Every new Mac released ships with and runs the current version of the OS, and nothing earlier.
Actually, I am on the
Canadian Apple store page right now, and the powerbook section says it comes with Mac OS 10.1. You still have to buy Jaguar if you want it. The American page just says "OS X" without more detail.
Most people sell their old computers to help pay for the new ones, especially with "expensive" Macs.
I know I've personally received plenty of requests from Mac guys I know to buy their old stuff when they're upgrading.
This move by Apple has the pleasant side effect of helping to kill the used Mac market as well as OS9 - smart on their part. Used Macs "theoretically" dig into new Mac sales, so if Apple can cause people to hang on to their old Macs because old OS9 computers are the only thing that will *properly* play your old games or run your ancient software or hardware, Apple profits.
Of course, OSX rules, but still, having OPTIONS rules more. What effect will this have on Gnu/Linux on the PPC? Will it still boot, or will Apple withhold the technical info required to "fix" their hardware to make it more open? And if Apple does give out the tech specs, will someone write a patch to allow OS9 to boot?
There have been some companies that have been very poor at making OS X versions of
their software and they needed the swift kick in the backside that Apple have just given them.
Yes, it seems that Apple is getting very good at kicking their developers.
Damn. THAT is insightful. A person who has used multiple platforms, including the Mac, and is still objective about them. You RULE.
I love Macs, but Apple's "Corporate BS Department" keeps getting in my way when I try to completely make the "switch". The Debian guys have never "screwed" anybody, but sadly, I can name hundreds of instances of Apple doing so. If only they'd morally straighten out, they'd be near-perfect, and I'd be as zealous as everyone else, but it just seems to be getting worse....
The guys on here are so biased and zealous I have to "throw out the baby with the bathwater", so to speak, and assume they're ALL lying, like the bitgeek guy who keeps saying Dells are built to self-destruct in 2 years or less. Mine's at least 6.
It's nice to see a post that admits that systems have BOTH good and bad points. It's a service to the people who are here looking for information, not causeless rants. And shouldn't we ALL be after the truth anyway?
I know who she is because the teenybopper Slashdottians keep raving about her. But seriously, she looks like the teenaged girls in my building who smoke crack in the parking lot. Actually, most of the girls in my building are better looking.
No big deal, except that she's there, so she's a sexual target for the undersexed Slashdot crowd.
For people who claim to "Think Different", either by using Macs or Linux, these guys sure seem to grab on to a lot of stupid geek bandwagons. They should walk through a mall sometime. They'd be amazed that real girls exist.
True, but an easy to use Gnu/Linux with a fully functioning, clean-room implementation of Wine wouldn't hurt.
I guess that's what the DMCA is really for, preserving the status quo and preventing change from killing the dinosaurs, even when better systems appear. Sucks to be the victimized masses. Add the Hitlerian goodness of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and all the other legal suckholing we've seen in the last year or two, and we'll be calling Orwell an optimist by Christmas 2005. Well, we'll whisper it, anyway, so we aren't overheard by anyone we don't know.
> you-all'll buy one copy and pirate it 300,000 times
No, but that's why Windows is so popular. Unlike using the Mac, where there's typically NOBODY in your city using a Mac except you, Windows users are so abundant that there's a ready supply of pirated software.
The software cost of using Windows is effectively ZERO. They pay NOTHING. I know people who have 200 CD's of burned stuff and Gigs of unburned stuff on their hard drives. Hasn't slowed the Windows juggernaut any, and most of the Win32 software vendors are doing okay.
No, it's not fear of piracy that holds companies back. The real reason (same with OS X) is that 3% of the market ain't worth supporting, especially on the unfamiliar terrain of a new OS!
> My dream machine would be a 2.4-kernel running on my PowerMac G4/800 with
> AQUA GUI and config tools.
Open the Aqua source so users can make modifications and tweaks to improve useability, security, and stability, and you've got the ENTIRE open source/ free software world using it. XFree seems to be almost universally hated. That's why so many former Gnubies have switched already, source or no source. Aqua is the holy grail, and the place we all seem to want to retire to.
Company policy (for security reasons) is that ALL software must be compiled from source. The source must be checked by our guys first, who grep the hell out of it for backdoors, etc.
We'd * * * L O V E * * * to have MacOS X in here, but it ain't gonna happen until Apple loosens up the reins a bit and lets the customers in. Look at it this way -- right now, if anybody messes with Apple in ANY WAY, no matter how small, they always sic their legal department on them and kick the offending ass ruthlessly. It stands to reason that in the event that Apple gave out source code with their stuff, and somebody tried to port OS X to x86 or whatever from the code given out with the CDs, they'd sue the living hell out of that person, leaving him gasping for air and holding his nuts. They can protect their code legally, instead of by obscurity, which harms the customer as well as Apple themselves (if you understand the "many eyes" theory). They don't have to GPL it, just include it under the same strict license they use for everything else.
I think we're coming to a crossroads, and there's two possible futures we have to choose from; the first is that we live in a completely corporately controlled bigbrother world, where we have no choice whatsoever to what hardware and software we use or how, and in which backdoors and spyware and privacy violations are simply understood, and that legally, the customer's rights are zero; or that we live in a world where we compile everything from source because of the great diversity of hardware choices and possible uses and configurations. Free Software and Open Source flourish because people have gotten tired of letting the big companies use and abuse them beyond what is right or fair. The software that is not "free as in freedom" still comes with source, because it is of great value to the customers, and the customers demanded it.
"We'll issue a security patch WHEN we have a lot of complaints. Until then, sorry, it's not worth fixing. Maybe in the next Service Patch." - actual Microsoft employee to one of our sysadmins. Of course, this was before security month or whatever, but still....
I like option number two better. I personally don't want to have to admin all our boxes and compile everything, but I like having the option to do so if required. And with computers in the future, and better languages, compiling will hopefully be faster and more "one-clicky".
My father in law is a Mac user. And I agree with you that Mac users aren't doing their "job", that was the whole point of my post. Mister "Head up my Ass" is probably a newbie Mac user who doesn't know that the Apple garden could use a little pruning, so to speak.
[pi radians, this isn't a personal attack on you at all, but a general response to Apple's behaviour and the frothing "Slashdot Mac Zealot Brigade".]
the license... states that iDVD is freely distributed for AppleSuperDrives only
What effete snobbishness on the part of Apple. "Not made in Cupertino" disease again, but on a hardware level. Their goal is obviously to leverage users into constant upgrades through software restrictions, licensing, and the DMCA (which even Uber-Evil MS recently passed up using as a weapon), and using only Apple-created software and hardware (here come the symps and zealots now - [whiny voice] What's wrong with that? companies only exist to make money, you know. They don't have to behave, theyhave to please the shareholders, not the customers, blah blah blah.)
Apple is trying to squeeze the faithful users tighter, at the same time restricting their hardware choices. How does it cost Apple if a user is using iDVD with someone else's drive? Does Apple even SELL a version of iDVD for other drives that this would cut into the sales of? Do they sell it at all? Would Apple rather have Mac users using iDVD or a competitor's product?
It's the system as a WHOLE that Mac people buy, not the specific components (old components, mostly, hyuk hyuk). Apple should protect their systems, not each individual component, from "competitive attack" - ie, as long as iDVD is being used on a Mac, that's enough. It's a reason to buy a Mac. Add "strings" to the use of the iTools and you have less reason to switch. It's elementary, my dear WATSON. Hardware choices are small enough on the Mac platform without Apple dictating how users can use what they buy, even to the point of hurting Mac users and the Mac platform itself, in a short-sighted rage. REAL Mac fanatics should fight Apple to keep them in line, for their own good and yours. Think long-term. More openness and transparency is good. Mandatory and burdensome restrictions on the user are bad, right? Do you want to help Apple improve and stay alive or not? Then help open Apple's eyes, don't accept their crap like they're Moses coming down the mountain with a Holy Decree! Fight their weaknesses and corruptions and help them become the company you want them to be!
Anyway, my prediction? iDVD, iTunes, etc. will be 100% PAY SERVICES in the next year, just like.Mac. All the iApps are going bye bye unless you pay for them. Apple is going to leverage their hardware base to exclude competitors like these DVD guys. They're going to try to kill piracy just like MS is doing. And they'll be more successful, because they have far more control over the user. The G5's will have much higher prices. MUCH higher. And this is just the obvious stuff. Apple is consistently putting the screws to their customer base, and it's only going to get worse unless somebody stands up to what's wrong with Apple and makes it right. And you can't help Apple by kissing their ass when it should be getting kicked.
I hope Apple overestimates the faithfulness and zealotry of their users, though judging from the people around here, maybe they're right. They DO have many of you by the short and curlies, and you really really love it, because you can't see the big picture yet, and you don't understand how too much control in Apple's hands kills the balance of power between the corporation and the customer, and thus hurts everybody.
Sorry to offend everyone, but honesty is better than zealotry, and constructive criticism is exactly that - constructive. Blind zealotry is 100% destructive, though it doesn't feel like it sometimes, when you're defending something you love....
BlackBolt
Re:So what if they are X-men
on
Sen To, X-Men 2
·
· Score: 1
Good point. I was gonna try and work it in somehow, but I forgot by the end of my message.
But now that I think of it, Black Bolt is sort of voluntarily mute, so I'm already MUCH too verbose to have the name Black Bolt.
The best I can do is tell you that the Y-Womyn are a lot hairier than even the lovely Medusa, and not in the same places or the same way, if you know what I mean, so I think I'd rather not think about them too much more [*!shudder!*].
Think Chewbacca. Then imagine Chewie's MOM. They're more inhuman than Inhuman (Apologies to Rob Zombie for that).
BlackBolt
Re:So what if they are X-men
on
Sen To, X-Men 2
·
· Score: 1
Excellent deduction, and you are indeed correct. Feel free to reward your curiosity with a Vanilla Coke.
The X-Men are missing what scientists call the Y chromosome, unlike "normal" men. This is why they're mutants, why they keep getting beat up by weak guys like the Toad (whose only power is being legally entitled to park close to the building when he's not riding the Short Bus to his special school), and why Wolverine wears obvious makeup in the first movie. "Wolvie" also seems to have a crazy Hairspray fetish, but so did Biff Dooley in college, and he loduly claimed to have the Y Chromosome after some inconclusive tests in Chem Lab.
Inversely, the "Y-Womyn" are large hairy brutes who can usually kick the X-Men's girly, leather-clad asses with their Indigo Girls CDs tied behind their backs.
Unfortunately for us, the "X-Men", despite being the smaller and weaker male of the species (to quote Vincent Price), seem to be more photogenic and flashy, and thus we have X-Men 2 where we should really be watching "The Macho Adventures of the Y-Womyn Part 1". That's Hollywood for ya.
Sad, really. I was hoping to see PMSGirl use her Tampo-Chucks on MegaButch and The Wookie in a re-creation of the epic battle in "Y-Chromosome RagWeek Smackdown" Issue 387. What a rage-filled, bloody battle THAT was. Not at all sanitized like the battles we're likely to see on X-Men 2.
Chill, Stinky. It's just a rumor at this point. And you KNOW these guys make stuff up to get hits (look at iRumors.net, where the guy says he managed to get the *Prez of Motorola Canada* on the phone who then *blabbed to a rumor site* that Apple was ditching them - yeah right). When 'Steverino' announces a 'Price Escalation Breakthrough with mandatory Service Reduction Package!' in a month, then get pissed. But there's too much hype, both good and bad, around Apple for anyone to believe it all and stay sane.
MacOSRumors predicted dual G4 laptops in 1999, and it ain't happened yet, and it probably won't. Funny that it's been actual YEARS that Mac users have been complaining about the speed difference with PCs and nothing's improved yet - what a faithful bunch.
But you're right, Apple is getting draconian recently. Very scary. I bought a Mac last year (a TiBook complete with grinding DVD and peeling paint special effects) specifically because Apple claimed they weren't like Microsoft, only to find that they may be long-lost twins, and the other Mac users I know are completely oblivious to it. Luckily I'm running a stripped down YellowDog 80% of the time.:-)
Apple needs to leave this 20th Century old school corporate BS behind and embrace the new way of business - listen to customers, create quality products, give freedom with your product, don't treat the customer like a criminal. They should elect Doc Searls to the Board of Directors. It honestly seems that most executives at most companies don't have a sweet clue. They really suffer from "us vs. them" syndrome when it comes to customer support.
Positive change like this just makes sense, but Apple was the creator of the modern tech bubble, and they will have a very hard time leaving it behind. The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal.
Wow. That idea kicks ass. Automated Community Self-defense. Nice use of distributed computing. Beats the hell out of SETI.
I dig it - except that it'll eventually attack Slashdot for linking someone! Serves Taco right, though, sending 100,000 people to Granny Elva's Jam Farm because they had the misfortune of putting Gnu/Linux on a kiosk there.
He hasn't because that's too overt. The DoJ would shut him down for sure then. It's got to be gradual, like the frog in the pot of water. Think about it. How can his goal be to have 100%, but leave some for the Linux guys? Get real. It's all a Chess game.
No, his plan is to get Palladium security onto every piece of hardware produced in the world. Linux, being open to massive change since the source is open, is inherently a risk. Linux won't be ALLOWED to boot, and Microsoft won't likely be giving out the documentation so we can hack Linux in.
Checkmate.
Goodbye Linux, hello Windows XP2. I hope you have your VISA ready, because you won't have a choice but to buy or go Amish.
From - Tue Jul 23 13:10:54 2002 X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 10800000 Message-ID: 3D3C8A0B.3160711 @ mac.com Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 13:10:34 -0400 From: SexySteve33 stevejobs@mac.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (MacOS6; U; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Michael Dell" bigcheez@dell.com Subject: Please UNSUBSCRIBE ME from your Mailing List Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="------------080203142303090106000203"
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------080203142303090106000203 C ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Mister Dell,
FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME, "DUDE, I *AM NOT* GETTING A DELL"!! IF I SEE THAT STEVEN IDIOT ONE MORE TIME SMILING STUPIDLY AT ME FROM MY INBOX I'M GONNA SNAP! SPAM ME ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL COME DOWN THERE AND RAM YOUR GODDAMN "DULL LATIDUDE CRAPTOP" UP YOUR FAT WINTEL ASS!!
NOW REMOVE ME FROM YOUR EMAIL LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I MEAN IT - YOU SEND ME ONE MORE DELL SPAM AND I'M SENDING YOU THE ENTIRE COLLECTION OF SWITCH ADS IN HIGH-QUALITY QUICKTIME FORMAT.
Sincerely, Steve
"Michael Dell" bigcheez@dell.com wrote:
> How Would YOU feel behind the wheel of a brand new grey plastic laptop? > Dell has a special one-time only deal on our fiery hot new P4 laptops, > guaranteed to run twice as hot as the old ones! > > We see by your customer profile that you have never had the pleasure of owning > a Dell. We would like you to switch! Now is the time for us as a wonderful vendor > and you as a potential victim to get together and make sweet financial love.
[snipped in disgust]
BlackBolt
Here's the Situation as I see it...
on
LWN.net Closing Down
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Gnu/Linux, and all her offshoots (Linux news sites, Sourceforge, Slashdot, maybe magazines even) have always had a slim-to-none chance of survival. We're taking on the 800lb. M$ Gorilla, who has unimaginable money, power, and ferocity.
The Gnu GPL, which has good points and bad points (many more good than bad) is also a double-edged sword - one of the bad points is that most users don't pay for their stuff, so our flagship corporations can't get strong enough to defend themselves against bad economies and bad laws. We don't have the $30 Billion cushion Microsoft has to weather out the storm.
It's this easy. We're getting killed by a Catch-22 here - we don't get lots of users and developers without apps and news sites and community to support them; we can't afford these things without lots of users and developers. We need corporate sponsorship on a huge level to help knock Microsoft off their pedestal and bring equality and competition back to the market. In order to survive we need a big corporate sugar daddy. Or a group of them. That's right, IBM, Sony, Dell, Apple, Oracle, Sun, HP, Wal-Mart even. Somebody who has a stake in seeing:
a) Gnu/Linux succeed b) Microsoft fail
and is willing (and has the balls) to put some funding into the open-source revolution. We need a year or two of Cathedral to complement our 10 years of Bazaar. I'm talking 100 programmers assigned set projects with set deadlines and set results required. A list of apps to fill the holes. A list of bugs to be fixed. A list of refinements to what we already have. IBM says they put a Billion dollars into Linux each year. Where does it go? I'm not ungrateful, I love their free tutorials and am currently lusting hard after a ThinkPad, but if they devoted some bodies to cleaning up and perfecting the foundations we already have, we could attract a lot more users. The Bazaar model works well, but most programmers don't care about the little touches that most humans care about - a good GUI, ease-of-use, simplicity. This is the stuff we need real funding on - the non-glamorous, dirty work - plus we need to get more corporate quality apps and less SourceForge quality apps. How many have been at 0.0.16 since 1998, with no updates? These projects only discourage others who want to start their own project and see that others are already "working" on it.
I think hardware manufacturers have a vested interest in stronger competition on the desktop and are probably the best suited to help, especially since Microsoft's rumored plans to release their own hardware will KILL them. If they want to stay in the computer hardware business, they had best consider funding and organizing Linux programming, because if M$ makes their own hardware, well... look how easy it is for IBM or Sony to run MAC OS X. Right - "Never Happen". And Apple's not NEARLY as bold and monopolistic and drunk on power as Microsoft. Even if the rumor doesn't pan out, Palladium being forced on hardware vendors will likely lower sales even further, and probably at a higher cost of production. And I can't see IBM and Sony enjoying being under Microsoft's thumb, doing whatever MS says, in order to keep their precious WinXP OEM licenses. A strong clean Linux with a good marketshare could kill the stranglehold Microsoft has on these guys. We need to realize what Bill Gates realized a long time ago: Marketshare is like anything else - it can be bought, if you have enough money to throw at it.
We have to get corporate support to strengthen Linux in order to prevent what happened to LWN from happening again to anyone else. The time for apathy is over.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I am on the Canadian Apple store page right now, and the powerbook section says it comes with Mac OS 10.1. You still have to buy Jaguar if you want it. The American page just says "OS X" without more detail.
BlackBolt
I know I've personally received plenty of requests from Mac guys I know to buy their old stuff when they're upgrading.
This move by Apple has the pleasant side effect of helping to kill the used Mac market as well as OS9 - smart on their part. Used Macs "theoretically" dig into new Mac sales, so if Apple can cause people to hang on to their old Macs because old OS9 computers are the only thing that will *properly* play your old games or run your ancient software or hardware, Apple profits.
Of course, OSX rules, but still, having OPTIONS rules more. What effect will this have on Gnu/Linux on the PPC? Will it still boot, or will Apple withhold the technical info required to "fix" their hardware to make it more open? And if Apple does give out the tech specs, will someone write a patch to allow OS9 to boot?
BlackBolt
their software and they needed the swift kick in the backside that Apple have just given them.
Yes, it seems that Apple is getting very good at kicking their developers.
BlackBolt
I love Macs, but Apple's "Corporate BS Department" keeps getting in my way when I try to completely make the "switch". The Debian guys have never "screwed" anybody, but sadly, I can name hundreds of instances of Apple doing so. If only they'd morally straighten out, they'd be near-perfect, and I'd be as zealous as everyone else, but it just seems to be getting worse....
The guys on here are so biased and zealous I have to "throw out the baby with the bathwater", so to speak, and assume they're ALL lying, like the bitgeek guy who keeps saying Dells are built to self-destruct in 2 years or less. Mine's at least 6.
It's nice to see a post that admits that systems have BOTH good and bad points. It's a service to the people who are here looking for information, not causeless rants. And shouldn't we ALL be after the truth anyway?
Good work.
BlackBolt
No big deal, except that she's there, so she's a sexual target for the undersexed Slashdot crowd.
For people who claim to "Think Different", either by using Macs or Linux, these guys sure seem to grab on to a lot of stupid geek bandwagons. They should walk through a mall sometime. They'd be amazed that real girls exist.
BlackBolt
Then why do you keep posting it?
BlackBolt
I guess that's what the DMCA is really for, preserving the status quo and preventing change from killing the dinosaurs, even when better systems appear. Sucks to be the victimized masses. Add the Hitlerian goodness of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and all the other legal suckholing we've seen in the last year or two, and we'll be calling Orwell an optimist by Christmas 2005. Well, we'll whisper it, anyway, so we aren't overheard by anyone we don't know.
BlackBolt
No, but that's why Windows is so popular. Unlike using the Mac, where there's typically NOBODY in your city using a Mac except you, Windows users are so abundant that there's a ready supply of pirated software.
The software cost of using Windows is effectively ZERO. They pay NOTHING. I know people who have 200 CD's of burned stuff and Gigs of unburned stuff on their hard drives. Hasn't slowed the Windows juggernaut any, and most of the Win32 software vendors are doing okay.
No, it's not fear of piracy that holds companies back. The real reason (same with OS X) is that 3% of the market ain't worth supporting, especially on the unfamiliar terrain of a new OS!
BlackBolt
Open the Aqua source so users can make modifications and tweaks to improve useability, security, and stability, and you've got the ENTIRE open source/ free software world using it. XFree seems to be almost universally hated. That's why so many former Gnubies have switched already, source or no source. Aqua is the holy grail, and the place we all seem to want to retire to.
BlackBolt
> Shit belongs in the sewers, not co-mingled with the thoughts of human beings.
Mod -10, subhuman slime please.
Ain't censorship great? [gasp!] Oh, no! He used the S-WORD!!!!! Sinner!
BlackBolt
Company policy (for security reasons) is that ALL software must be compiled from source. The source must be checked by our guys first, who grep the hell out of it for backdoors, etc.
We'd * * * L O V E * * * to have MacOS X in here, but it ain't gonna happen until Apple loosens up the reins a bit and lets the customers in. Look at it this way -- right now, if anybody messes with Apple in ANY WAY, no matter how small, they always sic their legal department on them and kick the offending ass ruthlessly. It stands to reason that in the event that Apple gave out source code with their stuff, and somebody tried to port OS X to x86 or whatever from the code given out with the CDs, they'd sue the living hell out of that person, leaving him gasping for air and holding his nuts. They can protect their code legally, instead of by obscurity, which harms the customer as well as Apple themselves (if you understand the "many eyes" theory). They don't have to GPL it, just include it under the same strict license they use for everything else.
I think we're coming to a crossroads, and there's two possible futures we have to choose from; the first is that we live in a completely corporately controlled bigbrother world, where we have no choice whatsoever to what hardware and software we use or how, and in which backdoors and spyware and privacy violations are simply understood, and that legally, the customer's rights are zero; or that we live in a world where we compile everything from source because of the great diversity of hardware choices and possible uses and configurations. Free Software and Open Source flourish because people have gotten tired of letting the big companies use and abuse them beyond what is right or fair. The software that is not "free as in freedom" still comes with source, because it is of great value to the customers, and the customers demanded it.
"We'll issue a security patch WHEN we have a lot of complaints. Until then, sorry, it's not worth fixing. Maybe in the next Service Patch." - actual Microsoft employee to one of our sysadmins. Of course, this was before security month or whatever, but still....
I like option number two better. I personally don't want to have to admin all our boxes and compile everything, but I like having the option to do so if required. And with computers in the future, and better languages, compiling will hopefully be faster and more "one-clicky".
Just ramblin' out loud.
BlackBolt
BlackBolt
the license... states that iDVD is freely distributed for AppleSuperDrives only
What effete snobbishness on the part of Apple. "Not made in Cupertino" disease again, but on a hardware level. Their goal is obviously to leverage users into constant upgrades through software restrictions, licensing, and the DMCA (which even Uber-Evil MS recently passed up using as a weapon), and using only Apple-created software and hardware (here come the symps and zealots now - [whiny voice] What's wrong with that? companies only exist to make money, you know. They don't have to behave, theyhave to please the shareholders, not the customers, blah blah blah.)
Apple is trying to squeeze the faithful users tighter, at the same time restricting their hardware choices. How does it cost Apple if a user is using iDVD with someone else's drive? Does Apple even SELL a version of iDVD for other drives that this would cut into the sales of? Do they sell it at all? Would Apple rather have Mac users using iDVD or a competitor's product?
It's the system as a WHOLE that Mac people buy, not the specific components (old components, mostly, hyuk hyuk). Apple should protect their systems, not each individual component, from "competitive attack" - ie, as long as iDVD is being used on a Mac, that's enough. It's a reason to buy a Mac. Add "strings" to the use of the iTools and you have less reason to switch. It's elementary, my dear WATSON. Hardware choices are small enough on the Mac platform without Apple dictating how users can use what they buy, even to the point of hurting Mac users and the Mac platform itself, in a short-sighted rage. REAL Mac fanatics should fight Apple to keep them in line, for their own good and yours. Think long-term. More openness and transparency is good. Mandatory and burdensome restrictions on the user are bad, right? Do you want to help Apple improve and stay alive or not? Then help open Apple's eyes, don't accept their crap like they're Moses coming down the mountain with a Holy Decree! Fight their weaknesses and corruptions and help them become the company you want them to be!
Anyway, my prediction? iDVD, iTunes, etc. will be 100% PAY SERVICES in the next year, just like .Mac. All the iApps are going bye bye unless you pay for them. Apple is going to leverage their hardware base to exclude competitors like these DVD guys. They're going to try to kill piracy just like MS is doing. And they'll be more successful, because they have far more control over the user. The G5's will have much higher prices. MUCH higher. And this is just the obvious stuff. Apple is consistently putting the screws to their customer base, and it's only going to get worse unless somebody stands up to what's wrong with Apple and makes it right. And you can't help Apple by kissing their ass when it should be getting kicked.
I hope Apple overestimates the faithfulness and zealotry of their users, though judging from the people around here, maybe they're right. They DO have many of you by the short and curlies, and you really really love it, because you can't see the big picture yet, and you don't understand how too much control in Apple's hands kills the balance of power between the corporation and the customer, and thus hurts everybody.
Sorry to offend everyone, but honesty is better than zealotry, and constructive criticism is exactly that - constructive. Blind zealotry is 100% destructive, though it doesn't feel like it sometimes, when you're defending something you love....
BlackBolt
Good point. I was gonna try and work it in somehow, but I forgot by the end of my message.
But now that I think of it, Black Bolt is sort of voluntarily mute, so I'm already MUCH too verbose to have the name Black Bolt.
The best I can do is tell you that the Y-Womyn are a lot hairier than even the lovely Medusa, and not in the same places or the same way, if you know what I mean, so I think I'd rather not think about them too much more [*!shudder!*].
Think Chewbacca. Then imagine Chewie's MOM. They're more inhuman than Inhuman (Apologies to Rob Zombie for that).
BlackBolt
The X-Men are missing what scientists call the Y chromosome, unlike "normal" men. This is why they're mutants, why they keep getting beat up by weak guys like the Toad (whose only power is being legally entitled to park close to the building when he's not riding the Short Bus to his special school), and why Wolverine wears obvious makeup in the first movie. "Wolvie" also seems to have a crazy Hairspray fetish, but so did Biff Dooley in college, and he loduly claimed to have the Y Chromosome after some inconclusive tests in Chem Lab.
Inversely, the "Y-Womyn" are large hairy brutes who can usually kick the X-Men's girly, leather-clad asses with their Indigo Girls CDs tied behind their backs.
Unfortunately for us, the "X-Men", despite being the smaller and weaker male of the species (to quote Vincent Price), seem to be more photogenic and flashy, and thus we have X-Men 2 where we should really be watching "The Macho Adventures of the Y-Womyn Part 1". That's Hollywood for ya.
Sad, really. I was hoping to see PMSGirl use her Tampo-Chucks on MegaButch and The Wookie in a re-creation of the epic battle in "Y-Chromosome RagWeek Smackdown" Issue 387. What a rage-filled, bloody battle THAT was. Not at all sanitized like the battles we're likely to see on X-Men 2.
BlackBolt
Haiku is much WORSE than Spam
Please stop the assault
BlackBolt
But you just made Scott Adams piss himself.
BlackBolt
MacOSRumors predicted dual G4 laptops in 1999, and it ain't happened yet, and it probably won't. Funny that it's been actual YEARS that Mac users have been complaining about the speed difference with PCs and nothing's improved yet - what a faithful bunch.
But you're right, Apple is getting draconian recently. Very scary. I bought a Mac last year (a TiBook complete with grinding DVD and peeling paint special effects) specifically because Apple claimed they weren't like Microsoft, only to find that they may be long-lost twins, and the other Mac users I know are completely oblivious to it. Luckily I'm running a stripped down YellowDog 80% of the time. :-)
Apple needs to leave this 20th Century old school corporate BS behind and embrace the new way of business - listen to customers, create quality products, give freedom with your product, don't treat the customer like a criminal. They should elect Doc Searls to the Board of Directors. It honestly seems that most executives at most companies don't have a sweet clue. They really suffer from "us vs. them" syndrome when it comes to customer support.
Positive change like this just makes sense, but Apple was the creator of the modern tech bubble, and they will have a very hard time leaving it behind. The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal.
BlackBolt
I dig it - except that it'll eventually attack Slashdot for linking someone! Serves Taco right, though, sending 100,000 people to Granny Elva's Jam Farm because they had the misfortune of putting Gnu/Linux on a kiosk there.
BlackBolt
Hey, it worked for Microsoft.
BlackBolt
He hasn't because that's too overt. The DoJ would shut him down for sure then. It's got to be gradual, like the frog in the pot of water. Think about it. How can his goal be to have 100%, but leave some for the Linux guys? Get real. It's all a Chess game.
No, his plan is to get Palladium security onto every piece of hardware produced in the world. Linux, being open to massive change since the source is open, is inherently a risk. Linux won't be ALLOWED to boot, and Microsoft won't likely be giving out the documentation so we can hack Linux in.
Checkmate.
Goodbye Linux, hello Windows XP2. I hope you have your VISA ready, because you won't have a choice but to buy or go Amish.
BlackBolt
From - Tue Jul 23 13:10:54 2002
C ontent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
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Message-ID: 3D3C8A0B.3160711 @ mac.com
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 13:10:34 -0400
From: SexySteve33 stevejobs@mac.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (MacOS6; U; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Michael Dell" bigcheez@dell.com
Subject: Please UNSUBSCRIBE ME from your Mailing List
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boundary="------------080203142303090106000203"
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--------------080203142303090106000203
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Mister Dell,
FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME, "DUDE, I *AM NOT* GETTING A DELL"!! IF I SEE THAT STEVEN IDIOT ONE MORE TIME SMILING STUPIDLY AT ME FROM MY INBOX I'M GONNA SNAP! SPAM ME ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL COME DOWN THERE AND RAM YOUR GODDAMN "DULL LATIDUDE CRAPTOP" UP YOUR FAT WINTEL ASS!!
NOW REMOVE ME FROM YOUR EMAIL LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I MEAN IT - YOU SEND ME ONE MORE DELL SPAM AND I'M SENDING YOU THE ENTIRE COLLECTION OF SWITCH ADS IN HIGH-QUALITY QUICKTIME FORMAT.
Sincerely,
Steve
"Michael Dell" bigcheez@dell.com wrote:
> How Would YOU feel behind the wheel of a brand new grey plastic laptop?
> Dell has a special one-time only deal on our fiery hot new P4 laptops,
> guaranteed to run twice as hot as the old ones!
>
> We see by your customer profile that you have never had the pleasure of owning
> a Dell. We would like you to switch! Now is the time for us as a wonderful vendor
> and you as a potential victim to get together and make sweet financial love.
[snipped in disgust]
BlackBolt
The Gnu GPL, which has good points and bad points (many more good than bad) is also a double-edged sword - one of the bad points is that most users don't pay for their stuff, so our flagship corporations can't get strong enough to defend themselves against bad economies and bad laws. We don't have the $30 Billion cushion Microsoft has to weather out the storm.
It's this easy. We're getting killed by a Catch-22 here - we don't get lots of users and developers without apps and news sites and community to support them; we can't afford these things without lots of users and developers. We need corporate sponsorship on a huge level to help knock Microsoft off their pedestal and bring equality and competition back to the market. In order to survive we need a big corporate sugar daddy. Or a group of them. That's right, IBM, Sony, Dell, Apple, Oracle, Sun, HP, Wal-Mart even. Somebody who has a stake in seeing:
a) Gnu/Linux succeed
b) Microsoft fail
and is willing (and has the balls) to put some funding into the open-source revolution. We need a year or two of Cathedral to complement our 10 years of Bazaar. I'm talking 100 programmers assigned set projects with set deadlines and set results required. A list of apps to fill the holes. A list of bugs to be fixed. A list of refinements to what we already have. IBM says they put a Billion dollars into Linux each year. Where does it go? I'm not ungrateful, I love their free tutorials and am currently lusting hard after a ThinkPad, but if they devoted some bodies to cleaning up and perfecting the foundations we already have, we could attract a lot more users. The Bazaar model works well, but most programmers don't care about the little touches that most humans care about - a good GUI, ease-of-use, simplicity. This is the stuff we need real funding on - the non-glamorous, dirty work - plus we need to get more corporate quality apps and less SourceForge quality apps. How many have been at 0.0.16 since 1998, with no updates? These projects only discourage others who want to start their own project and see that others are already "working" on it.
I think hardware manufacturers have a vested interest in stronger competition on the desktop and are probably the best suited to help, especially since Microsoft's rumored plans to release their own hardware will KILL them. If they want to stay in the computer hardware business, they had best consider funding and organizing Linux programming, because if M$ makes their own hardware, well... look how easy it is for IBM or Sony to run MAC OS X. Right - "Never Happen". And Apple's not NEARLY as bold and monopolistic and drunk on power as Microsoft. Even if the rumor doesn't pan out, Palladium being forced on hardware vendors will likely lower sales even further, and probably at a higher cost of production. And I can't see IBM and Sony enjoying being under Microsoft's thumb, doing whatever MS says, in order to keep their precious WinXP OEM licenses. A strong clean Linux with a good marketshare could kill the stranglehold Microsoft has on these guys. We need to realize what Bill Gates realized a long time ago: Marketshare is like anything else - it can be bought, if you have enough money to throw at it.
We have to get corporate support to strengthen Linux in order to prevent what happened to LWN from happening again to anyone else. The time for apathy is over.
BlackBolt