"There's a tradeoff with saving electricity and money."
Actually, it's between electricity and boot time. Of course, computers have low power states that they can enter into automatically (which mac people claim are superior on macs of course) and the resultant power usage increase would amount to pennies a month. Isn't that a small price to pay for the savings of so many human lives?
"Both which can be measured in terms of "life"."
Actually, neither can. No reduction in boot time nor any reduction in standby power consumption will ever amount to the production or savings of human lives. If you want to save yourself some time each day, stop picking your nose.
Preach it. Nothing demonstrates the fallacy of "Fitt's law" better than a big display. Apple's design dates back to when the screen width was only 512 pixels and it's the last vestige of Apple's worst GUI errors. Now that we're rid of monochrome displays and one-button mice it's time for that stupid menu bar to die.
Windows does keyboard shortcuts, too. Why is it that mac people always resort to keyboard shortcuts when defending the "superior ease-of-use" of their GUI? Why does the greatest GUI ever created motivate "pro level" users to avoid the mouse? Why is it so hard to believe that the global menu bar is a scourge?
"hell if you use Quicksilver you almost NEVER need touch a menu"
What? Quicksilver knows how to keep me from ever having to run any of my applications? Amazing!!!
"It always surprises me (even though it shouldn't anymore) that so many on/. are so dependent on menus for such simple things as: open, save, close, copy, paste, etc..."
Didn't realize that was the only use of menus. Since when is the frequency of menu use involved in determining where the best placement for the menu is? Is a keyboard shortcut a good justification for placing a menu in a crappy location?
Fitt's law isn't a law, it's an opinion that was reasonable back when monitors were small. Like the best lies, it's been repeated often enough that people actually believe it's true. Next time you have to pick up your mouse a couple times to get to the corner, try proving Fitt's law correct.
"Pixels are more precious because they are more finite."
Yes, and that's the reason the mac approach is inferior. The mac design never saves pixels and sometimes wastes them.
"Menu items most often can be accessed by keyboard, making slightly longer distances required to reach them irrelevant..."
Ah yes, the classic example of the "world's best GUI" motivating you to avoid using your mouse.
"...furthermore, the extra attention required to properly hit a menu item that is in a random position on the screen means that even if the trip is shorter, it takes you longer to get there."
Of course, you will be paying that penalty on the way back on the mac (and you can be using the keyboard shortcuts on Windows as well).
"Take two browser windows, and stack them so that just the menu bar is visible behind the other one. I have this happen all the time, where I select the menu of the window behind the current one."
Then you are terrible. I've never come close to making this mistake. I have, however, slightly misclicked a menu on the mac and caused my app to lose focus. That problem is real.
"And why should I *have* to "carefully look where I click*. I don't have to on a Mac, I just wander up to the menu bar and there's an entry... That's exactly what I don't like about menus attached to windows, that you have to be overly attentive to what is where."
Bullshit. You have to be just as accurate on a mac as on windows. Finding a menu in a windows app is not a burden. What is a burden is traveling huge distances across a large OS display.
"At some point, if all you are doing is workarounds for problems perhaps you need to seek a more fundamental solution that actually adresses the problem instead of making it more tolerable."
Of that we agree. Hopefully Apple will see to fixing their UI mistake soon just as Jobs did when he founded NeXT. Global menu bars worked on a 9" monitor. They're a joke now.
"The thing I really like about the single menu bar is not so much that it's always in the same place (which is handy) but that you conserve a lot of screen estate when every window an app has open does not have to make room for a whole menubar."
Except it doesn't save any screen real estate at all. Assuming that the top menu bar is the same height in pixels as it would be in the app, every app will be shortened by the removal if the menu bar but the screen height will be shortened by the same amount. The result is that there is no functional difference in screen real estate at all. Furthermore, the long-distance menu bar is the *opposite* of "handy".
Certain apps have no use for a menu bar at all. For those apps, the Apple approach wastes screen real estate.
"This is especially annoying with browser windows, which you tend to have a lot of. But many applications are prone to having multiple documents open at once and it helps there as well."
The ammount of vertical screen height taken by the menu bar in multiple apps is NOT additive. It matters not how many windows you have open.
"Another problem it helps solve is visual menu clutter - sometimes in Windows when I have a lot of apps up, I go to select a menu item and find that I have hit the wrong menu, bringing a whole different window in focus that I did not mean to access!"
I think that has to be impossible. How can you possibly go to the menu bar of the wrong app? The fact is that such a mistake is far MORE likely in OS X where a misclick will change focus and you might not recognize it happening.
"I'd posit that it can be annoying to people who aren't used to it, but it's not necessarily a huge UI failing for OS X, and many people find it useful."
It would be hard to argue that it's intuitive; odd coming from a company that prides itself on its intuitive designs. Whether it's ultimately a good design depends on how often its behavior benefits you versus gets in your way. It seems that the primary benefit is reducing restart times (which can be accomplished without the burden of a nonintuitive UI). Frankly, I think it's crazy.
What you describe I find infuriating, and it's made even worse by the fact that some mac apps actually do close when you click the "red circle". Absolutely awful (as is the global menu catastrophe in general).
"The single main menu at the top is a thing that you love or hate, but it can feel very strange to change the focus of the application to just access a menu. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that it's "easier" to just point "right" this way, but it is more complicated and "verbose" as well."
You mean "used to be easier" back when every application was maximized on a small screen. With today's screens it just produces exaggerated mouse movements. Furthermore, there's nothing more infuriating than missing the menu and causing the app to lose focus (thus resulting in the menus disappearing). The top menu deserves a place right along the one-button mouse in the UI hall of shame.
As someone who uses multiple OSes, I'm constantly amazed at the clickiness and large amounts of mouse travel required in OS X. The response to that always seems to be that I should use keyboard shortcuts, but that ignores the fact that the UI shouldn't motivate me to seek alternatives (and, of course, that OS X's competitors do keyboard shortcuts just as effectively). Shouldn't the world's best GUI not infuriate you into avoiding the mouse?
Macs were the last major PC platform to get color. After all, Jobs considered color to be superfluous. That "clarity of thought" followed him to NeXT where, in 1990, he introduced a workstation-class machine with a megapixel monochrome display when all his competitors were already doing color. hehe
DOS itself was text mode but that didn't mean that applications couldn't use graphics or color and IBM offered color options from day 1. In contrast, the first color mac debuted in 1987 (the same year IBM introduced the PS/2). By then, the PC had already had 3 major color graphics standards, the VGA (and XGA) had just been introduced, and PCs enjoyed a variety of TI340xx-based graphics systems as well. Far from pioneering color displays as mac "historians" like to claim, Apple was way behind.
"This would be like bringing up Windows 1.0 in a "who's gui came first discussion"."
It's nothing like that. It's an undisputable fact that MS offered Windows products with integral TCP/IP software at a time when Linux was still in its infancy. The claim that Linux offered networking for years prior to MS's support of TCP/IP is just plain wrong.
"Slackware's support for serious networking was actually very repectable in those days. I was a Slackware user then and even used ip masquerading to share a serial connection in those days."
I would venture to guess that Windows NT 3.1 was a more robust server platform than Slackware 1.0. Nevertheless, they came into existence within a month of one another. Considering that Slackware was the first real distro and NT was available for a year prior to release in developer kits suggests that the statement was utterly false (regardless of how useful you personally found Slackware in those days).
I didn't start using Linux until Red Hat 5.x and even at that mature (for linux) date I found it to be a joke. I immediately dumped it for FreeBSD which was far superior. I wouldn't consider even by RH5 for networking to be "well supported in Linux" in my experience.
I don't know what "similar featured Nokia device" you refer to, but I don't consider any Nokia device as legitimate competition to any full keyboard smartphone or stylus-based device by any other manufacturer. The E61 is awful. In any event, smartphones aren't defined by the software used to sync them although it's a consideration. All current WM5 and WM5 smartphone devices are supported on the mac through a 3rd party app. Linux, as it always is, is the problem of the linux community, not the phone manufacturers.
Curious that the argument for why WM5 is so bad is that it doesn't sync with linux...surely you can do better.
"Right, but if it had been, RMS would have complained about that too."
At least you recognize your printer argument is meaningless.
"No, in the TiVo case users want to modify the software used on it!"
So what? Tivo is not obligated to allow that.
"The Hell it isn't! The TiVo runs Linux."
The Hell it is! There are watches and phones that run Linux too, but they aren't computers either.
"And since that is the case, if I buy it I should have the right to modify it however I want."
And there you show your true stripes. You have no respect for the consideration of anyone other than you. It is your right to do whatever you want within the law, but it is also within the rights of the manufacturer to do the same. Tivo is not selling a computer, they are selling a subsidized fixed function device. You aren't obligated to buy their device if you don't like it. Instead you can choose for their competitors, none of which offer you what you want either.
"And since the GPL is designed to ensure I have that right also, it's doubly ridiculous that I can't do it because of stupid, petty, asinine, artificial restrictions put in by TiVo, inc.!"
Of course, the GPL doesn't apply to the Tivo hardware, whatever juvenile names you choose to call it. The more you talk, the more you whine.
"And what does this software run on, pray tell? A computer!"
Yes, a computer YOU provide which is not covered or even considered by the GPL.
"And can you really have the freedoms over the software without control of the hardware? No!"
No, so you shouldn't buy a computer that doesn't allow it. The Tivo device isn't one of those.
"I'm just explaining why that is. TiVo inc. is complying with the GPL, but that doesn't mean it isn't acting like an asshole."
Who are you to speak for the software community? Tivo complies with the license and many of the actual authors of the code have come out in favor of their usage. You're the one arguing the absurd position.
"On the contrary, I understand perfectly; stop putting words in my mouth!"
Perhaps you should stop insisting that the DVR you (perhaps) bought is actually a computer.
"No, Linus and RMS agree that TiVo is complying with the GPL v.2 as written."
Haha, your comments get even more absurd. There is no other GPLv2 other than the one "as written".
"This is a bug in the license. RMS realizes this, which is why he's rewriting the damn thing!"
Yes, RMS realizes that Tivo is right, you are wrong, and it is one of the reasons he is revising the license. It is clear that RMS doesn't want Tivo doing what they did. He does not speak for the Linux developers though.
"It is compliant with the letter, but not the spirit. If it were compliant with the spirit, RMS wouldn't have felt the need to make GPL v.3."
RMS doesn't define the "spirit. The code used wasn't even code RMS participated in. There is no "spirit" beyond what the "letter" of the license says.
"TiVo gets its money either way; there's no reason to disallow modding."
How do you know? Making more crap up?
"Second, we're subsidizing TiVo by providing it with free software! Why shouldn't we, in return, deserve to retain the ability to mod the hardware?"
There you go claiming you speak for the software developers again? You aren't part of "we" and those who are are happy with what Tivo has done. If they weren't then they shouldn't have released their work under the GPL. Tivo used that software in compliance with the license. You say you understand that yet you prove time and again that you don't.
"Why shouldn't we, in return, deserve to retain the ability to mod the hardware?"
Because, as you've been told countless times, the hardware isn't covered by the GPL and there is essentially no history of being able to modify such hardware. The question that should be asked is why you now feel entitled to mod devices that you've never in the past been able to.
"Networking, OTOH, is not that sort of thing. It's been well supported in Linux before there was any TCP/IP libraries even included in Windows."
Hmmm. Windows NT shipped (and existed for a year prior) at the same time as the very first Slackware distribution. Only the most hardcore would claim that Linux at that time supported anything "well". No one was rolling out their IT infrastructure using Linux at that time.
"What part of "that defeats the whole point" do you not understand?!"
What part of "the hardware isn't covered by the GPL don't you understand?!
"You're wrong. Here's a quote from "About the GNU Project":..."
They can publish whatever propaganda they like, but a close friend of mine was once the x86 maintainer for GCC, chosen by RMS himself, and he tells me a different story. Nevertheless, even in your "version" RMS wanted source to a driver; access to hardware wasn't a problem.
"What you're arguing about "developing your own PVR" is just stupid. Do you think RMS would have been happy if the company gave him the code but wouldn't actually let him use it? No, because the whole point was to be able to make full use of the hardware he already had!"
RMS wasn't trying to modify the printer, only the software used to access it. In the Tivo case, users want to modify the function of the device itself. The GPL doesn't cover the Tivo device, only the firmware inside it.
Look at it this way, if you obtain an application that is released under the GPL then you can use the source to produce a different app as you choose. If you buy a Tivo, you can use the source to produce a different Tivo as you choose. That doesn't entitle you to modify the original Tivo since it's not covered by the GPL.
"GNU software exists to give you control over your computer, not some hypothetical computer you may or may not have in the future. If it doesn't run on the hardware you already own, it's useless!"
The Tivo hardware isn't a computer. It's a fixed function device that you are not allowed to modify or extend. It is also not covered under the GPL. Furthermore, the GPL doesn't exist to give you control over your computer, it's to give you freedoms over the software you use. It's up to you to provide the computer to run them on (of which the Tivo doesn't qualify).
"Then they should have used the BSD license instead."
Why? Clearly the GPLv2 worked satisfactorially for them and they AND RMS recognize that Tivo has complied with the license.
"Letting people take advantage of your software in their own products without ensuring the Four Freedoms -- which is exactly what TiVo is doing -- is what that license is for."
Tivo is not doing that and both Linus and RMS agree. I don't expect you ever to get it however. Whine, whine, whine...
All of Tivo's development is available in source form. I think that's generous, in the "spirit" of the GPL and compliant with it, and it's fully available for you to develop your own PVR software with. What's the problem? Oh yeah, Tivo didn't give you subsidized hardware to do your development on. Boo hoo.
Actually, I've found my WM5 Smartphone to be the best device of its type I've ever used. Better than PalmOS, better than Nokia, better than SE. My WM5 device (as opposed to WM5 smartphone, which is different) with the slideout kbd was horrible.
Good luck to Apple establishing their own smartphone standard. They'll most likely be comparable to the Sidekick and Blackberry---totally proprietary with no 3rd party apps. We'll see maybe...
Itanium was not a "next generation processor", it was a first generation processor of a radical and an entirely new architecture.
"The history of the general purpose CPU marketplace has shown time and again..."? Name an example of a next generation design taking a step backwards besides NetBurst. Hardly time and again, it's occurred only once and Intel eventually aborted it.
"You mean I can replace the TiVo software with my own version, and still use it as a TiVo? That's news to me! Do you have a link?"
Tivo can stop any unapproved software, modified GPL code or anything else, from running on its hardware, but it cannot stop you from running any of its GPL'ed code. You are free to develop your own DVR using their code.
"RMS always cared about hardware -- the whole damn thing was started over a printer driver, remember? He just didn't see the hardware-refusing-to-run-modified-versions issue coming."
No, he hasn't. All RMS cares about is freedom to have source code to software. It's only recently that hardware technology exists that limits software. As I recall, RMS originally got miffed when some of his fellow programmers took lab software, went commercial with it, and stopped providing him access to code. It had nothing to do with hardware til now. If it did, there would already be hardware restrictions in the GPL.
None of this matters. When the GPL itself fails in its mission, the GPL zealots involve the "spirit" as if they are qualified to speak for the coders whos code was used. Regardless of what RMS says, the linux kernel developers, as a group, support Tivo's usage. In my mind, that's what matters.
"The "Richard Stallman crowd" doesn't like TiVo because it violates the spirit of the GPL..."...according to the Richard Stallman crowd's version of the "spirit". According to the primary authors of the code actually used, it doesn't. There is no "spirit", there is just the license. Those who say otherwise are just whining.
"...by stopping modified code from running."
Tivo doesn't stop modified code from running. It couldn't do it if it tried.
"...it's about being able to control your own hardware..."
No, it's about freedom of the code that is licensed. It has nothing to do with unrelated hardware that's sold to you specifically as a fixed function device.
You'd think, if the intention of the GPL was as plain as people here like to claim it is, that RMS would have figured out how to state that in the first place. There was never any consideration given to extending restrictions to the hardware when the GPL was written. Claims like this are nothing other than revisionist history.
"RMS understands and that's why he, and the FSF, are writing the GPL3..."
of course, among other reasons he listed. Tivo is just one thing being addressed.
"...and by the way why do you think I don't understand?"
Because you keep insisting that Tivo has done something wrong when key players (including RMS himself) say otherwise.
"...as much as I wished they haven't messed with GPL software."
See, you don't get it. Tivo hasn't "messed with" GPL software. They complied entirely with the GPL. You need to open your mind. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you are right.
"The point is that if they want a closed hardware that will not allow any unblessed software to run, then they should be developing this blessed software themselves."
Linus doesn't agree with you. He has no issue with Tivo's usage and feels it should be encouraged. Other systems such as the BSD's feel likewise.
"Using GPL software in this fashion is against the ideal of the license and the community, even though this is not worded in the text itself."
Say who, you? There is nothing that expresses "the ideal of the license and the community" other than the license itself, and the fact that this has occurred and has caused a significant split in opinion between Linux kernel developers and FSF members is proof that you are wrong. There is no universal agreement as the what the ideals are since the community is made up of a wide range of contributors. Not everyone who releases under the GPL subscribes to RMS's social agenda.
"This is clearly against the ideal, what good is to able to change, when you changes can't run anywhere?"
Of course the changes can run "anywhere". Linux runs on a lot of hardware and you are free to use Tivo's work on any of those platforms or develop your own (as Tivo did). Tivo's competitors are free to use the code as well so long as they abide by the GPL terms. The problem is that you expect the GPL to apply to Tivo's hardware when there should be no expectation of that. Tivo didn't sell you a computer, they sold you a fixed function appliance that you are not allowed to modify. Their code is freely available and can be integrated into future works by anyone who respects the license.
The fact is that you are just whining. Many of the developers of the kernel have come out in favor of Tivo's usage. RMS has not but that's no surprise. It says a lot that you would claim to know the intent of the community when there is no such thing. All developers can do is decide the terms of their licensing and live with the consequences.
If I were doing an actual review and installation failed, I'd resolve it or return the product without completing the review. Reviewers do that all the time. In the event that I completed the review, I'd mention that there were problems that were resolved by the manufacturer. What I wouldn't do is publish a hit piece disguised as a review and criticise some aspects of the product inaccurately by referring to problems in other areas of the product. Other reviewers have managed to actually review the "ease of use" of the Zune despite the install issue and their results are quite different. All this article was was an intentional hatchet-job from an Apple cheerleader. If you don't unserstand that, then you're the one who doesn't want to get it.
"That's one of their benefits. I'm not sure why you have such a one-dimensional view of iPods."
I don't. I happen to own many iPods but I've never bought into their claimed "ease of use" advantages. I've owned other player, predominatntly Rio, and they are similarly easy to use as well. iTunes itself is an entirely separate product and its "ease of use" is unrelated to the iPod. The lack of iTunes integration, for example, did not make the Rio player hardware to use.
I buy iPods because their form factor and industrial design are appealing and they have the best 3rd party support in the market. I overlook their design weaknesses and their poor reliability. Everything is a comprimise and I don't wear Apple goggles.
"it was amazingly simple to set up. Just "create new smart playlist" and then set some rules. Done."
Yes, the classic example of how easy metadata is to use once the laborious work of entering it all has been done. It's a good thing that your metadata aligns so perfectly with your desired usage then. If only there was an ID3 tag for music I'd like to hear that came pre-entered for me...
"The quality of that software affecte ease-of-use."
The support software does not effect "ease of use" of the player.
"...because many disagree with you that software does not affect the portable music experience."
I've never made that claim. We are talking about a reviewer here that has associated a setup failure with "ease of use" of an electronic gadget. It's a preposterous argument and only fanboys are disagreeing with me.
"Your opinion has no bearing on market-share. Just because you don't like iTunes, doesn't mean it isn't the most popular software out there."
Nice try, but your argument wasn't marketshare. Your argument was that iTunes was better than anything else. Here's what you said: "Plenty. I tried many Mac applications before iTunes, such as SoundApp, Musicmatch, MacAmp, SoundJam, and others I can't even remember. It wasn't until iTunes that it all came together in a really pleasing way. The same happened on Windows. Before iTunes came to Windows, there were many competitors. But iTunes slaughtered them all, even the popular WinAmp."
Where in there did you mention marketshare? Where in any of my responses have I mentioned marketshare? Windows users get iTunes to go with their iPods. Since the two are inseparable we really can't know if iTunes would compete on its own on the Windows platform.
"...I suspect you might be trolling..."
Yes, call me a troll because I disagree with you. You won't be the first. This is/., after all, and there aren't real conversations going on (epsecially regarding Apple products). If Apple can't get their marketing message right on their primary package (the product itself) then it should suggest to you that YOU are mistaken.
""If I haven't seen it, it doesn't exist." Bravo! Clearly you are an intellectual giant."
I didn't say that. What I said was an equally ridulous but defendable response to your claim "There are plenty of commentary and reviews that discuss iTunes when discussing iPod usability - are you just ignorant of them?" You insulted me and made a sweeping claim without any supporting argument. As for your quote---yes, there's at least one reviewer as ignorant as you. Nice dumbassed quote too:
"As long as the software is installed, all you need to do is connect the Nano to your computer, and you're ready to roll."
Same could be said for Zune!!! As long as the install is already accomplished, it's ready to work! Wow.
"So, I don't think there's any need to go on. You can use Google yourself, if you want to see many more example like this. Now that you have seen it, do you believe it exists?"
If you are going to assert your arguments, don't expect others to do resarch for you. I happen to understand language just fine and I don't really care how many people mistake iTunes for iPods. The world can be filled
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"There's a tradeoff with saving electricity and money."
Actually, it's between electricity and boot time. Of course, computers have low power states that they can enter into automatically (which mac people claim are superior on macs of course) and the resultant power usage increase would amount to pennies a month. Isn't that a small price to pay for the savings of so many human lives?
"Both which can be measured in terms of "life"."
Actually, neither can. No reduction in boot time nor any reduction in standby power consumption will ever amount to the production or savings of human lives. If you want to save yourself some time each day, stop picking your nose.
"I don't see the problem."
I'm sure you don't.
Preach it. Nothing demonstrates the fallacy of "Fitt's law" better than a big display. Apple's design dates back to when the screen width was only 512 pixels and it's the last vestige of Apple's worst GUI errors. Now that we're rid of monochrome displays and one-button mice it's time for that stupid menu bar to die.
Windows does keyboard shortcuts, too. Why is it that mac people always resort to keyboard shortcuts when defending the "superior ease-of-use" of their GUI? Why does the greatest GUI ever created motivate "pro level" users to avoid the mouse? Why is it so hard to believe that the global menu bar is a scourge?
/. are so dependent on menus for such simple things as: open, save, close, copy, paste, etc..."
"hell if you use Quicksilver you almost NEVER need touch a menu"
What? Quicksilver knows how to keep me from ever having to run any of my applications? Amazing!!!
"It always surprises me (even though it shouldn't anymore) that so many on
Didn't realize that was the only use of menus. Since when is the frequency of menu use involved in determining where the best placement for the menu is? Is a keyboard shortcut a good justification for placing a menu in a crappy location?
Fitt's law isn't a law, it's an opinion that was reasonable back when monitors were small. Like the best lies, it's been repeated often enough that people actually believe it's true. Next time you have to pick up your mouse a couple times to get to the corner, try proving Fitt's law correct.
"Pixels are more precious because they are more finite."
Yes, and that's the reason the mac approach is inferior. The mac design never saves pixels and sometimes wastes them.
"Menu items most often can be accessed by keyboard, making slightly longer distances required to reach them irrelevant..."
Ah yes, the classic example of the "world's best GUI" motivating you to avoid using your mouse.
"...furthermore, the extra attention required to properly hit a menu item that is in a random position on the screen means that even if the trip is shorter, it takes you longer to get there."
Of course, you will be paying that penalty on the way back on the mac (and you can be using the keyboard shortcuts on Windows as well).
"Take two browser windows, and stack them so that just the menu bar is visible behind the other one. I have this happen all the time, where I select the menu of the window behind the current one."
Then you are terrible. I've never come close to making this mistake. I have, however, slightly misclicked a menu on the mac and caused my app to lose focus. That problem is real.
"And why should I *have* to "carefully look where I click*. I don't have to on a Mac, I just wander up to the menu bar and there's an entry... That's exactly what I don't like about menus attached to windows, that you have to be overly attentive to what is where."
Bullshit. You have to be just as accurate on a mac as on windows. Finding a menu in a windows app is not a burden. What is a burden is traveling huge distances across a large OS display.
"At some point, if all you are doing is workarounds for problems perhaps you need to seek a more fundamental solution that actually adresses the problem instead of making it more tolerable."
Of that we agree. Hopefully Apple will see to fixing their UI mistake soon just as Jobs did when he founded NeXT. Global menu bars worked on a 9" monitor. They're a joke now.
"The thing I really like about the single menu bar is not so much that it's always in the same place (which is handy) but that you conserve a lot of screen estate when every window an app has open does not have to make room for a whole menubar."
Except it doesn't save any screen real estate at all. Assuming that the top menu bar is the same height in pixels as it would be in the app, every app will be shortened by the removal if the menu bar but the screen height will be shortened by the same amount. The result is that there is no functional difference in screen real estate at all. Furthermore, the long-distance menu bar is the *opposite* of "handy".
Certain apps have no use for a menu bar at all. For those apps, the Apple approach wastes screen real estate.
"This is especially annoying with browser windows, which you tend to have a lot of. But many applications are prone to having multiple documents open at once and it helps there as well."
The ammount of vertical screen height taken by the menu bar in multiple apps is NOT additive. It matters not how many windows you have open.
"Another problem it helps solve is visual menu clutter - sometimes in Windows when I have a lot of apps up, I go to select a menu item and find that I have hit the wrong menu, bringing a whole different window in focus that I did not mean to access!"
I think that has to be impossible. How can you possibly go to the menu bar of the wrong app? The fact is that such a mistake is far MORE likely in OS X where a misclick will change focus and you might not recognize it happening.
"I'd posit that it can be annoying to people who aren't used to it, but it's not necessarily a huge UI failing for OS X, and many people find it useful."
It would be hard to argue that it's intuitive; odd coming from a company that prides itself on its intuitive designs. Whether it's ultimately a good design depends on how often its behavior benefits you versus gets in your way. It seems that the primary benefit is reducing restart times (which can be accomplished without the burden of a nonintuitive UI). Frankly, I think it's crazy.
What you describe I find infuriating, and it's made even worse by the fact that some mac apps actually do close when you click the "red circle". Absolutely awful (as is the global menu catastrophe in general).
"The single main menu at the top is a thing that you love or hate, but it can feel very strange to change the focus of the application to just access a menu. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that it's "easier" to just point "right" this way, but it is more complicated and "verbose" as well."
You mean "used to be easier" back when every application was maximized on a small screen. With today's screens it just produces exaggerated mouse movements. Furthermore, there's nothing more infuriating than missing the menu and causing the app to lose focus (thus resulting in the menus disappearing). The top menu deserves a place right along the one-button mouse in the UI hall of shame.
As someone who uses multiple OSes, I'm constantly amazed at the clickiness and large amounts of mouse travel required in OS X. The response to that always seems to be that I should use keyboard shortcuts, but that ignores the fact that the UI shouldn't motivate me to seek alternatives (and, of course, that OS X's competitors do keyboard shortcuts just as effectively). Shouldn't the world's best GUI not infuriate you into avoiding the mouse?
Macs were the last major PC platform to get color. After all, Jobs considered color to be superfluous. That "clarity of thought" followed him to NeXT where, in 1990, he introduced a workstation-class machine with a megapixel monochrome display when all his competitors were already doing color. hehe
DOS itself was text mode but that didn't mean that applications couldn't use graphics or color and IBM offered color options from day 1. In contrast, the first color mac debuted in 1987 (the same year IBM introduced the PS/2). By then, the PC had already had 3 major color graphics standards, the VGA (and XGA) had just been introduced, and PCs enjoyed a variety of TI340xx-based graphics systems as well. Far from pioneering color displays as mac "historians" like to claim, Apple was way behind.
Why power your machine off when you are done with it then? That would save you life-lovers 60 seconds a day instead of two. Oh the humanity!
"This would be like bringing up Windows 1.0 in a "who's gui came first discussion"."
It's nothing like that. It's an undisputable fact that MS offered Windows products with integral TCP/IP software at a time when Linux was still in its infancy. The claim that Linux offered networking for years prior to MS's support of TCP/IP is just plain wrong.
"Slackware's support for serious networking was actually very repectable in those days. I was a Slackware user then and even used ip masquerading to share a serial connection in those days."
I would venture to guess that Windows NT 3.1 was a more robust server platform than Slackware 1.0. Nevertheless, they came into existence within a month of one another. Considering that Slackware was the first real distro and NT was available for a year prior to release in developer kits suggests that the statement was utterly false (regardless of how useful you personally found Slackware in those days).
I didn't start using Linux until Red Hat 5.x and even at that mature (for linux) date I found it to be a joke. I immediately dumped it for FreeBSD which was far superior. I wouldn't consider even by RH5 for networking to be "well supported in Linux" in my experience.
I don't know what "similar featured Nokia device" you refer to, but I don't consider any Nokia device as legitimate competition to any full keyboard smartphone or stylus-based device by any other manufacturer. The E61 is awful. In any event, smartphones aren't defined by the software used to sync them although it's a consideration. All current WM5 and WM5 smartphone devices are supported on the mac through a 3rd party app. Linux, as it always is, is the problem of the linux community, not the phone manufacturers.
Curious that the argument for why WM5 is so bad is that it doesn't sync with linux...surely you can do better.
AMD's early designs were not followons to Intel designs.
All the other examples were, in fact, improvements on previous Intel processors.
Itanium was never marketed as a future generation of x86. You need to brush up on your history.
"Right, but if it had been, RMS would have complained about that too."
At least you recognize your printer argument is meaningless.
"No, in the TiVo case users want to modify the software used on it!"
So what? Tivo is not obligated to allow that.
"The Hell it isn't! The TiVo runs Linux."
The Hell it is! There are watches and phones that run Linux too, but they aren't computers either.
"And since that is the case, if I buy it I should have the right to modify it however I want."
And there you show your true stripes. You have no respect for the consideration of anyone other than you. It is your right to do whatever you want within the law, but it is also within the rights of the manufacturer to do the same. Tivo is not selling a computer, they are selling a subsidized fixed function device. You aren't obligated to buy their device if you don't like it. Instead you can choose for their competitors, none of which offer you what you want either.
"And since the GPL is designed to ensure I have that right also, it's doubly ridiculous that I can't do it because of stupid, petty, asinine, artificial restrictions put in by TiVo, inc.!"
Of course, the GPL doesn't apply to the Tivo hardware, whatever juvenile names you choose to call it. The more you talk, the more you whine.
"And what does this software run on, pray tell? A computer!"
Yes, a computer YOU provide which is not covered or even considered by the GPL.
"And can you really have the freedoms over the software without control of the hardware? No!"
No, so you shouldn't buy a computer that doesn't allow it. The Tivo device isn't one of those.
"I'm just explaining why that is. TiVo inc. is complying with the GPL, but that doesn't mean it isn't acting like an asshole."
Who are you to speak for the software community? Tivo complies with the license and many of the actual authors of the code have come out in favor of their usage. You're the one arguing the absurd position.
"On the contrary, I understand perfectly; stop putting words in my mouth!"
Perhaps you should stop insisting that the DVR you (perhaps) bought is actually a computer.
"No, Linus and RMS agree that TiVo is complying with the GPL v.2 as written."
Haha, your comments get even more absurd. There is no other GPLv2 other than the one "as written".
"This is a bug in the license. RMS realizes this, which is why he's rewriting the damn thing!"
Yes, RMS realizes that Tivo is right, you are wrong, and it is one of the reasons he is revising the license. It is clear that RMS doesn't want Tivo doing what they did. He does not speak for the Linux developers though.
"It is compliant with the letter, but not the spirit. If it were compliant with the spirit, RMS wouldn't have felt the need to make GPL v.3."
RMS doesn't define the "spirit. The code used wasn't even code RMS participated in. There is no "spirit" beyond what the "letter" of the license says.
"TiVo gets its money either way; there's no reason to disallow modding."
How do you know? Making more crap up?
"Second, we're subsidizing TiVo by providing it with free software! Why shouldn't we, in return, deserve to retain the ability to mod the hardware?"
There you go claiming you speak for the software developers again? You aren't part of "we" and those who are are happy with what Tivo has done. If they weren't then they shouldn't have released their work under the GPL. Tivo used that software in compliance with the license. You say you understand that yet you prove time and again that you don't.
"Why shouldn't we, in return, deserve to retain the ability to mod the hardware?"
Because, as you've been told countless times, the hardware isn't covered by the GPL and there is essentially no history of being able to modify such hardware. The question that should be asked is why you now feel entitled to mod devices that you've never in the past been able to.
Of course, it's nothing like saving someone's life. It's like saving 1 second twice a day. Meaningless.
"Networking, OTOH, is not that sort of thing. It's been well supported in Linux before there was any TCP/IP libraries even included in Windows."
Hmmm. Windows NT shipped (and existed for a year prior) at the same time as the very first Slackware distribution. Only the most hardcore would claim that Linux at that time supported anything "well". No one was rolling out their IT infrastructure using Linux at that time.
"What part of "that defeats the whole point" do you not understand?!"
What part of "the hardware isn't covered by the GPL don't you understand?!
"You're wrong. Here's a quote from "About the GNU Project":..."
They can publish whatever propaganda they like, but a close friend of mine was once the x86 maintainer for GCC, chosen by RMS himself, and he tells me a different story. Nevertheless, even in your "version" RMS wanted source to a driver; access to hardware wasn't a problem.
"What you're arguing about "developing your own PVR" is just stupid. Do you think RMS would have been happy if the company gave him the code but wouldn't actually let him use it? No, because the whole point was to be able to make full use of the hardware he already had!"
RMS wasn't trying to modify the printer, only the software used to access it. In the Tivo case, users want to modify the function of the device itself. The GPL doesn't cover the Tivo device, only the firmware inside it.
Look at it this way, if you obtain an application that is released under the GPL then you can use the source to produce a different app as you choose. If you buy a Tivo, you can use the source to produce a different Tivo as you choose. That doesn't entitle you to modify the original Tivo since it's not covered by the GPL.
"GNU software exists to give you control over your computer, not some hypothetical computer you may or may not have in the future. If it doesn't run on the hardware you already own, it's useless!"
The Tivo hardware isn't a computer. It's a fixed function device that you are not allowed to modify or extend. It is also not covered under the GPL. Furthermore, the GPL doesn't exist to give you control over your computer, it's to give you freedoms over the software you use. It's up to you to provide the computer to run them on (of which the Tivo doesn't qualify).
"Then they should have used the BSD license instead."
Why? Clearly the GPLv2 worked satisfactorially for them and they AND RMS recognize that Tivo has complied with the license.
"Letting people take advantage of your software in their own products without ensuring the Four Freedoms -- which is exactly what TiVo is doing -- is what that license is for."
Tivo is not doing that and both Linus and RMS agree. I don't expect you ever to get it however. Whine, whine, whine...
All of Tivo's development is available in source form. I think that's generous, in the "spirit" of the GPL and compliant with it, and it's fully available for you to develop your own PVR software with. What's the problem? Oh yeah, Tivo didn't give you subsidized hardware to do your development on. Boo hoo.
Actually, I've found my WM5 Smartphone to be the best device of its type I've ever used. Better than PalmOS, better than Nokia, better than SE. My WM5 device (as opposed to WM5 smartphone, which is different) with the slideout kbd was horrible.
Good luck to Apple establishing their own smartphone standard. They'll most likely be comparable to the Sidekick and Blackberry---totally proprietary with no 3rd party apps. We'll see maybe...
Itanium was not a "next generation processor", it was a first generation processor of a radical and an entirely new architecture.
"The history of the general purpose CPU marketplace has shown time and again..."? Name an example of a next generation design taking a step backwards besides NetBurst. Hardly time and again, it's occurred only once and Intel eventually aborted it.
"You mean I can replace the TiVo software with my own version, and still use it as a TiVo? That's news to me! Do you have a link?"
Tivo can stop any unapproved software, modified GPL code or anything else, from running on its hardware, but it cannot stop you from running any of its GPL'ed code. You are free to develop your own DVR using their code.
"RMS always cared about hardware -- the whole damn thing was started over a printer driver, remember? He just didn't see the hardware-refusing-to-run-modified-versions issue coming."
No, he hasn't. All RMS cares about is freedom to have source code to software. It's only recently that hardware technology exists that limits software. As I recall, RMS originally got miffed when some of his fellow programmers took lab software, went commercial with it, and stopped providing him access to code. It had nothing to do with hardware til now. If it did, there would already be hardware restrictions in the GPL.
None of this matters. When the GPL itself fails in its mission, the GPL zealots involve the "spirit" as if they are qualified to speak for the coders whos code was used. Regardless of what RMS says, the linux kernel developers, as a group, support Tivo's usage. In my mind, that's what matters.
"The "Richard Stallman crowd" doesn't like TiVo because it violates the spirit of the GPL..." ...according to the Richard Stallman crowd's version of the "spirit". According to the primary authors of the code actually used, it doesn't. There is no "spirit", there is just the license. Those who say otherwise are just whining.
"...by stopping modified code from running."
Tivo doesn't stop modified code from running. It couldn't do it if it tried.
"...it's about being able to control your own hardware..."
No, it's about freedom of the code that is licensed. It has nothing to do with unrelated hardware that's sold to you specifically as a fixed function device.
You'd think, if the intention of the GPL was as plain as people here like to claim it is, that RMS would have figured out how to state that in the first place. There was never any consideration given to extending restrictions to the hardware when the GPL was written. Claims like this are nothing other than revisionist history.
"RMS understands and that's why he, and the FSF, are writing the GPL3..."
of course, among other reasons he listed. Tivo is just one thing being addressed.
"...and by the way why do you think I don't understand?"
Because you keep insisting that Tivo has done something wrong when key players (including RMS himself) say otherwise.
"...as much as I wished they haven't messed with GPL software."
See, you don't get it. Tivo hasn't "messed with" GPL software. They complied entirely with the GPL. You need to open your mind. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you are right.
"The point is that if they want a closed hardware that will not allow any unblessed software to run, then they should be developing this blessed software themselves."
Linus doesn't agree with you. He has no issue with Tivo's usage and feels it should be encouraged. Other systems such as the BSD's feel likewise.
"Using GPL software in this fashion is against the ideal of the license and the community, even though this is not worded in the text itself."
Say who, you? There is nothing that expresses "the ideal of the license and the community" other than the license itself, and the fact that this has occurred and has caused a significant split in opinion between Linux kernel developers and FSF members is proof that you are wrong. There is no universal agreement as the what the ideals are since the community is made up of a wide range of contributors. Not everyone who releases under the GPL subscribes to RMS's social agenda.
"This is clearly against the ideal, what good is to able to change, when you changes can't run anywhere?"
Of course the changes can run "anywhere". Linux runs on a lot of hardware and you are free to use Tivo's work on any of those platforms or develop your own (as Tivo did). Tivo's competitors are free to use the code as well so long as they abide by the GPL terms. The problem is that you expect the GPL to apply to Tivo's hardware when there should be no expectation of that. Tivo didn't sell you a computer, they sold you a fixed function appliance that you are not allowed to modify. Their code is freely available and can be integrated into future works by anyone who respects the license.
The fact is that you are just whining. Many of the developers of the kernel have come out in favor of Tivo's usage. RMS has not but that's no surprise. It says a lot that you would claim to know the intent of the community when there is no such thing. All developers can do is decide the terms of their licensing and live with the consequences.
Neither do you.
If I were doing an actual review and installation failed, I'd resolve it or return the product without completing the review. Reviewers do that all the time. In the event that I completed the review, I'd mention that there were problems that were resolved by the manufacturer. What I wouldn't do is publish a hit piece disguised as a review and criticise some aspects of the product inaccurately by referring to problems in other areas of the product. Other reviewers have managed to actually review the "ease of use" of the Zune despite the install issue and their results are quite different. All this article was was an intentional hatchet-job from an Apple cheerleader. If you don't unserstand that, then you're the one who doesn't want to get it.
"That's one of their benefits. I'm not sure why you have such a one-dimensional view of iPods."
/., after all, and there aren't real conversations going on (epsecially regarding Apple products). If Apple can't get their marketing message right on their primary package (the product itself) then it should suggest to you that YOU are mistaken.
I don't. I happen to own many iPods but I've never bought into their claimed "ease of use" advantages. I've owned other player, predominatntly Rio, and they are similarly easy to use as well. iTunes itself is an entirely separate product and its "ease of use" is unrelated to the iPod. The lack of iTunes integration, for example, did not make the Rio player hardware to use.
I buy iPods because their form factor and industrial design are appealing and they have the best 3rd party support in the market. I overlook their design weaknesses and their poor reliability. Everything is a comprimise and I don't wear Apple goggles.
"it was amazingly simple to set up. Just "create new smart playlist" and then set some rules. Done."
Yes, the classic example of how easy metadata is to use once the laborious work of entering it all has been done. It's a good thing that your metadata aligns so perfectly with your desired usage then. If only there was an ID3 tag for music I'd like to hear that came pre-entered for me...
"The quality of that software affecte ease-of-use."
The support software does not effect "ease of use" of the player.
"...because many disagree with you that software does not affect the portable music experience."
I've never made that claim. We are talking about a reviewer here that has associated a setup failure with "ease of use" of an electronic gadget. It's a preposterous argument and only fanboys are disagreeing with me.
"Your opinion has no bearing on market-share. Just because you don't like iTunes, doesn't mean it isn't the most popular software out there."
Nice try, but your argument wasn't marketshare. Your argument was that iTunes was better than anything else. Here's what you said: "Plenty. I tried many Mac applications before iTunes, such as SoundApp, Musicmatch, MacAmp, SoundJam, and others I can't even remember. It wasn't until iTunes that it all came together in a really pleasing way. The same happened on Windows. Before iTunes came to Windows, there were many competitors. But iTunes slaughtered them all, even the popular WinAmp."
Where in there did you mention marketshare? Where in any of my responses have I mentioned marketshare? Windows users get iTunes to go with their iPods. Since the two are inseparable we really can't know if iTunes would compete on its own on the Windows platform.
"...I suspect you might be trolling..."
Yes, call me a troll because I disagree with you. You won't be the first. This is
""If I haven't seen it, it doesn't exist." Bravo! Clearly you are an intellectual giant."
I didn't say that. What I said was an equally ridulous but defendable response to your claim "There are plenty of commentary and reviews that discuss iTunes when discussing iPod usability - are you just ignorant of them?" You insulted me and made a sweeping claim without any supporting argument. As for your quote---yes, there's at least one reviewer as ignorant as you. Nice dumbassed quote too:
"As long as the software is installed, all you need to do is connect the Nano to your computer, and you're ready to roll."
Same could be said for Zune!!! As long as the install is already accomplished, it's ready to work! Wow.
"So, I don't think there's any need to go on. You can use Google yourself, if you want to see many more example like this. Now that you have seen it, do you believe it exists?"
If you are going to assert your arguments, don't expect others to do resarch for you. I happen to understand language just fine and I don't really care how many people mistake iTunes for iPods. The world can be filled