You're backtracking, having been called on something. I might as well say "lolz, Windows bluescreens all the time, you have to reboot it every night" but it doesn't make it true, and using it as an argument for something totally unrelated is just nonsense.
Your eMac supports a two button mouse, and always has. All of the menus and OS, plus shipped apps support it. Reality wins again!
That "crappy interface" that confused the user is not the issue - a "well educated computer literate" user that took over 10 minutes to solve a problem with the help files available (under a minute to find the right bit, with a walk through) or via google (under 7 seconds to search for and load a relevant page, but he said that the guy's computer had "some restrictive internet policy" that apparently blocks google, but only mentions this after I bring it up) is seriously clutching at straws.
The interface may be a little less streamlined than a dedicated phone sync app, since the iPhone features were grafted on, but it's not *that bad* that it takes a computer literate person all that time to work out. Even just randomly pressing buttons gets you to the right thing, or just right clicking on various UI elements (like the iPhone, displayed in the side menu for example) that has it all listed for him.
If he's going to play the "oh woe is me, it's so hard! the UI is so bad I can't find anything I need!" then I can play the "yep, you're stupid" card in response.
Then iPhone will continue to grow at +0.8% share? Clearly it can't do that indefinitely.
I suspect there will be an upswing when it is released on Verizon. These are only US numbers after all.
When the iPhone went from O2 exclusive to all carriers in the UK (a while ago now, since before or around the time the 3GS came out), there was a large upturn in new owners from people who wanted to stay on their original carrier.
Those figures are also for Android as a whole (many handsets across multiple carriers) vs the iPhone (two handsets on a single carrier), so there's that to consider too.
The smartphone market needs decent competition, just like the computer software market as a whole does, lest we fall into a sole supplier situation - that is when things stagnate.
I just tried it, using the built in help for iTunes.
Took me under a minute to find a step by step walkthrough of how to back up your iPhone.
Seriously, it's not difficult.
You also said "...a platform that only has one mouse button" which is either clear ignorance, or deliberate trolling. Given that it took you so long to work out how to back up a device that backs up automatically (unless it is manually disabled) and that can be made to back up manually in a single right mouse click, or in two left clicks if the main screen for the iPhone isn't already visible, I'm going to go with the former rather than the latter.
* Plug in iPhone with iTunes open * iPhone backs up automatically
If automatic syncing is turned off then do the following:
* Plug in iPhone * Click iPhone in the left panel when it appears * Click sync
The very first step of the sync process is backing up your phone, and it tells you it is doing that, every time you sync *unless* you sync shortly after already doing a full backup without disconnecting it or unlocking the phone with the slide control. The button is large and easy to see. And if the user has been using their phone "every week" then it will be immediately obvious.
Alternatively, if you want to use right click, you can do so by doing this:
* Plug in iPhone * Right click on the iPhone when it appears in the left panel and select "back up".
Hunt around the net for how to back it up? Goodness me. Have you never used a computer before? It took you "over ten minutes" to find this? I'm amazed you managed to even register for a slashdot account. How did you find out how to submit the form?
Even if you had never used iTunes before, a computer literate person should have no trouble finding out how to back up an iPhone. I googled "how to back up iphone" also, and timed how long it took me to get to a page that told me how to do it: seven seconds, including the time it took me to open the tab and type the words and for the page to load. I could have shaved off some time by clicking "I'm feeling lucky" since I clicked on the top result, which was an Apple knowledgebase article.
Also, not to drag up that old flamebait nonsense, but the Mac has been supporting multi button mice since OS 8, and shipping with them since the mid 90s.
It is telling to note, that both Android and iPhone are growing market share at the expense of Blackberry and others, rather than at the expense of each other.
The iPad can work with a stylus - there are 3rd party ones that are available. It also works with keyboards, both bluetooth and wired.
I agree that it still has a little way to go to get it closer to "ideal".
Easily rootable just isn't likely to happen, so we can scratch that for now, but it does need an SD card slot for one, along with a USB port alongside the dock connector (which is already a usb port, but you see what I mean).
I also don't necessarily agree that selling "locked down" hardware is a bad strategy - Apple has been doing it very successfully with the iPod and iOS devices because the features (they're not "featureless" devices) that they do offer are what a large majority of people are after. They don;t fit the needs of the geek set from/. but that doesn't mean they don't have a winning strategy, unless you overestimate the buying power of the geek set. It's not an insignificant issue - non-geeks ask their geek friends for recommendations on what hardware to buy all the time, but at least for iOS it doesn't appear to be a large enough negative effect at the moment.
A tivoised Android device is also not necessarily a bad thing if it is marketed to the right people, as long as there are fully open ones available to those who want them. Apple has had a lot of success with an infrastructure that is easy to use, and the more people who also enjoy that level of hand holding that are attracted to the Android platform the better. There just has to be a balance between making a device easy to use, and causing that set of devices to "hold back" the other more open ones (witness, the number of devices 'stuck' on Android 1.6).
1 anonymous person on yahoo answers (seriously?!) with a single upvote.
So, that's two. Any more evidence for this?
How did you even find that cite? Had it bookmarked since it happened for just such a debate?
As a pretty hefty lefty, I thought Bush was the worst thing that happened to the world in recent years, but killing him was absolutely not the thing to be done.
Perhaps, but if you submit your app, knowing it is violation, and it gets approved (GPLv2 is compatible with the store) and then one of your devs later complains and asks for it to be removed, or change the entire store licence by "stealth ransom" (the PR fallout) then it's really not Apple's fault. Rejecting the app outright would be just as bad.
The app store already is GPLv2 friendly, as long as you don't charge for the app. They amended the licence conditions/ToS after the first GPL run-in before the VLC one to specifically make it friendly to GPLv2.
This is merely them responding to a VLC dev demanding that Apple remove the app from the store - and they complied, and somehow this makes them evil and the masters of some conspiracy to squash OSS.
And I remember a time when OSS developers weren't shooting themselves in the foot, yelling at Apple to pull their own app because it violated the GPL to distribute it on the store, and Apple complied with that request by pulling it, and how somehow that makes them the bad guy.
For the record, the App Store is compatible with GPLv2, as long as the app is free as in beer.
So, VLC devs submit VLC to store. Apple approves app. One VLC dev disagrees and demands Apple remove the app due to licence violation. Apple removes app from app store. VLC dev cries and froths that it's "their loss" and "won't cry for users of iOS devices".
So, the summary conveniently "forgets" that the app was pulled *at the request of one of the VLC developers themselves* due to a licence compatibility issue.
No, that would be less sensational and more accurate - what was I thinking?!
I think it's a trivially accessed exploit rather than actual hacking. I'm not trying to downplay the error, just accurately categorise it.
I'm sure it's the first thing that the actual hacker tried - what happens when you drop a certificate from a free app into a paid one and try to hit the server for a licence key.
Everyone else doing it is hardly hacking though.
It would be hacking if they reverse engineered the certificate algorithm and made a certificate generator, but that's not what they did - they just took advantage of a sloppy check by the Angry Birds app.
I think it's more like realising that a pound coin on a string can make the pool table work, and is recoverable rather than tricking the mechanism with a more elaborate scheme that involves taking it apart.
And if you're in the UK, you'd be stuck too, since all mobile numbers start 07, and have nothing to do with your local area code which only apply to landlines.
Steam works this way too. Any store with a centralised system that handles the user accounts and requires third parties to access them if they want to have a serial number. The store happens to work that way, and selling an app through it doesn't necessarily require a licence check (eg, free apps) but if you want to sell your app, the method for linking a licence key to an iTunes account is documented.
Quite possibly - Rovio are already probably annoyed from all the paper cuts on their tongues from using forks made of money, so losing a little revenue to people copying the desktop version of Angry Birds is unlikely to worry them unduly. They're probably more focused with fixing the crash bug. The app is crashing on launch for a non-trivial number of users, resulting in a flurry of 1 star posts in their review section. Their priority will be to fix that.
In general serial numbers and licences on the Mac platform have always been pretty token - the OS X install CD itself simply has a text file that says "don't copy me" and has no serial numbers or online activation or anything, so you can install it on any number of Macs with no issue (other than your own ethics over purchasing licences).
I have no doubt the licence system is not all that draconian - much as Fairplay wasn't (and had a big gaping designed-in-from-the-start hole). The goal being "make it convenient and reasonable enough in cost and people will buy" rather than forcing to end run around you (like Windows Genuine Advantage, or Ubisoft's brainless game 'protection', or SecuROM etc)
If that is what's passing for hacking these days, oh how far we have fallen.
More accurate, but less sensational, would be "developers ignore security suggestion from Apple and are bitten by weak receipt checking". It's less catchy too, as a title.
Why backlash? I think you summed it up pretty accurately - I was expecting Ross to be shown *how* to use his telescope to see Jupiter. It's all very well doing it for him, but what did he learn (unless they showed him off camera)? There were no tips for how to actually pick things out with a telescope - it's harder than it looks and is like looking for faces in a room while staring down a long cardboard tube with one eye.
Slashdot Mirror
You're backtracking, having been called on something. I might as well say "lolz, Windows bluescreens all the time, you have to reboot it every night" but it doesn't make it true, and using it as an argument for something totally unrelated is just nonsense.
Your eMac supports a two button mouse, and always has. All of the menus and OS, plus shipped apps support it. Reality wins again!
That "crappy interface" that confused the user is not the issue - a "well educated computer literate" user that took over 10 minutes to solve a problem with the help files available (under a minute to find the right bit, with a walk through) or via google (under 7 seconds to search for and load a relevant page, but he said that the guy's computer had "some restrictive internet policy" that apparently blocks google, but only mentions this after I bring it up) is seriously clutching at straws.
The interface may be a little less streamlined than a dedicated phone sync app, since the iPhone features were grafted on, but it's not *that bad* that it takes a computer literate person all that time to work out. Even just randomly pressing buttons gets you to the right thing, or just right clicking on various UI elements (like the iPhone, displayed in the side menu for example) that has it all listed for him.
If he's going to play the "oh woe is me, it's so hard! the UI is so bad I can't find anything I need!" then I can play the "yep, you're stupid" card in response.
Then iPhone will continue to grow at +0.8% share? Clearly it can't do that indefinitely.
I suspect there will be an upswing when it is released on Verizon. These are only US numbers after all.
When the iPhone went from O2 exclusive to all carriers in the UK (a while ago now, since before or around the time the 3GS came out), there was a large upturn in new owners from people who wanted to stay on their original carrier.
Those figures are also for Android as a whole (many handsets across multiple carriers) vs the iPhone (two handsets on a single carrier), so there's that to consider too.
The smartphone market needs decent competition, just like the computer software market as a whole does, lest we fall into a sole supplier situation - that is when things stagnate.
I just tried it, using the built in help for iTunes.
Took me under a minute to find a step by step walkthrough of how to back up your iPhone.
Seriously, it's not difficult.
You also said "...a platform that only has one mouse button" which is either clear ignorance, or deliberate trolling. Given that it took you so long to work out how to back up a device that backs up automatically (unless it is manually disabled) and that can be made to back up manually in a single right mouse click, or in two left clicks if the main screen for the iPhone isn't already visible, I'm going to go with the former rather than the latter.
The feature is obvious:
* Plug in iPhone with iTunes open
* iPhone backs up automatically
If automatic syncing is turned off then do the following:
* Plug in iPhone
* Click iPhone in the left panel when it appears
* Click sync
The very first step of the sync process is backing up your phone, and it tells you it is doing that, every time you sync *unless* you sync shortly after already doing a full backup without disconnecting it or unlocking the phone with the slide control. The button is large and easy to see. And if the user has been using their phone "every week" then it will be immediately obvious.
Alternatively, if you want to use right click, you can do so by doing this:
* Plug in iPhone
* Right click on the iPhone when it appears in the left panel and select "back up".
Hunt around the net for how to back it up? Goodness me. Have you never used a computer before? It took you "over ten minutes" to find this? I'm amazed you managed to even register for a slashdot account. How did you find out how to submit the form?
Even if you had never used iTunes before, a computer literate person should have no trouble finding out how to back up an iPhone. I googled "how to back up iphone" also, and timed how long it took me to get to a page that told me how to do it: seven seconds, including the time it took me to open the tab and type the words and for the page to load. I could have shaved off some time by clicking "I'm feeling lucky" since I clicked on the top result, which was an Apple knowledgebase article.
Also, not to drag up that old flamebait nonsense, but the Mac has been supporting multi button mice since OS 8, and shipping with them since the mid 90s.
So you have the privilege of driving a well engineered Japanese automobile, designed for the world rally championship.
Certainly not a cheap car - more like those luxury european models that the original AC was rallying against (ha).
It is telling to note, that both Android and iPhone are growing market share at the expense of Blackberry and others, rather than at the expense of each other.
The more competition the better, I say.
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tex-equation/id390366359?mt=8
That is the equation focused one, but there is also a more generic "TeX" version.
The iPad is that tablet - it already works with third party styluses.
The iPad can work with a stylus - there are 3rd party ones that are available. It also works with keyboards, both bluetooth and wired.
I agree that it still has a little way to go to get it closer to "ideal".
Easily rootable just isn't likely to happen, so we can scratch that for now, but it does need an SD card slot for one, along with a USB port alongside the dock connector (which is already a usb port, but you see what I mean).
I also don't necessarily agree that selling "locked down" hardware is a bad strategy - Apple has been doing it very successfully with the iPod and iOS devices because the features (they're not "featureless" devices) that they do offer are what a large majority of people are after. They don;t fit the needs of the geek set from /. but that doesn't mean they don't have a winning strategy, unless you overestimate the buying power of the geek set. It's not an insignificant issue - non-geeks ask their geek friends for recommendations on what hardware to buy all the time, but at least for iOS it doesn't appear to be a large enough negative effect at the moment.
A tivoised Android device is also not necessarily a bad thing if it is marketed to the right people, as long as there are fully open ones available to those who want them. Apple has had a lot of success with an infrastructure that is easy to use, and the more people who also enjoy that level of hand holding that are attracted to the Android platform the better. There just has to be a balance between making a device easy to use, and causing that set of devices to "hold back" the other more open ones (witness, the number of devices 'stuck' on Android 1.6).
1 anonymous person on yahoo answers (seriously?!) with a single upvote.
So, that's two. Any more evidence for this?
How did you even find that cite? Had it bookmarked since it happened for just such a debate?
As a pretty hefty lefty, I thought Bush was the worst thing that happened to the world in recent years, but killing him was absolutely not the thing to be done.
That's exactly my point. They did as they were asked, yet somehow this still makes them the bad guy.
Perhaps, but if you submit your app, knowing it is violation, and it gets approved (GPLv2 is compatible with the store) and then one of your devs later complains and asks for it to be removed, or change the entire store licence by "stealth ransom" (the PR fallout) then it's really not Apple's fault. Rejecting the app outright would be just as bad.
The same way they know pretty accurate solar compositions from galactic distances away.
Most likely spectroscopy.
The app store already is GPLv2 friendly, as long as you don't charge for the app. They amended the licence conditions/ToS after the first GPL run-in before the VLC one to specifically make it friendly to GPLv2.
This is merely them responding to a VLC dev demanding that Apple remove the app from the store - and they complied, and somehow this makes them evil and the masters of some conspiracy to squash OSS.
And I remember a time when OSS developers weren't shooting themselves in the foot, yelling at Apple to pull their own app because it violated the GPL to distribute it on the store, and Apple complied with that request by pulling it, and how somehow that makes them the bad guy.
For the record, the App Store is compatible with GPLv2, as long as the app is free as in beer.
So, VLC devs submit VLC to store.
Apple approves app.
One VLC dev disagrees and demands Apple remove the app due to licence violation.
Apple removes app from app store.
VLC dev cries and froths that it's "their loss" and "won't cry for users of iOS devices".
What am I missing?
So, the summary conveniently "forgets" that the app was pulled *at the request of one of the VLC developers themselves* due to a licence compatibility issue.
No, that would be less sensational and more accurate - what was I thinking?!
I think it's a trivially accessed exploit rather than actual hacking. I'm not trying to downplay the error, just accurately categorise it.
I'm sure it's the first thing that the actual hacker tried - what happens when you drop a certificate from a free app into a paid one and try to hit the server for a licence key.
Everyone else doing it is hardly hacking though.
It would be hacking if they reverse engineered the certificate algorithm and made a certificate generator, but that's not what they did - they just took advantage of a sloppy check by the Angry Birds app.
I think it's more like realising that a pound coin on a string can make the pool table work, and is recoverable rather than tricking the mechanism with a more elaborate scheme that involves taking it apart.
And if you're in the UK, you'd be stuck too, since all mobile numbers start 07, and have nothing to do with your local area code which only apply to landlines.
Steam works this way too. Any store with a centralised system that handles the user accounts and requires third parties to access them if they want to have a serial number. The store happens to work that way, and selling an app through it doesn't necessarily require a licence check (eg, free apps) but if you want to sell your app, the method for linking a licence key to an iTunes account is documented.
Quite possibly - Rovio are already probably annoyed from all the paper cuts on their tongues from using forks made of money, so losing a little revenue to people copying the desktop version of Angry Birds is unlikely to worry them unduly. They're probably more focused with fixing the crash bug. The app is crashing on launch for a non-trivial number of users, resulting in a flurry of 1 star posts in their review section. Their priority will be to fix that.
In general serial numbers and licences on the Mac platform have always been pretty token - the OS X install CD itself simply has a text file that says "don't copy me" and has no serial numbers or online activation or anything, so you can install it on any number of Macs with no issue (other than your own ethics over purchasing licences).
I have no doubt the licence system is not all that draconian - much as Fairplay wasn't (and had a big gaping designed-in-from-the-start hole). The goal being "make it convenient and reasonable enough in cost and people will buy" rather than forcing to end run around you (like Windows Genuine Advantage, or Ubisoft's brainless game 'protection', or SecuROM etc)
They already do - and the developers who have been burned by this simply didn't follow Apple's recommendation to have more rigorous checking in place.
If that is what's passing for hacking these days, oh how far we have fallen.
More accurate, but less sensational, would be "developers ignore security suggestion from Apple and are bitten by weak receipt checking". It's less catchy too, as a title.
Why backlash? I think you summed it up pretty accurately - I was expecting Ross to be shown *how* to use his telescope to see Jupiter. It's all very well doing it for him, but what did he learn (unless they showed him off camera)? There were no tips for how to actually pick things out with a telescope - it's harder than it looks and is like looking for faces in a room while staring down a long cardboard tube with one eye.
Even more amusing is the fact that single mothers are persecuted *by* the Daily Mail mostly.
Yeah, they also weren't hosting or managing a payment processing system before, so they had no overheads.