# BMW has a monopoly on beemers. # The Coca-Cola Corporation has a monopoly on Coke. # Nabisco has a monopoly on Oreos. # Rolex has a monopoly on Rolex watches.
A car is not a computer. A soft drink is not a computer. A biscuit is not a computer. A watch is not a computer.
If I choose to wear or eat or drive particular commodities, that does not in any real way constrain my choice of matching objects, such as furry dice, nachos, cheese, or gold chains. None of these manufacturers (well, except for BMW) can mandate that only particular manufacturers can license rights or imprimaturs to make matching accessories. It does not require that I purchase a later-model commodity object from the same manufacturer to minimise any "switching costs" during my transition.
In the case of BMW, many tying agreements exist during manufacture to constrain the choice of factory-installed options available. However, decades of law have established, not without some struggling by car manufacturers, that consumers have a right to modify or to add unlicenced 3rd-party add-ons to their vehicles without voiding warranties or manufacturer's service contracts.
And Nike has a 100% monopoly on Air Max shoes. That doesn't mean they actually have any kind of monopoly.
A shoe is not a computer. If I choose to wear a particular shoe, it does not in any real way constrain my choice of sock, trouser, or top. Nike can not mandate that only particular sock manufacturers can license rights or imprimaturs to make matching accessories. It does not require that I purchase a later-model shoe from the same manufacturer to minimise any "switching costs" during my shoe model transition.
Apple tried competing with Motorola, Power, Umax, Daystar, Radius etc and found it didn't like not having total control over its channels. Plus some companies were coming out with Macs that were faster and better-spec'd than Apple's. That made Apple look bad. Uprevving the system version from 7.x to 8.0 to freeze out the licensees was pretty underhanded.
I'll wait until they actually do something before I pass judgement. I won't agree with the sort of cynicism you espouse.
You're entitled to your opinion. However, even despite the shallow extent of Macintosh shareware compared to other ecosystems, over the years Apple has shown no reluctance in copying popular shareware products and bundling them with the OS. It has behaved generally like a standard OS vendor.
It's a nice convenient little line to trot out that Apple are just as bad as Microsoft, but the evidence doesn't support it and never has.
Apple has a 100% monopoly in Macintoshes. This was not always the case, but this is how Jobs likes it and so that's how he made it after he re-took control of Apple. I think the fundamental difference here is that you believe, for whatever reasons, that were Apple to somehow become as successful as Microsoft was in the 1990s, that it would not use its market power illegally. Based on experience, I have less confidence in the business practices of technology companies enjoying dominant positions. I believe the fact that Apple was not found in a court of law to have been "as bad" as Microsoft comes not from some moral high ground but from lack of opportunity. Within its tiny niche, Apple over the years has dealt some very duff hands to its ISVs and hardware partners. It's just that the Apple market has been so small for so long that nobody really cared.
The only market Apple is close to being a monopoly in is portable digital music players
Apple has a 100% monopoly in Macintoshes. This was not always the case, but this is how Jobs likes it and so that's how he made it after he re-took control of Apple.
The difference between Apple and MS (or for that matter Linux developers and MS) is that Apple does not have a monopoly so they actually have to listen to their users and make changes to make them happy.
Really? How many people sell kit for Apple hardware? How many can people sell FairPlay tracks for ipods? Apple's as much of a monopolist as MS, it's just not as successful (yet).
After using the iphone for a week you'll like the keyboard a lot better because it seems like magic to type d;sdjfpy and have that turned into "slashdot".
After typing on my slide-out Windows Mobile keyboard, I now find it useful but uncanny that its text correction, which extends to entire phrases, can now basically finish off many of my sentences. I type a single letter or two and get an eerily precise popup listing phrase options. It's like a mini Elizabot. It knows how to compliment and reassure my wife! How long before it can simulate my messages entirely?
in your preferred viewer. If CDisplay/Comix/whatever supports DjVu, the CBR could
DjVu can also contain an OCR layer. I'm looking for a time past CDisplay's "dumb" mode, where we can run OCR and hand enter character tags with dialog. Make the archives searchable. It would be cool to be able to do a search for some combination of heroes and villains or specific dialog that would let me open that actual page. Kind of the way text-based subtitles were added to DIVX rips of DVDs.
This is probably why, after 5 earlier iterations, Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message.
I have a WM6 phone. Here's how I delete:
1) See text message that needs nuking. 2) Push finger on text message for ~.3 seconds. 3) Action menu pops up. 4) Select delete. 5) Done in less than a second.
Now, I guess I *could* alter the UI to have an "X" button on each message that I could push (and hold, to prevent errors) to delete. But that seems like a waste of screen estate to me. I remove all the individual tab X buttons in Firefox.
I suppose could use a swiping routine ala Apple. Then again, I disabled all the gesture detection in my trackpad, and didn't like Opera's gestural interface when it appeared a few years ago. Too much potential for error - I have busy fingers!
how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!
Agreed, Nokia's phones are usually based on the Nokia "look" more than anything else. But there is a whole new wave of big-screen phones emerging based on trends coming out of Korea. The first one of these was a few mutant Samsungs, which begat the LG Prada, which Apple then lifted for its own phone design. Compare and contrast.
Find me someone who would actually be disadvantaged in a meaningful way by an email arriving 30 seconds later and we'll talk.
I've worked in industries that agonise over relocating datacentres away from MANs based on how many more milliseconds of latency will be introduced into transactions. Believe me when I tell you that any communication medium within these arenas is judged chiefly by how rapidly it can blast messages to specific people or sets of people. Getting an email delivered within a minute versus waiting for your subscriber to poll a server after 10 or 20 minutes can be the difference between failure and success. Again, this is reality versus faith-based computing.
MSFT is political, heavy-handed and more concerned with their revenue stream than fielding quality software.
Actually, MS has a far more diversified revenue stream than Google, which depends for around 97% of its revenue stream on two products. It's a lot easier to punt a new product that's potentially disruptive when the worst it can do is knock off a few percentage points, rather than take away half your revenue in one go.
The Helio is a smartphone? If that's true then the iphone seems still a little overpriced for its category. Or do you disagree that it should be cheaper given its profile?
Reconcile that with your "Windows is a closed system" statement.
It's called irony. Most people would call Windows Mobile a closed system because MS only provides source under controlled situations to special partners under NDA.
Connectivity is not a binary state
Actually, for those kind of environments, it is. It is like a vaccination - provoking an antibody response that seems qualitative but is in fact massively quantitative. But don't worry, I am sure that if Apple doesn't do it, another company will manage to rig up real groupware connectes for Apple's phone sometime next year.
I have yet to understand the fuss over push email
Yes, how could those tens of millions of people who depend on it be so wrong?
tell me how I'm supposed to do the things you mention using the Outlook client on Windows Mobile.
Well, you'd probably load the Blackberry client! People are also excited about the new IBM client for Notes, which promises to be a bit tighter than CommonTime. There are also an impressive array of custom Java apps out there - I even know one place that codes data integration applications for some of their mobile users with APL.
the editing features are a complete joke
Yes, they could be better. But you know what's worse? Having NONE AT ALL. And with my bluetooth roll-up keyboard I can at least type faster in a jiffy!
nothing so time critical should be bounced around corporate email servers with the hope that it is delivered within a minute or two.
I use my iPhone with my Exchange server seamlessly without any third-party applications
Really? You got push working, and you can schedule and adjust appointments on the server? Your calendar also updates in real-time when other people make changes? You can do directory lookups and browse shared folders? Impressive. I had heard that the iphone did not have an Exchange connector. How did you configure this exactly, without any third-party software? Or are you just downloading POP/IMAP files from a central store?
Windows Mobile is the epitome of an OPEN mobile platform.
Thanks, that was my point.
Most of what makes a smartphone lies in the UI and how it connects the user to his data.
That is a new definition of "smart", and is impressive. It reminds me of how Apple used increasingly byzantine definitions of their product niches through the 80s into the 90s during reviews of marketshare.
A smartphone goes beyond content delivery to content integration.
What you've described sounds very like the Helio. Is that a smart phone?
It looks like only Windows Mobile devices get functionality updates
I guess it also depends on what you mean by "functionality". For instance, my Windows Mobile phone was shipped pretty bare. I installed a few third-party programs: VOIP (via Skype Mobile), video calling (MS Portrait), encrypted datastore (SPB Wallet), finger/ping/traceroute/etc (vxUtils), a wifi packet sniffer and a WEP cracker, a few extra full-screen keyboards, some new handwriting recognisers, several different ebook readers, a Photoshop workalike (PocketArtist), bundles of games, a media player (CorePlayer), an FTP and a web server, a Flash player, some Flash Card managers, Google Maps, IM+ (GoogleTalk/AIM/YIM/MSN/Jabber), an audio editor, the Opera browsers, threaded SMS, SSH and Remote Desktop, Yahoo Go, an iphone skin mode just for the hell of it, several emulators (DOS, Atari, NED, C64, SCUMM) and a SQL browser.
None of those updates came from either the phone manufacturer or the carrier. Maybe after a few years with an SDK Apple's phone will have a rich enough software ecosystem to interest me, but not really right now.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody claims
Nobody you know, obviously.
# BMW has a monopoly on beemers.
# The Coca-Cola Corporation has a monopoly on Coke.
# Nabisco has a monopoly on Oreos.
# Rolex has a monopoly on Rolex watches.
A car is not a computer.
A soft drink is not a computer.
A biscuit is not a computer.
A watch is not a computer.
If I choose to wear or eat or drive particular commodities, that does not in any real way constrain my choice of matching objects, such as furry dice, nachos, cheese, or gold chains. None of these manufacturers (well, except for BMW) can mandate that only particular manufacturers can license rights or imprimaturs to make matching accessories. It does not require that I purchase a later-model commodity object from the same manufacturer to minimise any "switching costs" during my transition.
In the case of BMW, many tying agreements exist during manufacture to constrain the choice of factory-installed options available. However, decades of law have established, not without some struggling by car manufacturers, that consumers have a right to modify or to add unlicenced 3rd-party add-ons to their vehicles without voiding warranties or manufacturer's service contracts.
And Nike has a 100% monopoly on Air Max shoes. That doesn't mean they actually have any kind of monopoly.
A shoe is not a computer. If I choose to wear a particular shoe, it does not in any real way constrain my choice of sock, trouser, or top. Nike can not mandate that only particular sock manufacturers can license rights or imprimaturs to make matching accessories. It does not require that I purchase a later-model shoe from the same manufacturer to minimise any "switching costs" during my shoe model transition.
All it did was force Apple to compete with its own 'partners' for the most profitable chunk of the same slice.
Yes, it's very difficult for entrenched monopolies to compete in a more open market.
But I think I see that our perspectives are too different to come to an agreement on this matter so I suggest that we agree to disagree?
You're defining the market too narrowly.
Apple tried competing with Motorola, Power, Umax, Daystar, Radius etc and found it didn't like not having total control over its channels. Plus some companies were coming out with Macs that were faster and better-spec'd than Apple's. That made Apple look bad. Uprevving the system version from 7.x to 8.0 to freeze out the licensees was pretty underhanded.
I'll wait until they actually do something before I pass judgement. I won't agree with the sort of cynicism you espouse.
You're entitled to your opinion. However, even despite the shallow extent of Macintosh shareware compared to other ecosystems, over the years Apple has shown no reluctance in copying popular shareware products and bundling them with the OS. It has behaved generally like a standard OS vendor.
It's a nice convenient little line to trot out that Apple are just as bad as Microsoft, but the evidence doesn't support it and never has.
Apple has a 100% monopoly in Macintoshes. This was not always the case, but this is how Jobs likes it and so that's how he made it after he re-took control of Apple. I think the fundamental difference here is that you believe, for whatever reasons, that were Apple to somehow become as successful as Microsoft was in the 1990s, that it would not use its market power illegally. Based on experience, I have less confidence in the business practices of technology companies enjoying dominant positions. I believe the fact that Apple was not found in a court of law to have been "as bad" as Microsoft comes not from some moral high ground but from lack of opportunity. Within its tiny niche, Apple over the years has dealt some very duff hands to its ISVs and hardware partners. It's just that the Apple market has been so small for so long that nobody really cared.
The only market Apple is close to being a monopoly in is portable digital music players
Apple has a 100% monopoly in Macintoshes. This was not always the case, but this is how Jobs likes it and so that's how he made it after he re-took control of Apple.
The difference between Apple and MS (or for that matter Linux developers and MS) is that Apple does not have a monopoly so they actually have to listen to their users and make changes to make them happy.
Really? How many people sell kit for Apple hardware? How many can people sell FairPlay tracks for ipods? Apple's as much of a monopolist as MS, it's just not as successful (yet).
S/He said: at least one Apple apologist step up
You said: you believe that everyone who purchases Apple products have the same opinion
The set of "at least one" does not equal the set of "everyone".
After using the iphone for a week you'll like the keyboard a lot better because it seems like magic to type d;sdjfpy and have that turned into "slashdot".
After typing on my slide-out Windows Mobile keyboard, I now find it useful but uncanny that its text correction, which extends to entire phrases, can now basically finish off many of my sentences. I type a single letter or two and get an eerily precise popup listing phrase options. It's like a mini Elizabot. It knows how to compliment and reassure my wife! How long before it can simulate my messages entirely?
in your preferred viewer. If CDisplay/Comix/whatever supports DjVu, the CBR could
DjVu can also contain an OCR layer. I'm looking for a time past CDisplay's "dumb" mode, where we can run OCR and hand enter character tags with dialog. Make the archives searchable. It would be cool to be able to do a search for some combination of heroes and villains or specific dialog that would let me open that actual page. Kind of the way text-based subtitles were added to DIVX rips of DVDs.
Scene rips of comics use the excellent Comic Book Archive file format, which is an archive (usually ZIP or RAR)
How does DjVu compare to CDisplay's ZIP/RAR archives?
trying to promote removing the "PC" from making any money what-so-ever in the U.S., ironically the country that invented the PC.
A French company invented, marketed, and sold the first personal computer, the Micral, in 1973.
find someone who is disadvantaged in a meaningful way by receiving an email 30 seconds later.
I have led you to the water but you will not drink.
This is probably why, after 5 earlier iterations, Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message.
I have a WM6 phone. Here's how I delete:
1) See text message that needs nuking.
2) Push finger on text message for ~.3 seconds.
3) Action menu pops up.
4) Select delete.
5) Done in less than a second.
Now, I guess I *could* alter the UI to have an "X" button on each message that I could push (and hold, to prevent errors) to delete. But that seems like a waste of screen estate to me. I remove all the individual tab X buttons in Firefox.
I suppose could use a swiping routine ala Apple. Then again, I disabled all the gesture detection in my trackpad, and didn't like Opera's gestural interface when it appeared a few years ago. Too much potential for error - I have busy fingers!
how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!
Agreed, Nokia's phones are usually based on the Nokia "look" more than anything else. But there is a whole new wave of big-screen phones emerging based on trends coming out of Korea. The first one of these was a few mutant Samsungs, which begat the LG Prada, which Apple then lifted for its own phone design. Compare and contrast.
Find me someone who would actually be disadvantaged in a meaningful way by an email arriving 30 seconds later and we'll talk.
I've worked in industries that agonise over relocating datacentres away from MANs based on how many more milliseconds of latency will be introduced into transactions. Believe me when I tell you that any communication medium within these arenas is judged chiefly by how rapidly it can blast messages to specific people or sets of people. Getting an email delivered within a minute versus waiting for your subscriber to poll a server after 10 or 20 minutes can be the difference between failure and success. Again, this is reality versus faith-based computing.
There's no way "tens of millions" of people even USE [push], let alone "depend" on it.
I see I am dealing with faith-based computing here. I'll stick with the reality-based computing, thanks.
It's a Pogue review of something that's not made by Apple so of *course* it's going to say it's shit.
MSFT is political, heavy-handed and more concerned with their revenue stream than fielding quality software.
Actually, MS has a far more diversified revenue stream than Google, which depends for around 97% of its revenue stream on two products. It's a lot easier to punt a new product that's potentially disruptive when the worst it can do is knock off a few percentage points, rather than take away half your revenue in one go.
The Helio is a smartphone? If that's true then the iphone seems still a little overpriced for its category. Or do you disagree that it should be cheaper given its profile?
Reconcile that with your "Windows is a closed system" statement.
It's called irony. Most people would call Windows Mobile a closed system because MS only provides source under controlled situations to special partners under NDA.
Connectivity is not a binary state
Actually, for those kind of environments, it is. It is like a vaccination - provoking an antibody response that seems qualitative but is in fact massively quantitative. But don't worry, I am sure that if Apple doesn't do it, another company will manage to rig up real groupware connectes for Apple's phone sometime next year.
I have yet to understand the fuss over push email
Yes, how could those tens of millions of people who depend on it be so wrong?
tell me how I'm supposed to do the things you mention using the Outlook client on Windows Mobile.
Well, you'd probably load the Blackberry client! People are also excited about the new IBM client for Notes, which promises to be a bit tighter than CommonTime. There are also an impressive array of custom Java apps out there - I even know one place that codes data integration applications for some of their mobile users with APL.
the editing features are a complete joke
Yes, they could be better. But you know what's worse? Having NONE AT ALL. And with my bluetooth roll-up keyboard I can at least type faster in a jiffy!
nothing so time critical should be bounced around corporate email servers with the hope that it is delivered within a minute or two.
Yes, that's why there's also secure IM.
I use my iPhone with my Exchange server seamlessly without any third-party applications
Really? You got push working, and you can schedule and adjust appointments on the server? Your calendar also updates in real-time when other people make changes? You can do directory lookups and browse shared folders? Impressive. I had heard that the iphone did not have an Exchange connector. How did you configure this exactly, without any third-party software? Or are you just downloading POP/IMAP files from a central store?
Windows Mobile is the epitome of an OPEN mobile platform.
Thanks, that was my point.
Most of what makes a smartphone lies in the UI and how it connects the user to his data.
That is a new definition of "smart", and is impressive. It reminds me of how Apple used increasingly byzantine definitions of their product niches through the 80s into the 90s during reviews of marketshare.
A smartphone goes beyond content delivery to content integration.
What you've described sounds very like the Helio. Is that a smart phone?
It looks like only Windows Mobile devices get functionality updates
I guess it also depends on what you mean by "functionality". For instance, my Windows Mobile phone was shipped pretty bare. I installed a few third-party programs: VOIP (via Skype Mobile), video calling (MS Portrait), encrypted datastore (SPB Wallet), finger/ping/traceroute/etc (vxUtils), a wifi packet sniffer and a WEP cracker, a few extra full-screen keyboards, some new handwriting recognisers, several different ebook readers, a Photoshop workalike (PocketArtist), bundles of games, a media player (CorePlayer), an FTP and a web server, a Flash player, some Flash Card managers, Google Maps, IM+ (GoogleTalk/AIM/YIM/MSN/Jabber), an audio editor, the Opera browsers, threaded SMS, SSH and Remote Desktop, Yahoo Go, an iphone skin mode just for the hell of it, several emulators (DOS, Atari, NED, C64, SCUMM) and a SQL browser.
None of those updates came from either the phone manufacturer or the carrier. Maybe after a few years with an SDK Apple's phone will have a rich enough software ecosystem to interest me, but not really right now.