If it's a niche then it's one invented by Apple to make money from, and good luck to them to he honest.
But the fact is that since we have both clearly stated that a tablet does not replace a netbook or laptop, then it just becomes one more device to lug along WITH a netbook or a laptop.
However, having identified that a laptop and smartphone combined do more than a netbook, then it becomes a moot point actually buying one in the first place.
Why do I have to repeat stuff 3 or 4 times and STILL they refuse to get it?
...and there's only so much ground Unicorn horn and Pixie Woofle dust to go round - so there is a limit to how many they can make and sell.
Perhaps if Santa Claus could get the Easter bunny to get the enchanted elf assembly line to work overtime, things would be different, and every litte Peter Pottlemouse could own one!
That doesn't make sense - why would I replace a laptop with something that costs more but has less functionality.
I'm sorry, you and all the other fanbois are trying to find rational reasons for buying iPads when there are none - it's basically a case of doing nothing more than falling for some very clever Apple marketing, marketing that other tablet manufacturers do not use in quite the same way, therefore they don't sell as many.
If Fuhrer Jobs can walk on stage and describe the thing as "magical" then clearly he's tuning in to the puffed-up religious fervour of the fanbois without any need whatsoever to explain the practical uses of such an object - which by my reckoning are very few though valid in their own rights:
1. (Possibly) older people who find PCs too difficult to use.
2. People who are stood up on crowded commuter trains who simply MUST be connected to the Internet at all times OR THEY WILL DIE!
The example of your mother, whilst valid, does not counter my argument - as you said yourself, she's never been proficient with computers, therefore I could only agree that she finds it easier to use.
But so far, the only target audiences of tablet users with any validity appear to be older people with no PC skills and people who are stood up on packed computer trains.
Incidentally, I'm actually very slightly older than your mother, am fortunate to be very PC literate over 30 years of experience with them and cannot see how a tablet would negate my not carrying a netbook or a mobile phone.
I've always wondered about this. How is it that there were only enough fanbois to garner Apple 3-5% of the PC market, but enough to get 70%+ of the MP3 player market, enough to move Apple past companies with much more experience in handsets in the smartphone market segment, and now to sell millions of tablets?
Your figures don't stack up. There are more Android hand sets now than Apple iPhones. All Android handsets play MP3s. Therefore Apple cannot have 70% of the MP3 player market.
In the last (calendar) quarter of 2009, Apple sold 3.3 million computers-- their best quarter ever at the time. In that same quarter they sold 8.7M iPhones.
Put the figure in context of the number of desktop or laptop/netbook PCs sold worldwide - those numbers are dwarfed.
And as above, Android handsets are outselling iPhones currently.
Where did Apple, a company with such a vanishingly small share of the personal computer market, get all of these "fanbois" from?
Vanishing? Where? Over 50% of computers connecting to the Internet run Windows XP, Windows 7 has, erm, about 30% of the share currently - they're rough figures but I'm a Linux guy so don't claim to know the exact ones off the top of my head.
If someone buys an iPhone or an iPad without previously having owned a Mac, or any other Apple product, are they a "fanboi"?
Probably with iPhones, no. Most people with iPhones have contracts and have a range of handsets to choose from within their specific price range, they therefore may choose iPhone because someone has one, they've heard it's the best, whatever...
As for iPad, I know several people with them, they all have iPhones and some have Macs. But the iPad does not replace either the iPhone or the Mac. Therefore they are probably brand loyalists and therefore fanbois.
If it were not selling well one could say that those who have a need for such a product don't constitute an addressable market, but that appears not to be the case.
But it's not selling well compared to the number of laptops and netbooks being sold. So what its target market - apart from people who simply MUST be online while stood up on a crowded commuter train, which is the one and only legitimate reason, albeit an unlikely one, for using a tablet that I've seen so far. (Note I said "tablet" not iPad there, BTW.)
Conversely, any number of people who don't consider the device to have a legitimate use does not establish that to be a fact, since the assertion is of a negative-- that the device lacks any legitimate use. I'm not sure why you'd choose to frame your argument this way, since it precludes you from actually winning.
Sorry, lost you now. You're argument-steering by moving into semantics, please try to stay on topic. Thanks.
I wouldn't argue with the your statement. If your parents have always been uncomfortable using a standard PC with a keyboard, then in that instance an iPad will be more usable for them.
But it's not really much to do with my original point that tablets don't replace laptops or netbooks, useful as they no doubt are to people who have no need for the functionality of a full PC.
Yes. You're right. The millions upon millions of iPad users all over the world are all Apple fanboys with no capabilities of thinking in an individual capacity. The iPad is a failure just waiting to happen and netbooks will still come back and take over.
The type of people who buy iPads are fashion followers who are unlikely to have an appropriate level of discernment to work out what they need the device for before they buy it. Everyone I know who owns an iPad, and there are several, already own an iPhone. This says two things - one, they are Apple brand followers or two, the iPhone does not meet their needs for mobile computing.
When iPads came out, they created a new (or reinvigorated and old and dead) market. There was uncertainty in its capabilities outside of iHaters calling it an "oversized iPod Touch". Now, two years later the iPad has had a large penetration in vertical markets where before there were none for a tablet.
This is precisely why our opinions differ, so deal with it. I am an engineer, I understand the practical applications of stuff and am interested in how stuff works. Biz speak like "vertical markets" means nothing to me and suggests I am not conversing with someone who is capable of emotional separation from the technical qualities of a product.
The fact is, if I owned one I would still need to carry about a mobile phone and a netbook also because it replaces neither. Yet the combination of a mobile phone and netbook already do far more than a tablet can do. And my skeletal/muscular structure is not sensitive enough to care about the additional weight of carrying both.
Back then, perhaps it was correct to say that it is not meant to replace laptops or netbooks. Now though is a different story.
Why is it a different story? Laptops and netbooks have not stood still since iPads came out. They've got faster, more compact, better batteries, etc. and people haven't stopped buying them. If anything, the combined laptop and netbook market dwarfs the tablet market. So stop foaming at the mouth and try to take an engineering perspective of things.
I lost track of how many friends and colleagues that were looking for a new home computer or a laptop decided to buy an iPad instead.
Friends and colleagues come to me for recommendations of what computers to buy. I have witnessed no decline in the number of people coming to me since iPad came out. Therefore you comment does not stack up based on my experience.
There is a huge, huge market for people that don't need the capabilities of a laptop/desktop PC and all the headaches that go with keeping one running.
Why do new PC sales still dwarf tablet sales then?
Tech-heads, geeks, and nerds hate that idea as Apple's model pretty much obliterates their definition of what computing should be like.
Your first correct statement and I as a tech-head, geek, whatever you want to call me, I 100% agree with you - again, because I am capable of seeing with an engineer's eyes.
Apple IS obliterating any notion that a computing device is an essentially open platform that can be loaded with applications bought or downloaded from any vendor or creator that you choose - now it is JUST one vendor, and the same vendor that makes the device.
We've had decades of what was essentially garbage PC's devoid of any user-friendliness for the Joe-consumer.
You do realise that if you're not possessed of the patience to learn how to use a computer by trial-and-error yourself, you can go to things called "computer courses" don't you? Billions of people around the world seem very happy using PCs, I would suggest a tiny percentage of them are PC nerds and an even tinier percentage have purchased iPads. And I suspect most of them still use PCs.
I think it's great that Apple saw how the PC-folks were screwing everything up and decided to make "computers" that hides the computer part from the user and just let's them use it like a toaster. Good for th
This is precisely why getting all emotional when you post a message on a public forum is not a good thing.
Your brain is putting a particular interpretation on what you type as you type it, but text is not particularly good at conveying emotion. Therefore, someone who reads it who isn't foaming at the mouth when they do so may well not see the textual nuances that you believe are in there.
Spoken like yet another "I have never used a tablet" sourpuss, replaying the same broken record about the glories of netbooks.
By all means call me a sourpuss, but please preceed it with "I can find no good reason to use a tablet".
But the net is flowing over with stories of people who have found that once they got one, the uses and benefits became apparent.
For each example you could throw at me of those people, I could counter it with an example of people that consider them to be overpriced gimmicks. And the very fact that they are not selling well outside of iPad suggest that only the fanbois want them.
A netbook lacks a touch screen, and is uncomfortable and impractical to use when you need to hold it (e.g. standing on a commuter train).
Why is this the only example I ever hear about how advantageous a tablet is? Why is it that important to you to be connected to the Internet while on a train? Are you an Internet addict, or someone of such importance that you constantly have great knowledge to impart on the world? Ever heard of a paperback book? Or staying in the office a while until the rush hour dies down?
And touchscreens are great for portability but most people are born using computers with keyboards and mice. Nobody in their right mind would choose to use a touchscreen if they have a keyboard and mouse nect to them.
Aren't you just really afraid of change?
Not at all. I've been working and playing with computers for 30 years, I've witnessed massive change and embraced a lot of it. But I'm not prepared to be carried along on a wave of hype and marketing for an expensive gimmick that does not replace anything that I currently have.
I fail to understand why you see this as an advantage.
There are huge amounts of Open Source applications out there that have code that compiles perfectly well on GCC on a multitude of platforms. Are you that confident that the same code is going to compile as well or as easily on another compiler?
It strikes me that potentially being locked out of all that free software out there is a huge disadvantage.
Why would the target audience of Macs, namely people who don't care about how a computer works and don't want to use Windows (or Linux) care about disk encryption?
Apple is unable to ship the version of GCC benchmarked there, because of GPLv3. LLVM produces much better code than GCC 4.2.1, which is the last GPLv2 version, and the version that Apple ships.
Please explain what you mean by "better code".
And if you mean "better optimised code", why is that particularly important on a high power device like a Mac? I can understand it on an embedded device where raw CPU power and storage space are important.
GCC has been the benchmark for compiling Open Source code for years with regular updates and releases - to simply wave your hand and dismiss it so readily requires better explanation.
Apple fanbois will buy anything Apple that releases, but for the rest of us tablets are nothing more than an expensive gimmick that don't replace anything that's out here already. Hence the high sales of iPads but not of other tablets.
A reasonably specified netbook can do anything and more that a tablet can do for less cost, it also allows you to run many of the same applications that you run on a desktop or laptop PC - so you can carry about the day-to-day applications that you use with you, rather than having to set up and use an "equivalent" application on a tablet.
Very few of us are jetting around the world enough to the point where the small format of a tablet in an airliner seat would be easier to use than a netbook, and a tablet is "just one more device" that you have to manage, synchronise email addresses and contacts, recharge, etc. etc.
I even remember clearly on here about 18 months ago when the fanbois were justifying their buying iPads and themselves saying that they are not designed to replace laptops or netbooks - therefore a tablet is still one more portable device you have to carry with you because there is no single device that does everything most people need to do.
For your informations, the invention of the GUI is attributed to Xerox, not your beloved Apple. Therefore Apple can be considered to have ripped off Xerox.
It's probably time for your medication, by the sounds of it.
For your information, my comment was a "tell it like I see it" comment rather than "I've got sour grapes" comment - personally, I could care less about DirectX 10 or 11 because I probably buy no more than 1 or 2 "hot off the presses" PC games a year. I'm actually 80% Linux user to 20% Windows user, I tend to enjoy older and retro games these days, and therefore I have found no good reason to move from XP because it more than happily copes with the stuff that Linux doesn't do or that it does better.
Please do NOT tar everyone with the same brush of an OS zealot - to me an OS is a productivity and entertainment platform, and I just use the best tool for the job when I need to.
So go try and goad someone, else, I'm immune to trolling.
I think Microsoft started making bad decisions over games when they decided not to release DirectX 10/11 for Windows XP.
With console gaming already accelerating at a huge rate at that time, forcing people to buy Vista or Windows 7 just to play new games with the latest graphics technology just forced a lot of people who probably wouldn't normally console game to scrap gaming on Windows completely and just buy a PS3 or X-Box.
Still, the one good thing that may come from this for gaming is that if gaming on Windows still continues to decline, then Microsoft will probably stop with DirectX altogether because it won't be profitable - that will open the door more for OpenGL and cross-platform gaming.
I do security hardening and auditing for a number of customers and I have been tempted to drop in the odd profanity into the reports I produce for them, purely to see if anyone actually reads them or not.
I've certainly been on a number of calls with my customers where questions are asked which are very clearly answered within the reports I send to them.
As far as I can see, they just want something to wave at auditors as completed so that the auditors can put a tick in a box.
I actually work in security for a telecoms hardware vendor and many of my customers believe that if they state that they want PCI compliance, for example, then that is all they need to do and can hand off all the dirty work of achieving that compliance to the vendors.
As a vendor, we provide servers in a "one size fits all" pre-hardened state because any additional hardening we can do usually depends on the customer's specific topology and environment - so the process we adopt is to let the customer drive the compliance standard, then we do our best to harden to it whilst ensuring the server operation is not affected.
What many customers fail to understand is that hardened servers are only a small part of the compliance, you also have to look at controlled access to the physical hardware, how long and how encrypted you store customer data, etc. etc. It therefore makes no sense for the OEM to manage that compliance.
Only yesterday I had an incident where a customer of mine applied an official update to a server and discovered some of the hardening we'd previously done 6 months ago had been put back to default settings. They were quite shocked when I told them that they should have had processes in place that state what activities should be carried out and in what order, and that we ourselves do not design the processes, just advise and work with the customer when they create those processes.
I also have many situations where two days before new systems go into production, the customer's own security team appears from nowhere with vulnerability scans and refusals to let the systems go live until they are fixed - I have no problem with what they are doing but you'd expect these security guys to be involved in the overall implementation process and to build their security work into the overall project plan in order to avoid last minute panics.
If customers *REALLY* understood compliance standards, rather than just wanting a certificate on a wall, none of the above scenarios could actually happen in the first place.
LulzSec made no mention of how long, prior to launching the attacks, they had spent actually *SELECTING* their targets - it could have been something they'd planned for months in advance, making lists of potential targets and choosing those which would not only get maximum publicity for themselves, but also because they were the easiest in the list to attack.
Not that I condone anything hackers do anyway, but LulzSec actually made some big mistakes in the targets they chose - if a hacking group is seen to be "sticking it to the man" then they may get a degree of admiration and support from the general populace. But attacking sites like the Sony Network and Eve Online where that same general populace gets some of their entertainment from is not going to win them much in the way of support.
It could be argued that better targets would have been banks because of the current bad feeling the general populace has against rich bankers - one therefore has to ask the question therefore if they did *TRY* to hack banking sites but simply could not get in to do any damage; therefore are they nothing more than a bunch of script kiddies with very limited hacking skills.
I was smoking cannabis when you were probably no more than a twinkle in your mother's eye and before I grew up and learnt that I was big enough and bad enough to no longer need any form of drug as a crutch - same as most people do, deal with it.
And I will stop acting like, in your words, an emotional moron when fanbois stop pretending that they know shit about the subject they think they are talking about - I would actually respect an Apple user more if he/she just owned up and said
"Well, I get a buzz about being in an elitist club and I like the fashion design sense in Apple products".
I could not argue with that as a statement.
Oh, and while you are at it, go see a specialist about this over-inflated empathic ability you credit yourself with having - you know NOTHING about my emotional state or how good I am at the job I do based on my comments - therefore, any guesswork you make will be wrong in all probability and you will end up looking like a prat.
A braincare specialist will be able to help you with that - maybe put back in the lobotomised chunk that turned you into a fanboi in the first place, you never know.
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If it's a niche then it's one invented by Apple to make money from, and good luck to them to he honest.
But the fact is that since we have both clearly stated that a tablet does not replace a netbook or laptop, then it just becomes one more device to lug along WITH a netbook or a laptop.
However, having identified that a laptop and smartphone combined do more than a netbook, then it becomes a moot point actually buying one in the first place.
Why do I have to repeat stuff 3 or 4 times and STILL they refuse to get it?
...and there's only so much ground Unicorn horn and Pixie Woofle dust to go round - so there is a limit to how many they can make and sell.
Perhaps if Santa Claus could get the Easter bunny to get the enchanted elf assembly line to work overtime, things would be different, and every litte Peter Pottlemouse could own one!
So fly away Tinkerbell!
Yep.
Even Fuhrer Jobs walked on stage and described it a "magical" which essentially means:
1. It's a sleight of hand trick designed to mystify people with no clue as to how the trick was really done.
2. "I'm intelligent enough to understand it but you are a clueless fanboi with no hope of understanding. Therefore hand over your money and shut up."
3. There's no practical use for it so instead I'll dress it up with some verbal marketing garbage.
That doesn't make sense - why would I replace a laptop with something that costs more but has less functionality.
I'm sorry, you and all the other fanbois are trying to find rational reasons for buying iPads when there are none - it's basically a case of doing nothing more than falling for some very clever Apple marketing, marketing that other tablet manufacturers do not use in quite the same way, therefore they don't sell as many.
If Fuhrer Jobs can walk on stage and describe the thing as "magical" then clearly he's tuning in to the puffed-up religious fervour of the fanbois without any need whatsoever to explain the practical uses of such an object - which by my reckoning are very few though valid in their own rights:
1. (Possibly) older people who find PCs too difficult to use.
2. People who are stood up on crowded commuter trains who simply MUST be connected to the Internet at all times OR THEY WILL DIE!
The example of your mother, whilst valid, does not counter my argument - as you said yourself, she's never been proficient with computers, therefore I could only agree that she finds it easier to use.
But so far, the only target audiences of tablet users with any validity appear to be older people with no PC skills and people who are stood up on packed computer trains.
Incidentally, I'm actually very slightly older than your mother, am fortunate to be very PC literate over 30 years of experience with them and cannot see how a tablet would negate my not carrying a netbook or a mobile phone.
Oh, and while I'm at it, SIT UP PROPERLY, BOY! :-)
I've always wondered about this. How is it that there were only enough fanbois to garner Apple 3-5% of the PC market, but enough to get 70%+ of the MP3 player market, enough to move Apple past companies with much more experience in handsets in the smartphone market segment, and now to sell millions of tablets?
Your figures don't stack up. There are more Android hand sets now than Apple iPhones. All Android handsets play MP3s. Therefore Apple cannot have 70% of the MP3 player market.
In the last (calendar) quarter of 2009, Apple sold 3.3 million computers-- their best quarter ever at the time. In that same quarter they sold 8.7M iPhones.
Put the figure in context of the number of desktop or laptop/netbook PCs sold worldwide - those numbers are dwarfed.
And as above, Android handsets are outselling iPhones currently.
Where did Apple, a company with such a vanishingly small share of the personal computer market, get all of these "fanbois" from?
Vanishing? Where? Over 50% of computers connecting to the Internet run Windows XP, Windows 7 has, erm, about 30% of the share currently - they're rough figures but I'm a Linux guy so don't claim to know the exact ones off the top of my head.
If someone buys an iPhone or an iPad without previously having owned a Mac, or any other Apple product, are they a "fanboi"?
Probably with iPhones, no. Most people with iPhones have contracts and have a range of handsets to choose from within their specific price range, they therefore may choose iPhone because someone has one, they've heard it's the best, whatever...
As for iPad, I know several people with them, they all have iPhones and some have Macs. But the iPad does not replace either the iPhone or the Mac. Therefore they are probably brand loyalists and therefore fanbois.
If it were not selling well one could say that those who have a need for such a product don't constitute an addressable market, but that appears not to be the case.
But it's not selling well compared to the number of laptops and netbooks being sold. So what its target market - apart from people who simply MUST be online while stood up on a crowded commuter train, which is the one and only legitimate reason, albeit an unlikely one, for using a tablet that I've seen so far. (Note I said "tablet" not iPad there, BTW.)
Conversely, any number of people who don't consider the device to have a legitimate use does not establish that to be a fact, since the assertion is of a negative-- that the device lacks any legitimate use. I'm not sure why you'd choose to frame your argument this way, since it precludes you from actually winning.
Sorry, lost you now. You're argument-steering by moving into semantics, please try to stay on topic. Thanks.
I wouldn't argue with the your statement. If your parents have always been uncomfortable using a standard PC with a keyboard, then in that instance an iPad will be more usable for them.
But it's not really much to do with my original point that tablets don't replace laptops or netbooks, useful as they no doubt are to people who have no need for the functionality of a full PC.
Yes. You're right. The millions upon millions of iPad users all over the world are all Apple fanboys with no capabilities of thinking in an individual capacity. The iPad is a failure just waiting to happen and netbooks will still come back and take over.
The type of people who buy iPads are fashion followers who are unlikely to have an appropriate level of discernment to work out what they need the device for before they buy it. Everyone I know who owns an iPad, and there are several, already own an iPhone. This says two things - one, they are Apple brand followers or two, the iPhone does not meet their needs for mobile computing.
When iPads came out, they created a new (or reinvigorated and old and dead) market. There was uncertainty in its capabilities outside of iHaters calling it an "oversized iPod Touch". Now, two years later the iPad has had a large penetration in vertical markets where before there were none for a tablet.
This is precisely why our opinions differ, so deal with it. I am an engineer, I understand the practical applications of stuff and am interested in how stuff works. Biz speak like "vertical markets" means nothing to me and suggests I am not conversing with someone who is capable of emotional separation from the technical qualities of a product.
The fact is, if I owned one I would still need to carry about a mobile phone and a netbook also because it replaces neither. Yet the combination of a mobile phone and netbook already do far more than a tablet can do. And my skeletal/muscular structure is not sensitive enough to care about the additional weight of carrying both.
Back then, perhaps it was correct to say that it is not meant to replace laptops or netbooks. Now though is a different story.
Why is it a different story? Laptops and netbooks have not stood still since iPads came out. They've got faster, more compact, better batteries, etc. and people haven't stopped buying them. If anything, the combined laptop and netbook market dwarfs the tablet market. So stop foaming at the mouth and try to take an engineering perspective of things.
I lost track of how many friends and colleagues that were looking for a new home computer or a laptop decided to buy an iPad instead.
Friends and colleagues come to me for recommendations of what computers to buy. I have witnessed no decline in the number of people coming to me since iPad came out. Therefore you comment does not stack up based on my experience.
There is a huge, huge market for people that don't need the capabilities of a laptop/desktop PC and all the headaches that go with keeping one running.
Why do new PC sales still dwarf tablet sales then?
Tech-heads, geeks, and nerds hate that idea as Apple's model pretty much obliterates their definition of what computing should be like.
Your first correct statement and I as a tech-head, geek, whatever you want to call me, I 100% agree with you - again, because I am capable of seeing with an engineer's eyes.
Apple IS obliterating any notion that a computing device is an essentially open platform that can be loaded with applications bought or downloaded from any vendor or creator that you choose - now it is JUST one vendor, and the same vendor that makes the device.
We've had decades of what was essentially garbage PC's devoid of any user-friendliness for the Joe-consumer.
You do realise that if you're not possessed of the patience to learn how to use a computer by trial-and-error yourself, you can go to things called "computer courses" don't you? Billions of people around the world seem very happy using PCs, I would suggest a tiny percentage of them are PC nerds and an even tinier percentage have purchased iPads. And I suspect most of them still use PCs.
I think it's great that Apple saw how the PC-folks were screwing everything up and decided to make "computers" that hides the computer part from the user and just let's them use it like a toaster. Good for th
This is precisely why getting all emotional when you post a message on a public forum is not a good thing.
Your brain is putting a particular interpretation on what you type as you type it, but text is not particularly good at conveying emotion. Therefore, someone who reads it who isn't foaming at the mouth when they do so may well not see the textual nuances that you believe are in there.
Spoken like yet another "I have never used a tablet" sourpuss, replaying the same broken record about the glories of netbooks.
By all means call me a sourpuss, but please preceed it with "I can find no good reason to use a tablet".
But the net is flowing over with stories of people who have found that once they got one, the uses and benefits became apparent.
For each example you could throw at me of those people, I could counter it with an example of people that consider them to be overpriced gimmicks. And the very fact that they are not selling well outside of iPad suggest that only the fanbois want them.
A netbook lacks a touch screen, and is uncomfortable and impractical to use when you need to hold it (e.g. standing on a commuter train).
Why is this the only example I ever hear about how advantageous a tablet is? Why is it that important to you to be connected to the Internet while on a train? Are you an Internet addict, or someone of such importance that you constantly have great knowledge to impart on the world? Ever heard of a paperback book? Or staying in the office a while until the rush hour dies down?
And touchscreens are great for portability but most people are born using computers with keyboards and mice. Nobody in their right mind would choose to use a touchscreen if they have a keyboard and mouse nect to them.
Aren't you just really afraid of change?
Not at all. I've been working and playing with computers for 30 years, I've witnessed massive change and embraced a lot of it. But I'm not prepared to be carried along on a wave of hype and marketing for an expensive gimmick that does not replace anything that I currently have.
I fail to understand why you see this as an advantage.
There are huge amounts of Open Source applications out there that have code that compiles perfectly well on GCC on a multitude of platforms. Are you that confident that the same code is going to compile as well or as easily on another compiler?
It strikes me that potentially being locked out of all that free software out there is a huge disadvantage.
Why would the target audience of Macs, namely people who don't care about how a computer works and don't want to use Windows (or Linux) care about disk encryption?
Apple is unable to ship the version of GCC benchmarked there, because of GPLv3. LLVM produces much better code than GCC 4.2.1, which is the last GPLv2 version, and the version that Apple ships.
Please explain what you mean by "better code".
And if you mean "better optimised code", why is that particularly important on a high power device like a Mac? I can understand it on an embedded device where raw CPU power and storage space are important.
GCC has been the benchmark for compiling Open Source code for years with regular updates and releases - to simply wave your hand and dismiss it so readily requires better explanation.
Apple fanbois will buy anything Apple that releases, but for the rest of us tablets are nothing more than an expensive gimmick that don't replace anything that's out here already. Hence the high sales of iPads but not of other tablets.
A reasonably specified netbook can do anything and more that a tablet can do for less cost, it also allows you to run many of the same applications that you run on a desktop or laptop PC - so you can carry about the day-to-day applications that you use with you, rather than having to set up and use an "equivalent" application on a tablet.
Very few of us are jetting around the world enough to the point where the small format of a tablet in an airliner seat would be easier to use than a netbook, and a tablet is "just one more device" that you have to manage, synchronise email addresses and contacts, recharge, etc. etc.
I even remember clearly on here about 18 months ago when the fanbois were justifying their buying iPads and themselves saying that they are not designed to replace laptops or netbooks - therefore a tablet is still one more portable device you have to carry with you because there is no single device that does everything most people need to do.
For your informations, the invention of the GUI is attributed to Xerox, not your beloved Apple. Therefore Apple can be considered to have ripped off Xerox.
It's probably time for your medication, by the sounds of it.
For your information, my comment was a "tell it like I see it" comment rather than "I've got sour grapes" comment - personally, I could care less about DirectX 10 or 11 because I probably buy no more than 1 or 2 "hot off the presses" PC games a year. I'm actually 80% Linux user to 20% Windows user, I tend to enjoy older and retro games these days, and therefore I have found no good reason to move from XP because it more than happily copes with the stuff that Linux doesn't do or that it does better.
Please do NOT tar everyone with the same brush of an OS zealot - to me an OS is a productivity and entertainment platform, and I just use the best tool for the job when I need to.
So go try and goad someone, else, I'm immune to trolling.
I think Microsoft started making bad decisions over games when they decided not to release DirectX 10/11 for Windows XP.
With console gaming already accelerating at a huge rate at that time, forcing people to buy Vista or Windows 7 just to play new games with the latest graphics technology just forced a lot of people who probably wouldn't normally console game to scrap gaming on Windows completely and just buy a PS3 or X-Box.
Still, the one good thing that may come from this for gaming is that if gaming on Windows still continues to decline, then Microsoft will probably stop with DirectX altogether because it won't be profitable - that will open the door more for OpenGL and cross-platform gaming.
God help us all.
I do security hardening and auditing for a number of customers and I have been tempted to drop in the odd profanity into the reports I produce for them, purely to see if anyone actually reads them or not.
I've certainly been on a number of calls with my customers where questions are asked which are very clearly answered within the reports I send to them.
As far as I can see, they just want something to wave at auditors as completed so that the auditors can put a tick in a box.
It's very true.
I actually work in security for a telecoms hardware vendor and many of my customers believe that if they state that they want PCI compliance, for example, then that is all they need to do and can hand off all the dirty work of achieving that compliance to the vendors.
As a vendor, we provide servers in a "one size fits all" pre-hardened state because any additional hardening we can do usually depends on the customer's specific topology and environment - so the process we adopt is to let the customer drive the compliance standard, then we do our best to harden to it whilst ensuring the server operation is not affected.
What many customers fail to understand is that hardened servers are only a small part of the compliance, you also have to look at controlled access to the physical hardware, how long and how encrypted you store customer data, etc. etc. It therefore makes no sense for the OEM to manage that compliance.
Only yesterday I had an incident where a customer of mine applied an official update to a server and discovered some of the hardening we'd previously done 6 months ago had been put back to default settings. They were quite shocked when I told them that they should have had processes in place that state what activities should be carried out and in what order, and that we ourselves do not design the processes, just advise and work with the customer when they create those processes.
I also have many situations where two days before new systems go into production, the customer's own security team appears from nowhere with vulnerability scans and refusals to let the systems go live until they are fixed - I have no problem with what they are doing but you'd expect these security guys to be involved in the overall implementation process and to build their security work into the overall project plan in order to avoid last minute panics.
If customers *REALLY* understood compliance standards, rather than just wanting a certificate on a wall, none of the above scenarios could actually happen in the first place.
It's actually a very good point.
LulzSec made no mention of how long, prior to launching the attacks, they had spent actually *SELECTING* their targets - it could have been something they'd planned for months in advance, making lists of potential targets and choosing those which would not only get maximum publicity for themselves, but also because they were the easiest in the list to attack.
Not that I condone anything hackers do anyway, but LulzSec actually made some big mistakes in the targets they chose - if a hacking group is seen to be "sticking it to the man" then they may get a degree of admiration and support from the general populace. But attacking sites like the Sony Network and Eve Online where that same general populace gets some of their entertainment from is not going to win them much in the way of support.
It could be argued that better targets would have been banks because of the current bad feeling the general populace has against rich bankers - one therefore has to ask the question therefore if they did *TRY* to hack banking sites but simply could not get in to do any damage; therefore are they nothing more than a bunch of script kiddies with very limited hacking skills.
I was smoking cannabis when you were probably no more than a twinkle in your mother's eye and before I grew up and learnt that I was big enough and bad enough to no longer need any form of drug as a crutch - same as most people do, deal with it.
And I will stop acting like, in your words, an emotional moron when fanbois stop pretending that they know shit about the subject they think they are talking about - I would actually respect an Apple user more if he/she just owned up and said
"Well, I get a buzz about being in an elitist club and I like the fashion design sense in Apple products".
I could not argue with that as a statement.
Oh, and while you are at it, go see a specialist about this over-inflated empathic ability you credit yourself with having - you know NOTHING about my emotional state or how good I am at the job I do based on my comments - therefore, any guesswork you make will be wrong in all probability and you will end up looking like a prat.
A braincare specialist will be able to help you with that - maybe put back in the lobotomised chunk that turned you into a fanboi in the first place, you never know.
And how, pray tell, do you use restore-image unless you have access into it in the first place?
No. My analogy fails you, a fanboi. Big difference.
Jailbreaking an iPhone is like going to a pizza restaurant and asking them to make you a chicken chow mein because of your allergy to cheese.