You need to catch up with Mostly Harmless! There are two parallel versions of Tricia McMillan: Trillian (who ran off with Zaphod) and Tricia (who stayed and moved to the USA). In the Radio 4 production of the later books, yes, they were played by the appropriate actresses...
and the trend of the app store that if it's over $4, no one wants it (or for big apps, over $10 and no one wants it)
I think you are confusing "no one buys" with "sells less copies than Angry Birds at £0.99".
On the UK iOS store, #2 on the "top grossing" list is TomTom, at £39. The "Top 200" grossing list includes titles at £5, £7, £9, £18, £37.
There aren't that many "serious" apps on the iOS store because (a) who would want (say) a full-blown DTP suite on an iPhone and (b) the iPad, which is suitable for slightly more heavyweight apps, hasn't been around for a year yet. I'd expect the Mac store to accumulate rather more upmarket Apps - if its full of cheap crap which will run just as well on an iPod its not going to be a success in the long term.
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, KeyNote and Numbers) is rumored to be coming out at $20 per application, c.f. the current version at $80 for the bundle. That's a significant price drop but hardly a collapse (and could be self-compensating if it leads to more sales) - and Apple are probably in a position to price that as a loss leader to promote the store.
Something like Plants vs. Zombies (excellent casual game) is $3 on the iPhone, $7 on the iPad vs. (currently) $20 for the mac, which is a bit more of a price drop (I think the Mac version has a few extras, but there's an awful lot in the iPad version). Note that there's already a precident for charging more for iPad versions, so there's no expectation that Mac versions will match the iOS price. PvZ for Mac has already been on offer on Steam for less, at times.
Then there's things like CoPilot and TomTom at (UK) price points like £19.99, £39.99, £59.99 for iPhone - Probably not good candidates for a Mac version, but they give the lie to the idea that everything on the iOS app store costs $0.99.
(Apologies for the currency mixing - but this is Apple so $1 and £1 aren't a lot different...)
clients for iPad/iPod, Android and Blackberry
You mean they don't support WebDav natively, but need an application?
DropBox does more than you would get with native webDav. You can upload/download your files with a standard web browser. What you get with the App is automatic syncing across all your devices. On the mobile versons you get to select which files you want cached locally.
Plus, I've found that lusers who can't cope with connecting to file servers are able to set up and use DropBox.
The one thing I don't like about Dropbox (which is why I use Syncplicity) is that one must drop one's files into the Dropbox folder. This becomes a problem because it creates a duplicate of the file which just seems to waste space.
OTOH, anything synced by DropBox is being entrusted to the cloud, so confining it to a single folder is probably sensible. Part of Dropbox's USP is that it is pretty user friendly - its not really trying to replace rsync or git for power users.
It is common knowledge and assumed you know what it is. If you don't then please leave the site.
How arrogant. Its a very valid criticism that the summary failed include any indication whatsoever WTF DropBox is. The point of a summary should be to give you enough information to decide whether you want to investigate further. Its more excusable (but still annoying) if you're talking about (say) some obscure branch of the Java acronym thicket, but DropBox is a firmly user-facing product.
We're not talking about including a 1000-word essay here, just "Version 1.0 of DropBox (the cross-platform, cloud-based file syncing service)".
THe real winner for me is that it's also a tool that you install on your PC or Mac or Linux machine.
Plus, clients for iPad/iPod, Android and Blackberry (along with basic access from anything that can download from the web).
Its about the easiest way to get files on and off an iPad - its a crying shame that Apple don't add "export to DropBox" to the mobile iWork Apps. Its very easy to use by (e.g.) people who would run a mile from rsync.
I've hit a few headaches when trying to use it for collaborative work - some may be addressed by the new file locking fixes, others have really been PEBKAC which can't really be blamed on the software - e.g. person puts latest file in dropbox folder, emails everybody to say latest file is in dropbox, doesn't check that dropbox is actually connected and syncing...
There's a related issue for Macs in that, as far the Mac is concerned, the dropbox is a folder on your hard drive, so when you drag files in and out of there the default is to move, not copy - which is not usually what you want (especially when dragging files out).
If the hard drive is securely encrypted then why bother to kill the CPU?
Any benefit in doing that has to be weighed against the risk of having a remote kill switch.
Why upload data into the cloud if you don't need to share it or have access to it on the move?
So perhaps the target market for ChromeOS devices, when they actually hit the market, will be people who need to share data and have access to it on the move?
I'd see it as a product for the corporate market, where keeping central control of all your users data, banishing CDs and memory sticks and preventing the serfs from installing games and fart apps on their devices would be a selling point. Someone leaves their ChromePad on a train? No worries - just lock their account and check the log to see if anybody has used the account in the meantime.
Of course, all this has happened again (with Sun's plans for Java-based thin client network computers back in the 90s, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. For one thing, the proliferation of mobile devices, laptops, working on the move, hot desking has made maintaining a "fleet" of computers with local storage an even bigger headache than it was back then. Secondly, the 90s was the peak of the MS monoculture, and people might now be more open to a non-MS solution.
Its hard to judge based on "development machines" and people trying out ChromeOS on VMs. If Google finally launches this as part of a corporate-friendly "IT Outsourcing" package then it might just work.
Its not the OS - its the Apps. Putting a touch-optimised shell on Windows 7 would probably be quite easy, but that wouldn't necessarily fix MS Office and all the other apps.
MS has it mostly its own way with Windows on the desktop, largely because of the Office monopoly and the huge volume of other Windows software available. Trouble is, none of that software is particularly mobile-touchscreen-friendly, thanks to user interface, screen real-estate and bloat issues.
Android and Apple, on the other hand, already have app stores bulging with custom-written apps aimed at the sort of things people want to do on their fondleslabs.
Even if Microsoft includes "mobile" versions of Office, they'll be cut-down versons with limitations and (probably) incompatibilities, losing much of their advantage c.f. (say) Apple's iWork.
I guess MS will be able to promote them as "genuine" Office, but they need to get in quick before Apple get their finger out and fix the mess that is file syncing* between mobile iWork and the desktop.
* Note to Jobs: ffs add DropBox support to mobile iWork and it will become useful - it has its flaws but people can use it unlike the current arrangement.
A car built in 1961 is certified by the government as meeting all existing safety standards. Now it's 2010, that same car wouldn't be considered safe compared to a new car, which meets standards required to call it "safe."
...but, that 1961 car is still recognizably a "modern" car: if its still in good working order you'll be able to hop in it and do whatever you'd expect to be able to do in a modern car. C.f. a 1900 car which would have completely unrecognizable controls, wouldn't go far enough on a tank to make it from one gas station to the next and wouldn't be fast enough to take on a freeway. One is still viable as a means of personal transport*, the other isn't.
Likewise, 512Kbps broadband is still a viable way of accessing most internet services, whereas what came before (ISDN or modem) are definitely Model-T Fords.
How is this any different?
You won't end up impaled on the steering column of your 512K ADSL line, nor does it kill 3.5 baby polar bears every mile or emit enough lead to re-roof a church: the only serious arguments for not driving a 1961 car.
* disclaimer - my first two cars were Citroen 2CVs, and I still pine for them (the last one dissolved in about 1996) so I may have a distorted view of what a "viable means of personal transport" comprises.
ChromeOS will have a standards-based browser, right? Otherwise it will make iOS look positively open...
So all you need to do is get yourself a server (anything from a $200 NAS device hanging off your home broadband to a rack full of hardware in a datacentre somewhere) add some open-source equivalents of Google Docs, adjust your SSL certificates to taste and, voila, your own little private cloud for you, your colleagues, your friends and anybody else of your choosing.
All we need is that open-source server-side cloud software. However, I see there are AJAX-based SSH clients that ought to let you use your iPad or ChromeBook to run EMACS on your server, so what else do you need?
More serious example of open-source cloud software is Cloud 9 - a Javascript IDE that you can download and run on your own server.
...I don't think it means what they think that it means.
because they fall below the agency's most recent minimum requirement: 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream
Presumably, anybody who thought they had broadband back in the day when ADSL was 512Kbps/128Kbps (and we was grateful!) was just deluded.
Alternatively, maybe somebody who's never used a dial-up "analogue" modem can't quite grasp that even 512Kbps, always-on, unmetered is a bloody luxury by comparison, and more than enough as a minimum standard to avoid "disenfranchising" people in terms of access to online commerce and information.
As others have pointed out, contention levels, usage caps, filtering and firewalling, static IP addresses vs. NAT, etc. would be more useful features to "stickle" over.
...or do the FCC want to make sure everybody can stream full broadcast-quality HD television so that they can auction off the UHF spectrum to the mobile operators? The phrase "mission creep" springs to mind.
I thought the whole point of Chrome OS was that it was a client for running cloud-based webapps?
Given that, it makes sense to lock down the machine - unless they're saying that it won't even run non-google Web apps?
I mean, how long do you think some do-gooder who's Doing of The Good involved the typical comic book level of property damage would stay out of court (and bankruptcy) in Real Life?
Well, some of them could probably get the money back by suing whoever it was who failed to keep that radioactive spider in its jar; forgot to print the obligatory warnings on the magic amulet or activated the intrinsic field generator without checking that nobody was inside. They could cite any post-1980 superhero story as evidence of the distress and trauma caused by being burdened with superpowers.
Superman might be able to claim diplomatic immunity (or set up a tax haven in the phantom zone and make a killing) or, if all else fails, just squeeze a few lumps of coal into diamonds to keep up with the premiums on his Luthorcorp Superpower Liability Indemnification Policy.
People seem to be confusing the App Store with an internet provider or a web forum.
When you buy something from the App Store you are buying it from Apple - they are not the mail man, they are not the phone company, they are the vendor. I don't know about the US, but in most of the EU that means they (not the app author) are liable to the customer for any defects. I'm sure that, even in the US, that means they are first in line to get sued if somebody's kid finds an undeclared nipple in an app .
That's why Apple won't allow pr0n (complaints on a postcard to Litigious Soccer Moms of the US) and why they won't advertise competitors.
If you want drug abuse tips, racial hatred, hard-core porn or (God help you) Android product reviews then the iPad has a perfectly servicable and uncensored web browser for accessing content for which Apple can't be held responsible.
(ISTR they did allow a Well Known Soft Porn magazine, but Apple probably judged they were big enough and reputable enough not to get sued)
The only way to load software is through the App Store,
Or (if its javascript/HTML) running it online from any website, which can even provide a manifest file so that it has a desktop icon, gets cached and looks for all the world like an App. Maybe not the best solution for your FPS game but for a magazine thats actually far more sensible than a native app.
Of course, if you are talking "software" in the wider sense, you could also distribute it as a PDF, ePub, Kindle edition, podcast, whatever, all readable on iPad without Steve's permission.
The main reason they haven't caught as much flak is that they've been seen as the plucky underdog with 10% market share.
Plucky underdog is irrelevant. 10% market share is the relevant bit because that means that they are not a monopoly and anybody who doesnt like their practices is free to go elsewhere. The reason the EU came down on MS like a ton of bricks is that they used their monopoly in one market (operating systems) to take over a different market (web browser software) - although the EU took so long to act that everybody had forgotten that, once upon a time, OSs didnt come with a free web brower.
Meanwhile, you might want to reflect what would happen if you asked Walmart to stock your new magazine "This month at Tesco".
Apple just decided to do what every other manufacturer was already doing - replacing a music player with a phone
Actually, they did what no other manufacturer was doing at the time: they produced a smartphone with a user interface designed by someone who gave a fuck. Did you ever try to use (say) a pre-iPhone Windows Mobile? I did, and it was virtually unusable. I've actually got an Android phone now, not an iPhone, but the modern Android interface is hugely influenced by the iPhone (as are the HTC skins on top of Windows Mobile).
- but declare it magical and innovative and revolutionary
Yeah, because if you launch your product with a classified ad in the local trade rag, with the slogan "Well, its OK I suppose" it is really going to fly off the shelves. What have Apple done to forfeit the right to advertise?
Should they care or should they celebrate? The iPhone offers a superset of iPod functionality and the iPhone generates greater profits.
Dumb comment in TFA - they surely make more on an iPhone than an iPod. Also, Apple had to produce the iPhone - other phone manufacturers were including music players and that would have hit iPod sales.
The iPad vs. laptop "cannibalization" might be more serious, but the iPad is fairly well pitched to be a supplement to a laptop, not a replacement. I use mine mainly for comfy-chair web and email browsing.
This created a market for USB devices: mice, keyboard, scanners, printers, card readers etc that just was not taking off before that, since while some PC motherboards shipped with this "new fangled" USB port, it was poorly supported
Exactly - this is what Apple is very, very good at, and why the industry needs them. They didn't invent the personal computer***, the graphical user interface, the laser printer, local area networking*, laptops** RISC-based PCs* USB, the small-form-factor computer, the floppy-free computer, the MP3 player, online music sales, the smartphone... What they did do is turn them into mainstream commercial successes and put a very large rocket up the conservative asses of the competition. Oh, you'd better add UNIX to that list, as well as standards-based rich internet apps.
(* Actually, Acorn- who had a good college try at being the UK equivalent of Apple - got to those two first, but the only thing that had much impact outside of Blighty was the CPU they designed for their RISC-based PC, the ARM).
(** Apple "invented" - maybe in partnership with Sony - the modern laptop layout, with the set-back keyboard and trackball/trackpad in front).
(*** Joint honours with Commodore and Tandy, and maybe others, on the first "appliance" PC, but they were on the front line - previous PCs were "some assembly required" and/or needed a terminal or teletype).
Slashdot Mirror
You need to catch up with Mostly Harmless! There are two parallel versions of Tricia McMillan: Trillian (who ran off with Zaphod) and Tricia (who stayed and moved to the USA). In the Radio 4 production of the later books, yes, they were played by the appropriate actresses...
and the trend of the app store that if it's over $4, no one wants it (or for big apps, over $10 and no one wants it)
I think you are confusing "no one buys" with "sells less copies than Angry Birds at £0.99".
On the UK iOS store, #2 on the "top grossing" list is TomTom, at £39. The "Top 200" grossing list includes titles at £5, £7, £9, £18, £37.
There aren't that many "serious" apps on the iOS store because (a) who would want (say) a full-blown DTP suite on an iPhone and (b) the iPad, which is suitable for slightly more heavyweight apps, hasn't been around for a year yet. I'd expect the Mac store to accumulate rather more upmarket Apps - if its full of cheap crap which will run just as well on an iPod its not going to be a success in the long term.
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, KeyNote and Numbers) is rumored to be coming out at $20 per application, c.f. the current version at $80 for the bundle. That's a significant price drop but hardly a collapse (and could be self-compensating if it leads to more sales) - and Apple are probably in a position to price that as a loss leader to promote the store.
Something like Plants vs. Zombies (excellent casual game) is $3 on the iPhone, $7 on the iPad vs. (currently) $20 for the mac, which is a bit more of a price drop (I think the Mac version has a few extras, but there's an awful lot in the iPad version). Note that there's already a precident for charging more for iPad versions, so there's no expectation that Mac versions will match the iOS price. PvZ for Mac has already been on offer on Steam for less, at times.
Then there's things like CoPilot and TomTom at (UK) price points like £19.99, £39.99, £59.99 for iPhone - Probably not good candidates for a Mac version, but they give the lie to the idea that everything on the iOS app store costs $0.99. (Apologies for the currency mixing - but this is Apple so $1 and £1 aren't a lot different...)
clients for iPad/iPod, Android and Blackberry You mean they don't support WebDav natively, but need an application?
DropBox does more than you would get with native webDav. You can upload/download your files with a standard web browser. What you get with the App is automatic syncing across all your devices. On the mobile versons you get to select which files you want cached locally.
Plus, I've found that lusers who can't cope with connecting to file servers are able to set up and use DropBox.
The one thing I don't like about Dropbox (which is why I use Syncplicity) is that one must drop one's files into the Dropbox folder. This becomes a problem because it creates a duplicate of the file which just seems to waste space.
OTOH, anything synced by DropBox is being entrusted to the cloud, so confining it to a single folder is probably sensible. Part of Dropbox's USP is that it is pretty user friendly - its not really trying to replace rsync or git for power users.
It is common knowledge and assumed you know what it is. If you don't then please leave the site.
How arrogant. Its a very valid criticism that the summary failed include any indication whatsoever WTF DropBox is. The point of a summary should be to give you enough information to decide whether you want to investigate further. Its more excusable (but still annoying) if you're talking about (say) some obscure branch of the Java acronym thicket, but DropBox is a firmly user-facing product.
We're not talking about including a 1000-word essay here, just "Version 1.0 of DropBox (the cross-platform, cloud-based file syncing service)".
THe real winner for me is that it's also a tool that you install on your PC or Mac or Linux machine.
Plus, clients for iPad/iPod, Android and Blackberry (along with basic access from anything that can download from the web).
Its about the easiest way to get files on and off an iPad - its a crying shame that Apple don't add "export to DropBox" to the mobile iWork Apps. Its very easy to use by (e.g.) people who would run a mile from rsync.
I've hit a few headaches when trying to use it for collaborative work - some may be addressed by the new file locking fixes, others have really been PEBKAC which can't really be blamed on the software - e.g. person puts latest file in dropbox folder, emails everybody to say latest file is in dropbox, doesn't check that dropbox is actually connected and syncing...
There's a related issue for Macs in that, as far the Mac is concerned, the dropbox is a folder on your hard drive, so when you drag files in and out of there the default is to move, not copy - which is not usually what you want (especially when dragging files out).
An option to share "read only" would be nice...
If the hard drive is securely encrypted then why bother to kill the CPU? Any benefit in doing that has to be weighed against the risk of having a remote kill switch.
Why upload data into the cloud if you don't need to share it or have access to it on the move?
So perhaps the target market for ChromeOS devices, when they actually hit the market, will be people who need to share data and have access to it on the move?
I'd see it as a product for the corporate market, where keeping central control of all your users data, banishing CDs and memory sticks and preventing the serfs from installing games and fart apps on their devices would be a selling point. Someone leaves their ChromePad on a train? No worries - just lock their account and check the log to see if anybody has used the account in the meantime.
Of course, all this has happened again (with Sun's plans for Java-based thin client network computers back in the 90s, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. For one thing, the proliferation of mobile devices, laptops, working on the move, hot desking has made maintaining a "fleet" of computers with local storage an even bigger headache than it was back then. Secondly, the 90s was the peak of the MS monoculture, and people might now be more open to a non-MS solution.
Its hard to judge based on "development machines" and people trying out ChromeOS on VMs. If Google finally launches this as part of a corporate-friendly "IT Outsourcing" package then it might just work.
Its not the OS - its the Apps. Putting a touch-optimised shell on Windows 7 would probably be quite easy, but that wouldn't necessarily fix MS Office and all the other apps.
MS has it mostly its own way with Windows on the desktop, largely because of the Office monopoly and the huge volume of other Windows software available. Trouble is, none of that software is particularly mobile-touchscreen-friendly, thanks to user interface, screen real-estate and bloat issues.
Android and Apple, on the other hand, already have app stores bulging with custom-written apps aimed at the sort of things people want to do on their fondleslabs.
Even if Microsoft includes "mobile" versions of Office, they'll be cut-down versons with limitations and (probably) incompatibilities, losing much of their advantage c.f. (say) Apple's iWork.
I guess MS will be able to promote them as "genuine" Office, but they need to get in quick before Apple get their finger out and fix the mess that is file syncing* between mobile iWork and the desktop.
* Note to Jobs: ffs add DropBox support to mobile iWork and it will become useful - it has its flaws but people can use it unlike the current arrangement.
A car built in 1961 is certified by the government as meeting all existing safety standards. Now it's 2010, that same car wouldn't be considered safe compared to a new car, which meets standards required to call it "safe."
...but, that 1961 car is still recognizably a "modern" car: if its still in good working order you'll be able to hop in it and do whatever you'd expect to be able to do in a modern car. C.f. a 1900 car which would have completely unrecognizable controls, wouldn't go far enough on a tank to make it from one gas station to the next and wouldn't be fast enough to take on a freeway. One is still viable as a means of personal transport*, the other isn't.
Likewise, 512Kbps broadband is still a viable way of accessing most internet services, whereas what came before (ISDN or modem) are definitely Model-T Fords.
How is this any different?
You won't end up impaled on the steering column of your 512K ADSL line, nor does it kill 3.5 baby polar bears every mile or emit enough lead to re-roof a church: the only serious arguments for not driving a 1961 car.
* disclaimer - my first two cars were Citroen 2CVs, and I still pine for them (the last one dissolved in about 1996) so I may have a distorted view of what a "viable means of personal transport" comprises.
ChromeOS will have a standards-based browser, right? Otherwise it will make iOS look positively open...
So all you need to do is get yourself a server (anything from a $200 NAS device hanging off your home broadband to a rack full of hardware in a datacentre somewhere) add some open-source equivalents of Google Docs, adjust your SSL certificates to taste and, voila, your own little private cloud for you, your colleagues, your friends and anybody else of your choosing.
All we need is that open-source server-side cloud software. However, I see there are AJAX-based SSH clients that ought to let you use your iPad or ChromeBook to run EMACS on your server, so what else do you need?
More serious example of open-source cloud software is Cloud 9 - a Javascript IDE that you can download and run on your own server.
...I don't think it means what they think that it means.
because they fall below the agency's most recent minimum requirement: 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream
Presumably, anybody who thought they had broadband back in the day when ADSL was 512Kbps/128Kbps (and we was grateful!) was just deluded.
Alternatively, maybe somebody who's never used a dial-up "analogue" modem can't quite grasp that even 512Kbps, always-on, unmetered is a bloody luxury by comparison, and more than enough as a minimum standard to avoid "disenfranchising" people in terms of access to online commerce and information.
As others have pointed out, contention levels, usage caps, filtering and firewalling, static IP addresses vs. NAT, etc. would be more useful features to "stickle" over.
...or do the FCC want to make sure everybody can stream full broadcast-quality HD television so that they can auction off the UHF spectrum to the mobile operators? The phrase "mission creep" springs to mind.
I thought the whole point of Chrome OS was that it was a client for running cloud-based webapps? Given that, it makes sense to lock down the machine - unless they're saying that it won't even run non-google Web apps?
I mean, how long do you think some do-gooder who's Doing of The Good involved the typical comic book level of property damage would stay out of court (and bankruptcy) in Real Life?
Well, some of them could probably get the money back by suing whoever it was who failed to keep that radioactive spider in its jar; forgot to print the obligatory warnings on the magic amulet or activated the intrinsic field generator without checking that nobody was inside. They could cite any post-1980 superhero story as evidence of the distress and trauma caused by being burdened with superpowers.
Superman might be able to claim diplomatic immunity (or set up a tax haven in the phantom zone and make a killing) or, if all else fails, just squeeze a few lumps of coal into diamonds to keep up with the premiums on his Luthorcorp Superpower Liability Indemnification Policy.
Can these electric eels power it too?
Only if they are shrieking eels* - then you can be really eco friendly by getting two memes for the price of one.
(*as referenced in that nice respectable fantasy movie we all love. Not the top hit on Google at the moment which is distinctly NSFW. Ick!)
I'm sure PETA is going to have a cow.
I doubt it - maybe they'll have some tofu or a nice stuffed pepper.
But then, SPB and HTC didn't call it magical, so I guess that's the problem...
Exactly - Apple's forte is finding ideas that are bubbling under and making them sell.
Am I hallucinating or was something similar from Apple - for a rear-mounted clickwheel - mentioned on this very site a year or two back?
People seem to be confusing the App Store with an internet provider or a web forum.
When you buy something from the App Store you are buying it from Apple - they are not the mail man, they are not the phone company, they are the vendor. I don't know about the US, but in most of the EU that means they (not the app author) are liable to the customer for any defects. I'm sure that, even in the US, that means they are first in line to get sued if somebody's kid finds an undeclared nipple in an app .
That's why Apple won't allow pr0n (complaints on a postcard to Litigious Soccer Moms of the US) and why they won't advertise competitors.
If you want drug abuse tips, racial hatred, hard-core porn or (God help you) Android product reviews then the iPad has a perfectly servicable and uncensored web browser for accessing content for which Apple can't be held responsible.
(ISTR they did allow a Well Known Soft Porn magazine, but Apple probably judged they were big enough and reputable enough not to get sued)
The only way to load software is through the App Store,
Or (if its javascript/HTML) running it online from any website, which can even provide a manifest file so that it has a desktop icon, gets cached and looks for all the world like an App. Maybe not the best solution for your FPS game but for a magazine thats actually far more sensible than a native app. Of course, if you are talking "software" in the wider sense, you could also distribute it as a PDF, ePub, Kindle edition, podcast, whatever, all readable on iPad without Steve's permission.
The main reason they haven't caught as much flak is that they've been seen as the plucky underdog with 10% market share.
Plucky underdog is irrelevant. 10% market share is the relevant bit because that means that they are not a monopoly and anybody who doesnt like their practices is free to go elsewhere. The reason the EU came down on MS like a ton of bricks is that they used their monopoly in one market (operating systems) to take over a different market (web browser software) - although the EU took so long to act that everybody had forgotten that, once upon a time, OSs didnt come with a free web brower.
Meanwhile, you might want to reflect what would happen if you asked Walmart to stock your new magazine "This month at Tesco".
Apple just decided to do what every other manufacturer was already doing - replacing a music player with a phone
Actually, they did what no other manufacturer was doing at the time: they produced a smartphone with a user interface designed by someone who gave a fuck. Did you ever try to use (say) a pre-iPhone Windows Mobile? I did, and it was virtually unusable. I've actually got an Android phone now, not an iPhone, but the modern Android interface is hugely influenced by the iPhone (as are the HTC skins on top of Windows Mobile).
- but declare it magical and innovative and revolutionary
Yeah, because if you launch your product with a classified ad in the local trade rag, with the slogan "Well, its OK I suppose" it is really going to fly off the shelves. What have Apple done to forfeit the right to advertise?
Um, granted it only works with *some* printers but iOS 4.2 adds AirPrint and you can indeed print from an iPad.
And, at least for Mac users, a $10 utility (or a free, but slightly dubious, hack) will let it print to any printer on your Mac.
The real problem at the moment is that Apple have totally stuffed up file exchange between Pages/Keynote and the desktop.
Should they care or should they celebrate? The iPhone offers a superset of iPod functionality and the iPhone generates greater profits.
Dumb comment in TFA - they surely make more on an iPhone than an iPod. Also, Apple had to produce the iPhone - other phone manufacturers were including music players and that would have hit iPod sales.
The iPad vs. laptop "cannibalization" might be more serious, but the iPad is fairly well pitched to be a supplement to a laptop, not a replacement. I use mine mainly for comfy-chair web and email browsing.
This created a market for USB devices: mice, keyboard, scanners, printers, card readers etc that just was not taking off before that, since while some PC motherboards shipped with this "new fangled" USB port, it was poorly supported
Exactly - this is what Apple is very, very good at, and why the industry needs them. They didn't invent the personal computer***, the graphical user interface, the laser printer, local area networking*, laptops** RISC-based PCs* USB, the small-form-factor computer, the floppy-free computer, the MP3 player, online music sales, the smartphone... What they did do is turn them into mainstream commercial successes and put a very large rocket up the conservative asses of the competition. Oh, you'd better add UNIX to that list, as well as standards-based rich internet apps.
(* Actually, Acorn- who had a good college try at being the UK equivalent of Apple - got to those two first, but the only thing that had much impact outside of Blighty was the CPU they designed for their RISC-based PC, the ARM).
(** Apple "invented" - maybe in partnership with Sony - the modern laptop layout, with the set-back keyboard and trackball/trackpad in front).
(*** Joint honours with Commodore and Tandy, and maybe others, on the first "appliance" PC, but they were on the front line - previous PCs were "some assembly required" and/or needed a terminal or teletype).