Apple "fears and despises" backwards compatibility?
Is that why Rosetta exists, or the Classic environment, that they kept around for a very long time, post-OS X change, or the universal binary format, or the fact that AppleTalk has only just been dropped with the release of 10.6, or the fact that the dev tools feature targeted build modes that allow you to compile apps targeted at older versions of OS X...
Apple goes out of its way to try to maintain backwards compatibility where possible, but inevitably some things break as they do with most forward progress in OS development.
Well, in the UK, pretty much all of them - no one buys the 2.0l petrol automatic.
Whether that will translate in the US market, who knows. The rules are calling for a fleet average though, so even if only a few sell, the fact that they are on sale is good enough, and can gradually drive economy upwards.
No, they just beat them into submission with illegal business practices, like telling OEMs that their discounted Windows prices were at risk if they also sold computers with Linux already bundled, or changing their implementation of Javascript so it was incompatible with the standard, and then breaking it over and over.
Or giving a ton of money to a 3-letter company that was in a legal fight with another 3-letter company.
You don;t think Darl McBride kept that fight up by selling lemonade (or Linux licences) do you?
You really have to mention it on slashdot, because if you don't, your opinions are dismissed as a clueless noob because you haven't done any "real" computing, or that you've somehow "settled" for Apple because you simply haven't experienced the wonder of Linux yet.
That's why they use such "locked in" codecs like H.264, AAC, and "locked in" protocols like NFS, and a "locked down" OS core, and "locked down" human readable preference files, or "locked down" standard PC components, or "locked down" non-DRM, non-encrypted, install disc with no serial numbers or online activation...
Ok, so the iPhone OS is controlled. They *do* do other things, y'know.
So they bought a processor shop that has the experience to design processors for a product that they are selling. Oh my! The world will soon end!
I think it's clear from the choices being made by both companies that Apple has no interest in "World Domination" - they don;t even sell a cheap, headless iMac-type box, which is seemingly the "no brainer" product that would cause "Apple's market share to take off" - of course, they are not interested in selling such a device or they would have done so long ago. They're quite happy with the market they have carved out for themselves as it exists now.
They are certainly going to make business decisions that benefit them for the most part, tempered with decisions that benefit everyone in the industry (OSS projects). Anything counter to that really doesn't benefit their shareholders, which they are fundamentally in business to support.
You may as well state that any business "is just as dangerous as MS but without the marketshare to take over the world". What else do you expect a company to do other than grow its business?
Did you forget that the reason Amazon was being pushed into this position was because of the deal the publishers made with Apple for the iPad, and thus MFN status would affect the discounts and other pricing given to Amazon?
Try crashing into another car at 30mph with no seatbelt on.
I don't fancy your chances.
Yes, the human body can withstand high amounts of force for short periods of time, but like a Formula 1 car that is very strong in some directions, in other directions you can break the suspension by kicking it with your foot.
If a totally rigid car hit a tree with an improperly secured driver, the internal injuries are going to kill him. The crumple zones take out a considerable amount of that kinetic energy.
And even in modern cars with crumple zones, the side on frame rigidity is very high - it's part of the passenger cabin. Although in side on impacts you have to worry about lateral acceleration and neck injuries.
I was talking about the very worst petrol one they sell - the majority of the Focus models they sell (75% of the petrol ones and 100% of the diesel ones) are above that figure (in US gallons).
Only the worst mpg model is below the new target figure.
The best diesel Focus does 61.8 (US) mpg, and you can buy them right now.
Ford's UK Focus petrol cars exceed that 35mpg figure (in US gallons) for all but the 2 litre automatic, which has a US gallon figure of 30mpg.
Even leaving the diesels aside (which in Europe are often a collaboration between major manufacturers - (Ford's diesels were developed in partnership with PSA, for example).
We already have several low particulate diesels here in Europe and have for some time, that exceed the US requirements.
All of the petrol engines are more efficient for equivalent power.
The regulations are not for you, they are for the manufacturers, who would run cars on whale oil if it was 5c cheaper than gasoline.
If there was no minimum standard, manufacturers would just do whatever is cheaper, at the expense of the consumer. Do you complain that there are mandatory safety standards too?
And in being pushed out of the way in that elastic collision, you'd die. If you change direction at that speed, your organs don't like it - similar to crashing into a wall with no seatbelt. It's not the impact with the steering wheel that kills you, it's the impact of your heart with your ribcage.
The crumple zones remove kinetic energy from the crash and reduce the amount of force *change* that is applied to the occupants of the car. The human body can withstand considerable force, but very rapid changes in applied force can be deadly.
Essentially, regardless of what you're driving, if you get hit by a giant truck your chances are low no matter what vehicle you are in.
The other problem with being in a ladder frame SUV with a high centre of gravity is you are considerably more likely to roll over in an accident, which a saloon car very rarely ever does. Plus, 'truck class' cars don;t have to meet the safety standards of cars, so their build quality is often compromised in favour of cheapness - just look at the Euro Ncap crash scores for the Ford Ranger (although they have got better in more recent models, they are still pretty weak compared to most cars).
A modern car preserves the passenger cabin during an impact, and scores low marks if the cabin is impinged during a crash - the engine bay and rear compartments are the crumple zones which deform by design by a huge amount.
Tell that to VW, who use the same engines in their US models - the Euro engines exceed the US emission requirements and have for some time.
The other safety differences tend to be about things like the screen issue I mentioned - a US requirement being to assume the passengers are not wearing a seatbelt, affecting the angle of the windscreen.
Oh I agree. 35mpg here is the target for an SUV - if you drive anything smaller, we're already way up.
My 1995 beater got 35mpg until the cambelt failed, and I now drive a large diesel MPV that has been doing 45.9mpg in my weekly use (a 2003 Xsara Picasso in fact).
My sister just bought a Ford Fiesta that does 65mpg. There's no reason US cars can't get the better figures!
Ford makes class leading cars in the UK. Not just "average cars" - they make genuinely desirable, high quality, class-leading cars in several size/usage classes with some of the best handling and best engines available.
There is no reason for them to be selling shit in the US, which is essentially what they are doing with all but their trucks. They make some amazing vehicles, and do so profitably in Europe.
The engines they sell *right now* in the UK are way, way above what these CAFE proposals are mandating. They don;t even need to do any reseach so there;s no "bankrupting" going on - they just need to bolt those engines into the US models, or just tweak the UK models slightly so that US licence plates fit onto the back (ours are thinner but wider) and Bob's your uncle.
Maybe also tweak the screen slightly - I remember a story somewhere about the US safety requirement for airbags is to assume the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt, so the screen has to be more upright to account for this in some models. Just lobby to have that common sense thing changed and we're done.
The big automakers in the US like to hide behind that "oh woe is us, it will cost too much and we don;t have the time to do the R&D, and the margins are too low" wailing, but they are really just dragging their feet. Ford is *very* competitive in the European market, and has innovated and picked its game up to get itself there, in the commercial and the consumer market. Hell, the light commercial it sells is the word for van in the uk: Transit Van, and you can't turn left without seeing a Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Ka and occasionally the odd Galaxy (I'm afraid the French have pretty much sewn up the soccer mom van market - it's the only segment Ford doesn't have a class leader in).
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
An average fuel economy across a fleet of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. Just work out the mean of all the models available for sale that year, per manufacturer.
So if Ford sells a 10mpg truck, it needs to sell a 50mpg compact to offset it, with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
"Fleet Average" is the key word here. ie, some things like trucks can be less, some things like small cars can be more. That's how an average works.
If Ford just goes and sells the cars it has for sale in the UK right now in the USA it will already be well on the way there, enabling it to sell the current crop of low-mpg trucks.
Wisdom, reserve and citations gets you -1 Troll, anything even *remotely* anti-Apple, regardless of how ludicrously thin and rumour-filled will get +5 insightful.
Replace "Apple" with MS, Google, Facebook, or any other large company for the same result.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you have homework to do?
You may not, but I wager that many people will.
I don't want a Corvette, but for some reason, they keep making them. I don't really know why.
No, this is true, but the Euro diesels are already there. They're a long way from the rattly, stinky clankers of old.
The diesels are dearer here too, but when petrol and diesel cost $8 per US gallon, you start to look at TCO rather than just purchase price.
Apple "fears and despises" backwards compatibility?
Is that why Rosetta exists, or the Classic environment, that they kept around for a very long time, post-OS X change, or the universal binary format, or the fact that AppleTalk has only just been dropped with the release of 10.6, or the fact that the dev tools feature targeted build modes that allow you to compile apps targeted at older versions of OS X...
Apple goes out of its way to try to maintain backwards compatibility where possible, but inevitably some things break as they do with most forward progress in OS development.
Well, in the UK, pretty much all of them - no one buys the 2.0l petrol automatic.
Whether that will translate in the US market, who knows. The rules are calling for a fleet average though, so even if only a few sell, the fact that they are on sale is good enough, and can gradually drive economy upwards.
No, they just beat them into submission with illegal business practices, like telling OEMs that their discounted Windows prices were at risk if they also sold computers with Linux already bundled, or changing their implementation of Javascript so it was incompatible with the standard, and then breaking it over and over.
Or giving a ton of money to a 3-letter company that was in a legal fight with another 3-letter company.
You don;t think Darl McBride kept that fight up by selling lemonade (or Linux licences) do you?
You really have to mention it on slashdot, because if you don't, your opinions are dismissed as a clueless noob because you haven't done any "real" computing, or that you've somehow "settled" for Apple because you simply haven't experienced the wonder of Linux yet.
That's why they use such "locked in" codecs like H.264, AAC, and "locked in" protocols like NFS, and a "locked down" OS core, and "locked down" human readable preference files, or "locked down" standard PC components, or "locked down" non-DRM, non-encrypted, install disc with no serial numbers or online activation...
Ok, so the iPhone OS is controlled. They *do* do other things, y'know.
[citation needed]
So they bought a processor shop that has the experience to design processors for a product that they are selling. Oh my! The world will soon end!
I think it's clear from the choices being made by both companies that Apple has no interest in "World Domination" - they don;t even sell a cheap, headless iMac-type box, which is seemingly the "no brainer" product that would cause "Apple's market share to take off" - of course, they are not interested in selling such a device or they would have done so long ago. They're quite happy with the market they have carved out for themselves as it exists now.
They are certainly going to make business decisions that benefit them for the most part, tempered with decisions that benefit everyone in the industry (OSS projects). Anything counter to that really doesn't benefit their shareholders, which they are fundamentally in business to support.
You may as well state that any business "is just as dangerous as MS but without the marketshare to take over the world". What else do you expect a company to do other than grow its business?
Did you forget that the reason Amazon was being pushed into this position was because of the deal the publishers made with Apple for the iPad, and thus MFN status would affect the discounts and other pricing given to Amazon?
These topics are not unrelated.
Try crashing into another car at 30mph with no seatbelt on.
I don't fancy your chances.
Yes, the human body can withstand high amounts of force for short periods of time, but like a Formula 1 car that is very strong in some directions, in other directions you can break the suspension by kicking it with your foot.
If a totally rigid car hit a tree with an improperly secured driver, the internal injuries are going to kill him. The crumple zones take out a considerable amount of that kinetic energy.
And even in modern cars with crumple zones, the side on frame rigidity is very high - it's part of the passenger cabin. Although in side on impacts you have to worry about lateral acceleration and neck injuries.
I was talking about the very worst petrol one they sell - the majority of the Focus models they sell (75% of the petrol ones and 100% of the diesel ones) are above that figure (in US gallons).
Only the worst mpg model is below the new target figure.
The best diesel Focus does 61.8 (US) mpg, and you can buy them right now.
Divide by 1.2
Maths now correct.
Ford's UK Focus petrol cars exceed that 35mpg figure (in US gallons) for all but the 2 litre automatic, which has a US gallon figure of 30mpg.
Even leaving the diesels aside (which in Europe are often a collaboration between major manufacturers - (Ford's diesels were developed in partnership with PSA, for example).
We already have several low particulate diesels here in Europe and have for some time, that exceed the US requirements.
All of the petrol engines are more efficient for equivalent power.
The regulations are not for you, they are for the manufacturers, who would run cars on whale oil if it was 5c cheaper than gasoline.
If there was no minimum standard, manufacturers would just do whatever is cheaper, at the expense of the consumer. Do you complain that there are mandatory safety standards too?
It's you who are cynical, I think.
And in being pushed out of the way in that elastic collision, you'd die. If you change direction at that speed, your organs don't like it - similar to crashing into a wall with no seatbelt. It's not the impact with the steering wheel that kills you, it's the impact of your heart with your ribcage.
The crumple zones remove kinetic energy from the crash and reduce the amount of force *change* that is applied to the occupants of the car. The human body can withstand considerable force, but very rapid changes in applied force can be deadly.
Essentially, regardless of what you're driving, if you get hit by a giant truck your chances are low no matter what vehicle you are in.
The other problem with being in a ladder frame SUV with a high centre of gravity is you are considerably more likely to roll over in an accident, which a saloon car very rarely ever does. Plus, 'truck class' cars don;t have to meet the safety standards of cars, so their build quality is often compromised in favour of cheapness - just look at the Euro Ncap crash scores for the Ford Ranger (although they have got better in more recent models, they are still pretty weak compared to most cars).
A modern car preserves the passenger cabin during an impact, and scores low marks if the cabin is impinged during a crash - the engine bay and rear compartments are the crumple zones which deform by design by a huge amount.
Tell that to VW, who use the same engines in their US models - the Euro engines exceed the US emission requirements and have for some time.
The other safety differences tend to be about things like the screen issue I mentioned - a US requirement being to assume the passengers are not wearing a seatbelt, affecting the angle of the windscreen.
Yeah, someone mentioned that above - divide my numbers by 1.2.
You're posting AC, you'll get a +1 flamebait or -1 troll: it's the nature of not having any balls.
I got them from Ford's UK site, so presumably UK gallons - divide by 1.2 for US values, which makes the worst petrol automatic Focus 29.4mpg.
Oh I agree. 35mpg here is the target for an SUV - if you drive anything smaller, we're already way up.
My 1995 beater got 35mpg until the cambelt failed, and I now drive a large diesel MPV that has been doing 45.9mpg in my weekly use (a 2003 Xsara Picasso in fact).
My sister just bought a Ford Fiesta that does 65mpg. There's no reason US cars can't get the better figures!
Ford makes class leading cars in the UK. Not just "average cars" - they make genuinely desirable, high quality, class-leading cars in several size/usage classes with some of the best handling and best engines available.
There is no reason for them to be selling shit in the US, which is essentially what they are doing with all but their trucks. They make some amazing vehicles, and do so profitably in Europe.
The engines they sell *right now* in the UK are way, way above what these CAFE proposals are mandating. They don;t even need to do any reseach so there;s no "bankrupting" going on - they just need to bolt those engines into the US models, or just tweak the UK models slightly so that US licence plates fit onto the back (ours are thinner but wider) and Bob's your uncle.
Maybe also tweak the screen slightly - I remember a story somewhere about the US safety requirement for airbags is to assume the occupant is not wearing a seatbelt, so the screen has to be more upright to account for this in some models. Just lobby to have that common sense thing changed and we're done.
The big automakers in the US like to hide behind that "oh woe is us, it will cost too much and we don;t have the time to do the R&D, and the margins are too low" wailing, but they are really just dragging their feet. Ford is *very* competitive in the European market, and has innovated and picked its game up to get itself there, in the commercial and the consumer market. Hell, the light commercial it sells is the word for van in the uk: Transit Van, and you can't turn left without seeing a Focus, Fiesta, Mondeo, Ka and occasionally the odd Galaxy (I'm afraid the French have pretty much sewn up the soccer mom van market - it's the only segment Ford doesn't have a class leader in).
With some minor tweaks here and there (nowhere ear enough to bankrupt them), Ford could sell its Euro models in the US and be right on top of those regulations. Even if they skipped out all of their diesels (which are outstanding) and only sold the petrol ones, the lowest mpg petrol Focus they sell is 35.3mpg - for the automatic one. The worst diesel automatic does 48.6mpg (best does 74mpg, but you need the manual gearbox).
An average fuel economy across a fleet of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. Just work out the mean of all the models available for sale that year, per manufacturer.
So if Ford sells a 10mpg truck, it needs to sell a 50mpg compact to offset it, with the goal being many more fuel efficient models available for those who want them, while still keeping things like big trucks around.
"Fleet Average" is the key word here. ie, some things like trucks can be less, some things like small cars can be more. That's how an average works.
If Ford just goes and sells the cars it has for sale in the UK right now in the USA it will already be well on the way there, enabling it to sell the current crop of low-mpg trucks.
Wisdom, reserve and citations gets you -1 Troll, anything even *remotely* anti-Apple, regardless of how ludicrously thin and rumour-filled will get +5 insightful.
Replace "Apple" with MS, Google, Facebook, or any other large company for the same result.