS X should be a hellhole. Yet it's not.
Nah, I have to call shenanigans. Android devices and handset vendors need the discounts, so they have to play ball. Apple does the exact same thing, but they also do it to devices like the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV and none of those have anything to do with the carriers.
By far, Apple and Microsoft are more than happy to lock things down and control their users.
But they give it out freely, with each OS.
No, they charge them the flat rate for the ability to test on hardware and post apps on the store.
I get all the tools freely from their website. And why should I have to pay $99 if I want to release an app for free, or work on my own device?
As I understand it, there's a dialog where you can explicitly allow non-Marketplace software, and this was removed only on the AT&T handsets. Rooting isn't necessary for that (while it is for other things) last I checked.
That said, it is crap. They'd hate my N900, that's for sure.
Last I checked only AT&T was doing it, and IIRC they did it to only two handsets (which were rooted anyway.) Do you know of others that don't allow non-Market software?
Why should I have to pay one cent more to use my own property? I've been corrected on the developer having to load the software, but it's still a painfully manual process for users of ad-hoc packages.
Why should I look at business options, I'm not a business.
Why should I have to be a business to write and freely distribute software? Come on, defend DRM and lock down more please.
Right, but you're still required to be part of a 500 person company.
Considering you have to bend over backwards to install it and are limited to 100 people, that's a huge drawback.
I apologize for not being fully studied on all the pitfalls and limitations on software distribution for an extremely restrictive platform that I, myself, would never use.
Ah, but it's not hard to familiarize yourself with all the restrictions and drawbacks Apple (and Microsoft) impose upon the system. Suffice it to say, you cannot freely distribute software to anyone with an iPhone without going through the App Store or being an Enterprise. You can distribute it to a tiny subset of people, though.
I think he means the option to disable the ability for corporations to push applications to users handsets. I also think he is mistaken in the purpose and functionality of the feature.
Which is great if you're in an Enterprise.
Which requires you manually distribute it to a limited number of handsets.
But go ahead, keep defending it with bad examples that still require you to pay $99.
Nonsense. Most people would likely never leave the safety of the App Store, and with a default of "off" for non-App Store software it's easy to encourage people to be a little more pro-active.
Hell I'd be happy if doing so required you to power the unit down and hold a button as it powered on, so long as you so much as had the option of doing so.
No, jailbreaking means you're forced to violate EULAs and use local exploits to take control over your property from a vendor who very much does not want to let you.
Err, yes they do. On-device testing requires paying the $99 fee and you're limited in the number of handsets you can load it on. Additionally, you must load it on each handset manually as it cannot be distributed to end users directly without going through the App Store.
No, Apple and Microsoft are in the same exact lock down boat here. Only differences are the APIs and the fees.
Or an N900, then you get a much more standard Linux style OS instead of something wholly proprietary like the BlackBerry OS.
Really? All they'd have to do is make it a user optional switch with respect to non-store software and flip it to off by default, and make the store prominent. They'd probably never have an issue. Forcibly locking the system down with no opt-out doesn't help security at all.
Like Apple, this is all about total control over the end user and using that control to route them through profit centers (and I don't believe for a moment that these stores will not be profitable, otherwise what's the point.)
You give Microsoft (and Apple) too much credit. It's all about routing users through their respective App Stores, which allow them to have complete control over the platform and turn every bit of functionality into a revenue source for themselves.
Allowing users to sideload software defeats that entirely.
Same goes for PCs, and I'm sure Microsoft would love it if you agreed to hand complete control over your PC over to them. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to push this lock down model up in the stack over the next few years. So much for being opposed to Trusted Computing, eh?
Because, quite frankly, LOCK DOWN NOT REQUIRED FOR THIS TO HAPPEN. Yet stupid arguments like this keep getting made. This kind of restriction serves no one but Apple/Microsoft.