Nope. State and Federal courts are quite clear on the fact that the manufacturer is in no way obligate to support a item if the user manipulates said item so as it is not covered under the agreed to contract or warranty.
Apple is going further than not supporting an item. They are deliberately bricking phones. It would take no effort on Apple's part to run a checksum on the firmware for originality. Not original? No update. It's that simple. That would be perfectly legal.
Instead, Apple is saying, "Our update ignores the existence of aftermarket upgrades that may be incompatible. We are aware that it will brick your phone. We are taking no steps to prevent our update from damaging your hardware. Tough shit." No, really, they are:
Schiller said that at least two unlocking programs, iUnlock and Anysim, can cause the iPhone to stop working once the software is updated.
I doubt that sort of negligence is legal.
If anyone at Apple is reading this: I've been an Apple fanatic for 10 years. I've owned nothing but Apple computers... until recently. I chose Nokia's N95 over the iPhone because of your stance on locking and a native SDK. That led to the purchase of a PC laptop to run firmware updates on my phone, since the software doesn't support the Mac. Given your current open hostility toward your customers, I am now reconsidering the future purchase of any Apple hardware. I have already let my "ADC Select" developer membership lapse. No native SDK was a real slap in the face. Continue this negligent, hostile behavior, and I will leave your platform as a customer and developer entirely.
most of the brand presence of the iPhone is absolutely due to word of mouth and positive reviews
I beg to differ on this point. In my experience, most "normal people" know about the iPhone thanks to television commercials, and to a lesser extent, Apple stores.
That may be your prefferred marketing strategy, but it is not a matter of fact.
Oh, but it is a matter of fact. Nokia, according to you, has nowhere near the "brand presence" of the Apple and its N95 is more expensive to boot. Yet they sold half a million more N95s in that product's first quarter than Apple will sell iPhones.
Which is a piss poor comparison with the iPhone, on many levels.
True, we don't have pictures of the president accidently shattering a glass screen yet.
If you want to be a rules Nazi, Apple's '08 starts in about a week. Besides, I've been over this until I'm blue in the face. I'm not typing it again. This is established fact. They are averaging about 10K a day @ $400. They were shooting for about 27K a day @ $600 a pop. That's a difference in revenue of $4 Million vs $16 Million... They're coming up $12 Million short per day. That's one billion dollars this quarter. Let's put that into perspective... last year's Q4 revenues were 4.84 Billion. They've dumped all their advertising, effort, and energy into the iPhone and its going to be a billion dollar bust. Why? Because it's locked, with no SDK. That's why. [And don't even start with the sales will pick up on the long end of the year BS. Why do you think they dropped the price and cut production? Sales were not and are not brisk. Period. It's another cube because of their boneheaded position on locking and SDKs.]
Now, since you decided to jump into the fray, care to answer my questions?? Just pretend you're an Apple store employee selling one to someone who might actually want to buy it... I'll copy and paste 'em for ya: Why do I have to pay extra for a ringtone on the iPhone when a free RAZR can use any MP3 as a ringtone? Why are there are no games for the iPhone while there are thousands of java games for every other phone on the market? Why can't I send MMS messages on an iPhone? Why can't I capture video on an iPhone? Why can't I share my Vcard via bluetooth on an iPhone?
Time will tell if your estimates are true, but Nokia N95 has a) been out 3 months longer,
You're point? Nokia's 2nd quarter is not the same as Apple's. The quarterly numbers I cited were Nokia's Q2: April/May/June. iPhone shipped two days before Apple Q4 began. N95 shipped a little over a week before Nokia's Q2 began. It's not an unfair comparison, and yes, time will tell indeed.
b) is available in way, way more markets than the iPhone.
Who's fault is that? If Apple sold an unlocked phone, it would be in every market, worldwide. If all Nokia sold were locked phones, I wouldn't have been able to buy one to use in the US. They aren't available here through any carrier.
The iPhone's success is unquestionable in terms of brand presence:
*everyone* knows about it, even non-gadget people.
In the United States.
To contrast, relatively few "normal people" know about the N95.
Relatively few "normal people" buy $700 phones. As long as those who might be interested and capable of buying one know about it, that's all that really matters. Making sure the rest of the universe knows about your new shiny won't sell more phones. Being an attention whore does make product failure a much more spectacular and embarrassing event though. The Segway comes to mind. Everyone knows about that "revolutionary new product."
Selling units as fast as they can make them is a failure? So far, they seem to have exceeded even their own projections...
According to whom??? They aren't selling units as fast as they can make them AC. I can go pick one up right now if I wanted a pretty paperweight. There are no back orders, they were in negotiations to cut production in half within a month of the debut, at two months they dropped the price by 33%, and they didn't hit a million units until 74 days after release on Sept 10th. Since 270,000 of those units were last quarter sales, they'll be lucky to hit a million units this quarter. By comparison, Nokia, in their most recent quarter, sold 1.5 Million units of their new and much more expensive N95 smartphones.
None of this refutes the points in the article -- talking about being a products company is fine, but the the lock-in actions mentioned were all valid and good examples of behavior that will alienate customers in the long run. Comments to shareholders don't negate actions that alienate customers.
I agree. Those comments were made 3 years ago, when Apple was clearly "on track." After ten years of success, Jobs has clearly lost his way. No SDK? Locked phones? Who would buy a Mac if only Apple apps were available and you were forced to use AOL as your ISP? Nobody. That's exactly why their phone is a failure.
You're probably right; I'll be the first to admit I'm sympathetic with OPs plight, but the article is about "a barometer of college quality." From an investment viewpoint, what better barometer is there than your post-college salary? You know, I've never seen hard numbers or analysis on post-college salaries that wasn't compiled by a college. This story seems to make it pretty obvious that even the best colleges might be a little "flawed" in their analysis of such metrics when it regards their own performance... In a "False advertising to swindle unsuspecting high school grads" sense, IMHO OP was relevant:)
The editor of Forbes would agree...
on
MIT's SAT Math Error
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Ahh, parent poster is a Troll, eh? Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard would probably agree with AC. Is he a troll too? I saw far too many kids there for the party myself... the 'life experience' they called it. We even have online encyclopedias citing which schools paaar-tay the hardest. I'm sure that image doesn't hurt enrollment numbers and the government money flowing into universities. I wouldn't be surprised if universities quietly encourage that 'rep' via PR firms. College is big business. So big in fact that university finances have begun drawing the scrutiny of congress. We've even begun exporting American-style higher education. It may not be the best in the world, but it sure makes a shitload of money.
In the meantime, there's a lot of kids leaving college with a worthless degree and lots of debt. The university was enriched by the process, but you can't say that for all their graduates. I'll bet if the OP had mentioned something about outsourcing the post would be +5 Insightful.
Q: How did Apple recapture its innovative spark?
A: I used to be the youngest guy in every meeting I was in, and now I'm usually the oldest. And the older I get, the more I'm convinced that motives make so much difference. HP's primary goal was to make great products. And our primary goal here is to make the world's best PCs -- not to be the biggest or the richest.
We have a second goal, which is to always make a profit -- both to make some money but also so we can keep making those great products. For a time, those goals got flipped at Apple, and that subtle change made all the difference. When I got back, we had to make it a product company again.
Erm, their goal is to sell 10 million phones in 2008.
Erm, got any links to back that up? The very first sentence in the article I linked to reads:
Apple isn't concerned that sticker shock will take a bite out of the 10 million iPhones the company expects to sell in the device's first year
That sounds an awful lot like one year from launch date to me. I want Apple to do well, but they have to drop their boneheaded position on a native SDK and carrier locked phones. Otherwise, it's doomed to fail. It is failing, I'm telling you why it's failing, and you're still in denial. Being in denial brings no change in policy, ensuring complete and total failure.
You must want Apple to fail. That's all I can conclude. Do you think no SDK, and therefore no apps, is a good thing? Do you think crippled phones are better than fully functional phones? Do you really think anyone is going to happily buy a ringtone when they already own the exact same song on their iPhone? Only if they're a fucking crackhead. These are EXTREMELY retarded positions for Apple to take. Most people aren't stupid. Want to sell phones to most people? Stop treating them like they're stupid.
You want to defend Apple? Fine. Defend Apple. Why should I pay extra for a ringtone on the iPhone when a free RAZR can use any MP3 as a ringtone? Why are there are no games for the iPhone while there are thousands of java games for every other phone on the market? Why can't I send MMS messages on an iPhone? Why can't I capture video on an iPhone? Why can't I share my Vcard via bluetooth on an iPhone? Go ahead. I'm all ears.
... and put your heads in the sand. As a true Apple fan, I don't hesitate to point out when they F' it up big time.
I don't think they were actually "banking" on it.
You don't think? You must not have read much about it then. To anyone who has, they were clearly banking on it. A month into it they were renegotiating contracts attempting to cut production in half. A month after that, they dropped the price 33%. The "revolutionary new product" has been a dud.
Let's not forget that they are only just now starting to release the product in Europe. They haven't released it in Asia yet.
No shit!?! Maybe they could sell more phones if they could somehow sell their iPhones directly to customers instead of pairing it with service plans from various vendors. Maybe if the iPhone were somehow unbound from that relationship, unlocked if you will... Man!!! Confused one, that is an AWESOME idea!!! You should tell Apple about that!
...
Friday's close of 144.15 is just off AAPL's all time high. AAPL crashed hard on their last high profile failure. I'm not expecting a repeat performance, but it isn't going to be pretty. We'll see who's flamebait in another month, won't we?
Apple will be forced to open it to third-party developers once everyone realizes what they can do with it!
Actually, Apple can/will just flash your firmware via iTunes and you'll be right back to no third party apps after the update. Feel free to participate in the arms race against your device maker. Every commercial developer took a rain check to the little install-a-hack party. Their clients expect supported applications. Without real apps and solutions, an iPhone is useless to me. I'll keep my $300 thank you. I worked too hard to waste it on a pretty paperweight.
The same thing happened with the iPhone. At the beginning they weren't sure if they'd sell 1 or 1 million. They had to guess and price accordingly.
Uh, no... actually they were banking on selling 10 million. They aren't even close, so the iPhone becomes more like an F22. By your rationale, the price should go up. It's a nice textbook theory, but in the real world where real businesses exist, there are contracts. The price went down, because Apple is desperate to sell the phones it has contracted to buy from asian manufacturers. If they can't, they are hung with a pile of phones and a huge loss.
Doesn't anyone remember all the talk about how the iPhone was outrageously priced above competing smart phones?
No, actually, I remember buying a more expensive phone a month before the iPhone was released because the iPhone was locked and guaranteed to never have any third party apps, ever. I saw it coming months ago, made plenty of noise and was told I was wrong. I was told repeatedly by fucktards here on Slashdot that I was not in Apple's target market.
So ladies, how would you like your crow cooked? You were obviously waaaaay off the mark, and I was right. 100% correct. I told you the iPhone would fail. It did fail. Miserably. Think Cube. And Apple will continue to fail as long as they ship locked phones with no native SDK.
Now pundits are saying that Apple is desperate and crazy because it lowers prices
No... pundits are saying that Apple is desperate and crazy because they aren't even close to making their target of 10 million phones in the first year. If Apple gave us an unlocked phone with an SDK, they could easily make or exceed that goal. It's simple really: Apple decided to focus on a great profit instead of a great product, and ended up with neither.
I was struck by how stupid most of the 15 things listed in the ComputerWorld article were and how the list seemed to be a big confabulation of every complaint we have ever heard about the iPhone.
I was struck by many things on that list, but not because I'd heard them ad nauseam. I was struck by it because of the number of problems I didn't even know existed.... You can't sync with Bluetooth? No iChat? Can't be used as a hard drive? I'm surprised to have learned this, and I'm VERY glad I opted for an N95 right about now.
Several of these "things to fix" are things that only third parties can accomplish
Well then, good luck on that! Since there's no native SDK for third parties, you may be waiting a while:D That one's also on the list BTW...
People assume that the dollar falling in value in relation to foreign currency is a bad thing.
Where'd you learn that, TV? It is a bad thing. The US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. To quote the Wiki:
The United States dollar is the most important reserve currency in the world today. Throughout the last decade, well over 50% of the total allocated foreign exchange reserves of countries have been in US dollars. For this reason, the US dollar is said to have "reserve currency status", making it possible for the United States to run higher trade deficits (financed by seigniorage) with limited economic impact (see currency crisis) as long as the major foreign holders of dollars continue to hold them.
How long do you think foreign nations are going to continue to hold dollars as dollars plummet year after year? Bernake's 50/50 rate cut on Tuesday told the world the dollar is nowhere near finished devaluing. What do you think happens to the dollar when all those foreigners get fed up with their devaluing dollar reserves and decide to dump them on the open market? Interest rate cuts didn't save Japan's real estate market in the 90's. Interest rate cuts won't save America now. If those dollar reserves start to flood the market, America is seriously fucked.
The nice thing about arbitrary products from the ground: You can't print more if you are irresponsible with what you have. You can't just spend today and worry about the consequences in 20 years. More importantly though, I think the practice of fractional reserve lending should be abolished. Banks routinely lend 10 times the amount they have on hand in total assets. They create money out of thin air in order to siphon off enormous amounts of capital in interest on debt. The process itself spawns inflation, robbing savers and producers. It also tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of very few, making it more difficult for the many to live debt free.
"You load sixteen tons..." and so on, and so forth. I see it as nothing more than a tool to subjugate the masses. Everyone's too busy trying to pay a mortgage to realize they've been enslaved.
He's much more knowledgeable about the American monetary system than most. He's the only person who cared when the Fed stopped reporting the M3. He's obviously not fond of inflation, fiat currencies, or fractional reserve lending. As a result, Ron Paul is in my five;) He's right between Feingold and Boucher.
Backhanded compliments are good news?? Spit in one hand and hope for a native SDK in the other. See which hand fills up first.
So native apps are out there huh? What native apps have Adobe written? None... How about Microsoft? Also none?? How about anyone other than some nameless shareware hacker???? NOTHING!?! Ohhh, right... No native SDK. Well then... No dice. Apple, your revolutionary product isn't even on the radar. Think about all the great apps we'd have already if the energy expended hacking into the iPhone was instead spent hacking on the iPhone.
Apple isn't changing the world with a phone that is carrier locked, hardware sealed, and closed to software development. It's a pathetically limited toy without a native SDK, a "thank you sir may I have another" without a choice in carriers, and a brick in two years without a battery door. No wonder they were forced to drop the price 33% two months after release. It's another cube, as I predicted weeks before the iPhone became available to the public.
Maybe they'll figure out how to listen to their customers by the time iPhone 2.0 gets here... but I'm not holding my breath after a story like this one. They are completely fucking up any chance they had at another iPod style industry coup. A nice product is being hamstrung by hostility toward their own customers. Great job knuckle heads.
We spent 87 Billion on the first year of war with Iraq. We managed to misplace 9 billion of it. We spend 400 Billion just on interest on the national debt. 105 billion? Chump change. But... from a jobs standpoint:
$105,000,000,000/$65,000=1,615,384 new tech jobs! So... If you can't make it legitimately because your job was shipped to India, there's always CyberCrime Inc. Now hiring 1.6 million techies.;)
All kidding aside, I agree completely. Totally fabricated numbers. That would be a ten mile high stack of $1000 bills. If that kind of money was going out the doors, there'd be no end to new onshore tech jobs dedicated solely to defending against the threat. It would be major news, not a "slow news day" blurb on Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. State and Federal courts are quite clear on the fact that the manufacturer is in no way obligate to support a item if the user manipulates said item so as it is not covered under the agreed to contract or warranty.
Apple is going further than not supporting an item. They are deliberately bricking phones. It would take no effort on Apple's part to run a checksum on the firmware for originality. Not original? No update. It's that simple. That would be perfectly legal.
Instead, Apple is saying, "Our update ignores the existence of aftermarket upgrades that may be incompatible. We are aware that it will brick your phone. We are taking no steps to prevent our update from damaging your hardware. Tough shit." No, really, they are:
I doubt that sort of negligence is legal.
If anyone at Apple is reading this: I've been an Apple fanatic for 10 years. I've owned nothing but Apple computers... until recently. I chose Nokia's N95 over the iPhone because of your stance on locking and a native SDK. That led to the purchase of a PC laptop to run firmware updates on my phone, since the software doesn't support the Mac. Given your current open hostility toward your customers, I am now reconsidering the future purchase of any Apple hardware. I have already let my "ADC Select" developer membership lapse. No native SDK was a real slap in the face. Continue this negligent, hostile behavior, and I will leave your platform as a customer and developer entirely.
most of the brand presence of the iPhone is absolutely due to word of mouth and positive reviews
I beg to differ on this point. In my experience, most "normal people" know about the iPhone thanks to television commercials, and to a lesser extent, Apple stores.
That may be your prefferred marketing strategy, but it is not a matter of fact.
Oh, but it is a matter of fact. Nokia, according to you, has nowhere near the "brand presence" of the Apple and its N95 is more expensive to boot. Yet they sold half a million more N95s in that product's first quarter than Apple will sell iPhones.
Which is a piss poor comparison with the iPhone, on many levels.
True, we don't have pictures of the president accidently shattering a glass screen yet.
If you want to be a rules Nazi, Apple's '08 starts in about a week. Besides, I've been over this until I'm blue in the face. I'm not typing it again. This is established fact. They are averaging about 10K a day @ $400. They were shooting for about 27K a day @ $600 a pop. That's a difference in revenue of $4 Million vs $16 Million... They're coming up $12 Million short per day. That's one billion dollars this quarter. Let's put that into perspective... last year's Q4 revenues were 4.84 Billion. They've dumped all their advertising, effort, and energy into the iPhone and its going to be a billion dollar bust. Why? Because it's locked, with no SDK. That's why. [And don't even start with the sales will pick up on the long end of the year BS. Why do you think they dropped the price and cut production? Sales were not and are not brisk. Period. It's another cube because of their boneheaded position on locking and SDKs.]
Now, since you decided to jump into the fray, care to answer my questions?? Just pretend you're an Apple store employee selling one to someone who might actually want to buy it... I'll copy and paste 'em for ya: Why do I have to pay extra for a ringtone on the iPhone when a free RAZR can use any MP3 as a ringtone? Why are there are no games for the iPhone while there are thousands of java games for every other phone on the market? Why can't I send MMS messages on an iPhone? Why can't I capture video on an iPhone? Why can't I share my Vcard via bluetooth on an iPhone?
Time will tell if your estimates are true, but Nokia N95 has a) been out 3 months longer,
You're point? Nokia's 2nd quarter is not the same as Apple's. The quarterly numbers I cited were Nokia's Q2: April/May/June. iPhone shipped two days before Apple Q4 began. N95 shipped a little over a week before Nokia's Q2 began. It's not an unfair comparison, and yes, time will tell indeed.
b) is available in way, way more markets than the iPhone.
Who's fault is that? If Apple sold an unlocked phone, it would be in every market, worldwide. If all Nokia sold were locked phones, I wouldn't have been able to buy one to use in the US. They aren't available here through any carrier.
The iPhone's success is unquestionable in terms of brand presence:
Brand presence != sales. Brand presence != quality product.
*everyone* knows about it, even non-gadget people.
In the United States.
To contrast, relatively few "normal people" know about the N95.
Relatively few "normal people" buy $700 phones. As long as those who might be interested and capable of buying one know about it, that's all that really matters. Making sure the rest of the universe knows about your new shiny won't sell more phones. Being an attention whore does make product failure a much more spectacular and embarrassing event though. The Segway comes to mind. Everyone knows about that "revolutionary new product."
According to whom??? They aren't selling units as fast as they can make them AC. I can go pick one up right now if I wanted a pretty paperweight. There are no back orders, they were in negotiations to cut production in half within a month of the debut, at two months they dropped the price by 33%, and they didn't hit a million units until 74 days after release on Sept 10th. Since 270,000 of those units were last quarter sales, they'll be lucky to hit a million units this quarter. By comparison, Nokia, in their most recent quarter, sold 1.5 Million units of their new and much more expensive N95 smartphones.
None of this refutes the points in the article -- talking about being a products company is fine, but the the lock-in actions mentioned were all valid and good examples of behavior that will alienate customers in the long run. Comments to shareholders don't negate actions that alienate customers.
I agree. Those comments were made 3 years ago, when Apple was clearly "on track." After ten years of success, Jobs has clearly lost his way. No SDK? Locked phones? Who would buy a Mac if only Apple apps were available and you were forced to use AOL as your ISP? Nobody. That's exactly why their phone is a failure.
You're probably right; I'll be the first to admit I'm sympathetic with OPs plight, but the article is about "a barometer of college quality." From an investment viewpoint, what better barometer is there than your post-college salary? You know, I've never seen hard numbers or analysis on post-college salaries that wasn't compiled by a college. This story seems to make it pretty obvious that even the best colleges might be a little "flawed" in their analysis of such metrics when it regards their own performance... In a "False advertising to swindle unsuspecting high school grads" sense, IMHO OP was relevant :)
Ahh, parent poster is a Troll, eh? Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard would probably agree with AC. Is he a troll too? I saw far too many kids there for the party myself... the 'life experience' they called it. We even have online encyclopedias citing which schools paaar-tay the hardest. I'm sure that image doesn't hurt enrollment numbers and the government money flowing into universities. I wouldn't be surprised if universities quietly encourage that 'rep' via PR firms. College is big business. So big in fact that university finances have begun drawing the scrutiny of congress. We've even begun exporting American-style higher education. It may not be the best in the world, but it sure makes a shitload of money.
In the meantime, there's a lot of kids leaving college with a worthless degree and lots of debt. The university was enriched by the process, but you can't say that for all their graduates. I'll bet if the OP had mentioned something about outsourcing the post would be +5 Insightful.
it could be argued that you are not the ceo of apple and nor do you have to answer to shareholders.
It could be that the CEO of Apple was quoted in Businessweek magazine saying almost exactly the same thing GP just said:
Erm, their goal is to sell 10 million phones in 2008.
Erm, got any links to back that up? The very first sentence in the article I linked to reads:
That sounds an awful lot like one year from launch date to me. I want Apple to do well, but they have to drop their boneheaded position on a native SDK and carrier locked phones. Otherwise, it's doomed to fail. It is failing, I'm telling you why it's failing, and you're still in denial. Being in denial brings no change in policy, ensuring complete and total failure.
You must want Apple to fail. That's all I can conclude. Do you think no SDK, and therefore no apps, is a good thing? Do you think crippled phones are better than fully functional phones? Do you really think anyone is going to happily buy a ringtone when they already own the exact same song on their iPhone? Only if they're a fucking crackhead. These are EXTREMELY retarded positions for Apple to take. Most people aren't stupid. Want to sell phones to most people? Stop treating them like they're stupid.
You want to defend Apple? Fine. Defend Apple. Why should I pay extra for a ringtone on the iPhone when a free RAZR can use any MP3 as a ringtone? Why are there are no games for the iPhone while there are thousands of java games for every other phone on the market? Why can't I send MMS messages on an iPhone? Why can't I capture video on an iPhone? Why can't I share my Vcard via bluetooth on an iPhone? Go ahead. I'm all ears.
... and put your heads in the sand. As a true Apple fan, I don't hesitate to point out when they F' it up big time.
You don't think? You must not have read much about it then. To anyone who has, they were clearly banking on it. A month into it they were renegotiating contracts attempting to cut production in half. A month after that, they dropped the price 33%. The "revolutionary new product" has been a dud.
No shit!?! Maybe they could sell more phones if they could somehow sell their iPhones directly to customers instead of pairing it with service plans from various vendors. Maybe if the iPhone were somehow unbound from that relationship, unlocked if you will... Man!!! Confused one, that is an AWESOME idea!!! You should tell Apple about that!
...
Friday's close of 144.15 is just off AAPL's all time high. AAPL crashed hard on their last high profile failure. I'm not expecting a repeat performance, but it isn't going to be pretty. We'll see who's flamebait in another month, won't we?
Apple will be forced to open it to third-party developers once everyone realizes what they can do with it!
Actually, Apple can/will just flash your firmware via iTunes and you'll be right back to no third party apps after the update. Feel free to participate in the arms race against your device maker. Every commercial developer took a rain check to the little install-a-hack party. Their clients expect supported applications. Without real apps and solutions, an iPhone is useless to me. I'll keep my $300 thank you. I worked too hard to waste it on a pretty paperweight.
The same thing happened with the iPhone. At the beginning they weren't sure if they'd sell 1 or 1 million. They had to guess and price accordingly.
Uh, no... actually they were banking on selling 10 million. They aren't even close, so the iPhone becomes more like an F22. By your rationale, the price should go up. It's a nice textbook theory, but in the real world where real businesses exist, there are contracts. The price went down, because Apple is desperate to sell the phones it has contracted to buy from asian manufacturers. If they can't, they are hung with a pile of phones and a huge loss.
Doesn't anyone remember all the talk about how the iPhone was outrageously priced above competing smart phones?
No, actually, I remember buying a more expensive phone a month before the iPhone was released because the iPhone was locked and guaranteed to never have any third party apps, ever. I saw it coming months ago, made plenty of noise and was told I was wrong. I was told repeatedly by fucktards here on Slashdot that I was not in Apple's target market.
So ladies, how would you like your crow cooked? You were obviously waaaaay off the mark, and I was right. 100% correct. I told you the iPhone would fail. It did fail. Miserably. Think Cube. And Apple will continue to fail as long as they ship locked phones with no native SDK.
Now pundits are saying that Apple is desperate and crazy because it lowers prices
No... pundits are saying that Apple is desperate and crazy because they aren't even close to making their target of 10 million phones in the first year. If Apple gave us an unlocked phone with an SDK, they could easily make or exceed that goal. It's simple really: Apple decided to focus on a great profit instead of a great product, and ended up with neither.
I was struck by how stupid most of the 15 things listed in the ComputerWorld article were and how the list seemed to be a big confabulation of every complaint we have ever heard about the iPhone.
I was struck by many things on that list, but not because I'd heard them ad nauseam. I was struck by it because of the number of problems I didn't even know existed.... You can't sync with Bluetooth? No iChat? Can't be used as a hard drive? I'm surprised to have learned this, and I'm VERY glad I opted for an N95 right about now.
Several of these "things to fix" are things that only third parties can accomplish
Well then, good luck on that! Since there's no native SDK for third parties, you may be waiting a while :D That one's also on the list BTW...
1 could solve 2
Without a native SDK, Adobe is pretty helpless in offering Flash. Bitch to Apple, not Adobe.
And drop the glass or drop the price of glass repair from $250.
People assume that the dollar falling in value in relation to foreign currency is a bad thing.
Where'd you learn that, TV? It is a bad thing. The US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. To quote the Wiki:
How long do you think foreign nations are going to continue to hold dollars as dollars plummet year after year? Bernake's 50/50 rate cut on Tuesday told the world the dollar is nowhere near finished devaluing. What do you think happens to the dollar when all those foreigners get fed up with their devaluing dollar reserves and decide to dump them on the open market? Interest rate cuts didn't save Japan's real estate market in the 90's. Interest rate cuts won't save America now. If those dollar reserves start to flood the market, America is seriously fucked.
How the internet works - with asstunnels!
The nice thing about arbitrary products from the ground: You can't print more if you are irresponsible with what you have. You can't just spend today and worry about the consequences in 20 years. More importantly though, I think the practice of fractional reserve lending should be abolished. Banks routinely lend 10 times the amount they have on hand in total assets. They create money out of thin air in order to siphon off enormous amounts of capital in interest on debt. The process itself spawns inflation, robbing savers and producers. It also tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of very few, making it more difficult for the many to live debt free.
"You load sixteen tons..." and so on, and so forth. I see it as nothing more than a tool to subjugate the masses. Everyone's too busy trying to pay a mortgage to realize they've been enslaved.
you just have to compile for ARM
Compile!? I rest my case.
He's much more knowledgeable about the American monetary system than most. He's the only person who cared when the Fed stopped reporting the M3. He's obviously not fond of inflation, fiat currencies, or fractional reserve lending. As a result, Ron Paul is in my five ;) He's right between Feingold and Boucher.
Backhanded compliments are good news?? Spit in one hand and hope for a native SDK in the other. See which hand fills up first.
So native apps are out there huh? What native apps have Adobe written? None... How about Microsoft? Also none?? How about anyone other than some nameless shareware hacker???? NOTHING!?! Ohhh, right... No native SDK. Well then... No dice. Apple, your revolutionary product isn't even on the radar. Think about all the great apps we'd have already if the energy expended hacking into the iPhone was instead spent hacking on the iPhone.
Apple isn't changing the world with a phone that is carrier locked, hardware sealed, and closed to software development. It's a pathetically limited toy without a native SDK, a "thank you sir may I have another" without a choice in carriers, and a brick in two years without a battery door. No wonder they were forced to drop the price 33% two months after release. It's another cube, as I predicted weeks before the iPhone became available to the public.
Maybe they'll figure out how to listen to their customers by the time iPhone 2.0 gets here... but I'm not holding my breath after a story like this one. They are completely fucking up any chance they had at another iPod style industry coup. A nice product is being hamstrung by hostility toward their own customers. Great job knuckle heads.
We spent 87 Billion on the first year of war with Iraq. We managed to misplace 9 billion of it. We spend 400 Billion just on interest on the national debt. 105 billion? Chump change. But... from a jobs standpoint:
$105,000,000,000/$65,000=1,615,384 new tech jobs! So... If you can't make it legitimately because your job was shipped to India, there's always CyberCrime Inc. Now hiring 1.6 million techies. ;)
All kidding aside, I agree completely. Totally fabricated numbers. That would be a ten mile high stack of $1000 bills. If that kind of money was going out the doors, there'd be no end to new onshore tech jobs dedicated solely to defending against the threat. It would be major news, not a "slow news day" blurb on Slashdot.