Ummm, ok, if this were true, why wouldn't they just raise the age of retirement instead of killing off our own population prematurely? I'm sorry, but your reasoning for why cigarettes will never be made illegal seems a bit out there.
What exactly has Apple done in the US, other than offering the most compelling service that customers seem to prefer over the competitors?
Exactly. Competitors in Europe had hoped to build up a userbase before Apple arrived. I'm certain Napster had expected more than a two week head start. Well, now that Apple has arrived, the competition starts to heat up. As I stated, it's good for all consumers involved no matter what service they use.
You seem to have gotten the impression that I was commenting against Apple. Just the other way around. Apple is forcing these competitors to compete through better products and services.
iTunes surprised a lot of people when they hinted one week ago that they would launch iTunes in Europe today. Well, it's not exactly Europe (just UK, Germany, France), but everyone is running scared right now trying to prevent Apple from doing in Europe what they have done in the US.
Competition is good for everyone, especially for the consumers. Let the music war begin.
White clashes with just about everything else I own.
Exactly. That was probably the point. When you see someone with white earphones, it's instant product recognition. Not to mention some extra free marketing. The same idea holds for iBooks and PowerBooks. Apple obviously wants to make sure that when someone uses an Apple product, anyone and everyone around that person knows it. And what was that old marketing slogan of theirs again?
Where do they even offer powerline ethernet? I wasn't aware that it had been deployed to more than one city so far (don't remember which city off the top of my head).
Am I the only one thinking that these things could get easily stolen or damaged because of how small they are and how much they resemble [a laptop power brick]?
Maybe that's the idea. A thief would be less inclinded to swipe this if he/she thought it was a power adapter. But these only look like the power bricks used by PowerBooks and iBooks. The ones used by PC notebooks are much more different in appearance, and this thing is PC compatible.
there have been WAY to many stories about MAC OS X and Apple...
I think it may be due to the fact that Apple's WWDC is coming up at the end of this month and that all these announcements/activities from Apple may be leading up to that event. To be honest, I'm quited excited to see what Apple will unveil then. I mean, if they're announcing all this stuff before the conference, one must truely wonder what they will have in store when the actual conference comes around.
Well, Java is their baby, so I can see why they would have it that way (lawyers and the hunt for loopholes, who's to say someone couldn't arbitrarily declare Java no longer supported and go off and do their own thing). But open sourcing Java (which I guess they're now saying won't happen) would have brought Java under a different license. Anyway, this discussion is now moot since there's no point in speculation, but thank you for responding anyway.
Can you be a little more specific. Or can you point me to some information on why their license is so bad? Is OOo under this license? I haven't heard many bad things on that.
Reading through this discussion, "McDonald's and Sony Offer Music Downloads," I find it interesting how about 90% of the comments are focusing on McDonalds with little or no discussion on Sony or their music service.
I doubt anybody really thinks to themselves "Hey, I've got a hankering for a good salad. Where's the nearest McDonald's?"
Or more like when they're in the mood for a salad, they look around and usually they will see on the road a McDonalds. And for people who have family and friends that decide to go eat a Big Mac, this health conscience person knows that he/she has an option.
The noticeable shift in Sun strategy... has been to do everything possible to cast a shadow on Linux competitors...Red Hat in particular.
How is this surprising? Sun is entering into a new market (Linux) and needs to differentiate their version of Linux from already established and entrenched competitors such as Red Hat. Linux under GPL had the interesting effect of making it much harder for competitors to differentiate themselves and of lowering market entry barriers (i.e. "it's just another Linux distro"). With GPL, a new competitor could all of a sudden pop out of nowhere and start offering an alternative product. The irony of this is of course without GPL Sun would not have been able to make an about face and offer their own Linux solution as quickly and, thus IMO, would be pretty close to being dead by now.
I think what Sun is afraid of is just as easily as they had entered the Linux market, Microsoft could easily do the very same and wipe out all other Linux distros by including full Windows compatibility. Anti-trust complications aside, of course.
What is the SCCCL license? I googled for "sun scccl" and the only item that came up was another slashdot post from you. Not that I'm implying anything. Just curious.
The iPod may have already started to include a bit of PDA functionality. It allows you to store contacts, has to do lists and alarms, and lets you play games. All these aren't essential to playing music, but the iPod easily includes this functionality without diminishing/diluting its purpose on playing music.
I guess what I was trying to say was that in a time when we've seen plenty of bloat (and slashdotters have complained plenty against bloat), it was refreshing to see Apple come around and focus on bringing consumers a device that did only one thing and one thing well, playing music. I agree with you that I wouldn't be surprised to see the iPod start to fulfill Newton's potential, but I would probably be surprised if they called such a device an iPod. "iPod" is now pretty much synonymous with "music player." To change that focus, while helpful in being able to leverage iPod's popularity, may be hurtful to the brand in the long run.
But you've made some very interesting and informative comments. I learned quite a bit.
iPod is a battery powered storage device that's tuned to play music and carry files from one place to another. There's no reason it has to remain in it's as-sold configuration
Apparently Apple release the world's first PDA (even before Palm). What happened to it? From Wikipedia's article on Apple Newton: "The Apple iPod is somewhat of a descendant of the Newton in that it is a pocket-sized grayscale programmable device based on the ARM processor." So you are correct in that everything about the iPod screams "computer" or "more than a music player." Because it was. But Apple already tried that and (from the touch interface to the OS) instead decided to specialize it as a music player.
Who do you know uses a PDA? Buisiness men and women and college students perhaps. But who do you know uses an iPod? The demographic is all encompassing.
This is useless. Considering how often Sun changes its mind, there's no reason to believe anything they say. It'll only be newsworthy when Sun actually does it!
Considering just a month/few months ago Sun was saying no to open sourcing Java, this IS news. It represents a public shift in their coporate strategy. Call it what you will, this is newsworthy.
It's amazing how narrowly people seem to need to define the iPod. And I'm surprised that so many slashdotters can't seem to see past the "iPod == music player" shortsightedness.
Not really surprising since Apple designed and marketed the iPod as a music player. Personally, calling an iPod a music player isn't any more surprising than a person calling a Honda sedan a car. Sure, you can use that Honda as a place to sleep every night, but it's understood that sleeping was not what the Honda was designed for.
Apples format is hardly lossless, in fact its worse then MP3, listen to it on something other then pc speakers or headphones and you will hear the difference between CDA, MPA and AAC.
Ummm, you are referring to AAC. He was referring to Apple Lossless, which is.........wait for it.........lossless.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, ok, if this were true, why wouldn't they just raise the age of retirement instead of killing off our own population prematurely? I'm sorry, but your reasoning for why cigarettes will never be made illegal seems a bit out there.
What exactly has Apple done in the US, other than offering the most compelling service that customers seem to prefer over the competitors?
Exactly. Competitors in Europe had hoped to build up a userbase before Apple arrived. I'm certain Napster had expected more than a two week head start. Well, now that Apple has arrived, the competition starts to heat up. As I stated, it's good for all consumers involved no matter what service they use.
You seem to have gotten the impression that I was commenting against Apple. Just the other way around. Apple is forcing these competitors to compete through better products and services.
iTunes surprised a lot of people when they hinted one week ago that they would launch iTunes in Europe today. Well, it's not exactly Europe (just UK, Germany, France), but everyone is running scared right now trying to prevent Apple from doing in Europe what they have done in the US.
Competition is good for everyone, especially for the consumers. Let the music war begin.
White clashes with just about everything else I own.
Exactly. That was probably the point. When you see someone with white earphones, it's instant product recognition. Not to mention some extra free marketing. The same idea holds for iBooks and PowerBooks. Apple obviously wants to make sure that when someone uses an Apple product, anyone and everyone around that person knows it. And what was that old marketing slogan of theirs again?
Think Different?
Apparently it's an early draft of the new theme, it should look (much?) better in the final version.
Good. Because I can't image it getting any worse.
Whats the deal with a 250+ markup?
The cost it takes to UPS a system to Europe. Kidding of course.
Where do they even offer powerline ethernet? I wasn't aware that it had been deployed to more than one city so far (don't remember which city off the top of my head).
Am I the only one thinking that these things could get easily stolen or damaged because of how small they are and how much they resemble [a laptop power brick]?
Maybe that's the idea. A thief would be less inclinded to swipe this if he/she thought it was a power adapter. But these only look like the power bricks used by PowerBooks and iBooks. The ones used by PC notebooks are much more different in appearance, and this thing is PC compatible.
there have been WAY to many stories about MAC OS X and Apple...
I think it may be due to the fact that Apple's WWDC is coming up at the end of this month and that all these announcements/activities from Apple may be leading up to that event. To be honest, I'm quited excited to see what Apple will unveil then. I mean, if they're announcing all this stuff before the conference, one must truely wonder what they will have in store when the actual conference comes around.
Well, Java is their baby, so I can see why they would have it that way (lawyers and the hunt for loopholes, who's to say someone couldn't arbitrarily declare Java no longer supported and go off and do their own thing). But open sourcing Java (which I guess they're now saying won't happen) would have brought Java under a different license. Anyway, this discussion is now moot since there's no point in speculation, but thank you for responding anyway.
Can you be a little more specific. Or can you point me to some information on why their license is so bad? Is OOo under this license? I haven't heard many bad things on that.
Fair enough. But I would like to learn more about the license. Also, what about it disgusted you?
Reading through this discussion, "McDonald's and Sony Offer Music Downloads," I find it interesting how about 90% of the comments are focusing on McDonalds with little or no discussion on Sony or their music service.
I doubt anybody really thinks to themselves "Hey, I've got a hankering for a good salad. Where's the nearest McDonald's?"
Or more like when they're in the mood for a salad, they look around and usually they will see on the road a McDonalds. And for people who have family and friends that decide to go eat a Big Mac, this health conscience person knows that he/she has an option.
The noticeable shift in Sun strategy ... has been to do everything possible to cast a shadow on Linux competitors...Red Hat in particular.
How is this surprising? Sun is entering into a new market (Linux) and needs to differentiate their version of Linux from already established and entrenched competitors such as Red Hat. Linux under GPL had the interesting effect of making it much harder for competitors to differentiate themselves and of lowering market entry barriers (i.e. "it's just another Linux distro"). With GPL, a new competitor could all of a sudden pop out of nowhere and start offering an alternative product. The irony of this is of course without GPL Sun would not have been able to make an about face and offer their own Linux solution as quickly and, thus IMO, would be pretty close to being dead by now.
I think what Sun is afraid of is just as easily as they had entered the Linux market, Microsoft could easily do the very same and wipe out all other Linux distros by including full Windows compatibility. Anti-trust complications aside, of course.
What is the SCCCL license? I googled for "sun scccl" and the only item that came up was another slashdot post from you. Not that I'm implying anything. Just curious.
The iPod may have already started to include a bit of PDA functionality. It allows you to store contacts, has to do lists and alarms, and lets you play games. All these aren't essential to playing music, but the iPod easily includes this functionality without diminishing/diluting its purpose on playing music.
I guess what I was trying to say was that in a time when we've seen plenty of bloat (and slashdotters have complained plenty against bloat), it was refreshing to see Apple come around and focus on bringing consumers a device that did only one thing and one thing well, playing music. I agree with you that I wouldn't be surprised to see the iPod start to fulfill Newton's potential, but I would probably be surprised if they called such a device an iPod. "iPod" is now pretty much synonymous with "music player." To change that focus, while helpful in being able to leverage iPod's popularity, may be hurtful to the brand in the long run.
But you've made some very interesting and informative comments. I learned quite a bit.
Ok, was just wondering. I bought an iPod myself and love it, but I'm always interested in hear other people's experiences with other devices.
iPod is a battery powered storage device that's tuned to play music and carry files from one place to another. There's no reason it has to remain in it's as-sold configuration
Apparently Apple release the world's first PDA (even before Palm). What happened to it? From Wikipedia's article on Apple Newton: "The Apple iPod is somewhat of a descendant of the Newton in that it is a pocket-sized grayscale programmable device based on the ARM processor." So you are correct in that everything about the iPod screams "computer" or "more than a music player." Because it was. But Apple already tried that and (from the touch interface to the OS) instead decided to specialize it as a music player.
Who do you know uses a PDA? Buisiness men and women and college students perhaps. But who do you know uses an iPod? The demographic is all encompassing.
This is useless. Considering how often Sun changes its mind, there's no reason to believe anything they say. It'll only be newsworthy when Sun actually does it!
Considering just a month/few months ago Sun was saying no to open sourcing Java, this IS news. It represents a public shift in their coporate strategy. Call it what you will, this is newsworthy.
Call me paranoid or even a conspiracy theorist
Well, you said it first...
It's not as if they are charging people for using the pure java language right now.
I'm not sure, but I was under the impression Sun did charge a licensing fee for Java under certain conditions.
Bummer that I wont be able to synch this to my Mac
So are you now wishing that you received an iPod from your girlfriend instead?
It's amazing how narrowly people seem to need to define the iPod. And I'm surprised that so many slashdotters can't seem to see past the "iPod == music player" shortsightedness.
Not really surprising since Apple designed and marketed the iPod as a music player. Personally, calling an iPod a music player isn't any more surprising than a person calling a Honda sedan a car. Sure, you can use that Honda as a place to sleep every night, but it's understood that sleeping was not what the Honda was designed for.
Apples format is hardly lossless, in fact its worse then MP3, listen to it on something other then pc speakers or headphones and you will hear the difference between CDA, MPA and AAC.
Ummm, you are referring to AAC. He was referring to Apple Lossless, which is.........wait for it.........lossless.