No you don't the $20 is for software that will turn the iPod touch into a PDA. Including mail client etc, that should have been included from the start.
Since the iPod touch is an iPod, and not a PDA, and since those features were not there to begin with and everybody who bought one knew that if they bothered to to do any research first, isn't $20 a small price to pay to add those features if you want them? Are you forced to spend the $20? Did Apple claim those features were there to begin with and then charge people $20 to get them?
An interesting idea, but it ignores the fact that the iTunes Music Store arrived *after* the iPod was already a run-away success. Apple didn't need DRM then, and they don't need it now. It is my belief that Apple will drop DRM like a hot potato as soon as the labels let them.
Right, and the iTMS DRM helps to ensure the iPod remains a runaway success. I'm not saying they won't drop the DRM if they're offered the opportunity, they've already done so with music from EMI, but the fact of the matter is that the DRM does have some benefit to Apple in that it makes it harder to switch to a different portable music player if you've got a large collection of DRM'd music that you'd have burn to CD and re-rip.
Does anybody seriously believe that Apple wants to have DRM on iTunes ? Of course not - after all it was Steve Jobs who penned the open, anti-DRM letter in the first place.
I certainly do. Having DRM directly benefits Apple. You're locked into the iPod. If your iPod dies and you've bought a ton of music from the iTMS and you're faced burning it all to CD and re-riping it then, likely, having to import all of your music into some Media Library Management software that is compatible with a new MP3 player what are you more likely to do? Buy a new MP3 player and deal with all of that crap or buy a new iPod?
The New York Times has an international readership as well. Should it no longer publish American-centric articles? Again, Slashdot is an American site, the fact that it has an international readership shouldn't stop it from posting American-centric articles. If people don't like the American-centric articles, don't read them. I would never visit a UK tech site and then bitch in the comments that some articles are UK-centric.
Apple isnt being aggressive enough in adding features that the iphone lacks. Copycat phones are showing up, they're stealing a lot of ideas from Apple, and they are adding more functionality faster than Apple is. Granted these copycat ui's arent as elaborate or graphical, but they a made by the known players in the cell industry... and they can move very fast.
I'll second that. I'd like to see Copy & Paste, MMS, SMS to more than one person, the ability to take video with the camera, and even though it can be annoying, it would be nice to have Flash (with he ability to turn it off if necessary) in Mobile Safari for those sites that do require it. It seems to me that all of this could be added via a software update, but so far nothing (although I've heard rumors that firmware v1.1.3 will have both Copy & Paste and SMS to more than one person).
I've been following iPhone news since it's been released, specifically news about hacking it and running third party apps and it seems to me that Apple really rushed to get the iPhone out the door before they could get things in proper order "under the hood". It's clear they've spent most of their time since it's release cleaning up the iPhone OS, locking it down so third party apps not created with the official SDK can't run and now on the SDK itself.
Once the SDK has been released I expect to see all of the features I mentioned in the first paragraph (with the possible exception of recording video with the camera since that might be a hardware issue) within the next couple of months or I'll be pretty disappointed. Especially if these features appear in iPhone v2.0, but are never back-ported to the first edition.
Android is nothing more than a buzzword at this point. Wake me up when it's actually on the market and we'll compare it to the iPhone and see which is better.
A more positive way to view it is that Microsoft lost!:)
The most accurate way to to view it is that the consumer lost. Blue Ray is more expensive (although costs are sure to decline over time), region encoded and loaded with stronger DRM.
Not that it really matters much anyway. DVD will reign supreme for the foreseeable future as most consumers don't own a HDTV, and of those that do, they usually only have 1 HDTV in the house.
Convenience tends to drive a change in formats more than qualtiy improvements. Look at the convience improvements that caused consumers to move from tapes to CD's and from VHS to DVD. Yes, the quality was better, but for CD's it was the ability to instantly skip between tracks (and never having to worry about a player eating your tape or the tape degrading over time) that drove the move and on the DVD side it was much the same (never having to rewind a DVD, not worrying about a VCR eating the VHS and not worrying about the movie degrading over time) and all of the extras combined with the improved picture and surround sound that drove the move.
Blue Ray certainly improves the picture and sound quality, but I don't think those improvements alone will be enough to drive consumers to replace their DVD library in the way they replaced their tape library with CD's and replaced their VHS library with DVD's.
I think VOD, specifically HD VOD from cable and satellite companies is where the money will be. VOD offers something neither DVD or Blue Ray provides, and that is instant access to the content. No more driving somewhere to rent or buy a movie. For a small fee I can see it by picking up the remote and clicking a few buttons.
Microsoft has grown too big. They should refocus their resources on their core products: Windows, Office and their flagship server products (Exchange Server, SQL Server, etc) and stop trying to have a hand in everything else. Get the brightest minds in the company, have them focus on a (relatively) small number of products and get rid of the rest of the bloat and the next version of Windows and the rest of their core products might actually be something that people want to pay money for.
You're making a pretty big leap by assuming Google Apps is in fact a disruptive innovation. It isn't. Smart companies will not give up that kind of control to Google. If the Internet goes down, you can't work. If Google ever goes under, Enron or Worldcom style, you're permanently screwed. If Google decides to make a change to an application that you don't want, you're screwed. The list goes on and on. Google apps is a novelty that might work for some small businesses without an IT department.
I live 5 min from my video rental store. So unless the cost is a lot less, I doubt I would want to wait the longer time for a download.
Further, most people with digital cable or satellite have video on demand so sometimes renting a movie just takes a few clicks of the remote. I'll likely use this service when I travel for work. I can rent a couple of movies, load them on my iPhone and have something to watch at the airport and on the plane. I used to have to buy the movie when I wanted to do this, with these new rentals it'll become cheaper. Apple might be hurting themselves by doing this. I suspect I'm not the only own who buys movies from iTunes just to watch them once and will now choose to rent instead. Then again, if the price is right, I'll probably do it more often so they may get more out of me in the end. Time will tell.
Oh please. I laugh out loud whenever I hear this assertion. Please list all of the musicians and bands who've made it big without the assistance of one the studios at some point in their career. Compare that to the ones who did. That's what I thought.
Even with all of the technological breakthroughs, if you really want to make it big in the music industry you still need the studios to promote the hell out of you because there so many other companies and businesses out there today actively vying for your attention and entertainment dollars.
Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle. Be a fucking parent and watch what you're children do when they use the computer. I'm sick and fucking tired of all these things done "for the children". If parents did their jobs, most of these things wouldn't be issues in the first place.
If you want to get press credentials then you've got to follow the rules. I'm sure part of the process of applying for the credentials involves letting the NCAA know which site you write for and as such they could check to see how many times you post to that site if they want to.
Since this only applies to bloggers with press credentials, you can do whatever you damn well please if you just buy a ticket and sit in the stands like everybody else. Of course, good luck doing live blogging from the stands of a college football game when it's raining or snowing.
It's pretty simple really, Microsoft has grown to large to truly innovate in the way that leaner companies with less of an internal bureaucracy can. Changes to code have to go through so many levels of approval that it's maddening.
One only has to look at the length of time it took them to produce Vista to realize that.
It must be nice to be able to set the terms on which you'll work for the company. You must have a lot of leverage there. A lot of us are not so lucky.
Everybody has that ability. You interview for your job and the employer let's you know the requirements of the job. If you accept the job, you accept the requirements. If you don't like the requirements then you don't accept the job. If you're employer tries to change your job requirements after you've been hired you simply tell them that is not what you agreed to when you where hired. If you're willing to take on more responsibility then you should be properly compensated. If you're employer won't, then tell them you won't take on the additional responsibility and if they don't like it they are free to fire you. If you don't want to deal with the additional requirements at all, regardless of an increase in compensation, you're free to tell them the same thing.
They may decide to fire you. That's their prerogative. Collect unemployment while look for a better opportunity and move on.
So it's a gene that causes me to meet women who seem very nice and are attractive until they convince me to move in with them and then they gain 20 pounds and turn into a bitch? At least that means there's hope. I was starting to think that's what they all do.
Congress hasn't created anything. A bipartisan group of Congressman has proposed legislation in the House that hasn't even made it out of committee yet. In order for this to become law it would have to make it out of committee, be brought to the floor and passed by the entire House and then the Senate would have to pass a similar version, the bill would be submitted to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate version and then the President would have to sign the bill.
This thing is a long, long way away from becoming law. Congress hasn't done anything yet.
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Since the iPod touch is an iPod, and not a PDA, and since those features were not there to begin with and everybody who bought one knew that if they bothered to to do any research first, isn't $20 a small price to pay to add those features if you want them? Are you forced to spend the $20? Did Apple claim those features were there to begin with and then charge people $20 to get them?
Bobby Fisher was antisemitic. So a hate monger has died. So what?
Why you'd waste your money on either format until the format war is over and players for the winner are priced less than $150. What's the point?
Right, and the iTMS DRM helps to ensure the iPod remains a runaway success. I'm not saying they won't drop the DRM if they're offered the opportunity, they've already done so with music from EMI, but the fact of the matter is that the DRM does have some benefit to Apple in that it makes it harder to switch to a different portable music player if you've got a large collection of DRM'd music that you'd have burn to CD and re-rip.
I certainly do. Having DRM directly benefits Apple. You're locked into the iPod. If your iPod dies and you've bought a ton of music from the iTMS and you're faced burning it all to CD and re-riping it then, likely, having to import all of your music into some Media Library Management software that is compatible with a new MP3 player what are you more likely to do? Buy a new MP3 player and deal with all of that crap or buy a new iPod?
The New York Times has an international readership as well. Should it no longer publish American-centric articles? Again, Slashdot is an American site, the fact that it has an international readership shouldn't stop it from posting American-centric articles. If people don't like the American-centric articles, don't read them. I would never visit a UK tech site and then bitch in the comments that some articles are UK-centric.
I'll second that. I'd like to see Copy & Paste, MMS, SMS to more than one person, the ability to take video with the camera, and even though it can be annoying, it would be nice to have Flash (with he ability to turn it off if necessary) in Mobile Safari for those sites that do require it. It seems to me that all of this could be added via a software update, but so far nothing (although I've heard rumors that firmware v1.1.3 will have both Copy & Paste and SMS to more than one person).
I've been following iPhone news since it's been released, specifically news about hacking it and running third party apps and it seems to me that Apple really rushed to get the iPhone out the door before they could get things in proper order "under the hood". It's clear they've spent most of their time since it's release cleaning up the iPhone OS, locking it down so third party apps not created with the official SDK can't run and now on the SDK itself.
Once the SDK has been released I expect to see all of the features I mentioned in the first paragraph (with the possible exception of recording video with the camera since that might be a hardware issue) within the next couple of months or I'll be pretty disappointed. Especially if these features appear in iPhone v2.0, but are never back-ported to the first edition.
Android is nothing more than a buzzword at this point. Wake me up when it's actually on the market and we'll compare it to the iPhone and see which is better.
It's a very American centric article? No shit. Slashdot is an American site.
The most accurate way to to view it is that the consumer lost. Blue Ray is more expensive (although costs are sure to decline over time), region encoded and loaded with stronger DRM.
Not that it really matters much anyway. DVD will reign supreme for the foreseeable future as most consumers don't own a HDTV, and of those that do, they usually only have 1 HDTV in the house.
Convenience tends to drive a change in formats more than qualtiy improvements. Look at the convience improvements that caused consumers to move from tapes to CD's and from VHS to DVD. Yes, the quality was better, but for CD's it was the ability to instantly skip between tracks (and never having to worry about a player eating your tape or the tape degrading over time) that drove the move and on the DVD side it was much the same (never having to rewind a DVD, not worrying about a VCR eating the VHS and not worrying about the movie degrading over time) and all of the extras combined with the improved picture and surround sound that drove the move.
Blue Ray certainly improves the picture and sound quality, but I don't think those improvements alone will be enough to drive consumers to replace their DVD library in the way they replaced their tape library with CD's and replaced their VHS library with DVD's.
I think VOD, specifically HD VOD from cable and satellite companies is where the money will be. VOD offers something neither DVD or Blue Ray provides, and that is instant access to the content. No more driving somewhere to rent or buy a movie. For a small fee I can see it by picking up the remote and clicking a few buttons.
Microsoft has grown too big. They should refocus their resources on their core products: Windows, Office and their flagship server products (Exchange Server, SQL Server, etc) and stop trying to have a hand in everything else. Get the brightest minds in the company, have them focus on a (relatively) small number of products and get rid of the rest of the bloat and the next version of Windows and the rest of their core products might actually be something that people want to pay money for.
You're making a pretty big leap by assuming Google Apps is in fact a disruptive innovation. It isn't. Smart companies will not give up that kind of control to Google. If the Internet goes down, you can't work. If Google ever goes under, Enron or Worldcom style, you're permanently screwed. If Google decides to make a change to an application that you don't want, you're screwed. The list goes on and on. Google apps is a novelty that might work for some small businesses without an IT department.
I wish I had mod points for this.
Further, most people with digital cable or satellite have video on demand so sometimes renting a movie just takes a few clicks of the remote. I'll likely use this service when I travel for work. I can rent a couple of movies, load them on my iPhone and have something to watch at the airport and on the plane. I used to have to buy the movie when I wanted to do this, with these new rentals it'll become cheaper. Apple might be hurting themselves by doing this. I suspect I'm not the only own who buys movies from iTunes just to watch them once and will now choose to rent instead. Then again, if the price is right, I'll probably do it more often so they may get more out of me in the end. Time will tell.
Dupe .... and a late one at that.
There is little difference between this and a wanted poster in the post office or a segment in America's Most Wanted.
Oh please. I laugh out loud whenever I hear this assertion. Please list all of the musicians and bands who've made it big without the assistance of one the studios at some point in their career. Compare that to the ones who did. That's what I thought.
Even with all of the technological breakthroughs, if you really want to make it big in the music industry you still need the studios to promote the hell out of you because there so many other companies and businesses out there today actively vying for your attention and entertainment dollars.
Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle. Be a fucking parent and watch what you're children do when they use the computer. I'm sick and fucking tired of all these things done "for the children". If parents did their jobs, most of these things wouldn't be issues in the first place.
If you want to get press credentials then you've got to follow the rules. I'm sure part of the process of applying for the credentials involves letting the NCAA know which site you write for and as such they could check to see how many times you post to that site if they want to.
Since this only applies to bloggers with press credentials, you can do whatever you damn well please if you just buy a ticket and sit in the stands like everybody else. Of course, good luck doing live blogging from the stands of a college football game when it's raining or snowing.
It's pretty simple really, Microsoft has grown to large to truly innovate in the way that leaner companies with less of an internal bureaucracy can. Changes to code have to go through so many levels of approval that it's maddening.
One only has to look at the length of time it took them to produce Vista to realize that.
Everybody has that ability. You interview for your job and the employer let's you know the requirements of the job. If you accept the job, you accept the requirements. If you don't like the requirements then you don't accept the job. If you're employer tries to change your job requirements after you've been hired you simply tell them that is not what you agreed to when you where hired. If you're willing to take on more responsibility then you should be properly compensated. If you're employer won't, then tell them you won't take on the additional responsibility and if they don't like it they are free to fire you. If you don't want to deal with the additional requirements at all, regardless of an increase in compensation, you're free to tell them the same thing.
They may decide to fire you. That's their prerogative. Collect unemployment while look for a better opportunity and move on.
If Ubuntu "just works" why can't I copy and paste more than text reliably between applications from different sources?
So it's a gene that causes me to meet women who seem very nice and are attractive until they convince me to move in with them and then they gain 20 pounds and turn into a bitch? At least that means there's hope. I was starting to think that's what they all do.
Anybody who refers to Jimmy Wales as "Jimbo" Wales should be kicked in the balls.
Congress hasn't created anything. A bipartisan group of Congressman has proposed legislation in the House that hasn't even made it out of committee yet. In order for this to become law it would have to make it out of committee, be brought to the floor and passed by the entire House and then the Senate would have to pass a similar version, the bill would be submitted to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate version and then the President would have to sign the bill.
This thing is a long, long way away from becoming law. Congress hasn't done anything yet.