The autocorrect feature is what makes it effective to use at speed - I'm not surprised you hate it if you have this feature turned off.
It's certainly not an ideal system, but it's not bad for an on screen keyboard. I have seen some of the crazy words it suggests for predictive input (it adds to that selection as you type more and more, so it learns your most common writing style over time - it does get better but often still throws up some real doozies). The keyboard assumes you will make mistakes due to the size of the keys and the lack of touch feedback.
I would like to see if it would be faster to type on it using a stylus and the autocorrect off, or using fingers. I have no idea which way that would go.
The iPhone's screen can already do this - you just need a stylus that works with a capacitive screen. I would imagine that any large tablet is going to have something included with it that allows you to use your fingers or something more precise.
Who said I didn't think patching Windows holes was a good thing, because it is.
Look, just because I like Apple doesn't mean I'm some rabid fanboy who won;t accept that other OSes might actually have redeeming qualities. As it stands now, while both Windows and Mac are more secure than they have been before, by virtue of patching holes, OS X is ahead - mainly because it is easier to start again as they did with OS X than it is to keep building on top of their old code. The are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.
I fail to see how you can suggest that patching 6 vulnerabilities in an OS is a "bad point". I don't consider Windows patches to be a bad point either - the sooner it gets rid of security issues the better.
Yes, my point about IIS vs Apache wasn't that there were more attacks against IIS, just that there are documented and exploited holes.
And yes, there have been many holes found in the various parts of OS X that have been fixed (and some yet to be fixed) but in terms of malware in the wild, there is practically none. There was a disk image that claimed to be Office for Mac on torrent sites that actually ended up deleting your files after you gave it your admin password, and a couple of other proof of concept attacks, but stuff actually out there roaming free in the wild is extremely rare - vanishingly so. I will not say "none" because it is clearly not true, and it allows the possibility of something to emerge, but for all the holes that have appeared in components of OS X, over the course of the life of the OS, no one has demonstrated stuff beyond possibilities.
The TFA does indeed say "could install spyware and delete files" - ie, if the hole is exploited. No one is denying that (and when the hole is closed, they can't) but so far, no one has been able to - the vector for attack has not been there. There was nothing in the wild that exploited some of these holes, and they have been nipped up before anything could be produced.
There are obviously other holes that have yet to be closed - including, as some security people have claimed, ones that have been open and exposed for a very long time (consider the guy who knew of two vulnerabilities and kept one to himself so he could exploit it the next year at the 'break OS X contest'). If that hole was known and vulnerable for a year, where are the in-the0wild exploits actually installing malicious software and keyloggers and so on? The hole was there for a malicious mp4 file, but the malware that exploited it was not.
I'm not not nieve enough to assume or assert that OS X gets a free pass on security, but the prior performance has been good compared to Windows, even with the difference in install base. It's in a similar position to Linux with regard to security holes (and shares holes with some BSD components that the OSS community is also exposed to).
Well, it really depends *who* says it - the marketing departments at MS and Apple both tout "OS X/Windows is more secure than ever" - from a marketing standpoint they obviously aren't going to say anything else. From a certain perspective both are true - both Windows and OS X are more secure than ever, since they have been patched up - whether there are still a thousand other holes doesn't really change that, it just infers that there are no other problems which is where it gets muddy.
The GP's original point, I believe, was to totally discount that OS X is secure/more secure than Windows because of these patched vulnerabilities. No one is really claiming that there won;t be vulnerabilities found, but it doesn't negate a claim that the OS itself is pretty good when it comes to security. Not immune, and not perfect, but not bad.
While we're on it of course, I do take issue with the headline. "Massive Holes" really isn't accurate - at least, not in the context of other security updates. These are no better or worse than other security holes that have been fixed in OS X before, but the summary and headline dress it up like they just discovered that half the fence was missing and your troops are giving free bagels to the enemy as they usher them in through the gaps.
It is good that critical flaws are being corrected though, regardless of how they are reported.
There aren't enough Windows with IIS installed to make the average script kiddie drool in anticipation in comparison to Linux/BSD with Apache. Oh wait.
If you don;t think the the chance to be the "first person to exploit the 'secure' OS X with a virus" isn;t driving some of these people then you are deluded. Or that genuine organised crime isn't going after the Mac platform (as a non-negligable marketshare) as well as Windows since it is amulti-million dollar industry compromising machines over the net. So far though, not much beyond proof of concept stuff and things that require user credential authentication.
It's no reason to be complacent (and the patching of vulnerabilities is not complacency), or the assertion that OS X is immune to threats, because it isn't. But it has proven to have a pretty good track record - not perfect, but pretty good. Continued work is still needed though.
They support the MKV container. So does DivX themselves.
It's a transcoder that is maintained as an OSS project and given away for free. They are not putting AVI back in for all the reasons mentioned - it just doesn't fit with the goals of the project and is a major pain to manage with the rest of the code - with a ton of conditionals and exceptions and convoluted workflows. It was too much of a hassle for something that doesn't really work as needed. They are not refusing to support DivX ever again - DivX is a codec, not a container.
It's not arrogance to drop something that adds more hassle than it is worth from a project, especially if you are not being paid for it. If you specifically need an AVI container-producing app you can roll your own, or find someone else who is still making one.
Handbrake still outputs DivX - it just doesn;t support the AVI container anymore due to increasing complexities with the code trying to maintain support for it.
Handbrake has been going since the days of BeOS and has been doing just fine. There's no chance of it "dying". It didn't even have a windows version until recently. The DivX peope themselves have a preset for handbrake (current version), so as usual with/. summaries, the title is just erroneous. They claim AVI is obsolete because it is - not in terms of use, but in terms of the features it possesses, like support for chapters and other such things. It's the same as saying IE6 is obsolete, despite so many people still using it.
There are better container formats out there (even for DivX!) and the decision to drop AVI here is purely a code one. If you want to write your own transcoder, feel free to do so, or contribute to the ones already out there. That's the beauty of OSS.
Did you read the reason why AVI containers were dropped?
From the site:
AVI is a rough beast. It is obsolete. It does not support modern container features like chapters, muxed-in subtitles, variable framerate video, or out of order frame display. Furthermore, HandBrake's AVI muxer is vanilla AVI 1.0 that doesn't even support large files. The code has not been actively maintained since 2005. Keeping it in the library while implementing new features means a very convoluted data pipeline, full of conditionals that make the code more difficult to read and maintain, and make output harder to predict. As such, it is now gone. It is not coming back, and good riddance.
It has been removed for development reasons, not for any "Mac developer newest tech or bust" conspiracy. As it stands, they always welcome new developers, although VLC is really crying out for Mac developers (desperately), and the lack of Mac devs on that project is affecting DVD ripping/encoding in Handbrake, which relies on VLC for reading encrypted DVDs. This is broken for me right now in 10.6, unfortunately.
I think you need to reassess the "mindsets" that you are applying to people writing and developing these OSS projects. What suddenly makes them bad guys because they are writing for OS X, other than your own prejudice?
Oh I'm sure they do - I think it was originally put into the code at around the time they removed the firewire chips from iPods. You can still plug a firewire cable into a newer iPod, but it will pop up a message on the screen either stating that the attached cable won;t be able to sync and can charge only, or that it will simply refuse to charge if it can't deal with the higher voltage on the firewire bus.
If you connect my 4G into a FW port on my machine it tells you this, but it still charges from the "dumb" wall adapter that has a firewire port built into it.
I think the code is designed to separate out different devices designed for different models (like the two different versions of the TomTom dock for the Touch vs iPhone) rather than preventing the use of third party (or their own!) charging devices. If they are actively preventing use of third party chargers though, like I said earlier, I would find that distasteful since there is no real reason to, assuming the iPod/Phone has protection circuits in it to handle potentially faulty power bricks (or any origin).
“We have seen a brand-new iPhone 3GS that was plugged in an AT&T store demo Apple iPhone Dock and the 3GS screen shows that the accessory(Apple Charging Dock) is not an authorized Work with iPhone accessory,”
Clearly this is some sort of bug. I'm sure Apple wants to lock out people using third party USB devices like.... the Apple dock.
Looks like it needs a software update - perhaps the phone/pod is being too picky about exact voltage/current or the power fluctuation from the port and is chucking up errors, or the phone itself is faulty.
Then that is crazy. My iPhone does work this way though, on a powered "dumb" port, as does my 4G iPod. If this is the case it is new on the 5G and I don't like it one bit. Bah.
Hold on, you think that the only competitive factor is fanboyism?
I think you are grossly underestimating the benefits of owning a Mac. What if "Apple's way or the highway" happens to coincide with what I want (mostly)?
I don't use OS X purely because of the eye candy - you can't paint me into a box that easily. There are more benefits than just the looks (which are pleasant, and heavily modifiable if you really want through third party tools).
I'm also not saying that it's perfect or there aren't things I'd like to change that are probably editable on Ubuntu (I'm still playing with that on my 15" PB - it's nice, but I'm not totally au fait with it yet), but they are small annoyances that aren;t enough to make me change to a different platform. The annoyances with W2K eventually did build up enough for me to swap to Mac, and if enough build up in OS X I will look at the options again but right now I am very happy with it. If I do change I will be keeping the hardware though - that is well worth the price for me.
There is a pervasive undercurrent that flows through/. that anyone who doesn't use some flavour of Linux is a clueless sheep who only goes for style over any function. Do you think I sit in front of this machine and flap helplessly because my shiny box doesn't actually *do anything*?! It serves my needs very well, and unfortunately carries with it the baggage that it's a hopeless bonnet-welded-shut OS that has nothing but shiny buttons that do nothing but animate when clicked like one of those toy steering wheels you can attach to a car seat for your toddler.
As for what OS X can offer to compete with Linux, it does have a lot more than just the shiny GUI - you can go right in at the command line if you want, and while it is likely to be somewhat alien compared to Linux, it is a fully fledged Unix core under all those fluffy pink buttons that can do just as much as an Ubuntu box can do, with the benefit of being able to fire up commercial, supported native apps (ie, no need for Wine/etc) at the same time.
I'd love for there to be a lot more of that on Linux - I am quite liking the repurposing and experimentation I am doing with my PB, but it would be nice to have a version of iTunes to put on there that worked with my homesharing from my main machine. I have worked around it (pointed the music player at the iTunes folder on my network, but it's not quite the same), and I know there are plenty of OSS ways to manage a music library and jukebox apps across multiple machines, but I like iTunes on my main box etc.
Regarding iTunes and syncing. Yes, the standard open method does much less than the full iPod/iPhone sync, but it is possible for manufacturers to "go deeper" than that by talking to Apple directly, but then Apple aren;t giving that away. I know there have been third party players in the past that have done it this way (although whether they are still doing it, I am not sure). Palm are also free to write their own sync software that can gather almost all of the same data that iTunes itself can (address book, music, iCal, photos etc - but I don;t think you can read the iTunes library file, only the XML version it spits out), but Palm decided not to do that. They did used to have a piece of software for that purpose but stopped supporting it, hence the rise of The Missing Sync, which has developed into quite an app: http://www.markspace.com/products/pre/mac-features.html - This third party app does everything that Palm was replicating by spoofing Apple's Vendor ID. That was cheaper to do than bundling copies of The Missing Sync or writing their own version.
I realise that Apple has to justify the higher price paid for entry into their closed ecosystem, where they are the gatekeepers, with the vertical integration aggressive phone SDK etc, only for people to come into that system knowing all this and yet still moaning that they can't do whatever they want because it's not open/free/etc. If it doesn't suit the purpose, they don't have to buy - that's surely why things like Linux exist, where you really can do what you like.
Why do Nokia have to throw away anything before they start something new? What's stopping them doing that now? Why is their current product base a burden on new products?
So, Apple aren't "doing their part" with Webkit, CUPS, OpenCL, libdispatch, Zeroconf, Darwin just to name a few open source ones. No innovation in multicore management or anything, or major contributions to KHTML, or work on H.264. I'm sure they certainly haven't contributed anything at all on any of those fronts, unlike Google (is Google not evil today?), IBM or MS.
Apple are no angels, but they're a far cry from the entity you are painting them as.
No, my point with the MMS was "you should';t buy an iPhone because it can't even do a simple thing like MMS that even really basic shitty phones can do! hah!" posts that flooded the boards before the ability was added to the iPhone natively (which replaced the MMS app that was free on the app store - you know, built using the SDK apple released for the phone to fill in a missing feature. As soon as people realised it didn't have built in MMS someone wrote an app and gave it away for free.
If we're going by the yardstick imposed by those posts about the iPhone, then the N900 isn't even as good as a shitty phone that has been able to do MMS for years!
I am sure that libdispatch and OpenCL, just two name a couple off the top of my head are innovations in user interfaces. At least I guess they must be since your allcaps "ONLY" means they can't be anything else.
Ah, so now we're onto the "units sold" argument - the very same argument that is used in reverse when it suits - Apple on the desktop/OS is a "niche player of no significance" because of their low marketshare, but in reverse they are "the Bigmac of the tech world" because the iPhone is so popular, but really it's totally shitty and the reason the competitors aren't selling is purely because the Bigmac is cheaper.... but wait, I thought Apple was "the overpriced piece of crap" Brain explode!!!!
So, if Apple is follow-the-leader behind Nokia, Samsung, SE, where are all of their smartphones that were selling like hotcakes with an app store and booming developer participation? Ones that predate the iPhone please, even with knowledge that Apple was working such a device. Perhaps the iPhone is "shiny crap bought by idiots" to you, but the number of them sold, and the fact that they keep on selling and selling and selling means there might just be something to it. If it was a pice of crap people would probably have figured it out by now? If it's a piece of crap then all those smartphones that are based on it, including Android/Nexus One etc etc are surely crap too, or is it ok for them to just follow on after Apple now the smartphone market has really taken off (a market that was started by the Blackberry, but really exploded with the iPhone)
I'd love if the iPhone also had a stylus mode, but I have found that it's not really necessary. The phone is accurate enough at knowing where I am tapping, to the point where I can hit a link in a tight list of links without zooming in quite easily. The stylus would just be really nice so I could use it in the winter without taking my gloves off. Who holds the patent on a stylus that can be stored inside the body of a device? Nintendo? They need to get right on that.
I would also wager that the physical building of a phone is generally the easy bit - it's all been done before - candybar shape with screen, battery and internal antenna. No real innovation there. The real innovation comes in the software - and up until the iPhone the *vast* majority of phones and smartphones had a hopeless UI. Not all of them, but a very large number of them. Apple's iPhone UI comes along and is a joy to use - easy, intuitive and effective. Missing several things in V1, but improved on in later versions due to feedback - cut and paste, MMS, keyboard in landscape on more apps etc. What it also needs but lacks by default is a way to lock the screen so it won't rotate if you don;t want it to. There's an app for it, but it should be in the core UI function.
No, they use the USB spec as it was designed. If Palm wants to use the documented methods to sync with iTunes, it can. They chose to break their contract with the USB-IF and use Apple's Vendor ID, which is contractually guaranteed to be unique to Apple.
It's not anticompetitive for Apple to do this with iTunes - iTunes is software that Apple give away for free, with iPod/iPhone syncing software that they wrote for use with their hardware.
If Palm want to write their own sync software for OS X they are free to do so, but they were too busy *not* doing that. They used to have Mac software, but they abandoned it (cheaper to just not develop the software any further and just rely on third party apps). Then they decided to skip those third party apps and just spoof being an iPod. It is *not* anticompetitive to ensure that your iTunes app now ensures it checks the validity of the USB standard by confirming vendor ID (which it didn't do initially). When Palm then went around them again, they made it further stringent.
Palm is still free to write software to sync with iTunes if it chooses. It chooses not to. No anticompetitive issues there at all.
I find it interesting that you have gone right for the ad hominem attack rather than any actual solid argument. It does speak volumes.
It's also interesting that you talk about offering nothing of value to those who know how to make their own shinies without needing the "bloated crud of iTunes/Appstore" when that is *exactly* what Palm were trying to get themselves into - Apple's "bloated and cruddy" iTunes. Where's Palm's shiny sync software and media app? Right, sorry, they don't need to make one.
Incidentally iTunes is not expensive - it is free. It is a free download from Apple. The content on the appstore (for the phone) varies and is not set by Apple. The music and movies, again vary in price and the price is not set by Apple.
I tend not to cross the road at night because my night vision is not what it once was and I have occasional problems judging distance in low light when there are bright headlights. I suspect I would have this problem regardless of what OS and hardware combo I used, unless you know of some unique benefit to my ailing vision that "people who know how to make their own 'ooh shiny' experience" can offer me? I'm all ears, or eyes.
What's wrong with your powered USB hub? I charge my iPhone and my iPod (4G) off a non-Apple generic USB hub that I bought for £10. After all, it's just 5V on one pin, ground on the other.
How are they "making sure" that it won't work? Or are you just making shit up. I suspect the latter. If your iPod doesn't work on a standard USB port I suggest you return it to Apple as faulty.
Would images of this device hurt potentially Apple's sales of laptops if people see leaked shots of something that may or may not be ready for market and may or may not be released any time soon, who decide to hold off on buying an iPhone or macbook because they feel the tablet is close and might be just what they want.
If they are working on a tablet (and it is likely they are) it can be just as damaging for information to come out through a leak compared to an official announcement. Just ask Blizzard why they never give out release dates for games (or patches) until they are 100% certain they can keep the date - the negative publicity of slipping that date, or having to remove features from a game that they "promised" (by announcing or showing in a beta that are later removed) can be very damaging for the image of the company in the eyes of its customers.
This happened to a computer manufacturer or an electronics manufacturer many years ago if my memory is working right - they essentially said "we have a new product in the works" and it almost instantly dried up sales of their current product to the point where they actually went out of business before the new product was ready. No way Apple will go out of business of course, but leaks could affect their bottom line, you can be certain that lawyers will get involved if Apple believes it will serve their financial interest.
Wow, you totally don't know what you are talking about. For the record, the USB spec has Vendor ID and Product IDs. The Vendor ID is unique to a manufacturer - ie, that code can *only* be used by the company that "owns it" (ie, has been assigned that code by the USB-IF).
What Palm did was use Apple's unique vendor ID (and product ID, but that is less of an issue, as they don't have to be unique) so that iTunes thought the Palm device was actually an Apple device.
Consider that the USB-IF *mandates* as part of the spec that a Vendor ID is *only* to be used by the company it is issued to and no one else. Palm is *not allowed* (by contract with the USB-IF) to use Apple's Vendor ID.
Apple merely changed iTunes to double check that devices that say "I was made by Apple" actually are apple devices, as assured by the USB spec.
You really, really, really do not understand the Palm/Apple USB debacle at all.
That's why I followed it up with the paragraph right after the quoted bit. I know that it is never likely to happen and is difficult and painful to pull off.
Slashdot Mirror
I see sarcasm escapes you. That is exactly what that three word phrase means in this context.
The autocorrect feature is what makes it effective to use at speed - I'm not surprised you hate it if you have this feature turned off.
It's certainly not an ideal system, but it's not bad for an on screen keyboard. I have seen some of the crazy words it suggests for predictive input (it adds to that selection as you type more and more, so it learns your most common writing style over time - it does get better but often still throws up some real doozies). The keyboard assumes you will make mistakes due to the size of the keys and the lack of touch feedback.
I would like to see if it would be faster to type on it using a stylus and the autocorrect off, or using fingers. I have no idea which way that would go.
The iPhone's screen can already do this - you just need a stylus that works with a capacitive screen. I would imagine that any large tablet is going to have something included with it that allows you to use your fingers or something more precise.
Who said I didn't think patching Windows holes was a good thing, because it is.
Look, just because I like Apple doesn't mean I'm some rabid fanboy who won;t accept that other OSes might actually have redeeming qualities. As it stands now, while both Windows and Mac are more secure than they have been before, by virtue of patching holes, OS X is ahead - mainly because it is easier to start again as they did with OS X than it is to keep building on top of their old code. The are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.
I fail to see how you can suggest that patching 6 vulnerabilities in an OS is a "bad point". I don't consider Windows patches to be a bad point either - the sooner it gets rid of security issues the better.
Yes, my point about IIS vs Apache wasn't that there were more attacks against IIS, just that there are documented and exploited holes.
And yes, there have been many holes found in the various parts of OS X that have been fixed (and some yet to be fixed) but in terms of malware in the wild, there is practically none. There was a disk image that claimed to be Office for Mac on torrent sites that actually ended up deleting your files after you gave it your admin password, and a couple of other proof of concept attacks, but stuff actually out there roaming free in the wild is extremely rare - vanishingly so. I will not say "none" because it is clearly not true, and it allows the possibility of something to emerge, but for all the holes that have appeared in components of OS X, over the course of the life of the OS, no one has demonstrated stuff beyond possibilities.
The TFA does indeed say "could install spyware and delete files" - ie, if the hole is exploited. No one is denying that (and when the hole is closed, they can't) but so far, no one has been able to - the vector for attack has not been there. There was nothing in the wild that exploited some of these holes, and they have been nipped up before anything could be produced.
There are obviously other holes that have yet to be closed - including, as some security people have claimed, ones that have been open and exposed for a very long time (consider the guy who knew of two vulnerabilities and kept one to himself so he could exploit it the next year at the 'break OS X contest'). If that hole was known and vulnerable for a year, where are the in-the0wild exploits actually installing malicious software and keyloggers and so on? The hole was there for a malicious mp4 file, but the malware that exploited it was not.
I'm not not nieve enough to assume or assert that OS X gets a free pass on security, but the prior performance has been good compared to Windows, even with the difference in install base. It's in a similar position to Linux with regard to security holes (and shares holes with some BSD components that the OSS community is also exposed to).
Well, it really depends *who* says it - the marketing departments at MS and Apple both tout "OS X/Windows is more secure than ever" - from a marketing standpoint they obviously aren't going to say anything else. From a certain perspective both are true - both Windows and OS X are more secure than ever, since they have been patched up - whether there are still a thousand other holes doesn't really change that, it just infers that there are no other problems which is where it gets muddy.
The GP's original point, I believe, was to totally discount that OS X is secure/more secure than Windows because of these patched vulnerabilities. No one is really claiming that there won;t be vulnerabilities found, but it doesn't negate a claim that the OS itself is pretty good when it comes to security. Not immune, and not perfect, but not bad.
While we're on it of course, I do take issue with the headline. "Massive Holes" really isn't accurate - at least, not in the context of other security updates. These are no better or worse than other security holes that have been fixed in OS X before, but the summary and headline dress it up like they just discovered that half the fence was missing and your troops are giving free bagels to the enemy as they usher them in through the gaps.
It is good that critical flaws are being corrected though, regardless of how they are reported.
There aren't enough Windows with IIS installed to make the average script kiddie drool in anticipation in comparison to Linux/BSD with Apache. Oh wait.
If you don;t think the the chance to be the "first person to exploit the 'secure' OS X with a virus" isn;t driving some of these people then you are deluded. Or that genuine organised crime isn't going after the Mac platform (as a non-negligable marketshare) as well as Windows since it is amulti-million dollar industry compromising machines over the net. So far though, not much beyond proof of concept stuff and things that require user credential authentication.
It's no reason to be complacent (and the patching of vulnerabilities is not complacency), or the assertion that OS X is immune to threats, because it isn't. But it has proven to have a pretty good track record - not perfect, but pretty good. Continued work is still needed though.
But it is.
And patching vulnerabilities that are found just makes it more so.
Sorry, what was your point again?
They support the MKV container. So does DivX themselves.
It's a transcoder that is maintained as an OSS project and given away for free. They are not putting AVI back in for all the reasons mentioned - it just doesn't fit with the goals of the project and is a major pain to manage with the rest of the code - with a ton of conditionals and exceptions and convoluted workflows. It was too much of a hassle for something that doesn't really work as needed.
They are not refusing to support DivX ever again - DivX is a codec, not a container.
It's not arrogance to drop something that adds more hassle than it is worth from a project, especially if you are not being paid for it. If you specifically need an AVI container-producing app you can roll your own, or find someone else who is still making one.
Hell, fork Handbrake if you really want.
But "obsolete" in this context means "outdated and unfit for current purpose" not "no one is using it".
They explained why, and the context is clear from that.
Windows XP is "obsolete" in this context too, despite still being in widespread use.
Handbrake still outputs DivX - it just doesn;t support the AVI container anymore due to increasing complexities with the code trying to maintain support for it.
Handbrake has been going since the days of BeOS and has been doing just fine. There's no chance of it "dying". It didn't even have a windows version until recently. The DivX peope themselves have a preset for handbrake (current version), so as usual with /. summaries, the title is just erroneous. They claim AVI is obsolete because it is - not in terms of use, but in terms of the features it possesses, like support for chapters and other such things. It's the same as saying IE6 is obsolete, despite so many people still using it.
There are better container formats out there (even for DivX!) and the decision to drop AVI here is purely a code one. If you want to write your own transcoder, feel free to do so, or contribute to the ones already out there. That's the beauty of OSS.
Did you read the reason why AVI containers were dropped?
From the site:
AVI is a rough beast. It is obsolete. It does not support modern container features like chapters, muxed-in subtitles, variable framerate video, or out of order frame display. Furthermore, HandBrake's AVI muxer is vanilla AVI 1.0 that doesn't even support large files. The code has not been actively maintained since 2005. Keeping it in the library while implementing new features means a very convoluted data pipeline, full of conditionals that make the code more difficult to read and maintain, and make output harder to predict. As such, it is now gone. It is not coming back, and good riddance.
It has been removed for development reasons, not for any "Mac developer newest tech or bust" conspiracy. As it stands, they always welcome new developers, although VLC is really crying out for Mac developers (desperately), and the lack of Mac devs on that project is affecting DVD ripping/encoding in Handbrake, which relies on VLC for reading encrypted DVDs. This is broken for me right now in 10.6, unfortunately.
I think you need to reassess the "mindsets" that you are applying to people writing and developing these OSS projects. What suddenly makes them bad guys because they are writing for OS X, other than your own prejudice?
Oh I'm sure they do - I think it was originally put into the code at around the time they removed the firewire chips from iPods. You can still plug a firewire cable into a newer iPod, but it will pop up a message on the screen either stating that the attached cable won;t be able to sync and can charge only, or that it will simply refuse to charge if it can't deal with the higher voltage on the firewire bus.
If you connect my 4G into a FW port on my machine it tells you this, but it still charges from the "dumb" wall adapter that has a firewire port built into it.
I think the code is designed to separate out different devices designed for different models (like the two different versions of the TomTom dock for the Touch vs iPhone) rather than preventing the use of third party (or their own!) charging devices. If they are actively preventing use of third party chargers though, like I said earlier, I would find that distasteful since there is no real reason to, assuming the iPod/Phone has protection circuits in it to handle potentially faulty power bricks (or any origin).
From your links:
“We have seen a brand-new iPhone 3GS that was plugged in an AT&T store demo Apple iPhone Dock and the 3GS screen shows that the accessory(Apple Charging Dock) is not an authorized Work with iPhone accessory,”
Clearly this is some sort of bug. I'm sure Apple wants to lock out people using third party USB devices like.... the Apple dock.
Looks like it needs a software update - perhaps the phone/pod is being too picky about exact voltage/current or the power fluctuation from the port and is chucking up errors, or the phone itself is faulty.
Then that is crazy. My iPhone does work this way though, on a powered "dumb" port, as does my 4G iPod. If this is the case it is new on the 5G and I don't like it one bit. Bah.
Hold on, you think that the only competitive factor is fanboyism?
I think you are grossly underestimating the benefits of owning a Mac. What if "Apple's way or the highway" happens to coincide with what I want (mostly)?
I don't use OS X purely because of the eye candy - you can't paint me into a box that easily. There are more benefits than just the looks (which are pleasant, and heavily modifiable if you really want through third party tools).
I'm also not saying that it's perfect or there aren't things I'd like to change that are probably editable on Ubuntu (I'm still playing with that on my 15" PB - it's nice, but I'm not totally au fait with it yet), but they are small annoyances that aren;t enough to make me change to a different platform. The annoyances with W2K eventually did build up enough for me to swap to Mac, and if enough build up in OS X I will look at the options again but right now I am very happy with it. If I do change I will be keeping the hardware though - that is well worth the price for me.
There is a pervasive undercurrent that flows through /. that anyone who doesn't use some flavour of Linux is a clueless sheep who only goes for style over any function. Do you think I sit in front of this machine and flap helplessly because my shiny box doesn't actually *do anything*?! It serves my needs very well, and unfortunately carries with it the baggage that it's a hopeless bonnet-welded-shut OS that has nothing but shiny buttons that do nothing but animate when clicked like one of those toy steering wheels you can attach to a car seat for your toddler.
As for what OS X can offer to compete with Linux, it does have a lot more than just the shiny GUI - you can go right in at the command line if you want, and while it is likely to be somewhat alien compared to Linux, it is a fully fledged Unix core under all those fluffy pink buttons that can do just as much as an Ubuntu box can do, with the benefit of being able to fire up commercial, supported native apps (ie, no need for Wine/etc) at the same time.
I'd love for there to be a lot more of that on Linux - I am quite liking the repurposing and experimentation I am doing with my PB, but it would be nice to have a version of iTunes to put on there that worked with my homesharing from my main machine. I have worked around it (pointed the music player at the iTunes folder on my network, but it's not quite the same), and I know there are plenty of OSS ways to manage a music library and jukebox apps across multiple machines, but I like iTunes on my main box etc.
Regarding iTunes and syncing. Yes, the standard open method does much less than the full iPod/iPhone sync, but it is possible for manufacturers to "go deeper" than that by talking to Apple directly, but then Apple aren;t giving that away. I know there have been third party players in the past that have done it this way (although whether they are still doing it, I am not sure). Palm are also free to write their own sync software that can gather almost all of the same data that iTunes itself can (address book, music, iCal, photos etc - but I don;t think you can read the iTunes library file, only the XML version it spits out), but Palm decided not to do that. They did used to have a piece of software for that purpose but stopped supporting it, hence the rise of The Missing Sync, which has developed into quite an app: http://www.markspace.com/products/pre/mac-features.html - This third party app does everything that Palm was replicating by spoofing Apple's Vendor ID. That was cheaper to do than bundling copies of The Missing Sync or writing their own version.
I realise that Apple has to justify the higher price paid for entry into their closed ecosystem, where they are the gatekeepers, with the vertical integration aggressive phone SDK etc, only for people to come into that system knowing all this and yet still moaning that they can't do whatever they want because it's not open/free/etc. If it doesn't suit the purpose, they don't have to buy - that's surely why things like Linux exist, where you really can do what you like.
Why do Nokia have to throw away anything before they start something new? What's stopping them doing that now? Why is their current product base a burden on new products?
So, Apple aren't "doing their part" with Webkit, CUPS, OpenCL, libdispatch, Zeroconf, Darwin just to name a few open source ones. No innovation in multicore management or anything, or major contributions to KHTML, or work on H.264. I'm sure they certainly haven't contributed anything at all on any of those fronts, unlike Google (is Google not evil today?), IBM or MS.
Apple are no angels, but they're a far cry from the entity you are painting them as.
No, my point with the MMS was "you should';t buy an iPhone because it can't even do a simple thing like MMS that even really basic shitty phones can do! hah!" posts that flooded the boards before the ability was added to the iPhone natively (which replaced the MMS app that was free on the app store - you know, built using the SDK apple released for the phone to fill in a missing feature. As soon as people realised it didn't have built in MMS someone wrote an app and gave it away for free.
If we're going by the yardstick imposed by those posts about the iPhone, then the N900 isn't even as good as a shitty phone that has been able to do MMS for years!
I am sure that libdispatch and OpenCL, just two name a couple off the top of my head are innovations in user interfaces. At least I guess they must be since your allcaps "ONLY" means they can't be anything else.
Ah, so now we're onto the "units sold" argument - the very same argument that is used in reverse when it suits - Apple on the desktop/OS is a "niche player of no significance" because of their low marketshare, but in reverse they are "the Bigmac of the tech world" because the iPhone is so popular, but really it's totally shitty and the reason the competitors aren't selling is purely because the Bigmac is cheaper.... but wait, I thought Apple was "the overpriced piece of crap" Brain explode!!!!
So, if Apple is follow-the-leader behind Nokia, Samsung, SE, where are all of their smartphones that were selling like hotcakes with an app store and booming developer participation? Ones that predate the iPhone please, even with knowledge that Apple was working such a device. Perhaps the iPhone is "shiny crap bought by idiots" to you, but the number of them sold, and the fact that they keep on selling and selling and selling means there might just be something to it. If it was a pice of crap people would probably have figured it out by now? If it's a piece of crap then all those smartphones that are based on it, including Android/Nexus One etc etc are surely crap too, or is it ok for them to just follow on after Apple now the smartphone market has really taken off (a market that was started by the Blackberry, but really exploded with the iPhone)
I'd love if the iPhone also had a stylus mode, but I have found that it's not really necessary. The phone is accurate enough at knowing where I am tapping, to the point where I can hit a link in a tight list of links without zooming in quite easily. The stylus would just be really nice so I could use it in the winter without taking my gloves off. Who holds the patent on a stylus that can be stored inside the body of a device? Nintendo? They need to get right on that.
I would also wager that the physical building of a phone is generally the easy bit - it's all been done before - candybar shape with screen, battery and internal antenna. No real innovation there. The real innovation comes in the software - and up until the iPhone the *vast* majority of phones and smartphones had a hopeless UI. Not all of them, but a very large number of them. Apple's iPhone UI comes along and is a joy to use - easy, intuitive and effective. Missing several things in V1, but improved on in later versions due to feedback - cut and paste, MMS, keyboard in landscape on more apps etc. What it also needs but lacks by default is a way to lock the screen so it won't rotate if you don;t want it to. There's an app for it, but it should be in the core UI function.
No, they use the USB spec as it was designed. If Palm wants to use the documented methods to sync with iTunes, it can. They chose to break their contract with the USB-IF and use Apple's Vendor ID, which is contractually guaranteed to be unique to Apple.
It's not anticompetitive for Apple to do this with iTunes - iTunes is software that Apple give away for free, with iPod/iPhone syncing software that they wrote for use with their hardware.
If Palm want to write their own sync software for OS X they are free to do so, but they were too busy *not* doing that. They used to have Mac software, but they abandoned it (cheaper to just not develop the software any further and just rely on third party apps). Then they decided to skip those third party apps and just spoof being an iPod. It is *not* anticompetitive to ensure that your iTunes app now ensures it checks the validity of the USB standard by confirming vendor ID (which it didn't do initially). When Palm then went around them again, they made it further stringent.
Palm is still free to write software to sync with iTunes if it chooses. It chooses not to. No anticompetitive issues there at all.
I find it interesting that you have gone right for the ad hominem attack rather than any actual solid argument. It does speak volumes.
It's also interesting that you talk about offering nothing of value to those who know how to make their own shinies without needing the "bloated crud of iTunes/Appstore" when that is *exactly* what Palm were trying to get themselves into - Apple's "bloated and cruddy" iTunes. Where's Palm's shiny sync software and media app? Right, sorry, they don't need to make one.
Incidentally iTunes is not expensive - it is free. It is a free download from Apple. The content on the appstore (for the phone) varies and is not set by Apple. The music and movies, again vary in price and the price is not set by Apple.
I tend not to cross the road at night because my night vision is not what it once was and I have occasional problems judging distance in low light when there are bright headlights. I suspect I would have this problem regardless of what OS and hardware combo I used, unless you know of some unique benefit to my ailing vision that "people who know how to make their own 'ooh shiny' experience" can offer me? I'm all ears, or eyes.
What's wrong with your powered USB hub? I charge my iPhone and my iPod (4G) off a non-Apple generic USB hub that I bought for £10. After all, it's just 5V on one pin, ground on the other.
How are they "making sure" that it won't work? Or are you just making shit up. I suspect the latter. If your iPod doesn't work on a standard USB port I suggest you return it to Apple as faulty.
Please don't read dailymail.co.uk, it will only encourage them.
*shudder*
What if it does exist but is nowhere near ready?
Would images of this device hurt potentially Apple's sales of laptops if people see leaked shots of something that may or may not be ready for market and may or may not be released any time soon, who decide to hold off on buying an iPhone or macbook because they feel the tablet is close and might be just what they want.
If they are working on a tablet (and it is likely they are) it can be just as damaging for information to come out through a leak compared to an official announcement. Just ask Blizzard why they never give out release dates for games (or patches) until they are 100% certain they can keep the date - the negative publicity of slipping that date, or having to remove features from a game that they "promised" (by announcing or showing in a beta that are later removed) can be very damaging for the image of the company in the eyes of its customers.
This happened to a computer manufacturer or an electronics manufacturer many years ago if my memory is working right - they essentially said "we have a new product in the works" and it almost instantly dried up sales of their current product to the point where they actually went out of business before the new product was ready. No way Apple will go out of business of course, but leaks could affect their bottom line, you can be certain that lawyers will get involved if Apple believes it will serve their financial interest.
[citation needed], on all your "facts".
Is the superiority of the N900 the reason it is outselling the iPhone so heavily. Or is it the MMS support?
Wow, you totally don't know what you are talking about. For the record, the USB spec has Vendor ID and Product IDs. The Vendor ID is unique to a manufacturer - ie, that code can *only* be used by the company that "owns it" (ie, has been assigned that code by the USB-IF).
What Palm did was use Apple's unique vendor ID (and product ID, but that is less of an issue, as they don't have to be unique) so that iTunes thought the Palm device was actually an Apple device.
Consider that the USB-IF *mandates* as part of the spec that a Vendor ID is *only* to be used by the company it is issued to and no one else. Palm is *not allowed* (by contract with the USB-IF) to use Apple's Vendor ID.
Apple merely changed iTunes to double check that devices that say "I was made by Apple" actually are apple devices, as assured by the USB spec.
You really, really, really do not understand the Palm/Apple USB debacle at all.
That's why I followed it up with the paragraph right after the quoted bit. I know that it is never likely to happen and is difficult and painful to pull off.