Was anyone here (on SlashDot) really under the misimpression that this was the original Napster coming back in new improved form...
Nope, this is just the Napster brand snapped up out of bankruptcy by Roxio. In fact, 'I' believe Roxio just updated and rebranded the Pressplay servce they bought from the record companies.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that many casual users will make the mistake of thinking they can finally fir up their old Napster client, or download a new version of the web... they will be disappointed... which might be good for iTunes in the long run.
It doesn't even lock you into using iTunes (to play your music), as the DRM lives in QuickTime, so pretty much any software which supports QuickTime 6 can play iTMS AAC files.
Gee, that's a good defense of iTunes! Critic: "iTunes is too restrictive, users would better be served elsewhere to get more choices." Respondent: "What do you mean it's too restrictive? You don't have to use iTunes to listen to your music at all!" Critic: "Uh, that's exactly what we're saying... don't use iTunes and you won't be restricted..."
Once again, iTunes != iTMS.
iTMS does not lock you in to using iTunes. You can use any QuickTime compatible player. Although I would consider iTunes a pretty good QuickTime compatible player.
Name some companies (other than Apple) that sell AAC music online for iTunes.
AFIAK, Apple is the first to sell AAC music online... but Audible.com does sell audio content that will work in iTunes and on iPod.
Name some devices other than iPod that sync with iTunes.
To be pedantic, most music players with any aspirations to be sold to Mac users will sync with iTunes, and that's a lot of mp3 players. What you probably meant was:
Name some devices other than iPod that play AAC:
Nokia Music Player
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,5184,4226,00.html
I especially like this quote from their website:
15. Does Nokia Music Player support WMA?
No. Nokia has chosen AAC because of the quality and MP3 because of the wide usage.
Nokia N-Gage
Panasonic SD Audio Player (several versions)
http://panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/ewear/sd _audio_players.asp
iRiver iDP-100 (though I'm not certain it is a current product)
> As far as I can tell, VT hasn't actually built this cluster
I'm sorry to say, they have. They even took some pictures.:)
Some earlier figures were extrapolations from a smaller cluster.
Apple offers two tiers of pricing for education customers. Institutions (like VT) get the lowest price, while individuals (teachers, students) get a slightly higher price. Go to Apple's Education store to make price comparisons.
As to finding comparable dual x86s, well, make sure they are actually comparable before saying they are cheaper.
Anyone is free to sell AAC files. In fact, MusicMatch has publicly stated it will if the format proves popular. How is that lock-in by iTunes?
iTunes Music Store sells AAC, but does not lock you in to buying ONLY AAC. It doesn't even lock you into using iTunes (to play your music), as the DRM lives in QuickTime, so pretty much any software which supports QuickTime 6 can play iTMS AAC files.
iTunes plays practically everything BUT WMA... so iTunes will happily work with any source of MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, etc. files. Drawing on QuickTime and publicly available plug-ins, iTunes can play from these files:
(yes, I'm lazy and just pasting stuff from Apple's website) AIFF, AU, Audio CD, AVI, DV, MIDI, MPEG-1, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MOV, WAV, Ogg Vorbis (with plug-in), etc.
in these encodings:
24-bit integer 32-bit floating point 32-bit integer 64-bit floating point AAC (MPEG-4 Audio) ALaw 2:1 AMR Narrowband IMA 4:1 MACE 3:1 MACE 6:1 MS ADPCM (decode only) QDesign Music 2 Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP) ULaw 2:1
Yes, yes, and ummm, yes! A well-designed interface should never have functions which can only be accessed by activating an unseen control (like a contextual menu). Multi-button mice are too often used as a crutch by bad interface designers who can't figure out how to present options to a user.
Yes, Apple does limit the power of it's mouse, but with this leverage it gains something other platforms (generally) lack: cleaner, better-designed interface. And Mac users can choose to use a two-button scroll mouse, if they wish, and it works just like it would under Windows.
Imagine a building where the doors wouldn't open unless you used your left hand to open them... that would be as intuitive as the whole right-click, left-click thing.
Absolutely right... except worse because it's going to require new clients.
I wish more places used AFS... with its distributed servers, very flexible Access Control Lists, and established base... it is really the best option, rather then losing features.
As far as I can tell, they are calling it a peer to peer system, but forgetting the peer to peer part.
Looking at my university's internal pricelist, Mac OS X is $53 for a single-user license.
While not $40/machine... it is better than 2x that amount.
(and I must point out, that's really $200/5 machines, and further, that assumes you have a household with 5 OS X compatible computers used by people residing in the household. My household, although very Mac centric, currently only has 4 Macs running OS X, three of which came with their own license, so that family pack won't do much until Panther, even then, only 2 or three of those computers will get upgraded, so that $100-$66/machine.
I've been developing and testing a processor-bound C++ command-line program on Mac OS X, using both an iBook/500 and a Dual 1.42 PowerMac.
The program runs about three times as fast on the PowerMac, as expected... (3x500 ~= 1.5).
The kicker is that I can run two instance of the program simultaneously on the PowerMac, EACH using almost 100% processor, and finish in the same time. So the PowerMac is effectively 6 times as fast...
It's a nice feeling to see the output for top with two processes each running just below 100% of processor.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... yep.
Was anyone here (on SlashDot) really under the misimpression that this was the original Napster coming back in new improved form...
Nope, this is just the Napster brand snapped up out of bankruptcy by Roxio. In fact, 'I' believe Roxio just updated and rebranded the Pressplay servce they bought from the record companies.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that many casual users will make the mistake of thinking they can finally fir up their old Napster client, or download a new version of the web... they will be disappointed... which might be good for iTunes in the long run.
-Marcin
Name some devices other than iPod that play AAC:
Nokia Music Player
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,5184,4226,00.html
I especially like this quote from their website:
Nokia N-Gage
Panasonic SD Audio Player (several versions)d _audio_players.asp
http://panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/ewear/s
iRiver iDP-100 (though I'm not certain it is a current product)
That's "some" devices.
Marcin
> As far as I can tell, VT hasn't actually built this cluster
:)
I'm sorry to say, they have. They even took some pictures.
Some earlier figures were extrapolations from a smaller cluster.
Apple offers two tiers of pricing for education customers. Institutions (like VT) get the lowest price, while individuals (teachers, students) get a slightly higher price. Go to Apple's Education store to make price comparisons.
As to finding comparable dual x86s, well, make sure they are actually comparable before saying they are cheaper.
Anyone is free to sell AAC files. In fact, MusicMatch has publicly stated it will if the format proves popular. How is that lock-in by iTunes?
iTunes Music Store sells AAC, but does not lock you in to buying ONLY AAC. It doesn't even lock you into using iTunes (to play your music), as the DRM lives in QuickTime, so pretty much any software which supports QuickTime 6 can play iTMS AAC files.
iTunes plays practically everything BUT WMA... so iTunes will happily work with any source of MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, etc. files. Drawing on QuickTime and publicly available plug-ins, iTunes can play from these files:
(yes, I'm lazy and just pasting stuff from Apple's website)
AIFF, AU, Audio CD, AVI, DV, MIDI, MPEG-1, MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MOV, WAV, Ogg Vorbis (with plug-in), etc.
in these encodings:
24-bit integer
32-bit floating point
32-bit integer
64-bit floating point
AAC (MPEG-4 Audio)
ALaw 2:1
AMR Narrowband
IMA 4:1
MACE 3:1
MACE 6:1
MS ADPCM (decode only)
QDesign Music 2
Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP)
ULaw 2:1
Yes, yes, and ummm, yes! A well-designed interface should never have functions which can only be accessed by activating an unseen control (like a contextual menu). Multi-button mice are too often used as a crutch by bad interface designers who can't figure out how to present options to a user.
Yes, Apple does limit the power of it's mouse, but with this leverage it gains something other platforms (generally) lack: cleaner, better-designed interface. And Mac users can choose to use a two-button scroll mouse, if they wish, and it works just like it would under Windows.
Imagine a building where the doors wouldn't open unless you used your left hand to open them... that would be as intuitive as the whole right-click, left-click thing.
Absolutely right... except worse because it's going to require new clients.
I wish more places used AFS... with its distributed servers, very flexible Access Control Lists, and established base... it is really the best option, rather then losing features.
As far as I can tell, they are calling it a peer to peer system, but forgetting the peer to peer part.
Uh... no.
Standard educational pricing is $69 for the OS.
Looking at my university's internal pricelist, Mac OS X is $53 for a single-user license.
While not $40/machine... it is better than 2x that amount.
(and I must point out, that's really $200/5 machines, and further, that assumes you have a household with 5 OS X compatible computers used by people residing in the household. My household, although very Mac centric, currently only has 4 Macs running OS X, three of which came with their own license, so that family pack won't do much until Panther, even then, only 2 or three of those computers will get upgraded, so that $100-$66/machine.
Marcin
I've been developing and testing a processor-bound C++ command-line program on Mac OS X, using both an iBook/500 and a Dual 1.42 PowerMac.
The program runs about three times as fast on the PowerMac, as expected... (3x500 ~= 1.5).
The kicker is that I can run two instance of the program simultaneously on the PowerMac, EACH using almost 100% processor, and finish in the same time. So the PowerMac is effectively 6 times as fast...
It's a nice feeling to see the output for top with two processes each running just below 100% of processor.