Looking at the app store I see roughly 2 dozens of browsers for iPads/iPhones. Most of them iOS only. So independend developers easily can make a browser for iOS... and even make money from it, but Mozilla can't? Sorry this claim is ridiculous.
The limitation is that those browsers must use the Webkit built into iOS, so Chrome was an easy one - they already use Webkit. All of those other browsers also use it, but Firefox uses Gecko as their engine.
They just don't see the need to create an iOS version that would be considerably different to what they currently have.
. As far as I understood it, the very unfortunate VLC situation came about when a purist developer of VLC demanded that Apple would release VLC without DRM...
That one prefers to respect users & developers alike makes him a "purist"? I'm feeling better about my 20 year descision to avoid Apple products more and more.
Who says purist is a pejorative term? It's simply an accurate descriptor of the developer in question who did not agree that supplying the source separately to the downloaded app was an acceptable interpretation of the GPL. Others have disagreed, and GPL apps have been up on the store before and since. This particular developer's stance is more of a purist one, however. It's not a bad thing, just a different thing.
Stop looking for reasons to justify your decision to avoid Apple. Either do or don't, it's your choice, but twisting people's words to suit your opinion is just silly.
As far as I understood it, the very unfortunate VLC situation came about when a purist developer of VLC demanded that Apple would release VLC without DRM on IOS. But all apps on IOS use DRM, it is quite naive to assume that they would make an exception.
So what? He wrote the code, he released it for use under certain terms and conditions and those conditions were being violated. He wanted Apple to stop and Apple stopped, was he unhappy with that outcome? Did he expect something else? Of course it was annoying for everybody else but if people could just ignore the license when it was incompatible or inconvenient the GPL would have died out long ago.
That's not the point. The point is that it's *apple* who gets the bad press and the blame for VLC not being on the App Store because people do not understand the story and just assume that Apple pulled it. They removed it by request of one of the developers, and as you explained, because he did not consent to it being there.
The iOS App Store's policies were changed to make it compatible with the GPL before that (due to a different case) and there are plenty of GPL apps up in there to this day.
The lack of VLC has nothing to do with it not having a compatible licence, or Apple being "hostile" to open source, as is so often repeated; it's merely the choice of one of the original developers to not allow it to be distributed that way (as is his right).
If the loan was at an expensive interest rate or included specific terms for what it could be used for, then being able to repay the loan early is good news for Tesla and anyone with an interest in their success.
However if this was a cheap loan that was not tightly restricted, its an odd choice to repay cheap finance early. Didn't Tesla have anything good to put the cash on?
It's good PR, whether it was cheap or not.
They could buy marketing with it, or they could use the early repayment as good PR about how well they are doing.
It'll be interesting to see how the reflexive, knee-jerk Elon haters spin this one
It's the reflexive, knee-jerk anti-government types I think will be more amusing. Here we have a company (and potentially an entire industry) jump-started by a government loan, turning out to be a success, and actually repaying the loan. That sort of thing goes against all their beliefs.
They'll claim that early repayment will cost the government money or something.
Somehow they'll spin it in a poor light, it's just a question of how. No knot is too twisted.
If this article had been on neowin and had praised Microsoft's new OS for breaking through on a gaming distribution platform after a lot of marketing effort from the distributor including an opening sales and had managed 2% share, Slashdotters would have been cackling and calling it hype.
What the TFA is is hype and wishful thinking. Linux has an enormous long way to go before its even considered worth porting to as part of current game development.
Its a start, but no more than that.
Those of us who are old enough can remember lots of dawns in the IT industry - most of them false.
You don;t even need to imagine it - this is exactly the reaction slashdot commenters had when Steam for Mac launched (along with a lot of questioning why it wasn't a simultaneous Mac+Linux launch).
How times have changed!
Still, the more gaming platforms we can establish as "legitimate" (ie, directly and actively supported by a major distribution platform), the more likely we are to see all of the alternatives to Windows grow.
That 2.02% is way over inflated due to TF2 players installing Linux to get the Team Fortress 2 tux item./v/,/vg/, reddit,/g/ and the TF2 irc channels were absolutely full of TF2 players that were looking for help to temporarily install Linux. The overwhelming opinion also seemed to be that Ubuntu is terrible and that Linux isn't worth using on the desktop.
The TF2 players learned their lesson after the Mac client release, when playing TF2 during the Mac release got you a pair of earbuds in game - initially the reaction from the "hardcore" players was one of derision, even going so far as to set some servers up that auto-kicked you if you had the earbuds equipped, only for those buds to become high value items in the coming months due to their rarity. Now they're highly sought after in-game.
I get constant trade requests for them, at inflated costs, but I have no desire to sell them. Having been one of those early players who got them by logging in under OS X and facing all the hate for being a "scrub", there's no way I'll be selling them now that they've decided they want them.
Hopefully the same thing won't happen to the Linux gamers playing on their native platform for the first time.
Re:It's not all about power....differentiators are
on
Sony Announces the PS4
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Excuse me, but I just built a 8-core piledriver system with 32GB of RAM, a pretty solid Mobo and case for around $550.
Is that GDDR5 RAM?
Re:It's not all about power....differentiators are
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Sony Announces the PS4
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· Score: 1
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
After you buy 8GB of GGDR5, how much do you have left over to build the rest of the PC from the $600 budget?
That's the problem - they're hamstrung and are running out of ideas. The 2006 bill that was designed to cripple the USPS (bought and paid for by private industry package carriers) has worked exceedingly well.
They can't do the simple and "non risky" things like raising revenue etc because the bill forbids it - the lobbyists thought of that ahead of time! Remember, it was designed to kill off the USPS. They didn't ban clothing sales though - I guess they thought that by the time they got that desperate, it would be an easy sell to claim "duh, look, government services don;t work, time to privatise!"
Any money that is being "dumped" into these schemes is simply not going to help much to keep them afloat - the bill was carefully crafted to see to that. Unless something is done, the USPS is going to sink, and it has been inevitable since 2006 as the ink started to dry after the bill was signed.
I mean, clothing? Instead of focusing on issues which will actually solve their problems, they want to make clothes?
Does anyone at USPS in a leadership position have a frickin brain?
Well, their first suggestion was "add a few cents onto the price of a stamp", but the legislation that forced them to pre fund 75 years of retirement plans also forbid them from raising the price of stamps, so they had to come up with something else.
It's really hard to win when the rules are deliberately stacked against you and the rule makers want you to fail so the lobbyists who paid them to make it happen can signal the all clear for private industry to come in and "save the day".
I must say, after reading TFA... I have no idea of what this is or why I'd want to buy it from the USPS.
I'm more baffled by this tidbit... In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay for 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. No other federal agency is forced to make such an investment.
Why only the Postal Service and no other agency? To make sure Fedex profits stayed high?
That's exactly why. Lobbyists working for businesses that compete with the USPS basically want it forced out of business, or into a crippled state, so that they can ride in as saviours on private business horses to save the day. The problem is that the USPS was actually doing really well and was (and still is) totally self funded (no taxes pay for its upkeep), so they simply manufactured a no-win situation. The bill along will the extremely onerous restriction to fund retirement plans for employees who haven't even been born yet, specifically forbids them from putting up the price of stamps to raise revenue.
So if I understand correctly the rules are: 1. you have to pay above market rate for salaries/benefits and you are not allowed to fire anybody 2. you have to charge less than a market rate for mail delivery 3. even though the government sets the rules that force you to fail, it is not allowed to bail you out. Oh but don't worry we'll set up some arbitrary rules that give you monopoly on certain types of mail so everything should be fine. Isn't it great how we have geniuses in charge in Washington who work everything out so perfectly for our benefit.
Just privatize the stupid thing. Apart from accident of history here is no reason for the government to be in charge of mail delivery any more than pizza delivery.
That's why they introduced the bill in the first place - private industry wants the USPS out of business. It was doing totally fine before the deliberately-crafted-designed-to-fuck-them 2006 bill was passed.
They put rules in place that no private company would ever be expected to adhere to, that were designed to do exactly this - to push it into financial crisis so that people will say "oh look, government post services don't work! the private sector will save the day!"
You can't see how "in context" when someone looks up the number in the phone book they'd mistakenly dial the The Apple Shop, especially given the word "shop" is the generic term here in the UK (akin to "store" in the US - ie, "I'm going to the shop, do you want anything?")?
Maybe if they're looking the number up online, perhaps, but in that case google gives you the street address, the name "The Apple Shop", a phone number and the url "the-apple-shop.co.uk". You can't see how people might mistake that for the actual Apple?
No one is walking up to the shop and asking for help; they're looking up a number and calling it, presumably without a big helpful picture of the shop in question making it obvious it's the wrong one.
I have a 1500mAh battery pack module with a full-sized USB port and a power-pin-only 5-pin USB micro cable, 4" long, in my jacket pocket at all times. So it's a reserve battery for any device and it'll charge 1 phone or 1/4 of 1 tablet or some portion of a GPS unit but so what? On the other side, it has a solar panel and a charging indicator, that's what! Take that, pocket full of unstable, flammable gas. So solar panel vs butane....yeah, I'll stick with my solution, thanks. In direct sunlight, it doesn't take real long to recharge the entire battery pack either. Yeah, I'm out of luck at night but considering I can get 21 days of idle runtime on my Samsung R640 on one charge from this reserve battery, I think I can find some sunlight after depleting it.
I believe I heard this Nectar device exceeds $300, or so they stated at CES. Mine cost $17 and it's from Scosche, which makes decent products.
Have you ever heard of a disposable lighter?
It's not like carrying around "unstable, flammable gas" is at all new, or even all that dangerous.
There's a similar amount of chemical energy in that "dangerous, highly chemically reactive" Lithium battery as there is in a few ml of butane.
That's great, on the flip side of the argument I'm a developer and I'm happy to make some apps for free.
I know this might be alien to you, but some developers do what they do because they love it, not because of any inherent desperation to try and make a living from it - I already achieve that, as a day job.
Therein lies the difference between iOS and Android apps. Most iOS apps are written by people who just want to cash in and make a quick buck, whilst many Android apps are written by people who are actually passionate about what they're creating.
Not that I expect you to get this, given that you're the most rabid Apple fanboy on Slashdot after SuperKendall chasing every post that dares suggest anything negative about Apple and it's products with foam and bile pouring out your mouth.
You didn't log in, so you've never written a line of code in your life.
Nice try, trying to suggest that all developers on one platform are just sell outs though. Did it occur to you that many of them develop for both Android and iOS? Maybe if you were a developer you'd realise that. I guess they're sell outs when they put their app on iOS, but passionate heroes when they put it on Android.
Like I said, this is not an Android vs iOS argument, this is simply a "paying for software = good" argument.
Your poor rationalizations are not helping your case. But hey, you've made your case. I've made mine, and as people read the thread, they will come to their conclusions.
I have no problem with paying for things; I buy lots of Android apps.
But it is stupid to over-pay for things, and iPhone users are doing just that.
We are?
Examples?
The vast majority of apps I buy in the store are the equivalent of a dollar, occasionally $2. I find it hard to see how that's overpaying, unless the costs on Android are significantly less.
I think the most expensive app I have on iOS is Carcassonne, which cost me around $10, but that is a major outlier (and well worth the cost - the port is beautifully done).
When the cost of an app is so low , I don't think "stupidity" comes into it. I spend more money in the lab coffee room on discount filter coffee with bits of ground floating in it over a week or so than I spend on a game on iOS that has provided hours of enjoyment and captures the playstyle of the physical version remarkably well. For the vast majority of my apps, I spend more on cheap coffee in a day than I spend on a typical app.
"Overpaying" is simply a rounding error in the noise. Apps are cheap, on either platform.
You're trying to set this up as an "us vs them", but it really isn't. We're not all sitting here saying "haha, look at those Android fools, we are clearly superior for X reason", and you're not all sitting over there saying "haha look at those iPhone fools, they're literally stupid for paying an average of a couple of dollars for the apps they use!"... oh wait. How disappointing.
You are a liar. You read his post. You knew what he said. While Apple does sell $20 proprietary cables, they also sell $40 proprietary cables. Thus Kvnslash's statement is not hyperbole. Your "explanation" is just admitting to being a fanboy.
You are a walking talking stereotype.
Yes, I read his post. Yes, I knew what he said. And yes, it's inaccurate.
Yes, they sell $40 adapter cables, but that is not what the OP was talking about and you know it. The charging/sync cable is $19. They sell one very specific adapter cable for very specific circumstances. The cable the OP is talking about is $19. If he meant that specific $40 adapter then he was $10 under. If he meant the $30 adapter block then he doesn't know the difference between a small plastic block and a cord with two connectors on it. No, he meant the regular cable that comes with every iOS device. He simply picked a "crazy high" number out of the air and presented it as fact.
Now you're trying to defend him by saying "he got this wrong, but look, they do sell an adapter cable that is more expensive than he quoted!" - that's not helping your argument. The other guy who tried to claim that he clearly meant Australian dollars because "$30 US converted into $AUS is closer to 30" is also hilariously clutching at straws.
Watching you haters twist around in the wind to defend nonsense at all costs in order to make any criticism of Apple valid is mesmerising. Just perhaps accept that *some* things presented here as facts, even when they make Apple "look bad" might not be accurate.
As you'll note in another comment I mead on this thread, I'm not disagreeing with some parts of the OP's argument - I happen to agree with them, but relying on factual inaccuracies and hyperbole simply weaken his argument.
Also, a walking stereotype of what? If you think I embody the typical Apple user then I think you'd be sorely disappointed. I don't even own hipster glasses, even though I do actually have vision issues and could legitimately wear them with something other than plain glass in the frames. Also, turtlenecks just look awkward on me.
I have an Android phone and generally avoid the 'free' apps. I look for a paid version.
The 'free' apps tend to want me to give them permissions for things I don't want them to have.
It's no different to iOS in that respect. There's usually a choice between an ad-supported and paid version. I almost invariably go for the paid version.
Ah, another Apple user being suckered out of extra money instead of using a system where corporations pay developers to make apps to give to customers free of charge to make their devices more useful. You're a chump, a fool who is parted from his money easily. why is that such a hard concept to understand? In other news, most Linux kernel developers are paid for their work.
You're trying too hard to make this into something it's not. The GPP's point was that we were chumps for paying for software, full stop. My point is that paying for software you find useful is not "foolish" especially when the costs are small.
It's hardly being "suckered" out of money, unless you consider any shop to be "suckering" people out of money when they browse the store and decide to buy something. It's not as if there aren't also a host of free apps on the store too. You make it sound like every single app costs money and that someone holds a gun to your head and says "buy it sucker!!!"
I'm not sure what the argument is here? That it's bad to buy software from developers, but it's ok if those developers are funded by someone else?
This is not an "us vs them" argument. It's like it's impossible for you apple haters to find any common ground with people who use a different mobile operating system to you. It's tiresome. I would have thought of all things, paying software developers for their work (by any means), would be an uncontroversial opinion. Alas, no, because we use Apple software we're "suckers" and "fools" for paying developers for their time.
This is a perfect example of an Apple Fanboy. Kvnslash is an iPhone owner, and is "bothered" by the cost of cables. Fanboy jo_ham somehow deciphers "bothered" as "Hate with frothing rage".
Well, he's "bothered" enough to say that they cost $30. Since he didn't actually look at what they actually cost, and instead went for hyperbole, I decided to respond in kind with hyperbole of my own.
You know, because I didn't check how bothered he actually was, I just made something up and posted it on the internet.
Seriously, you argue The iOS device cable's price, while leaving alone the myriad of other proprietary interoperability technologies, and eloquently neglect to mention that Lightning adapters are patent encumbered for anything other than dumb charging. (darn, pesky facts!) Sure I can buy third party 30-pin adapters, but I can also buy floppy drives, DB15 video cards, and IDE cables but they're obsolete now. Unless I buy a $29USD, no lets round to $30, 30-pin to Lightning adapter.
Lastly, Apple's Lightning to USB cables may be $19 in the US, but it's $25AUS ($25.80USD) even though our dollar is stronger and China is closer to us. Since a currency wasn't specified, I can only assume you both meant USD, as here $25 is closer to $30 than to $19...
Right, I did argue that because I agree - the licence issues with Lightning are somewhat silly. I think it will hurt adoption and it slows down legit producers while not really harming the knock-off makers at all. I'm not arguing that the OP is wrong there. I'm simply stating that his hyperbole over the cable price, designed to make it look like they're much more expensive than they are and used as a cheap (ha) Apple bash is *literally factually incorrect* and does nothing but hurt his argument.
The dollar sign was used, with no qualifier, which on the internet almost universally means USD, especially on a US-centric site. Trying to argue that it;s valid criticism of Apple just because it is closer to a different $ price (although not exactly right and this unlikely to be referring to $AUS) is just grasping at straws.
Slashdot Mirror
Looking at the app store I see roughly 2 dozens of browsers for iPads/iPhones. Most of them iOS only. So independend developers easily can make a browser for iOS ... and even make money from it, but Mozilla can't?
Sorry this claim is ridiculous.
The limitation is that those browsers must use the Webkit built into iOS, so Chrome was an easy one - they already use Webkit. All of those other browsers also use it, but Firefox uses Gecko as their engine.
They just don't see the need to create an iOS version that would be considerably different to what they currently have.
Out of interest, what cool apps?
. As far as I understood it, the very unfortunate VLC situation came about when a purist developer of VLC demanded that Apple would release VLC without DRM...
That one prefers to respect users & developers alike makes him a "purist"? I'm feeling better about my 20 year descision to avoid Apple products more and more.
Who says purist is a pejorative term? It's simply an accurate descriptor of the developer in question who did not agree that supplying the source separately to the downloaded app was an acceptable interpretation of the GPL. Others have disagreed, and GPL apps have been up on the store before and since. This particular developer's stance is more of a purist one, however. It's not a bad thing, just a different thing.
Stop looking for reasons to justify your decision to avoid Apple. Either do or don't, it's your choice, but twisting people's words to suit your opinion is just silly.
As far as I understood it, the very unfortunate VLC situation came about when a purist developer of VLC demanded that Apple would release VLC without DRM on IOS. But all apps on IOS use DRM, it is quite naive to assume that they would make an exception.
So what? He wrote the code, he released it for use under certain terms and conditions and those conditions were being violated. He wanted Apple to stop and Apple stopped, was he unhappy with that outcome? Did he expect something else? Of course it was annoying for everybody else but if people could just ignore the license when it was incompatible or inconvenient the GPL would have died out long ago.
That's not the point. The point is that it's *apple* who gets the bad press and the blame for VLC not being on the App Store because people do not understand the story and just assume that Apple pulled it. They removed it by request of one of the developers, and as you explained, because he did not consent to it being there.
The iOS App Store's policies were changed to make it compatible with the GPL before that (due to a different case) and there are plenty of GPL apps up in there to this day.
The lack of VLC has nothing to do with it not having a compatible licence, or Apple being "hostile" to open source, as is so often repeated; it's merely the choice of one of the original developers to not allow it to be distributed that way (as is his right).
If the loan was at an expensive interest rate or included specific terms for what it could be used for, then being able to repay the loan early is good news for Tesla and anyone with an interest in their success.
However if this was a cheap loan that was not tightly restricted, its an odd choice to repay cheap finance early. Didn't Tesla have anything good to put the cash on?
It's good PR, whether it was cheap or not.
They could buy marketing with it, or they could use the early repayment as good PR about how well they are doing.
It'll be interesting to see how the reflexive, knee-jerk Elon haters spin this one
It's the reflexive, knee-jerk anti-government types I think will be more amusing. Here we have a company (and potentially an entire industry) jump-started by a government loan, turning out to be a success, and actually repaying the loan. That sort of thing goes against all their beliefs.
They'll claim that early repayment will cost the government money or something.
Somehow they'll spin it in a poor light, it's just a question of how. No knot is too twisted.
If this article had been on neowin and had praised Microsoft's new OS for breaking through on a gaming distribution platform after a lot of marketing effort from the distributor including an opening sales and had managed 2% share, Slashdotters would have been cackling and calling it hype.
What the TFA is is hype and wishful thinking. Linux has an enormous long way to go before its even considered worth porting to as part of current game development.
Its a start, but no more than that.
Those of us who are old enough can remember lots of dawns in the IT industry - most of them false.
You don;t even need to imagine it - this is exactly the reaction slashdot commenters had when Steam for Mac launched (along with a lot of questioning why it wasn't a simultaneous Mac+Linux launch).
How times have changed!
Still, the more gaming platforms we can establish as "legitimate" (ie, directly and actively supported by a major distribution platform), the more likely we are to see all of the alternatives to Windows grow.
That 2.02% is way over inflated due to TF2 players installing Linux to get the Team Fortress 2 tux item. /v/, /vg/, reddit, /g/ and the TF2 irc channels were absolutely full of TF2 players that were looking for help to temporarily install Linux. The overwhelming opinion also seemed to be that Ubuntu is terrible and that Linux isn't worth using on the desktop.
The TF2 players learned their lesson after the Mac client release, when playing TF2 during the Mac release got you a pair of earbuds in game - initially the reaction from the "hardcore" players was one of derision, even going so far as to set some servers up that auto-kicked you if you had the earbuds equipped, only for those buds to become high value items in the coming months due to their rarity. Now they're highly sought after in-game.
I get constant trade requests for them, at inflated costs, but I have no desire to sell them. Having been one of those early players who got them by logging in under OS X and facing all the hate for being a "scrub", there's no way I'll be selling them now that they've decided they want them.
Hopefully the same thing won't happen to the Linux gamers playing on their native platform for the first time.
Excuse me, but I just built a 8-core piledriver system with 32GB of RAM, a pretty solid Mobo and case for around $550.
Is that GDDR5 RAM?
Price. It will probably cost $500. A similarly equipped Windows PC would be $1,000+
Excuse me, but a similarly equiped Windows PC would cost $600. Of course, that would be a Linux PC after the 10 minutes it takes me to install Ubuntu from the USB stick.
After you buy 8GB of GGDR5, how much do you have left over to build the rest of the PC from the $600 budget?
That's the problem - they're hamstrung and are running out of ideas. The 2006 bill that was designed to cripple the USPS (bought and paid for by private industry package carriers) has worked exceedingly well.
They can't do the simple and "non risky" things like raising revenue etc because the bill forbids it - the lobbyists thought of that ahead of time! Remember, it was designed to kill off the USPS. They didn't ban clothing sales though - I guess they thought that by the time they got that desperate, it would be an easy sell to claim "duh, look, government services don;t work, time to privatise!"
Any money that is being "dumped" into these schemes is simply not going to help much to keep them afloat - the bill was carefully crafted to see to that. Unless something is done, the USPS is going to sink, and it has been inevitable since 2006 as the ink started to dry after the bill was signed.
I mean, clothing? Instead of focusing on issues which will actually solve their problems, they want to make clothes?
Does anyone at USPS in a leadership position have a frickin brain?
Well, their first suggestion was "add a few cents onto the price of a stamp", but the legislation that forced them to pre fund 75 years of retirement plans also forbid them from raising the price of stamps, so they had to come up with something else.
It's really hard to win when the rules are deliberately stacked against you and the rule makers want you to fail so the lobbyists who paid them to make it happen can signal the all clear for private industry to come in and "save the day".
I must say, after reading TFA ... I have no idea of what this is or why I'd want to buy it from the USPS.
I'm more baffled by this tidbit ... In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay for 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. No other federal agency is forced to make such an investment.
Why only the Postal Service and no other agency? To make sure Fedex profits stayed high?
That's exactly why. Lobbyists working for businesses that compete with the USPS basically want it forced out of business, or into a crippled state, so that they can ride in as saviours on private business horses to save the day. The problem is that the USPS was actually doing really well and was (and still is) totally self funded (no taxes pay for its upkeep), so they simply manufactured a no-win situation. The bill along will the extremely onerous restriction to fund retirement plans for employees who haven't even been born yet, specifically forbids them from putting up the price of stamps to raise revenue.
So if I understand correctly the rules are: 1. you have to pay above market rate for salaries/benefits and you are not allowed to fire anybody 2. you have to charge less than a market rate for mail delivery 3. even though the government sets the rules that force you to fail, it is not allowed to bail you out. Oh but don't worry we'll set up some arbitrary rules that give you monopoly on certain types of mail so everything should be fine. Isn't it great how we have geniuses in charge in Washington who work everything out so perfectly for our benefit.
Just privatize the stupid thing. Apart from accident of history here is no reason for the government to be in charge of mail delivery any more than pizza delivery.
That's why they introduced the bill in the first place - private industry wants the USPS out of business. It was doing totally fine before the deliberately-crafted-designed-to-fuck-them 2006 bill was passed.
They put rules in place that no private company would ever be expected to adhere to, that were designed to do exactly this - to push it into financial crisis so that people will say "oh look, government post services don't work! the private sector will save the day!"
You can't see how "in context" when someone looks up the number in the phone book they'd mistakenly dial the The Apple Shop, especially given the word "shop" is the generic term here in the UK (akin to "store" in the US - ie, "I'm going to the shop, do you want anything?")?
Maybe if they're looking the number up online, perhaps, but in that case google gives you the street address, the name "The Apple Shop", a phone number and the url "the-apple-shop.co.uk". You can't see how people might mistake that for the actual Apple?
No one is walking up to the shop and asking for help; they're looking up a number and calling it, presumably without a big helpful picture of the shop in question making it obvious it's the wrong one.
I have a 1500mAh battery pack module with a full-sized USB port and a power-pin-only 5-pin USB micro cable, 4" long, in my jacket pocket at all times. So it's a reserve battery for any device and it'll charge 1 phone or 1/4 of 1 tablet or some portion of a GPS unit but so what? On the other side, it has a solar panel and a charging indicator, that's what! Take that, pocket full of unstable, flammable gas. So solar panel vs butane....yeah, I'll stick with my solution, thanks. In direct sunlight, it doesn't take real long to recharge the entire battery pack either. Yeah, I'm out of luck at night but considering I can get 21 days of idle runtime on my Samsung R640 on one charge from this reserve battery, I think I can find some sunlight after depleting it.
I believe I heard this Nectar device exceeds $300, or so they stated at CES. Mine cost $17 and it's from Scosche, which makes decent products.
Have you ever heard of a disposable lighter?
It's not like carrying around "unstable, flammable gas" is at all new, or even all that dangerous.
There's a similar amount of chemical energy in that "dangerous, highly chemically reactive" Lithium battery as there is in a few ml of butane.
Real men just put OJ in their morning coffee
No, real men put OJ in their morning rum.
That's great, on the flip side of the argument I'm a developer and I'm happy to make some apps for free.
I know this might be alien to you, but some developers do what they do because they love it, not because of any inherent desperation to try and make a living from it - I already achieve that, as a day job.
Therein lies the difference between iOS and Android apps. Most iOS apps are written by people who just want to cash in and make a quick buck, whilst many Android apps are written by people who are actually passionate about what they're creating.
Not that I expect you to get this, given that you're the most rabid Apple fanboy on Slashdot after SuperKendall chasing every post that dares suggest anything negative about Apple and it's products with foam and bile pouring out your mouth.
You didn't log in, so you've never written a line of code in your life.
Nice try, trying to suggest that all developers on one platform are just sell outs though. Did it occur to you that many of them develop for both Android and iOS? Maybe if you were a developer you'd realise that. I guess they're sell outs when they put their app on iOS, but passionate heroes when they put it on Android.
Like I said, this is not an Android vs iOS argument, this is simply a "paying for software = good" argument.
Your poor rationalizations are not helping your case. But hey, you've made your case. I've made mine, and as people read the thread, they will come to their conclusions.
I'm glad you have finally agreed with me.
I have no problem with paying for things; I buy lots of Android apps.
But it is stupid to over-pay for things, and iPhone users are doing just that.
We are?
Examples?
The vast majority of apps I buy in the store are the equivalent of a dollar, occasionally $2. I find it hard to see how that's overpaying, unless the costs on Android are significantly less.
I think the most expensive app I have on iOS is Carcassonne, which cost me around $10, but that is a major outlier (and well worth the cost - the port is beautifully done).
When the cost of an app is so low , I don't think "stupidity" comes into it. I spend more money in the lab coffee room on discount filter coffee with bits of ground floating in it over a week or so than I spend on a game on iOS that has provided hours of enjoyment and captures the playstyle of the physical version remarkably well. For the vast majority of my apps, I spend more on cheap coffee in a day than I spend on a typical app.
"Overpaying" is simply a rounding error in the noise. Apps are cheap, on either platform.
You're trying to set this up as an "us vs them", but it really isn't. We're not all sitting here saying "haha, look at those Android fools, we are clearly superior for X reason", and you're not all sitting over there saying "haha look at those iPhone fools, they're literally stupid for paying an average of a couple of dollars for the apps they use!"... oh wait. How disappointing.
You are a liar. You read his post. You knew what he said. While Apple does sell $20 proprietary cables, they also sell $40 proprietary cables. Thus Kvnslash's statement is not hyperbole. Your "explanation" is just admitting to being a fanboy.
You are a walking talking stereotype.
Yes, I read his post. Yes, I knew what he said. And yes, it's inaccurate.
Yes, they sell $40 adapter cables, but that is not what the OP was talking about and you know it. The charging/sync cable is $19. They sell one very specific adapter cable for very specific circumstances. The cable the OP is talking about is $19. If he meant that specific $40 adapter then he was $10 under. If he meant the $30 adapter block then he doesn't know the difference between a small plastic block and a cord with two connectors on it. No, he meant the regular cable that comes with every iOS device. He simply picked a "crazy high" number out of the air and presented it as fact.
Now you're trying to defend him by saying "he got this wrong, but look, they do sell an adapter cable that is more expensive than he quoted!" - that's not helping your argument. The other guy who tried to claim that he clearly meant Australian dollars because "$30 US converted into $AUS is closer to 30" is also hilariously clutching at straws.
Watching you haters twist around in the wind to defend nonsense at all costs in order to make any criticism of Apple valid is mesmerising. Just perhaps accept that *some* things presented here as facts, even when they make Apple "look bad" might not be accurate.
As you'll note in another comment I mead on this thread, I'm not disagreeing with some parts of the OP's argument - I happen to agree with them, but relying on factual inaccuracies and hyperbole simply weaken his argument.
Also, a walking stereotype of what? If you think I embody the typical Apple user then I think you'd be sorely disappointed. I don't even own hipster glasses, even though I do actually have vision issues and could legitimately wear them with something other than plain glass in the frames. Also, turtlenecks just look awkward on me.
I have an Android phone and generally avoid the 'free' apps. I look for a paid version.
The 'free' apps tend to want me to give them permissions for things I don't want them to have.
It's no different to iOS in that respect. There's usually a choice between an ad-supported and paid version. I almost invariably go for the paid version.
Ah, another Apple user being suckered out of extra money instead of using a system where corporations pay developers to make apps to give to customers free of charge to make their devices more useful. You're a chump, a fool who is parted from his money easily. why is that such a hard concept to understand? In other news, most Linux kernel developers are paid for their work.
You're trying too hard to make this into something it's not. The GPP's point was that we were chumps for paying for software, full stop. My point is that paying for software you find useful is not "foolish" especially when the costs are small.
It's hardly being "suckered" out of money, unless you consider any shop to be "suckering" people out of money when they browse the store and decide to buy something. It's not as if there aren't also a host of free apps on the store too. You make it sound like every single app costs money and that someone holds a gun to your head and says "buy it sucker!!!"
I'm not sure what the argument is here? That it's bad to buy software from developers, but it's ok if those developers are funded by someone else?
This is not an "us vs them" argument. It's like it's impossible for you apple haters to find any common ground with people who use a different mobile operating system to you. It's tiresome. I would have thought of all things, paying software developers for their work (by any means), would be an uncontroversial opinion. Alas, no, because we use Apple software we're "suckers" and "fools" for paying developers for their time.
This is a perfect example of an Apple Fanboy. Kvnslash is an iPhone owner, and is "bothered" by the cost of cables. Fanboy jo_ham somehow deciphers "bothered" as "Hate with frothing rage".
Well, he's "bothered" enough to say that they cost $30. Since he didn't actually look at what they actually cost, and instead went for hyperbole, I decided to respond in kind with hyperbole of my own.
You know, because I didn't check how bothered he actually was, I just made something up and posted it on the internet.
Seriously, you argue The iOS device cable's price, while leaving alone the myriad of other proprietary interoperability technologies, and eloquently neglect to mention that Lightning adapters are patent encumbered for anything other than dumb charging. (darn, pesky facts!)
Sure I can buy third party 30-pin adapters, but I can also buy floppy drives, DB15 video cards, and IDE cables but they're obsolete now. Unless I buy a $29USD, no lets round to $30, 30-pin to Lightning adapter.
Lastly, Apple's Lightning to USB cables may be $19 in the US, but it's $25AUS ($25.80USD) even though our dollar is stronger and China is closer to us. Since a currency wasn't specified, I can only assume you both meant USD, as here $25 is closer to $30 than to $19...
Right, I did argue that because I agree - the licence issues with Lightning are somewhat silly. I think it will hurt adoption and it slows down legit producers while not really harming the knock-off makers at all. I'm not arguing that the OP is wrong there. I'm simply stating that his hyperbole over the cable price, designed to make it look like they're much more expensive than they are and used as a cheap (ha) Apple bash is *literally factually incorrect* and does nothing but hurt his argument.
The dollar sign was used, with no qualifier, which on the internet almost universally means USD, especially on a US-centric site. Trying to argue that it;s valid criticism of Apple just because it is closer to a different $ price (although not exactly right and this unlikely to be referring to $AUS) is just grasping at straws.