"would assume it higher than Apple’s 40% gross margin – so yeah – it is a considerable chunk of change."
It'a actually less. 10% for music, 30% for apps.
Exactly the reasoning Greenpeace is counting on you to use. Truth is X, Greenpeace says it is 10000X. Most people assume it's safe to assume the truth is 5000X.
I find it hard to believe that there should be a part of the brain evolved to process religion. Just how would nature select for that? I think it more reasonable to believe that religion hijacks that part of the brain, but that it evolved for some other—more mundane—purpose.
Question: What, other than Apple products and religion, stimulates that part of the brain? The answer might give us a clue as to what its evolutionary purpose really is, and why it is stimulated by religion and Apple Products.
That's starting to slip as iPhone and iPod prices come down
It's not Apples MO to drop prices. Rather, they introduce new models and keep the prices level.
Apple's reaction so far has been to raise iTunes prices.
The changed prices in the iTMS has been a reaction to nothing other than the fact that this was a demand posed by the record companies in exchange for them allowing Apple to provide DRM-free versions of their entire catalogues.
You make it sound like having an iPhone is equivalent to living in a fascist dictatorship. I think you need to get out more.
Granted, it's an easy thing to get over and done with
Yes. And yet this is on your short list of reasons why not to get an iPhone....
They don't have photos they may wish to send as an MMS? They don't want to be able to shoot video?
That's not really the point you first made. You complained about formats, and that was addressed. Now you complain about features. I say this: There's ten million features it doesn't have. Merely pointing something that it doesn't do out isn't an argument. You could argue that the features you mention are essential, must-have features, but since you don't, I won't waste my time arguing against it.
They sure do in 6 or 12 months [if they're heavy phone users]
So, maybe most people aren't.
A lot of people will buy the phone and not even realize that it doesn't allow you to change batteries.
Perhaps that's because a lot of people don't care, because - surprised - they've never in their life taken out the battery of a phone except to insert the SIM card
...until they run out of room for their mp3s.
In which case they transfer some of the mp3s back to their computer. I suppose there exists the odd ultrageek who keeps his entire 200 GB collection of mp3s (silly me, I mean Ogg Vorbis of course) on a collection of SD-cards so as always to be able to listen to any song, no matter where he is...
People who are into brand loyalty get what they deserve.
Apparently they don't or the iPhone wouldn't have the highest customer satisfaction of any phone.
Oh yes, lets start with an all out personal attack shall we
Yes, that's surely below any level you would sink to. Well except of course to call anyone who argues against you an apologist. And btw: You do take yourself a little to seriously in you signature, suggesting as you do that someone would wish to censor you because they disagree with you. Au contraire: People like you are easy to argue against because you make such idiotic, easily refutable claims. I could write a more convincing argument for not buying the iPhone with both hands tied behind my back. I do however sympathise with anyone who mods you down because you're noisy and obnoxious.
Watch me get modded into oblivion for daring to criticise the thing. C'est la slashdot.
More like you'll be moderated a flamebaiter or a troll. But I'll bite
1) What phone isn't heavily restricted? And what do you even mean by that anyway? For sure, it's restricted in it's ability to make coffee or give birth to live babies. Apple hasn't even bothered with rudimentary support of any of these features... It's not true however that it "requires" a jailbreak. It would be pretty strange if it did. There's an infinite number of things the iPhone can't do. I'm more interested in the things it can do, since it mostly does them very well.
2) I read that in Australia... It's not really possible to take seriously any point that starts like this.
3) What do you mean by "other devices"? It plays aac and mp3 fine, and it plays h264. Those are the relevant ones. It also plays a bunch of other, more exotic formats that I personally have no need for nor any interest in. Do realise that no matter what, it will always be restricted by it's hardware, and will therefore never be able to play all formats. The same is true for any other phone. I for one am happy that they chose to implement support for state-of-the-art, soon-to-be or already established standards. What more do you need?
4) That's not an argument, it's an opinion. Based on the rest of your post, it's an ill informed opinion at that. Anyway, it's not really something that's worth arguing against.
5) No way to refute that. I suppose this is a deal breaker for hardcore road warriors, but it's completely insignificant to the other 98% of us who have never ever changed the battery in a cell phone anyway. Seriously, I'd be interested to see a slashdot poll on this matter: How many have own a replacement battery for their current cell phone? Not many, I'd be willing to bet
5) Is your complaint here that you can't "upgrade" your phone with more storage? Why then stop at that? You can't exchange the graphics card either nor the processor. I'm confused here. Is that really something anyone expects their phone to able to do? I see it this way: By the time the storage on your iPhone runs out you either a) Move some of the stuff to your PC or b) realise you've had it for 5 years and buy a new one.
For some anything that Steve Jobs does is considered stylish.
Yes. That's it. We're all suffering from mass psychosis.
Function over form. Use your brains or suffer the consequences.
Maybe the iPhone is not for you. Maybe you prefer a device which has more or different features. Great, I can sympathise. I personally am holding on to my N95 a bit longer because it has a couple of features that I value. But saying that you don't understand why so many love their iPhones speaks only of your own ignorance. To a huge number of people, it simply is the most useful phone on the market.
When this is released, we will be over three years post-PPC sales. Even then, PPC users will be on feature-parity with Snow Leopard users. By the time a new feature-laden 10.7 arrives we will be 4 1/2 to 5 years post-PPC. That to me seems like a fair interval of PPC support after the Intel transition.
This just sounds like apologism to me: Obviously, PPC users will not be on feature parity when Snow Leopard comes out. Among the features that I will miss for my G4 mac mini (which I use as a media center and ad hoc server) are ZFS support and QuickTime X. Oh, and any performance gains achieved in Snow Leopard will be particularly missed by me and I'm sure all other PPC users.
I'm as much an Apple fanboy as the next guy, but the dishonest logic you use to arrive at the conclusion that PPC users will enjoy feature parity with Intel user until 10.7 arrives, is what gives us fanboys a bad name.
"People are going to begin to lose respect for the people behind torrent sites if they start spewing pseudo-Marxist ideas as their defence."
Actually, they are quite far from being Marxists. See, Marxists believe that rights of ownership are derived from work, which is the reason why you can't own land (since no one worked to create it), but you can own a song that you wrote. Libertarians (which is what these guys are closer to being) believe that rights of ownership are derived from the fact that some resources are scarce, which is why you need a just way of deciding who gets to control them (=ownership). When resources aren't scarce (like with anything you can make a copy of for free), it doesn't make sense to have a concept of ownership./End of lesson.
Scarcity is a necessary economic principle even for intellectual items, and without it, you won't see anyone interested in producing intellectual works.
This of course is where we all disagree. I happen to believe - strongly - that you're wrong about this. Already we're seeing smart people (e.g. Madonna) distancing themselves from the labels and signing contracts with concert bookers instead. There will always be people interested in producing intellectual works, and there will always be people who will find a way to profit from it. With or without IP.
You, sir, just defined the meaning of "reactionary rant". Of course, you still failed to mention that everything used to taste much better and that politicians nowadays are nothing more than used car salesmen in suits.
Keep trying to convince yourself that you are as rational as you say. "Technical merit" my ass. Nobody, not even the most zealous of fanbois, would buy any instrument that was incapable of performing its intended function (e.g. a phone incapable of making phone calls). OTOH, many people, people like yourself, will happily convince themselves that they absolutely cannot do without each and every obscure feature that has ever been proposed for a certain type of instrument. It's the kind of people who will equip themselves to climb Mt. Everest when all they intend to do is to trek in the Scottish highlands. Ok, maybe you're not like that. Maybe you have a more elaborate way of determining the technical merit of a product. But tell me which is more rational: To buy a phone that is joy to use or to buy one that is not but has GPS? And why do you assert that being a fan of anything is an act of irrationality?
The key combos you mentioned in your first post - like denying cookies in browswers - are pretty specialised, and I don't really see how you would make the system enforce them. How is it an OS design decision to enforce browser-specifik behaviour? Furthermore, the key combos that are general and used in all applications are indeed "enforced" (or more precisely: Made available) by the OS. Things like quitting programs, copying and pasting, searching, getting help etc. You mentioned that you like Linux better which I don't understand, because on Linusx none of these work in a consistent manner which is why I keep insisting that Linux is "not ready for the desktop"(tm): Copy-pasting between Firefox, the xterm and Emacs makes you scratch your head in wonder. Why is it done in three different ways? (Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Shift-V and Meta-Y for pasting in those 3 programs).
But in fact I already know the answer: There's simply no way for an OS to enforce any standards, if developpers insist on implementing everything by themselves in their own way instead of using the facilities provided by the OS. This is the reason why Office on the mac works like it does on Windows. Because it uses a framework made by Microsoft for Windows and because MS haven't bothered changing it to behave like a proper mac application. Similarly, you'll find that iTunes and Quicktimes for Windows have some peculiar, non-standard behaviours that they inherited from their mac-codebase. And emacs works the same way, no matter what system you use it on because it uses no OS-specifik code whatsoever, which as an aside is probably something it's users consider a good thing.
I have no particular motivation to try and make you fall in love with OS X. But it does bother me that you accuse Apple of getting it completely wrong, when it seems obvious to me that your set of personal, subjective preferences are just that: Personal and subjective. What's more, it strikes me that the points you touch upon are very minor compared to the overwhelming number of flaws in Windows. I find that there are many things in OS X that bothers me and I wish that Apple would do them differently. It's just that there are infinitely many more things in Windows and Linux that bother me more, so for now I stick with my guns. It did however take me around 6 months to get used to the way things work on a mac, when first I switched in 1998. Back then it was even more frustrating because noone else I knew used a mac, so there was noone that could help me when I had a problem.
It's called marketing, and I think you'll find that every company does it. The way you're reacting, I advise you not to get a television. A single commercial block might give you a heart attack.
What I'm saying is that Apple did not plan to release an SDK publicly.
And you base this assumption on what? Or is this just an argument from ignorance?
I'm really just sick of rabid Apple fanbois who refuse to look at Apple's products objectively.
Nice argument. I suppose by looking at Apple products "objectively" you mean looking at them the way you do. I for one (subjectively) think that you've got the list of good Apple products backwards: OS X is a killer OS, nothing free, open, closed or commercial comes near it (except perhaps for some very specialised purposes). OTOH, the only thing that excites me about the iPod/iTMS is that it generates money that Apple can use for further improving OS X and the boxes that run it. You may see things diffrently, which is fine by me, but don't imagine that there's just one clear cut way to see this
About the SDK, I haven't doubted for a minute that Apple would release one whneever it was ready. Looks like I'm right. And you'reabsolutely deluding yourself, if you think it has anything to do with the fact that a small, vocal minority on some discussion foras has been whining about it. I'll grant you that maybe, just maybe, the fact that Apple is announcing it ahead of time has something to do with that. But to think that Apple hadn't planned to release a SDK eventually is to be completely clueless. If they wanted a completely closed platform, why would they have bothered to port OS X to begin with? OS X on phone only makes sense if you are going to have applications.
I roll my eyes when I read some of the things that genuine, koll aid drinking Apple zealots write sometimes. But those guys are outnumbered many times over by the crowd of people who seem take personal offense over the fact that Apple's been consistently succesfull for the past many years, often likening them to Microsoft along the way. Seeing as how we don't yet live in a world where anyone is forced to use Apple products, I find it har to understand why these people don't just not choose Apple. In fact I'm quite sure that most them do not in fact use Apple products which makes it even more amazing why they persist in their ranting.
For one thing, I don't believe there's actually any risk of flash failure, contrary to what you claim: I have a very limited knowledge of electronics, but I'm quite sure it's possible to implement a system using capacitors to saves a burst of power to perform whatever needs to be done, in order to avoid catastrophic flash failure.
But you're also missing the point entirely, if you think the flash cache is there to ensure data safety. As you are quite right in pointing out, that job is left to the journaling. The job of the flash cache as been pointed out repeatedly, is to increase preformance during write operations.
And you can just about bet with safe odds that this WAS deliberate.
Why? This is what I don't get. What makes you assume this out of the blue? You've no source, and you provide no logical argument as to why Apple would do this. In fact you go out of your way to explain why how this does not benefit Apple at all. You essentially grap hold of the single most uncertain part of this story, and twist it so it becomes epitome of certainty. I think that's a very dishonest way to argue about anything.
Mind you, I'm not saying that we can positively rule out that Apple may have done this deliberately, but I for one would at the very least like to see if it turns out to be true that the phones are rendered useless. And even if they are, that still does not prove or even make it likely that Apple did it on purpose. As you said yourself: It's not to their benefit.
I love Rails [...] This guy is a sensationalist and not worth the attention.
I guess your love of Rails explains your knee-jerk defensive reaction, but if you'd only bother to RTFA, you'd have noticed, that this guy doesn't really criticise Rails much at all. In fact he praises it, but then goes on to say why it was a mistake to use it in a particular project. It's whoever wrote the article summary, who's a sensationalist without a clue.
As for GP's language. I do not think it was overly erudite.
I'm a language snob myself, but English is not my first language, so you'll excuse me I hope, for using simpler wording. Anyway, you claim that actors in the "real world" are not rational, but what does that even mean in this context? I'm sure you'll be able to enlighten me if your insights into the realm of economic theory extend beyond the trivial, but I rather suspect they do not. Concerns about whether actors can be assumed to act rationally or not, makes sense only when what is rational can be defined. This is the case when talking about the stock market for instance, because it's clear that the goal of every actor is to maximise profit. But when talking about the value an actor subjectively ascribes to an object, it's by definition non-sensical to talk about rationality
Now, you say that actors never possess "complete and accurate information" (whatever that is). I'm inclined to agree that this is slightly relevant, but only in the cases where the object purchased shows itself to not live up to the expectations of the buyer. Whenever that is not the case, it's mostly irrelevant whether the buyer's knowledge about the object before the purchase was complete and accurate in every respect.
All in all, I'm buying the GGGP's post and not yours nor the one by the GGP.
Your entire argument reads like nothing more than a justification of the prejudice you hold against a group of people I doubt you've had very much interaction with, ever.
Seriously: I have a friend who told me... Can you say bias? Can you say anecdotal?
"a sizable segment of the hippie population is too inept, anti-authority, lazy and anti-knowledge to change anything"
Sure, if that's the way you define hippie, then this is a truism. Not a very interesting observation, though. And to stay on the overall topic, it doesn't seem to apply to Richard Stallman.
Alright, then. I'm relieved to discover that I misunderstood you.
I can see a couple of possible explanations to our subconscious sense of despair about the evolution of machine intelligence. Which is not to say that necessarily agree that such a feeling is indeed present at a collective level the way you postulate.
The first is that we're all familiar with the works of the people you mention. So in a way they have imposed their pessimistic take on the future on us. This explanation at least seems to be relevant for no other reason than the fact that you mentioned these persons, which seems to suggest that at least for you there's a connection between them and the predictions we are talking about.
But I believe that these people only play to ideas that are already present in our culture. I'm thinking of religion in general, since the idea of a wholy earthly, superhuman intelligence must seems blasphemous to many (most?) religious people. The story of the Tower of Babel which warns against human hubris in our attempts to elevate our selves to the power of God, also comes to mind. Finally, there's the very banal, but not to be underestimated, fear of changes to come.
These ideas are all IMHO deeply rooted in our culture and psyche, which make them relevant to story tellers. But it doesn't mean that it's in any way rational to base our beliefs or predictions about the future on them.
Futurists and writers and other folks out on the edge, like Kurzweil... those fanciful enough to take on the thought problem, seem to lean, in the majority, towards believing the human race would be destroyed or at least decimated by hyper-intelligence (Wachowskis, James Cameron, Lem, etc etc - too many to mention, really). An interesting minority are of the school that hyper-intelligences would be largely unconcerned with people, only dangerous where our goals intersected (Gibson, Lethem, Clarke).
Don't mistake creating fiction for actually believing in it. And don't mistake expertise at story telling for expertise on subject matter. I can't believe you attribute these with any kind of insights into this problem beyond what you or I or anyone else can muster. And I'm quite sure they'd all agree with me.
First of all, Apple does not make "good hardware," they have been sued for cutting corners on things like display back lights.
It's not saying much that they have been sued. Have they been convicted? A great deal of people seem to agree that Apple does in fact make superior hardware, although any opinion is bound to be just that: An opinion. Yours is as valid as anybody elses, but I'd say that it depends on what you compare it with. I know it's an ongoiong discussion here and elsewhere whether it's possible to get a better deal on the same quality hardware as Apple delivers, but I've never seen anyone who claimed that Apple hardware is downright bad.
Why do people only seem to complain when a company in a monopoly position doesn't release technical information?
Firstly, they don't just complain when it's a monopoly as you claim. You must be new here. Secondly, the reason why they may complain more when it is a monopoly is because it's considered illegal only in that case. Please eloborate on the ethical principle that tells us why Apple (which is not a monopoly) should be forced to make life easier for it's partners and competitors.
Of course, Apple has never been very developer friendly, and they have always tried to hide technical details. Why do they keep trying to roll with the strategy that failed during the 80s?
Again, I'd like to emphasise that your statement is a matter of opinion. You may be a developer and you may feel that Apple has been unkind to you, but I'm confident that lots of other developers feel differently. Your statement about Apples strategy is downright ignorant. Apple has had about as many strategies as they've had CEOs. The current strategy (since 1997) is seen as a departure from the "not-invented-here" strategy of the mid-90s. It's this strategy that has seen Apple embrace open source (Darwin, WebKit), open standards, interoperability, and partnerships a-plenty. This strategy btw has proved to be hugely succesful, which should answer your question as to why they're sticking to it.
Slashdot Mirror
"would assume it higher than Apple’s 40% gross margin – so yeah – it is a considerable chunk of change."
It'a actually less. 10% for music, 30% for apps.
Exactly the reasoning Greenpeace is counting on you to use. Truth is X, Greenpeace says it is 10000X. Most people assume it's safe to assume the truth is 5000X.
I find it hard to believe that there should be a part of the brain evolved to process religion. Just how would nature select for that? I think it more reasonable to believe that religion hijacks that part of the brain, but that it evolved for some other—more mundane—purpose. Question: What, other than Apple products and religion, stimulates that part of the brain? The answer might give us a clue as to what its evolutionary purpose really is, and why it is stimulated by religion and Apple Products.
Why wouldn't you mention the iPhone huge catalogue of apps? What is your assessment of the general quality of apps on both platforms?
the money invested in advertisement was really something in a completely different league than what the rest of the mp3 player manufacturers could do.
Which begs the question: Why has the Zune not overtaken the iPod yet?
That's starting to slip as iPhone and iPod prices come down
It's not Apples MO to drop prices. Rather, they introduce new models and keep the prices level.
Apple's reaction so far has been to raise iTunes prices.
The changed prices in the iTMS has been a reaction to nothing other than the fact that this was a demand posed by the record companies in exchange for them allowing Apple to provide DRM-free versions of their entire catalogues.
Pesky freedom. Not worth having anyway.
You make it sound like having an iPhone is equivalent to living in a fascist dictatorship. I think you need to get out more.
Granted, it's an easy thing to get over and done with
Yes. And yet this is on your short list of reasons why not to get an iPhone....
They don't have photos they may wish to send as an MMS? They don't want to be able to shoot video?
That's not really the point you first made. You complained about formats, and that was addressed. Now you complain about features. I say this: There's ten million features it doesn't have. Merely pointing something that it doesn't do out isn't an argument. You could argue that the features you mention are essential, must-have features, but since you don't, I won't waste my time arguing against it.
They sure do in 6 or 12 months [if they're heavy phone users]
So, maybe most people aren't.
A lot of people will buy the phone and not even realize that it doesn't allow you to change batteries.
Perhaps that's because a lot of people don't care, because - surprised - they've never in their life taken out the battery of a phone except to insert the SIM card
In which case they transfer some of the mp3s back to their computer. I suppose there exists the odd ultrageek who keeps his entire 200 GB collection of mp3s (silly me, I mean Ogg Vorbis of course) on a collection of SD-cards so as always to be able to listen to any song, no matter where he is...
People who are into brand loyalty get what they deserve.
Apparently they don't or the iPhone wouldn't have the highest customer satisfaction of any phone.
Oh yes, lets start with an all out personal attack shall we
Yes, that's surely below any level you would sink to. Well except of course to call anyone who argues against you an apologist. And btw: You do take yourself a little to seriously in you signature, suggesting as you do that someone would wish to censor you because they disagree with you. Au contraire: People like you are easy to argue against because you make such idiotic, easily refutable claims. I could write a more convincing argument for not buying the iPhone with both hands tied behind my back. I do however sympathise with anyone who mods you down because you're noisy and obnoxious.
Watch me get modded into oblivion for daring to criticise the thing. C'est la slashdot.
More like you'll be moderated a flamebaiter or a troll. But I'll bite
1) What phone isn't heavily restricted? And what do you even mean by that anyway? For sure, it's restricted in it's ability to make coffee or give birth to live babies. Apple hasn't even bothered with rudimentary support of any of these features... It's not true however that it "requires" a jailbreak. It would be pretty strange if it did. There's an infinite number of things the iPhone can't do. I'm more interested in the things it can do, since it mostly does them very well.
2) I read that in Australia... It's not really possible to take seriously any point that starts like this.
3) What do you mean by "other devices"? It plays aac and mp3 fine, and it plays h264. Those are the relevant ones. It also plays a bunch of other, more exotic formats that I personally have no need for nor any interest in. Do realise that no matter what, it will always be restricted by it's hardware, and will therefore never be able to play all formats. The same is true for any other phone. I for one am happy that they chose to implement support for state-of-the-art, soon-to-be or already established standards. What more do you need?
4) That's not an argument, it's an opinion. Based on the rest of your post, it's an ill informed opinion at that. Anyway, it's not really something that's worth arguing against.
5) No way to refute that. I suppose this is a deal breaker for hardcore road warriors, but it's completely insignificant to the other 98% of us who have never ever changed the battery in a cell phone anyway. Seriously, I'd be interested to see a slashdot poll on this matter: How many have own a replacement battery for their current cell phone? Not many, I'd be willing to bet
5) Is your complaint here that you can't "upgrade" your phone with more storage? Why then stop at that? You can't exchange the graphics card either nor the processor. I'm confused here. Is that really something anyone expects their phone to able to do? I see it this way: By the time the storage on your iPhone runs out you either a) Move some of the stuff to your PC or b) realise you've had it for 5 years and buy a new one.
For some anything that Steve Jobs does is considered stylish.
Yes. That's it. We're all suffering from mass psychosis.
Function over form. Use your brains or suffer the consequences.
That's such a cliché. What about the Safari web browser. I've yet to see anyone claim that there exists a superior browser for mobile phones. Maybe that's because Apple considered the form of the device when they decided how the browser should function. I suspect you really mean features over function, a position I strongly disagree with. Maybe that's what intelligent Apple lovers have in common: They would rather have fewer but better functions. To use another cliché: Quality over quantity.
Maybe the iPhone is not for you. Maybe you prefer a device which has more or different features. Great, I can sympathise. I personally am holding on to my N95 a bit longer because it has a couple of features that I value. But saying that you don't understand why so many love their iPhones speaks only of your own ignorance. To a huge number of people, it simply is the most useful phone on the market.
When this is released, we will be over three years post-PPC sales. Even then, PPC users will be on feature-parity with Snow Leopard users. By the time a new feature-laden 10.7 arrives we will be 4 1/2 to 5 years post-PPC. That to me seems like a fair interval of PPC support after the Intel transition.
This just sounds like apologism to me: Obviously, PPC users will not be on feature parity when Snow Leopard comes out. Among the features that I will miss for my G4 mac mini (which I use as a media center and ad hoc server) are ZFS support and QuickTime X. Oh, and any performance gains achieved in Snow Leopard will be particularly missed by me and I'm sure all other PPC users.
I'm as much an Apple fanboy as the next guy, but the dishonest logic you use to arrive at the conclusion that PPC users will enjoy feature parity with Intel user until 10.7 arrives, is what gives us fanboys a bad name.
"People are going to begin to lose respect for the people behind torrent sites if they start spewing pseudo-Marxist ideas as their defence."
Actually, they are quite far from being Marxists. See, Marxists believe that rights of ownership are derived from work, which is the reason why you can't own land (since no one worked to create it), but you can own a song that you wrote. Libertarians (which is what these guys are closer to being) believe that rights of ownership are derived from the fact that some resources are scarce, which is why you need a just way of deciding who gets to control them (=ownership). When resources aren't scarce (like with anything you can make a copy of for free), it doesn't make sense to have a concept of ownership. /End of lesson.
Scarcity is a necessary economic principle even for intellectual items, and without it, you won't see anyone interested in producing intellectual works.
This of course is where we all disagree. I happen to believe - strongly - that you're wrong about this. Already we're seeing smart people (e.g. Madonna) distancing themselves from the labels and signing contracts with concert bookers instead. There will always be people interested in producing intellectual works, and there will always be people who will find a way to profit from it. With or without IP.
You, sir, just defined the meaning of "reactionary rant". Of course, you still failed to mention that everything used to taste much better and that politicians nowadays are nothing more than used car salesmen in suits.
Keep trying to convince yourself that you are as rational as you say. "Technical merit" my ass. Nobody, not even the most zealous of fanbois, would buy any instrument that was incapable of performing its intended function (e.g. a phone incapable of making phone calls). OTOH, many people, people like yourself, will happily convince themselves that they absolutely cannot do without each and every obscure feature that has ever been proposed for a certain type of instrument. It's the kind of people who will equip themselves to climb Mt. Everest when all they intend to do is to trek in the Scottish highlands. Ok, maybe you're not like that. Maybe you have a more elaborate way of determining the technical merit of a product. But tell me which is more rational: To buy a phone that is joy to use or to buy one that is not but has GPS? And why do you assert that being a fan of anything is an act of irrationality?
The key combos you mentioned in your first post - like denying cookies in browswers - are pretty specialised, and I don't really see how you would make the system enforce them. How is it an OS design decision to enforce browser-specifik behaviour? Furthermore, the key combos that are general and used in all applications are indeed "enforced" (or more precisely: Made available) by the OS. Things like quitting programs, copying and pasting, searching, getting help etc. You mentioned that you like Linux better which I don't understand, because on Linusx none of these work in a consistent manner which is why I keep insisting that Linux is "not ready for the desktop"(tm): Copy-pasting between Firefox, the xterm and Emacs makes you scratch your head in wonder. Why is it done in three different ways? (Ctrl-V, Ctrl-Shift-V and Meta-Y for pasting in those 3 programs).
But in fact I already know the answer: There's simply no way for an OS to enforce any standards, if developpers insist on implementing everything by themselves in their own way instead of using the facilities provided by the OS. This is the reason why Office on the mac works like it does on Windows. Because it uses a framework made by Microsoft for Windows and because MS haven't bothered changing it to behave like a proper mac application. Similarly, you'll find that iTunes and Quicktimes for Windows have some peculiar, non-standard behaviours that they inherited from their mac-codebase. And emacs works the same way, no matter what system you use it on because it uses no OS-specifik code whatsoever, which as an aside is probably something it's users consider a good thing.
I have no particular motivation to try and make you fall in love with OS X. But it does bother me that you accuse Apple of getting it completely wrong, when it seems obvious to me that your set of personal, subjective preferences are just that: Personal and subjective. What's more, it strikes me that the points you touch upon are very minor compared to the overwhelming number of flaws in Windows. I find that there are many things in OS X that bothers me and I wish that Apple would do them differently. It's just that there are infinitely many more things in Windows and Linux that bother me more, so for now I stick with my guns. It did however take me around 6 months to get used to the way things work on a mac, when first I switched in 1998. Back then it was even more frustrating because noone else I knew used a mac, so there was noone that could help me when I had a problem.
Apple, stop it with your fucking bullshit.
It's called marketing, and I think you'll find that every company does it. The way you're reacting, I advise you not to get a television. A single commercial block might give you a heart attack.
What I'm saying is that Apple did not plan to release an SDK publicly.
And you base this assumption on what? Or is this just an argument from ignorance?
I'm really just sick of rabid Apple fanbois who refuse to look at Apple's products objectively.
Nice argument. I suppose by looking at Apple products "objectively" you mean looking at them the way you do. I for one (subjectively) think that you've got the list of good Apple products backwards: OS X is a killer OS, nothing free, open, closed or commercial comes near it (except perhaps for some very specialised purposes). OTOH, the only thing that excites me about the iPod/iTMS is that it generates money that Apple can use for further improving OS X and the boxes that run it. You may see things diffrently, which is fine by me, but don't imagine that there's just one clear cut way to see this
About the SDK, I haven't doubted for a minute that Apple would release one whneever it was ready. Looks like I'm right. And you'reabsolutely deluding yourself, if you think it has anything to do with the fact that a small, vocal minority on some discussion foras has been whining about it. I'll grant you that maybe, just maybe, the fact that Apple is announcing it ahead of time has something to do with that. But to think that Apple hadn't planned to release a SDK eventually is to be completely clueless. If they wanted a completely closed platform, why would they have bothered to port OS X to begin with? OS X on phone only makes sense if you are going to have applications.
I roll my eyes when I read some of the things that genuine, koll aid drinking Apple zealots write sometimes. But those guys are outnumbered many times over by the crowd of people who seem take personal offense over the fact that Apple's been consistently succesfull for the past many years, often likening them to Microsoft along the way. Seeing as how we don't yet live in a world where anyone is forced to use Apple products, I find it har to understand why these people don't just not choose Apple. In fact I'm quite sure that most them do not in fact use Apple products which makes it even more amazing why they persist in their ranting.
For one thing, I don't believe there's actually any risk of flash failure, contrary to what you claim: I have a very limited knowledge of electronics, but I'm quite sure it's possible to implement a system using capacitors to saves a burst of power to perform whatever needs to be done, in order to avoid catastrophic flash failure.
But you're also missing the point entirely, if you think the flash cache is there to ensure data safety. As you are quite right in pointing out, that job is left to the journaling. The job of the flash cache as been pointed out repeatedly, is to increase preformance during write operations.
And you can just about bet with safe odds that this WAS deliberate.
Why? This is what I don't get. What makes you assume this out of the blue? You've no source, and you provide no logical argument as to why Apple would do this. In fact you go out of your way to explain why how this does not benefit Apple at all. You essentially grap hold of the single most uncertain part of this story, and twist it so it becomes epitome of certainty. I think that's a very dishonest way to argue about anything.
Mind you, I'm not saying that we can positively rule out that Apple may have done this deliberately, but I for one would at the very least like to see if it turns out to be true that the phones are rendered useless. And even if they are, that still does not prove or even make it likely that Apple did it on purpose. As you said yourself: It's not to their benefit.
I love Rails [...] This guy is a sensationalist and not worth the attention.
I guess your love of Rails explains your knee-jerk defensive reaction, but if you'd only bother to RTFA, you'd have noticed, that this guy doesn't really criticise Rails much at all. In fact he praises it, but then goes on to say why it was a mistake to use it in a particular project. It's whoever wrote the article summary, who's a sensationalist without a clue.
As for GP's language. I do not think it was overly erudite.
I'm a language snob myself, but English is not my first language, so you'll excuse me I hope, for using simpler wording. Anyway, you claim that actors in the "real world" are not rational, but what does that even mean in this context? I'm sure you'll be able to enlighten me if your insights into the realm of economic theory extend beyond the trivial, but I rather suspect they do not. Concerns about whether actors can be assumed to act rationally or not, makes sense only when what is rational can be defined. This is the case when talking about the stock market for instance, because it's clear that the goal of every actor is to maximise profit. But when talking about the value an actor subjectively ascribes to an object, it's by definition non-sensical to talk about rationality
Now, you say that actors never possess "complete and accurate information" (whatever that is). I'm inclined to agree that this is slightly relevant, but only in the cases where the object purchased shows itself to not live up to the expectations of the buyer. Whenever that is not the case, it's mostly irrelevant whether the buyer's knowledge about the object before the purchase was complete and accurate in every respect.
All in all, I'm buying the GGGP's post and not yours nor the one by the GGP.
Your entire argument reads like nothing more than a justification of the prejudice you hold against a group of people I doubt you've had very much interaction with, ever.
Seriously: I have a friend who told me... Can you say bias? Can you say anecdotal?
Sure, if that's the way you define hippie, then this is a truism. Not a very interesting observation, though. And to stay on the overall topic, it doesn't seem to apply to Richard Stallman.
Alright, then. I'm relieved to discover that I misunderstood you.
I can see a couple of possible explanations to our subconscious sense of despair about the evolution of machine intelligence. Which is not to say that necessarily agree that such a feeling is indeed present at a collective level the way you postulate.
The first is that we're all familiar with the works of the people you mention. So in a way they have imposed their pessimistic take on the future on us. This explanation at least seems to be relevant for no other reason than the fact that you mentioned these persons, which seems to suggest that at least for you there's a connection between them and the predictions we are talking about.
But I believe that these people only play to ideas that are already present in our culture. I'm thinking of religion in general, since the idea of a wholy earthly, superhuman intelligence must seems blasphemous to many (most?) religious people. The story of the Tower of Babel which warns against human hubris in our attempts to elevate our selves to the power of God, also comes to mind. Finally, there's the very banal, but not to be underestimated, fear of changes to come.
These ideas are all IMHO deeply rooted in our culture and psyche, which make them relevant to story tellers. But it doesn't mean that it's in any way rational to base our beliefs or predictions about the future on them.
Wow. This is hands down the most intelligent post on the subject so far. I think you nailed it.
First of all, Apple does not make "good hardware," they have been sued for cutting corners on things like display back lights.
It's not saying much that they have been sued. Have they been convicted? A great deal of people seem to agree that Apple does in fact make superior hardware, although any opinion is bound to be just that: An opinion. Yours is as valid as anybody elses, but I'd say that it depends on what you compare it with. I know it's an ongoiong discussion here and elsewhere whether it's possible to get a better deal on the same quality hardware as Apple delivers, but I've never seen anyone who claimed that Apple hardware is downright bad.
Why do people only seem to complain when a company in a monopoly position doesn't release technical information?
Firstly, they don't just complain when it's a monopoly as you claim. You must be new here. Secondly, the reason why they may complain more when it is a monopoly is because it's considered illegal only in that case. Please eloborate on the ethical principle that tells us why Apple (which is not a monopoly) should be forced to make life easier for it's partners and competitors.
Of course, Apple has never been very developer friendly, and they have always tried to hide technical details. Why do they keep trying to roll with the strategy that failed during the 80s?
Again, I'd like to emphasise that your statement is a matter of opinion. You may be a developer and you may feel that Apple has been unkind to you, but I'm confident that lots of other developers feel differently. Your statement about Apples strategy is downright ignorant. Apple has had about as many strategies as they've had CEOs. The current strategy (since 1997) is seen as a departure from the "not-invented-here" strategy of the mid-90s. It's this strategy that has seen Apple embrace open source (Darwin, WebKit), open standards, interoperability, and partnerships a-plenty. This strategy btw has proved to be hugely succesful, which should answer your question as to why they're sticking to it.