Given that flash it *woeful* on handhelds, and is no longer being actively developed, I'd say "it compares very well, and will continue to improve".
You're just looking for edge cases now, but having a backlog of material in a format based on a single company's closed system/format (I know the swf format itself is documented, but flash itself is Adobe's only) is one of the risks you take - just like keeping all of your documents in.Doc format, or your music in ATRAC and then going "hey, Sony if you discontinue your app I'm going to be boned!)
In that case either convert them to H.264 and "take the hit" on those with "likely capped" bandwidth, or look for a converter since if it's such a big problem someone is surely addressing that need.
The sooner flash goes away the better. The legacy stuff hanging on just adds some unfortunate bumps to the road, like the conversion to 240V 13 amp sockets in the UK. Sometimes you just have to throw out that 30 year old hoover and buy a new one, unless you want to chop off the plug and fit a new one.
This is exactly what slashdot does every time a similar story about Sony, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft comes up, right? Question whether it's a smear campaign by an "evil" competitor?
Certainly every time a story like that breaks there are people on slashdot calling out the journalists for "being dicks" for going to print before talking to the accused to clear up the obvious misunderstandings!
It's hilarious to watch the fanboys start to circle the wagons! (Isn't that what you're meant to say? It seems to be how you respond to fanboys in threads where their respective "do no wrong" companies are threatened).
DISCLAIMER: I'm undecided on the story - it might be nonsense, it might be genuine, and I'm not making any snap judgements about google being "evil" because of it.
Yes, ideally we should afford them more rope than we give Apple, Microsoft, Facebook or Sony in a similar situation.
We should verify the facts of a story because declaring an entire company "evil".;)
(although I'm being facetious and pointing out slashdot's usual "due diligence" when dealing with companies that are marked as "enemies", I'm not condoning that we all drop to that level)
That's precisely what I mean. You're just choosing to see it as "not using evil enough language to describe a homogeneous environment".
When I said "limiting the number of devices" I'm including the fact that they don't allow other vendors to make devices that use iOS, and they themselves only make a small variation.
I'm sorry I didn't go into extensive detail to drive the/. groupthink point home that Apple's choices are all evil, but it was just more wordy than saying "limited number of devices". I'm not trying to apologise for anything Apple does or chooses to do.I was simply drawing comparisons between the variation of devices on the two platforms.
No, they really didn't. Just because they had a choice of two weakly supported systems does not mean they were better off than they are now they have access to all Android has to offer, with much stronger developer support, wider manufacturer support, more third party apps and a larger consumer developer community.
You backed yourself into a corner trying to assert that Apple made things worse, but it really didn't. I'm sorry reality doesn't have an anti-Apple bias, but the current position Android is in really tells a different story to the one you're desperately trying to paint.
And I have also used both, there's barely any perceptible difference between the 4S (even the 4 actually) and the Galaxy S II.
Any "obvious" difference between them speaks more to the confirmation bias of the user than anything else - the iPhone 4/4S and the Galaxy S/SII are all exceptional phones.
Nonetheless, "fragmentation" is a marketing term being bandied about by Apple apologists.
That's a dangerous assertion to make, and smacks of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la la not listening".
Android has some absolutely stellar features and plus points but it also has downsides, and to just attempt to "shush" them by claiming it's just Apple apologists does nothing to help Android.
Fragmentation is a problem, and one created by one of the major benefits of Android - the wider selection of hardware that it will run on. iOS minimised the problem by limited the number of devices that developers need to target and test against, which gives you the benefit that apps in the store really only need a couple of branches: iPhone or iPad > Pick one of a few options regarding model. It has the downside of limited model selection compared to Android.
Don't get me wrong, I think Android is in the ascendency and everyone is the better for it (including iOS users), but ignoring constructive criticism is not a sensible way to go about things.
Your wife is also going to be disappointed with whatever tablet she gets if she wants to watch flash content, since Adobe pulled the plug on it.
And I have a few that went the other way - they had Android and decided they didn't like it and went to iPhone. One of them was a high-spec Android owner, the other had a crappy Android phone. One moved because he preferred iOS, the other (with the crappy handset) really doesn't like Apple but the device he had was beyond frustrating so he got a 4S.
I asked him why he didn't go for a Galaxy S II or similar and he said he was just fed up with how bad the experience was.
I also know people who bought Galaxy S's (esses?!) and love them.
I don't think it's necessary to be geeky to appreciate Android phones, but it certainly doesn't hurt given what I've seen while using them (and I've tried a whole gamut from really poor to really good).
Ok, I'll tell all the Android users that they were better off pre-iPhone.
I can see you're determined to make every conclusion "Apple is bad", to the point of claiming that Android today as a whole is worse than PalmOS and Windows Mobile back before the iPhone was announced. How you can even say that with a straight face is beyond me.
You heard it here first, folks, PalmOS and Windows Mobile circa 2007 are better than Android circa 2011/2012.
You're going to have a hard time arguing that open computing, especially on mobile devices, has taken a step backwards purely because there used to be two barely used (by the standards of 2011 Android) players and now there's "just" Android, but sure, if it means you can use it to support your argument that "Apple has diminished choice" then go for it.
Personally, I think that consumers have excellent choices in smartphones right now.
Now you're just digging. You can get Android handsets that come unlocked to start with. No need to root them.
How has this turned around with the supposed "Apple fanboy" who thinks "Apple is near perfect" pointing out the benefits and options available in Android handsets, because you're trying to downplay the strengths in a continued, losing argument designed to make Apple look bad?
Android offers a huge wealth of open handsets and options, far in excess of what was available before the iPhone (the supposed catalyst for the decline of open and free options in the market). I'm sorry PalmOS went the way of the dodo, but they dug their own graves.
You were asserting that the iPhone and the increase in curated computing in general has hurt the open computing movement, and those wanting to "run anything, do anything, compile anything", but the evidence simply doesn't back up your assertion - open computing is doing better than ever, especially for those wanting an open mobile platform. This is not even *despite* Apple, it is in part *because* of their iOS ecosystem really pushing smartphones to the forefront of technology, creating a huge splash and a reorganising of the market - a market in which Android has absolutely thrived, and will continue to do so.
Right, and after the iPhone there were Android smartphones.
You can compile and run anything you want on them, assuming you pick up one with an unlocked bootloader (vendor may vary).
Palm's and Win Mobile's exit from the market was not driven exclusively by the iPhone, although it was certainly related. Either way, the vast number of Android handsets out there fill that "open, run anything, do anything" market for those who don't feel the iOS experience works for them. The presence of the iPhone has actually *increased* the availability of those open platforms - Android as a whole is in far better shape and with far more options and viability than PalmOS and Win Mobile combined as they existed pre-iPhone.
The market changes, but it's hardly *reducing* the number of open options available.
You're assuming that demand is static, while it's actually predicted to increase based on recorded numbers), and this also doesn't take freight services into account.
It also doesn't mean that upgrades won't be done on the current system because HS2 has been approved - we're not simply throwing it out, as it's designed to complement the current system. Longer platforms, more carriages, system upgrades are all ongoing.
So, where were those "open mobile devices" before the iPhone?
You are blaming the lack of open devices on the popularity of a single vendor's entry into the market.
If there's a market for open devices, vendors will sell them.
There's a lot of Chicken Little sky-is-falling talk about curated computing environments "creeping onto" the desktop while assuming they'll replace what is there currently and there's simply no evidence for that - for example, the presence of the App Store on OS X is a complement to what exists currently, with no evidence that the "freer" side is going away, just that there are now more options for the consumer. The presence of the App Store hasn't removed the non-App Store methods of software distribution, from open source repositories (which the App Store has been accused of copying), from website distribution, boxed software etc. There's nothing stopping someone from using OS X and never even opening the App Store.
All "curated computing" has done is opened up computers to people who would otherwise find them much more difficult to use. It doesn't mean that the complex, go anywhere, do anything current system has gone away - it just exists alongside.
Curated systems might not be for you - so simply don't use them, or use a mixed system. Android is a good example of just such a thing - a good mix of a managed environment and an unweeded garden where you are free to do what you like (via sideloading, unofficial markets etc).
If you think "open computing" is going to shrink down to a niche market then you're simply being alarmist and using that as a justification to rage against the widening of the computer market to include more people.
You've moved the goalposts again - you said that "DRM free music was irrelevant outside the US" because they [those outside the US] "could not buy DRM-free music anyway", and now you're admitting that they can, but that it requires iTunes. That's not the same argument (and essentially is admitting that your first statement is false, as I pointed out).
You also seem to forget that the music industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into selling music online in the first place (by Apple no less, beyond some highly limited attempts at subscription services), and that everyone predicted failure since the attitude was "why will people buy when they can just get it from filesharing sites for free?"
I didn't present a false dichotomy, I was using a device known as hyperbole - moving to the opposite end of the spectrum from curated computing. Again, you suggest the "inherent dangers and evil" of curated computing but fail to actually point any out. And again, why does it affect you? There is still wide choice in computing environments, and those will continue to exist. The fact that Apple has been able to sell user friendly computers to those who ordinarily wouldn't have bought computers before is not a bad thing (you're also mixing iOS and OS X as if they're the same thing, but whatever). I also never stated that iOS was open. I stated that it (and OS X) use open standards - the distinction is important. It means, for example, that if you want to leave the iOS ecosystem you can do so - you can take all your contacts and calendars and music and data with you (not movies from the store at present - those are still crippled with DRM). You can't take your apps with you, but that's not unique to Apple - you can't take your Windows apps to Mac or vice versa without some form of emulation/VM/etc unless you move to a platform-specific version, and with developers targeting iOS and Android, there's always the possibility of an easy move, just as there is in the reverse direction).
I also didn't say Apple can do "little" wrong (or that they were "near perfect" - my actual words, were "not perfect by any means" which is a long way from "near perfect" which are the words you are trying to put in my mouth - you're just inferring that I think they can do "little wrong" because I have positive things to say about them. Apple's long and recent history is littered with some pretty awful stuff, but it doesn't mean they have no positive aspects.
The fact that you seem to think my comments imply that I'm saying Apple is "near perfect" and can "do little wrong" when my actual quotes indicate otherwise goes a long way to the impression Apple haters have for people who are positive about Apple - you simply make up what it is we think and say and then demonise us for it as "rabid fanboys who think Apple is [near] perfect".
On the back of those comments from you, this statement:
[Apple] are objectively and fairly obviously the most evil company in computing today and you consider them near-perfect. That's a reality gap I can't bridge.
is just hilarious. I don't think the term "objective" is anywhere close. Again, just to make this absolutely crystal clear, I'll quote myself again: Apple are not perfect by any means. I'll also add that I'm not excusing any of the terrible things they have done, but "objectively and fairly obviously" the "most evil company in computing"... that's just amusingly wide of the mark. For a start, you claim to be analysing from an objective position and opened with a clearly false statement about non-US consumers not being able to buy DRM-free music, but that's just for starters. I'll also add right here as a a preemptive reply, I'm not entirely objective either but I'm not making sweeping claims about Apple here.
You clearly don;t understand the term Machiavellian, but we'll ignore that.
You also said:
Apple may have helped push DRM-free music, but that's basically irrelevant to everybody but US residents, who still can't buy DRM-free music anyways.
But I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that only US residents can buy DRM free music?
Openwashing is the term of someone just looking to hate. I'm not even going to address those points because they've been done to death hundreds of times. Apple's choice of standards and formats is well documented, and opposition to them is mainly ideological (for example, H.264 is an open standard, but this is apparently not good enough since it's not patent free, so even though it flies in the face of the "curated computing" Apple are being accused of - you can take your H.264 videos out of the ecosystem and onto non-Apple products etc), it's instead twisted into a "Apple deliberately chose it to make it impossible for free software to use H.264" or some nonsense.
At nearly every turn they've gone for open standards that make it easy to get in and out of the ecosystem - AAC, H.264,.mbox for email, open source calendar and address book server and formats, openly-documented XML formats for their office-like products (spreadsheets, documents, slideshows etc), open standards in networking (fully supporting NFS, SMB alongside their own AFP, but also integrating non-open-but-popular Exchange so that they can interoperate with Microsoft). They've put a lot of time and effort into open source projects that benefit them, but also the wider community at large - and not just projects where they're "forced" to contribute by the licence - as well as releasing projects that they have written as open source.
Seriously, if you're having trouble getting "out" of the curated computing system (that you demonise but without actually offering any reason for - bringing computing to a wider range of people is surely a good thing - not everyone can be a command line master), then you're simply not looking hard enough.
You also dodged my point about Android following Apple's lead in the redesign of smartphones by going off on a tangent about how physical keyboard phones are the better design, but I'll let that slide, and you totally missed my point on tablets, but deftly illustrate the wider tech mindset that existed before the iPad was released - namely "haha a tablet! who wants that! you can use a netbook! or a laptop! there are already devices that do what a tablet could do! no one will buy one!" *Apple releases iPad at half the price that analysts were predicting, sells 16 million of them as fast as they can make them in the most successful tech product launch ever*..... "just you wait for the cheaper, faster Android tablets! They're going to destroy the iPad..... Android tablets are the future!"
I'm not claiming they're perfect - you'll note I already pointed that out, but a Machiavellian empire? Far from it.
Just because they complain about it doesn't mean they won't continue to use it. For some situations it's just not possible to do anything else - you can't really take a car into Central London as part of your daily commute, for example.
For some people (event not including London commuters) using the train is still the better option, despite the high prices - doesn't mean they won't complain about it though. The stats show increasing rail use, so that's what the projections and plans are based on.
A good way to increase local capacity is to move the high speed trains off the current tracks onto a new, high speed track...
The current network is already quite crowded (in terms of trains, not people on trains), although some services are obviously more heavily used than others.
Right, so why did Android phones not look like that till after the iPhone, if it was so obvious and ubiquitous?
There's no escaping that Android shifted gears to match the iPhone after all that difficult "risk" was gone (since the iPhone took that risk - as was widely being laughed out of the room and predicted to be a giant flop by everyone until it actually started selling [much like the iPad actually]).
It's not necessarily a bad thing - switching to something the consumer wants is exactly how businesses and products thrive. It's just highly disingenuous to try to downplay Apple's role in moving the smartphone market into the mainstream with a different way of doing things. Note that this doesn't mean that they "invented the touch screen phone" or "were the first to make an mp3 player" as many Apple haters attempt to claim is the point of the argument, just that they spotted a niche and released a product that worked very well in that niche.
To those who hate on screen keyboards, I'm sure they're annoyed at that, but for everyone else, Apple changed the way people (as in, the public at large, not just the tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people using smartphones at the time) saw the smartphone.
Those behind Android quickly realised this and followed suit. Those at RIM did not see that, and look where they are now, after trying doggedly to stick to what was working before. Android's move to match what consumers wanted has paid off extremely well for the platform. Those who like Android seem loathe to acknowledge that Apple played a big role in that.
Your sig is especially hilarious, since without Apple, Android would still be on Blackberry-like devices and wouldn't be able to include things like Webkit. We'd all be stuck with DRM-locked music from online stores and people would laugh at you if you suggested a 10" touchscreen tablet as something the consumer would want to buy.
They're not perfect by any means, but they're far from the Machiavellian evil empire that people on slashdot who don;t seem to have anything other than a hate of Apple to define themselves seem to think they are.
Actually, Beeching's Axe (while brutal) probably saved the rail system. It was certainly *too* aggressive in its cuts, but the railways were in serious trouble at that point.
As pointed out by the AC, but I'll post while logged in, the £33bn is for the full network. It's approximately £15bn for the London-Birmingham route.
As is typical for private industry, they won't undertake such a project because they can't see past next quarter's balance statement, but something needed to be done - the increase in rail traffic is going to overtake the capacity of the current lines in the coming future (over 10 to 15 years) and alternative options such as lengthening platforms and running longer trains on the current lines simply wouldn't address the issue (especially with regard to freight).
While it's an expensive project (all major infrastructure projects are) it will be a net-postive result for the economy as a whole. It just requires a large up front investment.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that flash it *woeful* on handhelds, and is no longer being actively developed, I'd say "it compares very well, and will continue to improve".
You're just looking for edge cases now, but having a backlog of material in a format based on a single company's closed system/format (I know the swf format itself is documented, but flash itself is Adobe's only) is one of the risks you take - just like keeping all of your documents in .Doc format, or your music in ATRAC and then going "hey, Sony if you discontinue your app I'm going to be boned!)
In that case either convert them to H.264 and "take the hit" on those with "likely capped" bandwidth, or look for a converter since if it's such a big problem someone is surely addressing that need.
The sooner flash goes away the better. The legacy stuff hanging on just adds some unfortunate bumps to the road, like the conversion to 240V 13 amp sockets in the UK. Sometimes you just have to throw out that 30 year old hoover and buy a new one, unless you want to chop off the plug and fit a new one.
*champing at the bit.
Not trying to be a grammar Nazi, just pointing it out - a lot of people know the term aurally but just misspell it.
This is exactly what slashdot does every time a similar story about Sony, Facebook, Apple or Microsoft comes up, right? Question whether it's a smear campaign by an "evil" competitor?
Certainly every time a story like that breaks there are people on slashdot calling out the journalists for "being dicks" for going to print before talking to the accused to clear up the obvious misunderstandings!
It's hilarious to watch the fanboys start to circle the wagons! (Isn't that what you're meant to say? It seems to be how you respond to fanboys in threads where their respective "do no wrong" companies are threatened).
DISCLAIMER: I'm undecided on the story - it might be nonsense, it might be genuine, and I'm not making any snap judgements about google being "evil" because of it.
Yes, ideally we should afford them more rope than we give Apple, Microsoft, Facebook or Sony in a similar situation.
We should verify the facts of a story because declaring an entire company "evil". ;)
(although I'm being facetious and pointing out slashdot's usual "due diligence" when dealing with companies that are marked as "enemies", I'm not condoning that we all drop to that level)
HTML5?
The animation tools coming along nicely, although I'm sure people will berate me for suggesting it might be a viable replacement for Flash.
And for the content that is H.264 anyway, then the loss of the flash wrapper is no drawback.
That's precisely what I mean. You're just choosing to see it as "not using evil enough language to describe a homogeneous environment".
When I said "limiting the number of devices" I'm including the fact that they don't allow other vendors to make devices that use iOS, and they themselves only make a small variation.
I'm sorry I didn't go into extensive detail to drive the /. groupthink point home that Apple's choices are all evil, but it was just more wordy than saying "limited number of devices". I'm not trying to apologise for anything Apple does or chooses to do.I was simply drawing comparisons between the variation of devices on the two platforms.
Microsoft hasn't killed XP either, they've just stopped further development.
Yep, stick to that blind Apple hate, it clear you can't be convinced of reality.
I'll let you continue thinking that people had it better under PalmOS and Windows Mobile. *eyeroll*
No, they really didn't. Just because they had a choice of two weakly supported systems does not mean they were better off than they are now they have access to all Android has to offer, with much stronger developer support, wider manufacturer support, more third party apps and a larger consumer developer community.
You backed yourself into a corner trying to assert that Apple made things worse, but it really didn't. I'm sorry reality doesn't have an anti-Apple bias, but the current position Android is in really tells a different story to the one you're desperately trying to paint.
Something like $25 per year if you want iTunes Match.
If you have no connection you'll obviously have to fall back on whatever you have on internal storage.
I do think it would be nice if the iPhone had an micro SD card slot though.
And I have also used both, there's barely any perceptible difference between the 4S (even the 4 actually) and the Galaxy S II.
Any "obvious" difference between them speaks more to the confirmation bias of the user than anything else - the iPhone 4/4S and the Galaxy S/SII are all exceptional phones.
Nonetheless, "fragmentation" is a marketing term being bandied about by Apple apologists.
That's a dangerous assertion to make, and smacks of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la la not listening".
Android has some absolutely stellar features and plus points but it also has downsides, and to just attempt to "shush" them by claiming it's just Apple apologists does nothing to help Android.
Fragmentation is a problem, and one created by one of the major benefits of Android - the wider selection of hardware that it will run on. iOS minimised the problem by limited the number of devices that developers need to target and test against, which gives you the benefit that apps in the store really only need a couple of branches: iPhone or iPad > Pick one of a few options regarding model. It has the downside of limited model selection compared to Android.
Don't get me wrong, I think Android is in the ascendency and everyone is the better for it (including iOS users), but ignoring constructive criticism is not a sensible way to go about things.
Your wife is also going to be disappointed with whatever tablet she gets if she wants to watch flash content, since Adobe pulled the plug on it.
And I have a few that went the other way - they had Android and decided they didn't like it and went to iPhone. One of them was a high-spec Android owner, the other had a crappy Android phone. One moved because he preferred iOS, the other (with the crappy handset) really doesn't like Apple but the device he had was beyond frustrating so he got a 4S.
I asked him why he didn't go for a Galaxy S II or similar and he said he was just fed up with how bad the experience was.
I also know people who bought Galaxy S's (esses?!) and love them.
I don't think it's necessary to be geeky to appreciate Android phones, but it certainly doesn't hurt given what I've seen while using them (and I've tried a whole gamut from really poor to really good).
Ok, I'll tell all the Android users that they were better off pre-iPhone.
I can see you're determined to make every conclusion "Apple is bad", to the point of claiming that Android today as a whole is worse than PalmOS and Windows Mobile back before the iPhone was announced. How you can even say that with a straight face is beyond me.
You heard it here first, folks, PalmOS and Windows Mobile circa 2007 are better than Android circa 2011/2012.
You're going to have a hard time arguing that open computing, especially on mobile devices, has taken a step backwards purely because there used to be two barely used (by the standards of 2011 Android) players and now there's "just" Android, but sure, if it means you can use it to support your argument that "Apple has diminished choice" then go for it.
Personally, I think that consumers have excellent choices in smartphones right now.
Now you're just digging. You can get Android handsets that come unlocked to start with. No need to root them.
How has this turned around with the supposed "Apple fanboy" who thinks "Apple is near perfect" pointing out the benefits and options available in Android handsets, because you're trying to downplay the strengths in a continued, losing argument designed to make Apple look bad?
Android offers a huge wealth of open handsets and options, far in excess of what was available before the iPhone (the supposed catalyst for the decline of open and free options in the market). I'm sorry PalmOS went the way of the dodo, but they dug their own graves.
You were asserting that the iPhone and the increase in curated computing in general has hurt the open computing movement, and those wanting to "run anything, do anything, compile anything", but the evidence simply doesn't back up your assertion - open computing is doing better than ever, especially for those wanting an open mobile platform. This is not even *despite* Apple, it is in part *because* of their iOS ecosystem really pushing smartphones to the forefront of technology, creating a huge splash and a reorganising of the market - a market in which Android has absolutely thrived, and will continue to do so.
Right, and after the iPhone there were Android smartphones.
You can compile and run anything you want on them, assuming you pick up one with an unlocked bootloader (vendor may vary).
Palm's and Win Mobile's exit from the market was not driven exclusively by the iPhone, although it was certainly related. Either way, the vast number of Android handsets out there fill that "open, run anything, do anything" market for those who don't feel the iOS experience works for them. The presence of the iPhone has actually *increased* the availability of those open platforms - Android as a whole is in far better shape and with far more options and viability than PalmOS and Win Mobile combined as they existed pre-iPhone.
The market changes, but it's hardly *reducing* the number of open options available.
You're assuming that demand is static, while it's actually predicted to increase based on recorded numbers), and this also doesn't take freight services into account.
It also doesn't mean that upgrades won't be done on the current system because HS2 has been approved - we're not simply throwing it out, as it's designed to complement the current system. Longer platforms, more carriages, system upgrades are all ongoing.
So, where were those "open mobile devices" before the iPhone?
You are blaming the lack of open devices on the popularity of a single vendor's entry into the market.
If there's a market for open devices, vendors will sell them.
There's a lot of Chicken Little sky-is-falling talk about curated computing environments "creeping onto" the desktop while assuming they'll replace what is there currently and there's simply no evidence for that - for example, the presence of the App Store on OS X is a complement to what exists currently, with no evidence that the "freer" side is going away, just that there are now more options for the consumer. The presence of the App Store hasn't removed the non-App Store methods of software distribution, from open source repositories (which the App Store has been accused of copying), from website distribution, boxed software etc. There's nothing stopping someone from using OS X and never even opening the App Store.
All "curated computing" has done is opened up computers to people who would otherwise find them much more difficult to use. It doesn't mean that the complex, go anywhere, do anything current system has gone away - it just exists alongside.
Curated systems might not be for you - so simply don't use them, or use a mixed system. Android is a good example of just such a thing - a good mix of a managed environment and an unweeded garden where you are free to do what you like (via sideloading, unofficial markets etc).
If you think "open computing" is going to shrink down to a niche market then you're simply being alarmist and using that as a justification to rage against the widening of the computer market to include more people.
You've moved the goalposts again - you said that "DRM free music was irrelevant outside the US" because they [those outside the US] "could not buy DRM-free music anyway", and now you're admitting that they can, but that it requires iTunes. That's not the same argument (and essentially is admitting that your first statement is false, as I pointed out).
You also seem to forget that the music industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into selling music online in the first place (by Apple no less, beyond some highly limited attempts at subscription services), and that everyone predicted failure since the attitude was "why will people buy when they can just get it from filesharing sites for free?"
I didn't present a false dichotomy, I was using a device known as hyperbole - moving to the opposite end of the spectrum from curated computing. Again, you suggest the "inherent dangers and evil" of curated computing but fail to actually point any out. And again, why does it affect you? There is still wide choice in computing environments, and those will continue to exist. The fact that Apple has been able to sell user friendly computers to those who ordinarily wouldn't have bought computers before is not a bad thing (you're also mixing iOS and OS X as if they're the same thing, but whatever). I also never stated that iOS was open. I stated that it (and OS X) use open standards - the distinction is important. It means, for example, that if you want to leave the iOS ecosystem you can do so - you can take all your contacts and calendars and music and data with you (not movies from the store at present - those are still crippled with DRM). You can't take your apps with you, but that's not unique to Apple - you can't take your Windows apps to Mac or vice versa without some form of emulation/VM/etc unless you move to a platform-specific version, and with developers targeting iOS and Android, there's always the possibility of an easy move, just as there is in the reverse direction).
I also didn't say Apple can do "little" wrong (or that they were "near perfect" - my actual words, were "not perfect by any means" which is a long way from "near perfect" which are the words you are trying to put in my mouth - you're just inferring that I think they can do "little wrong" because I have positive things to say about them. Apple's long and recent history is littered with some pretty awful stuff, but it doesn't mean they have no positive aspects.
The fact that you seem to think my comments imply that I'm saying Apple is "near perfect" and can "do little wrong" when my actual quotes indicate otherwise goes a long way to the impression Apple haters have for people who are positive about Apple - you simply make up what it is we think and say and then demonise us for it as "rabid fanboys who think Apple is [near] perfect".
On the back of those comments from you, this statement:
[Apple] are objectively and fairly obviously the most evil company in computing today and you consider them near-perfect. That's a reality gap I can't bridge.
is just hilarious. I don't think the term "objective" is anywhere close. Again, just to make this absolutely crystal clear, I'll quote myself again: Apple are not perfect by any means. I'll also add that I'm not excusing any of the terrible things they have done, but "objectively and fairly obviously" the "most evil company in computing"... that's just amusingly wide of the mark. For a start, you claim to be analysing from an objective position and opened with a clearly false statement about non-US consumers not being able to buy DRM-free music, but that's just for starters. I'll also add right here as a a preemptive reply, I'm not entirely objective either but I'm not making sweeping claims about Apple here.
You clearly don;t understand the term Machiavellian, but we'll ignore that.
You also said:
Apple may have helped push DRM-free music, but that's basically irrelevant to everybody but US residents, who still can't buy DRM-free music anyways.
But I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that only US residents can buy DRM free music?
Openwashing is the term of someone just looking to hate. I'm not even going to address those points because they've been done to death hundreds of times. Apple's choice of standards and formats is well documented, and opposition to them is mainly ideological (for example, H.264 is an open standard, but this is apparently not good enough since it's not patent free, so even though it flies in the face of the "curated computing" Apple are being accused of - you can take your H.264 videos out of the ecosystem and onto non-Apple products etc), it's instead twisted into a "Apple deliberately chose it to make it impossible for free software to use H.264" or some nonsense.
At nearly every turn they've gone for open standards that make it easy to get in and out of the ecosystem - AAC, H.264, .mbox for email, open source calendar and address book server and formats, openly-documented XML formats for their office-like products (spreadsheets, documents, slideshows etc), open standards in networking (fully supporting NFS, SMB alongside their own AFP, but also integrating non-open-but-popular Exchange so that they can interoperate with Microsoft). They've put a lot of time and effort into open source projects that benefit them, but also the wider community at large - and not just projects where they're "forced" to contribute by the licence - as well as releasing projects that they have written as open source.
Seriously, if you're having trouble getting "out" of the curated computing system (that you demonise but without actually offering any reason for - bringing computing to a wider range of people is surely a good thing - not everyone can be a command line master), then you're simply not looking hard enough.
You also dodged my point about Android following Apple's lead in the redesign of smartphones by going off on a tangent about how physical keyboard phones are the better design, but I'll let that slide, and you totally missed my point on tablets, but deftly illustrate the wider tech mindset that existed before the iPad was released - namely "haha a tablet! who wants that! you can use a netbook! or a laptop! there are already devices that do what a tablet could do! no one will buy one!" *Apple releases iPad at half the price that analysts were predicting, sells 16 million of them as fast as they can make them in the most successful tech product launch ever* ..... "just you wait for the cheaper, faster Android tablets! They're going to destroy the iPad..... Android tablets are the future!"
I'm not claiming they're perfect - you'll note I already pointed that out, but a Machiavellian empire? Far from it.
Just because they complain about it doesn't mean they won't continue to use it. For some situations it's just not possible to do anything else - you can't really take a car into Central London as part of your daily commute, for example.
For some people (event not including London commuters) using the train is still the better option, despite the high prices - doesn't mean they won't complain about it though. The stats show increasing rail use, so that's what the projections and plans are based on.
A good way to increase local capacity is to move the high speed trains off the current tracks onto a new, high speed track...
The current network is already quite crowded (in terms of trains, not people on trains), although some services are obviously more heavily used than others.
Right, so why did Android phones not look like that till after the iPhone, if it was so obvious and ubiquitous?
There's no escaping that Android shifted gears to match the iPhone after all that difficult "risk" was gone (since the iPhone took that risk - as was widely being laughed out of the room and predicted to be a giant flop by everyone until it actually started selling [much like the iPad actually]).
It's not necessarily a bad thing - switching to something the consumer wants is exactly how businesses and products thrive. It's just highly disingenuous to try to downplay Apple's role in moving the smartphone market into the mainstream with a different way of doing things. Note that this doesn't mean that they "invented the touch screen phone" or "were the first to make an mp3 player" as many Apple haters attempt to claim is the point of the argument, just that they spotted a niche and released a product that worked very well in that niche.
To those who hate on screen keyboards, I'm sure they're annoyed at that, but for everyone else, Apple changed the way people (as in, the public at large, not just the tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people using smartphones at the time) saw the smartphone.
Those behind Android quickly realised this and followed suit. Those at RIM did not see that, and look where they are now, after trying doggedly to stick to what was working before. Android's move to match what consumers wanted has paid off extremely well for the platform. Those who like Android seem loathe to acknowledge that Apple played a big role in that.
Your sig is especially hilarious, since without Apple, Android would still be on Blackberry-like devices and wouldn't be able to include things like Webkit. We'd all be stuck with DRM-locked music from online stores and people would laugh at you if you suggested a 10" touchscreen tablet as something the consumer would want to buy.
They're not perfect by any means, but they're far from the Machiavellian evil empire that people on slashdot who don;t seem to have anything other than a hate of Apple to define themselves seem to think they are.
Actually, Beeching's Axe (while brutal) probably saved the rail system. It was certainly *too* aggressive in its cuts, but the railways were in serious trouble at that point.
As pointed out by the AC, but I'll post while logged in, the £33bn is for the full network. It's approximately £15bn for the London-Birmingham route.
As is typical for private industry, they won't undertake such a project because they can't see past next quarter's balance statement, but something needed to be done - the increase in rail traffic is going to overtake the capacity of the current lines in the coming future (over 10 to 15 years) and alternative options such as lengthening platforms and running longer trains on the current lines simply wouldn't address the issue (especially with regard to freight).
While it's an expensive project (all major infrastructure projects are) it will be a net-postive result for the economy as a whole. It just requires a large up front investment.