Who says Mac users claim they don't get malware? It seems to be oft-repeated here on Slashdot, but whenever the topic of Mac security comes up actual Mac users post in the threads that they're well aware that OS X is not invulnerable, and in fact posting examples of trojans and malware that they remember hearing about.
It comes up every time, so the only people who seem to perpetuate the myth of the technology-literate Apple user who claims immunity from security threats are the ones seeking to mock the Reality Distortion Field and the users of Apple software as clueless.
Incidentally, this malware does have some relatively sneaky features - it allegedly avoids trying to install itself if it detects AV software, to attempt to avoid early detection. Crashing browsers is not a good start though. Not very subtle, since Safari doesn't really crash any more - it tends to be the helper process that crashes and that is restarted almost transparently to the user.
I don't know - are you implying that Apple stole the IP?
They bought the rights to the trademark, and only later (years after the deal) has the original owner (who had full knowledge and participation in the original deal) decided that the rights don't cover China after all, right about the time when they're going through financial difficulty and need cash urgently. It's very convenient.
He did say they were much less likely, but it has never been the case that Macs were immune. There has been a history of malware on the Mac since the pre-OS X days.
Far fewer viruses in the OS X era though (relative to earlier Mac OSes), but several trojans - usually in pirate software (like the infamous "pretends to be MS Office installer but really destroys your home folder" one).
Vigilance is necessary on all platforms, especially against trojans, since they tend to exploit the common weak link in computer security - the user of the system.
Sarcasm works only when there aren't enough people who actually believe what you pretended to.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Actually that's usually one of the most common uses of sarcasm - as a "low hanging fruit" method of mocking people. Seems you missed it in your hot-button Anti-Apple Froth. You were a little too quick to want to jump on him for liking Apple so you didn't stop to think that a single line first post on slashdot might not be 100% serious.
This has been going for a while, and one might argue that remote sessions are not a new thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly a useful service if you need it - especially for Office apps.
Word on the grapevine is that Microsoft are working on a native iPad app (or suite of apps) for Office, however - better late than never for those who want to be able to do more than just view Office formats on a tablet.
(and yes, yes, tablets suck for real work, yadda yadda, no one is using them for real work, toy os etc etc - just heading off that stuff at the pass.)
The other option is to voice your dissatisfaction to the developers by writing a review (but be polite and descriptive, unlike 90% of the written reviews that are either wildly unhelpful, ignorant ranting or just nonsense).
This happened to me with the Flixter app, which was excellent for showing me nearby cinemas and what was showing etc. I used it all the time. Occasionally the trailers for listed films wouldn't show, but it wasn't a huge deal breaker.
Then I saw an update on the App Store and the sum total of the release notes were:
"Bug fixes"
so I installed it, thinking that perhaps it would fix the occasional trailer playing problem.
Instead, what I got was an app that now had an obnoxious full screen animated advert that appeared whenever I launched the app that could not be dismissed (you *had* to click on the product and give them a click-through if you wanted to get to the app). As a double whammy, the app took a long time to come up, leaving the app unresponsive while it did this. So, this functionality was added under the guise of "bug fixes". I wrote a review of the app immediately stating that it was fantastic, and did everything I needed, but that I would be uninstalling it now since I had been misled and had "updated" to a much inferior product, and that this was a shame. I then uninstalled and never used it again.
Just recently I saw a friend use the app on her phone and the obnoxious advert has gone, so I assume they listened to someone that they had crippled their app, or perhaps they realised they were making more money with the less intrusive ads, since so many people simply stopped using the version with the enforced click through. Either way, the app is much more usable now and I have reinstalled it.
The older Apple TV does if you put an expansion card into its PCI slot (you have to remove the wireless card to do this though), then it will support 1080p quite happily in XBMC with the exception of some of the more silly encode settings.
It's been a while since I looked at it. Crystal HD or something?
Just because the App Store exists (and by extension, Apple's model) doesn't mean that it's harming the developers and users that use it, or computing in general.
As demonstrated, it has done quite the opposite. As well as providing for a market that was poorly served before (non-power users), they have encouraged (through competition) Android's approach, which offers many of the features that Apple's model lacks for those that want them.
Ultimately it's about consumer choice - and the choice is better than ever, thanks to Apple and do Android.
You are making the claim that Apple's existence in this space *at all* harms people and "reduces freedom" when the evidence simply does not support such a conclusion. Just from my own perspective, I'm not long for an upgraded phone and my choice is very wide, with the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy SII as the current leading two choices.
Disliking Apple's business model and having it exist is not grounds to assert that developers or users are "being harmed" by developing for the platform or having the choice to use it or something else respectively.
Also, how is Apple reducing the software freedom of a developer by having the App Store? The developer's code is all theirs, and you can release it under any licence you like. You can even put GPLv2 apps up on the store if you really want. But there's nothing stopping you from using your code to write cross platform apps, or releasing it into the wild.
Like their adoption and development of KHTML (and doing much more than the legal minimum required by the licence), or libdespatch, or the quicktime streaming server, or their contact and calendar servers, or their campaign to sell music free of DRM (still not quite there on movies and TV), or their choice of data formats for their productivity apps (documented XML) or email (mbox)?
It's not always cut and dried - sometimes they're not always looking at "locking down" but "what's best for all of us as a whole?". Oh have no illusions they're in it for their bottom line, but they've cut a pretty good path for themselves mixing open with proprietary to get the best of both worlds (they don't always manage it of course).
There's that subtle, but inaccurate, spinning of the facts.
Developers don't "give up" a cut for the "privilege" of making an app for the App Store; they give up 30% to cover all of the really annoying and distracting parts of the commercial software development business - hosting, distribution, payment processing, bandwidth costs etc.
You make it sound like they're under duress at the roadside and are giving up that 30% while bitching under their breath. It's quite the opposite. 30% to handle all that stuff and leave them to do what they are best at: actual software development? It's a bargain.
Developers have a sweet deal with the 70/30 splits on Apple's and Google's respective online app stores. It's certainly a lot more than they were making by going for the boxed physical distribution route, and is cheaper than handling all those servers, bandwidth and payment processing in house (unless you're Amazon, perhaps).
Apple have done more for open mobile computing (by spurring the massive growth and development of Android) than anyone else (with the exception of the actual Android developers, of course, but that's implied - I just thought I should be explicit). The smartphone/mobile computing market is in better shape than it's ever been.
So now you've reversed your argument and are claiming I'm *like* an Apple shill?
Again, that's not the same thing. What's the matter? Don't like that you're being challenged on your assertion and know it really doesn't stand up to any scrutiny?
If I am an Apple shill (or identical to one) then I'm doing a terrible job, but then I suppose you just gloss over an criticism I have for them, and by comparison, any positive opinions I have for Apple's "nemeses" like Android, or is that all part of the PR conspiracy to make it all look genuine?
Let's examine what you just said:
It might as well be for all the difference between you and a stock Apple shill.
So, your criteria for this assertion are because I'm not unfailingly negative about Apple and don't consider them to be a dangerous evil empire? Disagreeing with someone's position does not make them a shill, although that seems to be the only possibility on/. these days. Another way to put it would be "it's us vs them" - and really? You think it's that black and white? This isn't Star Wars.
Well, that's the crux of the entire argument - the nature of licensing something vs buying it - why is it suddenly ok to ignore when Apple chooses to do it (re: Psystar)?
That's the model OS X is provided under, and it's Apple's choice. That doesn't mean you can ignore it or claim that they really sold it to you just because you want it to be so, in the same way that you can't ignore the provisions of the GPL, or the Apache licence, or Microsoft's software licences etc.
The decision was a good thing, and like I said before, if you hate Apple then consider the fact that they won to be necessary evil, since they were standing up for the enforcement of software licence terms, and that affects everyone.
And the GPL *doesn't* say you can do whatever you want with it - that would be closer to the BSD licence - the GPL does have restrictions in it (ones I agree with, mind you).
Yes, that is true if they insert something that affects your statutory rights (for example, forfeit of your warranty by accepting the terms is unenforceable), but they didn't put that in, and that wasn't the claim under challenge. I'm aware that it's possible for unenforceable EULAs to exist, and that there have certainly been some, but this was about Apple's terms that you were *not* free to modify and resell OS X on non-Apple machines. They are perfectly entitled to release the code under those terms, since it doesn't conflict with other vendor or consumer rights. Psystar wanted to ignore that part of the licence and sell it anyway.
That clause is directly comparable to similar clauses in the GPL that work in reverse - that the code must not be distributed in a product unless the source and changes are provided.
Like I said before, you may not like Apple's licence (or any proprietary licence) - and you did start this whole discussion by emphasising that one of them enforces freedom while the other allegedly removes it - but the terms under challenge were not unreasonable. Apple is perfectly within its rights to impose such restrictions on the software they release, and the ability to break those terms at will *does* directly affect other software licences that set similar themed (if opposite in effect in the case of the GPL) terms - namely what the original author of the code wants to do with it.
Again, this is not about things for sale, it is about things that you have licensed - OS X being one of them, and GPL code (by analogy) being another.
The point is the protection/limitations the licences offer *for all parties* - Apple is free to set the terms of its licence, as is anyone writing code that they choose to release as GPL. This also has a bearing on the parties that use things covered under those licences, but they are not the only parties that have to be considered.
If you (or anyone else) don't like the proprietary licence that a piece of software is covered by then you are free not to use it. You are *not* free to do anything you want with it though, just because it is restrictive. For example, Psystar cannot modify OS X and ship it with their computers. You don't have a "freedom that Apple removed" by having restrictive terms in the licence agreement since that presupposes your right to the software in the first place - it's Apple's (or any other entity that releases its code/software/etc) on what terms it is available. If the terms do not agree with you (or anyone) then simply do not use it. The same is true of the GPL but from the opposite direction - it emphasises freedom of the code, but it imposes restrictions on how you can use it. You can't simply roll it up into a closed binary and not release the changes to the source (assuming you release the software for use), for example. If that doesn't work for you (or anyone) you're free to not use GPL covered code - that's what the licence is there for.
It's not about whether the licences are diametrically opposed (clearly, they are pretty alien to each other), but rather the legal standing of the licence terms and how they affect each other. If Apple's licence is "legally ignorable" because it is restrictive then there is a precedent for saying the same thing about the GPL. It also contains restrictions (good ones) about what you can do with the code and what you must do if you use it.
Slashdot Mirror
Who says Mac users claim they don't get malware? It seems to be oft-repeated here on Slashdot, but whenever the topic of Mac security comes up actual Mac users post in the threads that they're well aware that OS X is not invulnerable, and in fact posting examples of trojans and malware that they remember hearing about.
It comes up every time, so the only people who seem to perpetuate the myth of the technology-literate Apple user who claims immunity from security threats are the ones seeking to mock the Reality Distortion Field and the users of Apple software as clueless.
Incidentally, this malware does have some relatively sneaky features - it allegedly avoids trying to install itself if it detects AV software, to attempt to avoid early detection. Crashing browsers is not a good start though. Not very subtle, since Safari doesn't really crash any more - it tends to be the helper process that crashes and that is restarted almost transparently to the user.
I don't know - are you implying that Apple stole the IP?
They bought the rights to the trademark, and only later (years after the deal) has the original owner (who had full knowledge and participation in the original deal) decided that the rights don't cover China after all, right about the time when they're going through financial difficulty and need cash urgently. It's very convenient.
I know you're trolling, but no he didn't.
He did say they were much less likely, but it has never been the case that Macs were immune. There has been a history of malware on the Mac since the pre-OS X days.
Far fewer viruses in the OS X era though (relative to earlier Mac OSes), but several trojans - usually in pirate software (like the infamous "pretends to be MS Office installer but really destroys your home folder" one).
Vigilance is necessary on all platforms, especially against trojans, since they tend to exploit the common weak link in computer security - the user of the system.
psssst, you forgot to log in!
Really easy mistake to make, but schoolboy error!
Sarcasm works only when there aren't enough people who actually believe what you pretended to.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Actually that's usually one of the most common uses of sarcasm - as a "low hanging fruit" method of mocking people. Seems you missed it in your hot-button Anti-Apple Froth. You were a little too quick to want to jump on him for liking Apple so you didn't stop to think that a single line first post on slashdot might not be 100% serious.
What, people who use sarcasm?
Oh, you didn't get it.
My sympathies.
(note: possible sarcasm in post. YMMV. void where prohibited)
This has been going for a while, and one might argue that remote sessions are not a new thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it's certainly a useful service if you need it - especially for Office apps.
Word on the grapevine is that Microsoft are working on a native iPad app (or suite of apps) for Office, however - better late than never for those who want to be able to do more than just view Office formats on a tablet.
(and yes, yes, tablets suck for real work, yadda yadda, no one is using them for real work, toy os etc etc - just heading off that stuff at the pass.)
The other option is to voice your dissatisfaction to the developers by writing a review (but be polite and descriptive, unlike 90% of the written reviews that are either wildly unhelpful, ignorant ranting or just nonsense).
This happened to me with the Flixter app, which was excellent for showing me nearby cinemas and what was showing etc. I used it all the time. Occasionally the trailers for listed films wouldn't show, but it wasn't a huge deal breaker.
Then I saw an update on the App Store and the sum total of the release notes were:
"Bug fixes"
so I installed it, thinking that perhaps it would fix the occasional trailer playing problem.
Instead, what I got was an app that now had an obnoxious full screen animated advert that appeared whenever I launched the app that could not be dismissed (you *had* to click on the product and give them a click-through if you wanted to get to the app). As a double whammy, the app took a long time to come up, leaving the app unresponsive while it did this. So, this functionality was added under the guise of "bug fixes". I wrote a review of the app immediately stating that it was fantastic, and did everything I needed, but that I would be uninstalling it now since I had been misled and had "updated" to a much inferior product, and that this was a shame. I then uninstalled and never used it again.
Just recently I saw a friend use the app on her phone and the obnoxious advert has gone, so I assume they listened to someone that they had crippled their app, or perhaps they realised they were making more money with the less intrusive ads, since so many people simply stopped using the version with the enforced click through. Either way, the app is much more usable now and I have reinstalled it.
That would be right now then, since you can buy all the major tablets without a phone contract.
The older Apple TV does if you put an expansion card into its PCI slot (you have to remove the wireless card to do this though), then it will support 1080p quite happily in XBMC with the exception of some of the more silly encode settings.
It's been a while since I looked at it. Crystal HD or something?
I connected mine with the direction arrows facing the wrong way and I got negative time readings.
I spent minus 60 minutes yesterday having coffee trying to puzzle out the problem then realised I'd solved it before the issue even happened.
Absolutely.
In the case of your dodgy ruler you'd measure it with an accurate ruler - that's your data.
In this case they'll need to run the experiment again with the apparatus fixed, and record a whole new data set.
Just because the App Store exists (and by extension, Apple's model) doesn't mean that it's harming the developers and users that use it, or computing in general.
As demonstrated, it has done quite the opposite. As well as providing for a market that was poorly served before (non-power users), they have encouraged (through competition) Android's approach, which offers many of the features that Apple's model lacks for those that want them.
Ultimately it's about consumer choice - and the choice is better than ever, thanks to Apple and do Android.
You are making the claim that Apple's existence in this space *at all* harms people and "reduces freedom" when the evidence simply does not support such a conclusion. Just from my own perspective, I'm not long for an upgraded phone and my choice is very wide, with the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy SII as the current leading two choices.
Disliking Apple's business model and having it exist is not grounds to assert that developers or users are "being harmed" by developing for the platform or having the choice to use it or something else respectively.
Also, how is Apple reducing the software freedom of a developer by having the App Store? The developer's code is all theirs, and you can release it under any licence you like. You can even put GPLv2 apps up on the store if you really want. But there's nothing stopping you from using your code to write cross platform apps, or releasing it into the wild.
You had an ultra mini PC before the G4 Cube? Not that I doubt you, but what was it?
It's not going to happen for a while given the way TB has to be managed with the various controllers in each device (and the expensive active cable).
The slow release of peripherals has also left people with a sour impression.
USB 3.0 has been sorely missing, but it's been a victim of Apple's refresh cycle (they could have put it in the latest generation of MBP's though).
Still, they're getting Ivy Bridge when Intel ships them, so USB 3.0 will be a definite since it's built into the architecture.
I've been using SD cards on OS X for years though, not sure what that's about?
Apple's history means they'll lock it down?
Like their adoption and development of KHTML (and doing much more than the legal minimum required by the licence), or libdespatch, or the quicktime streaming server, or their contact and calendar servers, or their campaign to sell music free of DRM (still not quite there on movies and TV), or their choice of data formats for their productivity apps (documented XML) or email (mbox)?
It's not always cut and dried - sometimes they're not always looking at "locking down" but "what's best for all of us as a whole?". Oh have no illusions they're in it for their bottom line, but they've cut a pretty good path for themselves mixing open with proprietary to get the best of both worlds (they don't always manage it of course).
They haven't "effectively removed Linux support", they've taken some Linux-exclusive features out of the default package used on OS X.
You can put it back in if you need it. It's all open source, it's not like it's going anywhere.
There's that subtle, but inaccurate, spinning of the facts.
Developers don't "give up" a cut for the "privilege" of making an app for the App Store; they give up 30% to cover all of the really annoying and distracting parts of the commercial software development business - hosting, distribution, payment processing, bandwidth costs etc.
You make it sound like they're under duress at the roadside and are giving up that 30% while bitching under their breath. It's quite the opposite. 30% to handle all that stuff and leave them to do what they are best at: actual software development? It's a bargain.
Developers have a sweet deal with the 70/30 splits on Apple's and Google's respective online app stores. It's certainly a lot more than they were making by going for the boxed physical distribution route, and is cheaper than handling all those servers, bandwidth and payment processing in house (unless you're Amazon, perhaps).
Apple have done more for open mobile computing (by spurring the massive growth and development of Android) than anyone else (with the exception of the actual Android developers, of course, but that's implied - I just thought I should be explicit). The smartphone/mobile computing market is in better shape than it's ever been.
Ah, so in other words, he's got no argument and rather than admitting he's wrong, instead has to resort to ad hominem attacks.
Got it.
(Disagreeing with someone is not the same as being a shill).
So now you've reversed your argument and are claiming I'm *like* an Apple shill?
Again, that's not the same thing. What's the matter? Don't like that you're being challenged on your assertion and know it really doesn't stand up to any scrutiny?
If I am an Apple shill (or identical to one) then I'm doing a terrible job, but then I suppose you just gloss over an criticism I have for them, and by comparison, any positive opinions I have for Apple's "nemeses" like Android, or is that all part of the PR conspiracy to make it all look genuine?
Let's examine what you just said:
It might as well be for all the difference between you and a stock Apple shill.
So, your criteria for this assertion are because I'm not unfailingly negative about Apple and don't consider them to be a dangerous evil empire? Disagreeing with someone's position does not make them a shill, although that seems to be the only possibility on /. these days. Another way to put it would be "it's us vs them" - and really? You think it's that black and white? This isn't Star Wars.
Well, that's the crux of the entire argument - the nature of licensing something vs buying it - why is it suddenly ok to ignore when Apple chooses to do it (re: Psystar)?
That's the model OS X is provided under, and it's Apple's choice. That doesn't mean you can ignore it or claim that they really sold it to you just because you want it to be so, in the same way that you can't ignore the provisions of the GPL, or the Apache licence, or Microsoft's software licences etc.
The decision was a good thing, and like I said before, if you hate Apple then consider the fact that they won to be necessary evil, since they were standing up for the enforcement of software licence terms, and that affects everyone.
You don't own the OS X code though, Apple does.
And the GPL *doesn't* say you can do whatever you want with it - that would be closer to the BSD licence - the GPL does have restrictions in it (ones I agree with, mind you).
Yes, that is true if they insert something that affects your statutory rights (for example, forfeit of your warranty by accepting the terms is unenforceable), but they didn't put that in, and that wasn't the claim under challenge. I'm aware that it's possible for unenforceable EULAs to exist, and that there have certainly been some, but this was about Apple's terms that you were *not* free to modify and resell OS X on non-Apple machines. They are perfectly entitled to release the code under those terms, since it doesn't conflict with other vendor or consumer rights. Psystar wanted to ignore that part of the licence and sell it anyway.
That clause is directly comparable to similar clauses in the GPL that work in reverse - that the code must not be distributed in a product unless the source and changes are provided.
Like I said before, you may not like Apple's licence (or any proprietary licence) - and you did start this whole discussion by emphasising that one of them enforces freedom while the other allegedly removes it - but the terms under challenge were not unreasonable. Apple is perfectly within its rights to impose such restrictions on the software they release, and the ability to break those terms at will *does* directly affect other software licences that set similar themed (if opposite in effect in the case of the GPL) terms - namely what the original author of the code wants to do with it.
IANAL
I can see that.
Again, this is not about things for sale, it is about things that you have licensed - OS X being one of them, and GPL code (by analogy) being another.
The point is the protection/limitations the licences offer *for all parties* - Apple is free to set the terms of its licence, as is anyone writing code that they choose to release as GPL. This also has a bearing on the parties that use things covered under those licences, but they are not the only parties that have to be considered.
If you (or anyone else) don't like the proprietary licence that a piece of software is covered by then you are free not to use it. You are *not* free to do anything you want with it though, just because it is restrictive. For example, Psystar cannot modify OS X and ship it with their computers. You don't have a "freedom that Apple removed" by having restrictive terms in the licence agreement since that presupposes your right to the software in the first place - it's Apple's (or any other entity that releases its code/software/etc) on what terms it is available. If the terms do not agree with you (or anyone) then simply do not use it. The same is true of the GPL but from the opposite direction - it emphasises freedom of the code, but it imposes restrictions on how you can use it. You can't simply roll it up into a closed binary and not release the changes to the source (assuming you release the software for use), for example. If that doesn't work for you (or anyone) you're free to not use GPL covered code - that's what the licence is there for.
It's not about whether the licences are diametrically opposed (clearly, they are pretty alien to each other), but rather the legal standing of the licence terms and how they affect each other. If Apple's licence is "legally ignorable" because it is restrictive then there is a precedent for saying the same thing about the GPL. It also contains restrictions (good ones) about what you can do with the code and what you must do if you use it.