How are iOS apps different from any other piece of software written for an OS?
You can't just take them and run them on another OS because that's not how it works. In the same way I can't take the Windows version of Firefox and run it on OS X, or on Linux without using an emulator, or rebuilding it from source for the new platform. In that respect, iOS apps are nothing new, and there are many of them out there that are simply built for different platforms from a common base - dual iOS and Android versions for example.
It's not "lock in" if your OS happens to work like that, unless it's ok to call all Windows apps "lock in" too, and all Android apps since I can't just take them and run them on any other device running a different OS.
Where it *really* matters is the data and the content. You need to be able to get your data in and out of the system you are using. On Mac and iOS this is easy - they use open formats for all the major stuff (address book, email, music, calendars, documents etc) so you can say "ok, I'm moving all my data to Android". Contrast this with Windows, where the email and contact stuff is tied up in a.pst format, exclusive to Outlook. Sure there are tools that might be able to get your data out, but it's not like they made it easy to do. Of course it's easy to migrate *into* in Outlook environment, but going the other way is hard work. If you want to leave Apple's ecosystem, your mail is in.mbox, your calendars and address book are built on open source tools in open formats, your music is in AAC format, your documents (if you've been using Apple's software) are in a documented XML format, etc.
The only stumbling block right now on the Apple front is videos, since these still have DRM, which is why I do not have any video from the iTunes store. Other than that, you ca go in and out of the Apple ecosystem as much as you like - I have a combined OS X/Ubuntu setup, and they work quite happily together.
Apple simply doesn't ship Flash on their machines by default - in common with other OS makers - like it used to, because it keeps changing, so the customer might as well get the latest version from the outset, since they will likely have to download it anyway (whether to patch or install fresh), but this doesn't mean there is no Flash on OS X.
They did the same think with the Java VM.
Also, no flash on iOS has much more to do with performance than "telling people what to do" - Flash is enough of a dog on OS X (for entirely Adobe's reasons - don't believe all the buck-passing claiming it's to do with Apple "blocking" secret APIs and not giving Adobe access to the necessary software - it doesn't seem to affect any other developers who work with the same subsystems). It would be a disaster on iOS (which shares much of the same underlying code as OS X). It has got much better in recent releases - specifically the jump from Flash 10.0 to Flash 10.1 brought some big performance improvements, but it's still too much of a hog to work well on a mobile device that runs iOS (YMMV on different mobile OSes, but from general information, it's been very spotty - it's not a great performer when the device hardware power is limited).
Regarding GNU tools, that's a GPLv2 vs v3 issue - any GPL software that is shipped is the latest v2 version, but they won't ship any v3. There's also plenty of BSD stuff on there, and of course nothing stopping you downloading anything you like regardless of what is shipped by default. Your argument sounds equivalent to me complaining that Ubuntu doesn't ship with the proprietary drivers for my wireless card and that I have to download them - it's not in Canonical's hands to ship them, but I can get them afterwards.
Apple are by no means perfect, but your stated reasons for not liking them seem to be... questionable.
No, but that's not all that Samsung copied. They made the Galaxy look just like an iPhone 3Gs, right down to the UI and specific colouring and icon style.
There are myriad ways to make a black bezel, rounded corner phone and not make it look like an iPhone 3G - just look at, oh, any other Android phone.
When the tech press says of the Galaxy, before any hints of lawsuits were mentioned "it looks great, but it's awfully like an iPhone" you knew it was only matter of time.
To repeat, it's not one single element that caused the lawsuit - it's all of them combined together.
Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius: ok Making a phone with a virtually identical UI to the iPhone: ok Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius and adding that identical UI: lawsuit.
The nonsense dismissal by slashdot that this is all about "patenting a rounded rectangle" just makes people look ignorant.
I personally don;t agree with the lawsuit, since it just seems like a waste of resources, but I can certainly see why they decided to go for it, and why they seem to be making headway.
You overestimate the number of people who follow slashdot or tech press. This will be reported in the news as "Samsung sues Apple to try and block iPhone sales" with a tag line like "ongoing legal difficulties between the two giants" and they'll just be annoyed that the iPhone might be delayed assuming they were planning on getting one.
Apple fanboys are pathetic. Worthless hipster DOUCHEBAGS that don't know anything about technology and just buy the latest shiny device because a fancy commercial convinces them that they need it.
OMFG DROID BIONIC????!!! HOLY FUCKIN SHIT, that thing looks fuckin AWESOME. omfg DUAL CORE PROCESSOR and LTE, this thing makes my Thunderbolt that I just bought last month look like a pile of puke. I need that, I'm buying that the DAY IT COMES OUT.
Anyway, Apple fanboys are stupid and just buy the newest super greatest next product based on hype.
With proponents like this one, I can see why *this* is the year of Linux on the desktop at last.
Just because you disagree with a court decision doesn't mean it "doesn't have any sense at all". Even tech review sites were saying the Galaxy looked exactly like an iPhone. It's hardly a stretch to imagine a court would think the same.
Note that they didn't say that about other Android phones or devices, and that no other Android devices have had injunctions.
I personally think the whole situation is silly, and is bad PR for Apple, but I can't argue that she decision doesn't make sense - the Galaxy S is pretty much an iPhone 3GS clone, down to the UI and there was no need for it - there are plenty of other Android touchscreen smartphones that don't look exactly like iPhones.
They already do. Samsung is not the only memory supplier to Apple, just one of several. Killing that deal would hurt Samsung more than it would inconvenience Apple, which is why Samsung have not done it already.
It's worse than that - the guy in charge of putting forth these ideas doesn't limit to the iPad, he specifically mentions Android, iPad and Windows 8 tablets and that all avenues are being examined to work out the costs.
Of course "UK government wants to give civil servants free iPads!" is a much more sensational headline.
As an enterprise client the "walled garden" does not apply - they can deploy whatever they like to their iPads, as well as get the benefit of all the software in the App Store.
Maybe you should RTFA before commenting. That is exactly what is said. The article specifies "tablets - including Android, iPad and Windows 8 tablets" not just iPads, from the person making the suggestion.
Wow, didn't we go through this when the whole "NFL thinking of replacing paper with iPads for playbooks" story came up?
As an enterprise client you can deploy whatever you like to the iPads under your umbrella (ie, all of your employees), as well as using the App Store.
This is well known information, but this tired, factually incorrect argument always comes up. "They'll have to use the app store! They're not free!" Perhaps a little research might help to stop you looking silly with easily debunked information.
Forever - the goals of OS X and iOS are different, despite sharing the same codebase (iOS pretty much is OS X, just trimmed down a bit and with a different UI layer on top).
One is designed as a closed and protected system, the other is a proprietary GUI on top of a very good Unix OS with increasing numbers of open source parts (not just going in, but projects that are part of the OS being released as open source with no 'forced' legality) that wants to use open standards as much as possible.
OS X is about a proprietary GUI on an open source core running on custom hardware and promoting open standards
iOS is about controlling the user experience carefully on a handheld device.
While they have certainly pulled a few features back over into OS X (the app store, the way parts of the GUI work, especially launching of apps), I don't think it is going away - if nothing else the number of open source projects involved in it that Apple continue to release would suggest that they don't see the benefit of getting rid of OS X - if anything it's opening up more as it matures in some key respects.
There's a youtube video of Android running on the iPhone, and the iPod modding community is long established - originally as a way to get the iPod to play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. Five seconds on google will probably help you.
Yet an Android phone of similar spec and quality to an iPhone is a similar price. So Android users are being ripped off too if they buy the good phones?
The solution is to buy the poor quality Android handsets?
The whole topic as a whole is about iPads, in case you missed that.
In terms of spending the money on "more functionality", you did not provide an example, despite it "not being rocket science". If you'd like to enlighten me how the extra money could be used on more functionality in either the tablet or laptop arena I'd be all ears.
Bonus points if you can mention something you cannot do on a Mac that you can do on another machine, bearing in mind that a Mac can run pretty much any current OS you choose. (well, perhaps not BeOS)
Yes, I'd assume so - the config utility isn't anything fancy and it runs on Mac and Windows. As long as the VM had direct access to the network I can't see why it wouldn't work (the utility finds Airport devices via Bonjour/Zeroconf).
If you want to eliminate that potential issue though, the Cisco E2400 is virtually the same hardware for a similar price and it uses a normal web interface, but I have no experience with one of those in practice.
Slashdot Mirror
Cool story bro.
How are iOS apps different from any other piece of software written for an OS?
You can't just take them and run them on another OS because that's not how it works. In the same way I can't take the Windows version of Firefox and run it on OS X, or on Linux without using an emulator, or rebuilding it from source for the new platform. In that respect, iOS apps are nothing new, and there are many of them out there that are simply built for different platforms from a common base - dual iOS and Android versions for example.
It's not "lock in" if your OS happens to work like that, unless it's ok to call all Windows apps "lock in" too, and all Android apps since I can't just take them and run them on any other device running a different OS.
Where it *really* matters is the data and the content. You need to be able to get your data in and out of the system you are using. On Mac and iOS this is easy - they use open formats for all the major stuff (address book, email, music, calendars, documents etc) so you can say "ok, I'm moving all my data to Android". Contrast this with Windows, where the email and contact stuff is tied up in a .pst format, exclusive to Outlook. Sure there are tools that might be able to get your data out, but it's not like they made it easy to do. Of course it's easy to migrate *into* in Outlook environment, but going the other way is hard work. If you want to leave Apple's ecosystem, your mail is in .mbox, your calendars and address book are built on open source tools in open formats, your music is in AAC format, your documents (if you've been using Apple's software) are in a documented XML format, etc.
The only stumbling block right now on the Apple front is videos, since these still have DRM, which is why I do not have any video from the iTunes store. Other than that, you ca go in and out of the Apple ecosystem as much as you like - I have a combined OS X/Ubuntu setup, and they work quite happily together.
Apple simply doesn't ship Flash on their machines by default - in common with other OS makers - like it used to, because it keeps changing, so the customer might as well get the latest version from the outset, since they will likely have to download it anyway (whether to patch or install fresh), but this doesn't mean there is no Flash on OS X.
They did the same think with the Java VM.
Also, no flash on iOS has much more to do with performance than "telling people what to do" - Flash is enough of a dog on OS X (for entirely Adobe's reasons - don't believe all the buck-passing claiming it's to do with Apple "blocking" secret APIs and not giving Adobe access to the necessary software - it doesn't seem to affect any other developers who work with the same subsystems). It would be a disaster on iOS (which shares much of the same underlying code as OS X). It has got much better in recent releases - specifically the jump from Flash 10.0 to Flash 10.1 brought some big performance improvements, but it's still too much of a hog to work well on a mobile device that runs iOS (YMMV on different mobile OSes, but from general information, it's been very spotty - it's not a great performer when the device hardware power is limited).
Regarding GNU tools, that's a GPLv2 vs v3 issue - any GPL software that is shipped is the latest v2 version, but they won't ship any v3. There's also plenty of BSD stuff on there, and of course nothing stopping you downloading anything you like regardless of what is shipped by default. Your argument sounds equivalent to me complaining that Ubuntu doesn't ship with the proprietary drivers for my wireless card and that I have to download them - it's not in Canonical's hands to ship them, but I can get them afterwards.
Apple are by no means perfect, but your stated reasons for not liking them seem to be... questionable.
Yes, I'm sure the entire case is based on a single distorted image.
No, but that's not all that Samsung copied. They made the Galaxy look just like an iPhone 3Gs, right down to the UI and specific colouring and icon style.
There are myriad ways to make a black bezel, rounded corner phone and not make it look like an iPhone 3G - just look at, oh, any other Android phone.
When the tech press says of the Galaxy, before any hints of lawsuits were mentioned "it looks great, but it's awfully like an iPhone" you knew it was only matter of time.
To repeat, it's not one single element that caused the lawsuit - it's all of them combined together.
Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius: ok
Making a phone with a virtually identical UI to the iPhone: ok
Making a phone with a black bezel and rounded corners of a specific radius and adding that identical UI: lawsuit.
The nonsense dismissal by slashdot that this is all about "patenting a rounded rectangle" just makes people look ignorant.
I personally don;t agree with the lawsuit, since it just seems like a waste of resources, but I can certainly see why they decided to go for it, and why they seem to be making headway.
Apple's market cap: $382 billion
Samsung's cash: $300 billion.
You do the maths.
You didn't read his post did you? So quick to jump in with an "Apple bash/clueless fanboi" reply.
Sigh.
You overestimate the number of people who follow slashdot or tech press. This will be reported in the news as "Samsung sues Apple to try and block iPhone sales" with a tag line like "ongoing legal difficulties between the two giants" and they'll just be annoyed that the iPhone might be delayed assuming they were planning on getting one.
Apple fanboys are pathetic. Worthless hipster DOUCHEBAGS that don't know anything about technology and just buy the latest shiny device because a fancy commercial convinces them that they need it.
OMFG DROID BIONIC????!!! HOLY FUCKIN SHIT, that thing looks fuckin AWESOME. omfg DUAL CORE PROCESSOR and LTE, this thing makes my Thunderbolt that I just bought last month look like a pile of puke. I need that, I'm buying that the DAY IT COMES OUT.
Anyway, Apple fanboys are stupid and just buy the newest super greatest next product based on hype.
With proponents like this one, I can see why *this* is the year of Linux on the desktop at last.
Clearly a paid Android shill.
Try to be more subtle next time.
(note: some or all of this message may be hyperbole).
Just because you disagree with a court decision doesn't mean it "doesn't have any sense at all". Even tech review sites were saying the Galaxy looked exactly like an iPhone. It's hardly a stretch to imagine a court would think the same.
Note that they didn't say that about other Android phones or devices, and that no other Android devices have had injunctions.
I personally think the whole situation is silly, and is bad PR for Apple, but I can't argue that she decision doesn't make sense - the Galaxy S is pretty much an iPhone 3GS clone, down to the UI and there was no need for it - there are plenty of other Android touchscreen smartphones that don't look exactly like iPhones.
No, they really don't. Not even close.
They already do. Samsung is not the only memory supplier to Apple, just one of several. Killing that deal would hurt Samsung more than it would inconvenience Apple, which is why Samsung have not done it already.
RTFA.
Oh, this is slashdot, silly me.
It's worse than that - the guy in charge of putting forth these ideas doesn't limit to the iPad, he specifically mentions Android, iPad and Windows 8 tablets and that all avenues are being examined to work out the costs.
Of course "UK government wants to give civil servants free iPads!" is a much more sensational headline.
So once you buy a printer, the toner and paper are free for 18 months?
Like what?
As an enterprise client the "walled garden" does not apply - they can deploy whatever they like to their iPads, as well as get the benefit of all the software in the App Store.
Maybe you should RTFA before commenting. That is exactly what is said. The article specifies "tablets - including Android, iPad and Windows 8 tablets" not just iPads, from the person making the suggestion.
Wow, didn't we go through this when the whole "NFL thinking of replacing paper with iPads for playbooks" story came up?
As an enterprise client you can deploy whatever you like to the iPads under your umbrella (ie, all of your employees), as well as using the App Store.
This is well known information, but this tired, factually incorrect argument always comes up. "They'll have to use the app store! They're not free!" Perhaps a little research might help to stop you looking silly with easily debunked information.
A cheaper, faster, better tablet (than the iPad 2) would be great. Can you point one out to me?
Forever - the goals of OS X and iOS are different, despite sharing the same codebase (iOS pretty much is OS X, just trimmed down a bit and with a different UI layer on top).
One is designed as a closed and protected system, the other is a proprietary GUI on top of a very good Unix OS with increasing numbers of open source parts (not just going in, but projects that are part of the OS being released as open source with no 'forced' legality) that wants to use open standards as much as possible.
OS X is about a proprietary GUI on an open source core running on custom hardware and promoting open standards
iOS is about controlling the user experience carefully on a handheld device.
While they have certainly pulled a few features back over into OS X (the app store, the way parts of the GUI work, especially launching of apps), I don't think it is going away - if nothing else the number of open source projects involved in it that Apple continue to release would suggest that they don't see the benefit of getting rid of OS X - if anything it's opening up more as it matures in some key respects.
There's a youtube video of Android running on the iPhone, and the iPod modding community is long established - originally as a way to get the iPod to play FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. Five seconds on google will probably help you.
Yet an Android phone of similar spec and quality to an iPhone is a similar price. So Android users are being ripped off too if they buy the good phones?
The solution is to buy the poor quality Android handsets?
The whole topic as a whole is about iPads, in case you missed that.
In terms of spending the money on "more functionality", you did not provide an example, despite it "not being rocket science". If you'd like to enlighten me how the extra money could be used on more functionality in either the tablet or laptop arena I'd be all ears.
Bonus points if you can mention something you cannot do on a Mac that you can do on another machine, bearing in mind that a Mac can run pretty much any current OS you choose. (well, perhaps not BeOS)
Yes, I'd assume so - the config utility isn't anything fancy and it runs on Mac and Windows. As long as the VM had direct access to the network I can't see why it wouldn't work (the utility finds Airport devices via Bonjour/Zeroconf).
If you want to eliminate that potential issue though, the Cisco E2400 is virtually the same hardware for a similar price and it uses a normal web interface, but I have no experience with one of those in practice.