Better analogy is if you left confidential info clearly visible and readable in your car, and someone came along and saw it through the window, then told a nearby reporter about it, etc.
This guy didn't steal AT&T, after all.
Unfortunately, the car's owner is politically connected and his prosecutor buddy brings charges against you to cover up the owner's embarrassing blunder.
I'm kind of curious how you got Microsoft Office to boot.
If Emacs can be derided as an operating system lacking a good editor, certainly Microsoft Office can be too...
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard.
on
The Empire In Decline?
·
· Score: 1
I'm glad that you brought up the Q4 earnings which contained the bombshell that Apple only managed to sell 14million ipads [a drop of 70%]
Source for the "drop of 70%" in iPad sales, please. That's a drop from 46.6 million. Apple has never sold 46.6 million iPads in a single quarter. Their 2011 Q4 iPad sales were 11.1 million units.
However, I am now confusing myself with questions as to who should have over-ride privileges, man or machine. I suppose some are already (and have been) capable of being over-ridden by remote systems.
Jury's still out on that. Airbus favours machine/computer over man, Boeing believes humans have the final say after providing pilots with necessary info. Both approaches have led to crashes and loss of life.
Libeling (even if accidentally) the wrong company, while commenting on the actual company accidentally libeling their own users. My irony meter just exploded.
Google is pretty good at keeping Play clean of malicious apps. If you stick to Play, like most people do, you will be fine. That is the only fair comparison with iOS.
No it is not.
Everyone makes a big deal about Android being more open than iOS, how it's not a walled garden, that you have the ability to install non-approved software. This openness and customizability is probably the #1 advantage people cite about Android over iOS, other than price and an ideological "it's not from Apple".
When comparing Android against iOS, you therefore MUST include software from outside Google's own walled garden, warts and all, otherwise stop using ability to install non-Google Play apps as an advantage because "most people don't use it". Anything else is Android fans trying to have their cake and eat it too.
That's Apple's theory. And if it is true then ubiquitous computing fails and we are in the world of a unique GUI for every type of device and people having to learn many many interfaces in exchange for each one being hardware tweaked.
The user interface for driving a car is very different from flying a plane, and even within the aviation world, some planes use a joystick while others use a yoke.
There's no ubiquitous interface in the real (physical) world, why should there one be for software interfaces to different types of physical devices?
Apple needs to get their butt in gear and release updates with minor new features faster. Waiting a whole year between iOS updates isn't cutting it anymore, and taking longer to "get things right" is a poor excuse for the minor features I'm thinking about (in iOS6, this would include the addition of Do Not Disturb, decline call options, mail formatting, Safari full-screen...).
Apple is still selling metric craploads of iPhones and iPads, but they're losing mindshare just on the feature front, never mind the legal front.
Sad to say, I agree with most of your points. I have an iPhone 4S, and there is nothing in the iPhone 5 that's compelling me to break contract and upgrade early. And iOS6 is a marginal update at best--a few new features I like, but no way should they be touted as major reasons to upgrade.
Not sure if you were trying to contradict the premise of your title quote, but your link 100% supports the assertion that no one expects ads in paid software, as users tanked the app's approval rating overnight.
Atheists don't believe in evil. Evil is subjective.
Good = God minus an O Evil = Devil minus a D
Are you also saying atheists don't believe in good?
I don't need a god to teach me morality. I had no such explicit instruction growing up, and yet by actions (and inactions) alone I'm confident in saying I'm far more moral and ethical than the majority of those claiming they're guided by religious morality.
Let's see, what do most users do with computers? Browse the web, read and reply to email, shop, manage photos and maybe videos if they've got kids, and maybe do some light office and bookkeeping work.
Okay, tell me how the iPad isn't enough for that.
Yes, it's a controlled and curated experience. But Apple has sold more of those controlled, curated, locked down experiences in just the last 4 years than they have ever sold in Macintosh computers. Don't forget that you are not the market Apple is aiming for. You're the market that WISHES Apple was aiming for it, because if they were, then we'd see some pretty astounding products on the shelf. Instead, we get products priced to move by the tens of millions to the people who don't know RAM from storage space. And they are _selling_.
Then Apple should add freaking USB and other ports to handle keyboard, mouse other devices to an iPad (or larger-screened variant) and be done with it. We don't need an iPad with iOS masquerading as an actual iMac, which is the direction Apple seems to be heading in (entry-level iMac RAM can't be upgraded by user anymore).
Don't try "merging" mobile hardware and software onto desktop/laptop space. We already slam Microsoft for doing that with Windows 8 (and before that, going the other way with tablet editions of Windows XP and Vista).
I don't care that much about virtualizing or boot-camping Windows, I *do* care that the vast wealth of x86 *nix code and software won't work on ARM-based Macs without a ton of effort (even if there's system emulation, legacy support would eventually be dropped, just like Lion killed Rosetta). Screw Windows support, for me the best thing to happen after Macs went from PPC to Intel was that the latest mplayer and VLC updates made it to the Mac in days, maybe weeks, not months (if ever).
Right now they have monopoly on tablets (monopoly is legally defined as more than 50% market share in a particular market). But I really hope it will change soon.
Legally a monopoly? Not even close.
"In a monopoly, one or more persons or companies totally dominates an economic market. Monopolies may exist in a particular industry if a company controls a major natural resource, produces (even at a reasonable price) all of the output of a product or service because of technological superiority (called a natural monopoly), holds a patent on a product or process of production, or is otherwise granted government permission to be the sole producer of a product or service in a given area."
A simple 50%+1 majority is not a monopoly.
Incidentally, iPad market share has reportedly slipped to 50% as of a few days ago, which makes monopoly claims even more ludicrous.
Now, whether they qualify for *antitrust* actions is an entirely different story. They may have been borderline antitrust behaviour, but this clearly has not prevented natural competition from reducing Apple's market share in any category they once dominated in, even after Apple's court victories.
A beefy legal department didn't prevent the DOJ from spanking Microsoft. It took a change in government to do that.
An article earlier this year noted that Apple has virtually no presence (e.g. lobbyists) in Washington. Some government bureaucrats were quoted saying this will probably hurt them.
I updated to iOS6 a week after its release, knowing full well the new Maps wasn't as good in some areas as the previous Google-based Maps. I figured I'd rather be part of the solution and helping to improve/fix it, instead of just complaining about something I had no experience with.
iOS Maps (I won't call them Apple maps until they're at least available on the Mac) has problems, and differences Apple just plain didn't prepare us well for. IMHO there's too much emphasis on business results over official place/street names, with no option to set preference for which one you want more of. That's fine if you're using it strictly as a navigation and get-me-to-business-X aid, sucks if you're doing a little exploring. It can't find the actual Mount Everest for crying out loud, even when the view is over Asia.
However, having used it, it was NOT as bad as the internet echo chamber would have you believe. Non-techy friends are getting used to it, and the longer Google waits to even submit the app, the less people will miss it.
Not to say an official Google Maps app won't be downloaded millions of times if and when it's approved by Apple--the official Youtube app is the most downloaded free app last I checked. But despite the growing pains, I'm already used to the pros and cons of iOS Maps, and a Google Maps app will be relegated to a backup app (e.g. for Street View or walking/bike trails) unless Google throws in something really amazing. Having played a bit with maps on Android, there's nothing yet that qualifies.
I don't know how I feel about legal suicide myself. In theory, they aren't impinging on my rights simply by doing so, so it's not my business.
On the other hand, I don't condone it, and if it became subsidized by government money (at some point in the future), then I would then be forced to have an opinion on it because then I become responsible for paying for it.
Hopefully, someone does the smart thing and leaves the funding for the actual actions to a nice, private charity organization made up of people who agree with it.
Everyone in civilized society disagrees with how some of their tax dollars go toward things that they don't agree with.
Hypothetically, since you're not forced to have an opinion on this yet: If this practise were to become legal and then government subsidized, it's very possible that government involvement/subsidies in health care have also increased, including some coverage of long-term care.
Since we're talking strictly emotionless dollar figures, when totalling the costs for ending a life vs. extended duration care, surely it would be cheaper to subsidize the former?
This is of course disregards having a fully private funded private charity. Government would certainly be involved anyway, in regulating it, auditing it, ensuring person is of sound mind, etc. All that invariably costs taxpayers money, even if the government doesn't give a single cent to the charity itself. It also drives up the costs to the charity, making fully-private funding even harder.
One thing that irks me whenever I see the iPad's.. or even most Android keyboards, is that the row staggering is non-standard compared to physical keyboards.
How do you mean? In both the iPad keyboard pic above and my own iPhone with smaller area, the staggering seems roughly the same as my cheap desktop keyboard. Not exactly the same, but it's far better than the perfect row-column keyboards I see on Blackberry Torch touchscreens, and maybe others.
Even if CTRL is where the capslock key is, you're 1) still using the weakest finger (pinkie) instead of the strongest (thumb) to press it, and 2) you still need both hands to hit a shortcut if it's on the right-hand side.
IMHO the Mac's command key is exactly where a keyboard shortcut trigger/meta key should be: either side of the spacebar.
Try it with the traditional "Find" shortcut, cmd-F (simulate with alt-F on non-Mac, which usually pulls down a File menu) vs. Ctrl-F. With Ctrl-F, I can't get my hand into any position that's comfortable, the least worst is to knuckle down the Ctrl key. With Cmd/Alt-F you can easily reach over the thumb that's pressing the meta key, can even reach the G key (sometimes used for "Find next").
I have a Thinkpad. I have a Macbook. Before the Macbook I'd had several years of experience on laptops with traditional laptop keyboards, and never liked them.
I can type far better (speed, accuracy) on my Macbook keyboard than the Thinkpad one. I attribute that to the sloped sides of the Thinkpad make it easier for a slightly-off keystroke to hit the wrong key. I don't have this problem on normal-sized desktop keyboards because keys need to travel more before being recognized.
My external keyboard is also chiclet, by choice. So yes, they are in fact useful for typing, not merely "kewl". Anecdote, not evidence, yadda yadda.
Poignant as the words are, recently (last 10 years or so?) someone scored them to music for Remembrance Day ceremonies. Let me tell you, listening to these words from the dead, sung by school-age children, is one of the most powerful and haunting things you can hear.
The article notes that it's partly due to "simple economics of building a halo product for a small niche of early adopters" and that it's an "extremely costly undertaking with sharply limited potential markets".
This reads almost exactly like an Apple fan's response to why last year's iPhone 4S didn't have LTE (other reasons/excuses being that LTE tech at the time wasn't miniature or energy efficient enough).
I wonder how many Android users who slagged last year's iPhone 4S for not having LTE, are now using "free and open at all costs" as the justification for not having LTE on Google's own flagship, carrier-unencumbered devices.
Yes, there's a number of Android phones with LTE--but they're tied to the carrier. Google and Android purists apparently want to break that shackle, which greatly limits available choices.
Sounds like a little thing, an excuse almost, but this is 100% consistent with Apple's history of not prominently putting any other brand on their devices.
Intel Inside? ATI/nVidia graphics? No stickers on the machine. IIRC Intel pays or discounts their chips a piddly amount if the computer manufacturer includes this sticker. Obviously with the Mac's margins Apple can eat that cost.
Carrier branding (and their crapware, crippled functionality, etc) on iPhones? None. Every cell phone I saw pre-iPhone had carrier branding on the handset itself, and most had carrier-customized firmware.
There's the barest branding for TomTom in the new Maps app, and you have to curl up the page to see it.
And concessions for carriers at the end of Apple's TV and print ads. This could end up biting them in the ass though--when carriers make their own ads, they never show an iPhone because Apple won't let it be shown with any competitor. But, this means potential buyers might not know that particular carrier (perhaps a subsidiary of a larger one) offers the iPhone, and plans around it before hitting the store.
Slashdot Mirror
Better analogy is if you left confidential info clearly visible and readable in your car, and someone came along and saw it through the window, then told a nearby reporter about it, etc.
This guy didn't steal AT&T, after all.
Unfortunately, the car's owner is politically connected and his prosecutor buddy brings charges against you to cover up the owner's embarrassing blunder.
I'm kind of curious how you got Microsoft Office to boot.
If Emacs can be derided as an operating system lacking a good editor, certainly Microsoft Office can be too...
I'm glad that you brought up the Q4 earnings which contained the bombshell that Apple only managed to sell 14million ipads [a drop of 70%]
Source for the "drop of 70%" in iPad sales, please. That's a drop from 46.6 million. Apple has never sold 46.6 million iPads in a single quarter. Their 2011 Q4 iPad sales were 11.1 million units.
My source: http://barefigur.es/
However, I am now confusing myself with questions as to who should have over-ride privileges, man or machine. I suppose some are already (and have been) capable of being over-ridden by remote systems.
Jury's still out on that. Airbus favours machine/computer over man, Boeing believes humans have the final say after providing pilots with necessary info. Both approaches have led to crashes and loss of life.
Libeling (even if accidentally) the wrong company, while commenting on the actual company accidentally libeling their own users. My irony meter just exploded.
Google is pretty good at keeping Play clean of malicious apps. If you stick to Play, like most people do, you will be fine. That is the only fair comparison with iOS.
No it is not.
Everyone makes a big deal about Android being more open than iOS, how it's not a walled garden, that you have the ability to install non-approved software. This openness and customizability is probably the #1 advantage people cite about Android over iOS, other than price and an ideological "it's not from Apple".
When comparing Android against iOS, you therefore MUST include software from outside Google's own walled garden, warts and all, otherwise stop using ability to install non-Google Play apps as an advantage because "most people don't use it". Anything else is Android fans trying to have their cake and eat it too.
That's Apple's theory. And if it is true then ubiquitous computing fails and we are in the world of a unique GUI for every type of device and people having to learn many many interfaces in exchange for each one being hardware tweaked.
The user interface for driving a car is very different from flying a plane, and even within the aviation world, some planes use a joystick while others use a yoke.
There's no ubiquitous interface in the real (physical) world, why should there one be for software interfaces to different types of physical devices?
Apple needs to get their butt in gear and release updates with minor new features faster. Waiting a whole year between iOS updates isn't cutting it anymore, and taking longer to "get things right" is a poor excuse for the minor features I'm thinking about (in iOS6, this would include the addition of Do Not Disturb, decline call options, mail formatting, Safari full-screen...).
Apple is still selling metric craploads of iPhones and iPads, but they're losing mindshare just on the feature front, never mind the legal front.
Sad to say, I agree with most of your points. I have an iPhone 4S, and there is nothing in the iPhone 5 that's compelling me to break contract and upgrade early. And iOS6 is a marginal update at best--a few new features I like, but no way should they be touted as major reasons to upgrade.
Not sure if you were trying to contradict the premise of your title quote, but your link 100% supports the assertion that no one expects ads in paid software, as users tanked the app's approval rating overnight.
Apple may be engaged in anti-competitive practices, but they are NOT a monopoly in the phone or tablet space by any legal or lay definition.
Apple has never been above 50% in smartphone sales (where Symbian is usually counted), and they've just dropped to around 50% in tablets.
Eh actually sorry, Samsung denied reports it decided to stop selling LCDs to Apple.
Atheists don't believe in evil. Evil is subjective.
Good = God minus an O
Evil = Devil minus a D
Are you also saying atheists don't believe in good?
I don't need a god to teach me morality. I had no such explicit instruction growing up, and yet by actions (and inactions) alone I'm confident in saying I'm far more moral and ethical than the majority of those claiming they're guided by religious morality.
Let's see, what do most users do with computers? Browse the web, read and reply to email, shop, manage photos and maybe videos if they've got kids, and maybe do some light office and bookkeeping work.
Okay, tell me how the iPad isn't enough for that.
Yes, it's a controlled and curated experience. But Apple has sold more of those controlled, curated, locked down experiences in just the last 4 years than they have ever sold in Macintosh computers. Don't forget that you are not the market Apple is aiming for. You're the market that WISHES Apple was aiming for it, because if they were, then we'd see some pretty astounding products on the shelf. Instead, we get products priced to move by the tens of millions to the people who don't know RAM from storage space. And they are _selling_.
Then Apple should add freaking USB and other ports to handle keyboard, mouse other devices to an iPad (or larger-screened variant) and be done with it. We don't need an iPad with iOS masquerading as an actual iMac, which is the direction Apple seems to be heading in (entry-level iMac RAM can't be upgraded by user anymore).
Don't try "merging" mobile hardware and software onto desktop/laptop space. We already slam Microsoft for doing that with Windows 8 (and before that, going the other way with tablet editions of Windows XP and Vista).
I don't care that much about virtualizing or boot-camping Windows, I *do* care that the vast wealth of x86 *nix code and software won't work on ARM-based Macs without a ton of effort (even if there's system emulation, legacy support would eventually be dropped, just like Lion killed Rosetta). Screw Windows support, for me the best thing to happen after Macs went from PPC to Intel was that the latest mplayer and VLC updates made it to the Mac in days, maybe weeks, not months (if ever).
Right now they have monopoly on tablets (monopoly is legally defined as more than 50% market share in a particular market).
But I really hope it will change soon.
Legally a monopoly? Not even close.
"In a monopoly, one or more persons or companies totally dominates an economic market. Monopolies may exist in a particular industry if a company controls a major natural resource, produces (even at a reasonable price) all of the output of a product or service because of technological superiority (called a natural monopoly), holds a patent on a product or process of production, or is otherwise granted government permission to be the sole producer of a product or service in a given area."
A simple 50%+1 majority is not a monopoly.
Incidentally, iPad market share has reportedly slipped to 50% as of a few days ago, which makes monopoly claims even more ludicrous.
Now, whether they qualify for *antitrust* actions is an entirely different story. They may have been borderline antitrust behaviour, but this clearly has not prevented natural competition from reducing Apple's market share in any category they once dominated in, even after Apple's court victories.
A beefy legal department didn't prevent the DOJ from spanking Microsoft. It took a change in government to do that.
An article earlier this year noted that Apple has virtually no presence (e.g. lobbyists) in Washington. Some government bureaucrats were quoted saying this will probably hurt them.
*Supposed* to be still applies. No carrier logos or carrier bloatware that may detract from user experience, nor Intel/nvidia stickers like GP said.
There may be the odd exception, but that's what they are--exceptions.
I updated to iOS6 a week after its release, knowing full well the new Maps wasn't as good in some areas as the previous Google-based Maps. I figured I'd rather be part of the solution and helping to improve/fix it, instead of just complaining about something I had no experience with.
iOS Maps (I won't call them Apple maps until they're at least available on the Mac) has problems, and differences Apple just plain didn't prepare us well for. IMHO there's too much emphasis on business results over official place/street names, with no option to set preference for which one you want more of. That's fine if you're using it strictly as a navigation and get-me-to-business-X aid, sucks if you're doing a little exploring. It can't find the actual Mount Everest for crying out loud, even when the view is over Asia.
However, having used it, it was NOT as bad as the internet echo chamber would have you believe. Non-techy friends are getting used to it, and the longer Google waits to even submit the app, the less people will miss it.
Not to say an official Google Maps app won't be downloaded millions of times if and when it's approved by Apple--the official Youtube app is the most downloaded free app last I checked. But despite the growing pains, I'm already used to the pros and cons of iOS Maps, and a Google Maps app will be relegated to a backup app (e.g. for Street View or walking/bike trails) unless Google throws in something really amazing. Having played a bit with maps on Android, there's nothing yet that qualifies.
I don't know how I feel about legal suicide myself. In theory, they aren't impinging on my rights simply by doing so, so it's not my business.
On the other hand, I don't condone it, and if it became subsidized by government money (at some point in the future), then I would then be forced to have an opinion on it because then I become responsible for paying for it.
Hopefully, someone does the smart thing and leaves the funding for the actual actions to a nice, private charity organization made up of people who agree with it.
Everyone in civilized society disagrees with how some of their tax dollars go toward things that they don't agree with.
Hypothetically, since you're not forced to have an opinion on this yet:
If this practise were to become legal and then government subsidized, it's very possible that government involvement/subsidies in health care have also increased, including some coverage of long-term care.
Since we're talking strictly emotionless dollar figures, when totalling the costs for ending a life vs. extended duration care, surely it would be cheaper to subsidize the former?
This is of course disregards having a fully private funded private charity. Government would certainly be involved anyway, in regulating it, auditing it, ensuring person is of sound mind, etc. All that invariably costs taxpayers money, even if the government doesn't give a single cent to the charity itself. It also drives up the costs to the charity, making fully-private funding even harder.
One thing that irks me whenever I see the iPad's .. or even most Android keyboards, is that the row staggering is non-standard compared to physical keyboards.
How do you mean? In both the iPad keyboard pic above and my own iPhone with smaller area, the staggering seems roughly the same as my cheap desktop keyboard. Not exactly the same, but it's far better than the perfect row-column keyboards I see on Blackberry Torch touchscreens, and maybe others.
Even if CTRL is where the capslock key is, you're 1) still using the weakest finger (pinkie) instead of the strongest (thumb) to press it, and 2) you still need both hands to hit a shortcut if it's on the right-hand side.
IMHO the Mac's command key is exactly where a keyboard shortcut trigger/meta key should be: either side of the spacebar.
Try it with the traditional "Find" shortcut, cmd-F (simulate with alt-F on non-Mac, which usually pulls down a File menu) vs. Ctrl-F. With Ctrl-F, I can't get my hand into any position that's comfortable, the least worst is to knuckle down the Ctrl key. With Cmd/Alt-F you can easily reach over the thumb that's pressing the meta key, can even reach the G key (sometimes used for "Find next").
I have a Thinkpad. I have a Macbook. Before the Macbook I'd had several years of experience on laptops with traditional laptop keyboards, and never liked them.
I can type far better (speed, accuracy) on my Macbook keyboard than the Thinkpad one. I attribute that to the sloped sides of the Thinkpad make it easier for a slightly-off keystroke to hit the wrong key. I don't have this problem on normal-sized desktop keyboards because keys need to travel more before being recognized.
My external keyboard is also chiclet, by choice. So yes, they are in fact useful for typing, not merely "kewl". Anecdote, not evidence, yadda yadda.
Poignant as the words are, recently (last 10 years or so?) someone scored them to music for Remembrance Day ceremonies. Let me tell you, listening to these words from the dead, sung by school-age children, is one of the most powerful and haunting things you can hear.
So, I'm disappointed that the new Nexus doesn't have LTE, but there is some sense in it (see the linked below for a good explanation) and I believe that the Nexus is once again worth recommending to friends.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569688/why-nexus-4-does-not-have-4g-lte
The article notes that it's partly due to "simple economics of building a halo product for a small niche of early adopters" and that it's an "extremely costly undertaking with sharply limited potential markets".
This reads almost exactly like an Apple fan's response to why last year's iPhone 4S didn't have LTE (other reasons/excuses being that LTE tech at the time wasn't miniature or energy efficient enough).
I wonder how many Android users who slagged last year's iPhone 4S for not having LTE, are now using "free and open at all costs" as the justification for not having LTE on Google's own flagship, carrier-unencumbered devices.
Yes, there's a number of Android phones with LTE--but they're tied to the carrier. Google and Android purists apparently want to break that shackle, which greatly limits available choices.
Sounds like a little thing, an excuse almost, but this is 100% consistent with Apple's history of not prominently putting any other brand on their devices.
Intel Inside? ATI/nVidia graphics? No stickers on the machine. IIRC Intel pays or discounts their chips a piddly amount if the computer manufacturer includes this sticker. Obviously with the Mac's margins Apple can eat that cost.
Carrier branding (and their crapware, crippled functionality, etc) on iPhones? None. Every cell phone I saw pre-iPhone had carrier branding on the handset itself, and most had carrier-customized firmware.
There's the barest branding for TomTom in the new Maps app, and you have to curl up the page to see it.
And concessions for carriers at the end of Apple's TV and print ads. This could end up biting them in the ass though--when carriers make their own ads, they never show an iPhone because Apple won't let it be shown with any competitor. But, this means potential buyers might not know that particular carrier (perhaps a subsidiary of a larger one) offers the iPhone, and plans around it before hitting the store.