"which also assumes that they are using some sort of strong cryptography-based system with a key held on the motherboard somewhere that the hypervisor could securely "proxy" - rather than some security-by-obscurity kludge."
I don't see any point in avoiding your example of "security by obscurity kludge" when the whole idea of the motherboard/chip/OSX restriction is security by obscurity in the first place. I just don't see a valid reason why they would try to avoid an obscure hack if it can do the trick for cheap.
Trying to get that restriction to pass through the VM "the right way" would really be equivalent to polishing the turd.
Your statement seems misleading but it may just be incomplete (IMO).
"Finally I note that we are not really interested in planets that don't rotate in their orbital plane since otherwise they'd be roastingly hot on one side and freezing on the other."
The rotation of the planet has nothing to do with the detection of planets in this method, only the orbit determines the ability to detect it. So while some planets may or may not be rotating on the correct axis to support multiple seasons, it isn't accounted for in this type of study because they can't detect this with the transient method.
Also, there are actually a large variation of planes that can be detected with this method. Imagine our solar system as a disk. Then imaging looking at it from the top view. This view does not allow the planet detection using the transient method. However, angle your view down until you can see just one of the planets cross over the sun. From this angle on, and twisted up to 360 degrees, is where this transient method works. So actually, there are many planes of orbit which can be used to detect planets with this method. And assuming that a percentage of these planets are within the habitable distance from their star, and that a percentage of these rotate on a reasonable axis, then they could contain life. But nothing in these studies is determining that any of this is the case. Right now they are just looking for ANY planets. so we can detect extrasolar planets even if their orbital planes are perpendicular to the galactic disk, so long as they are close to parallel to our viewing line of site. With this in mind, you can imagine that if you can view stars in our galaxy from 360 degrees around our planet, that we would be able to detect every orbital plane angle available in the galaxy, depending on which direction we are looking from the earth. So while we can't see all of them, we can see a very large subset of them with this method.
Also, the reason that all the planets in the solar system follow close to same typical plane of orbit is because of the way solar systems form. They start as a gaseous body collapsing. As the rotation of the gas nears closer and closer to the center of the nebula, the rotational inertia causes the forming of a disk due to inertia. The same thing happens to drag car tires when they spin fast (they turn more disk-like). From this disk-like nebula the planets form. The center typically ends up with something larger than a gas giant (the sun, or a couple of suns) and the other planets turn into gas giants (Jupiter) or solid planets (i forgot the name, but they gain gravitational pull and pull in particles from the nebular disk)
So this is why the planets are all in one plane of orbit. If all star systems are formed in this general method (something that is assumed) then it is fairly easy to say that they should all be in a single plane. But each system does not necessarily have to be in the same plane relative to each other just because they are in the same galaxy. Each nebula forms independently and collapses typically from an outside force, but not necessarily on the same rotational plane.
Also, the planets have their own disks associated with them. The moons and rings of Uranus and Saturn and Jupiter follow different planes. They don't necessarily need to follow the same plane as the solar system. This is because each of those planets also formed independently of each other. The spin of those depends on the angular momentum of the local mass as it formed, which would be different than the parent nebular disk especially when you take into account collisions of forming bodies. The same could be said to happen on the galaxy level, if you compare the galaxy formation to solar system formation.
These are just my points of view of what I have studied. Many people will have different points of view formed from the same observations.
Let me guess. Because now you had an automatic spell checker and grammerchecker?
You didn't bother to look spellings and definitions up before, now the computer does it for you..
Maybe that is good, and maybe you learned from your mistakes as the computer caught them. Or maybe you could just be lazy and the computer just did most of your assignment for you. 99% of the value of learning in writing a paper is in correcting your work, not in the content itself.
Nice one dude, you are full of really nice insults. You start the thread with one then end it with one. Eventually becoming completely oblivious to your original point.
Re: your concept of manipulation. Very funny! I will have to use that argument sometime...
1) Call someone a troll on slashdot because they mention a problem with Apple 2) Argue over and over again for the OP to prove it, ignoring that the problem really exists 3) Eventually admit you know about the problem but insist that its existence is irrelevant. 5) ??? 4) Profit!
Way to make an ass of yourself by admitting what you rejected in your original argument. If you truly know about the lock-in problems at Apple enough to be jerking someone else around about it, then there is obviously no reason to ask someone to prove his point when he brings it up, as the fact he brought it up proves to you he knows the problem. In this case, if you disagree because you think you might know more about the problems than him, then it is up to YOU to show him why the lock-in is not really that big of a problem. Something you didn't do.
On the other hand, if you are unaware of it, and you wanted him to elaborate his point, then calling him a troll first thing is actually quite dumb. It can only serve to prove your ignorance on how extensive the lock-in really is.
BTW: Thanks for noticing my sig. It is idiots like you who make it shine.
"Quote me on the bit where I claimed to not know about Apple's extensive history"
It is not hard to cut and paste your claims. here goes....
"If somebody made a baseless statement[about apple's history and practice] I'd ask for more information, in this case I made a snide comment which should provoke that person" This is a claim of your ignorance on Apple's extensive history due to the fact that you imply his statement is baseless. If you knew apple's history, you would not be making that implication. His statement was specifically about Apple's practice of lock-in, which is of course part of Apple's history.
"but again, what are these lock ins of which you speak?" Yet another admission of your ignorance of Apple's extensive history of lock-in. If you can't admit apple has a history of lock-in, then you are in denial or are ignorant of that part of their history.
"yes I use a mac, doesn't mean I'm a fan boy, am I supposed to be taking you seriously?"
The fact that you claim to not know about Apple's extensive history (and current practice) of lock-in, combined with this statement, is the very definition of an Apple Fanboy.
The history is there. It is extensive. It continues to be put in practice with both current and new products. If you can't admit that, then you are by the very definition of an Apple Fanboy, exactly that. Denying that this history exists is more evidence you are a fanboy and are intentionally leaving this information out of your post.
Do you think that because this is an Apple thread that you will gain Karma by posting +2 as a fanboy? You are wrong. Slashdot may be Apple biased (due to a vocal minority) but the moderators are reasonably randomly assigned and so the vocal minority doesn't have as much power with these checks in place..
As for your "initial questioning" you are also wrong here. When you refute a claim by one party, it is your responsibility to provide refuting logic or evidence. A claim stands until refuted, and this is the exact situation we are in right now.
Now, do many people make bogus claims without evidence? yes. Do many people make accurate claims without evidence? Yes also. This is why it is up to the person questioning the claim to provide at least SOMETHING. And when the claim is all the more obvious (in this case) then you had better provide some real evidence.
Actually, 3DFX's road to failure started with their crappy OpenGL drivers and their inability to break their habits of locking gamers into their GLIDE api.
The STB purchase was just the nail in the coffin after they were trying to make their company (and thus their GLIDE api) larger and bigger to enable them to compete against OpenGL. It had the reverse effect because all the other vendors who used to sell GLIDE out there immediately put their support behind OpenGL and said "screw you".
Where is your explanation to your comment? Apple has a well defined history of lock-in and they continue to follow that tradition today more than ever. Until they break that tradition, they will always give people who don't like it a bad aftertaste.
While Apple's lock-in strategies must be (and are) inversely proportional to their market share for practical reasons, they haven't gained enough market share to break their bad habits yet.
Internet links in the US are extremely unstable. Maybe in larger (>1million) cities it is more reliable, but I live in a large area smaller than 1 million and internet outages (from consumer broadband providers, commercial broadband providers, to the university fiber optics, to the public library) all have multiple outages per day.
I have been to other places that are just as bad. I have been to places where it is better, but not very many. Probably California and New England is about it.
Add this to high latency which is the norm, not the exception (usually low but unreliable latency) and you can see that running your servers off site are really not an option for most places in the US.
This whole argument ignores any other problems that might be there for offsite servers..
Having dealt directly with apple in the resellers market for several years, I can tell you for sure the slate article is very slanted (probably not intentionally, but due to a lack of understanding of the situation IMO). Firstly, the record labels were not enforcing MAP pricing illegally, they were enforcing minimum RETAIL pricing illegally. There is a major difference. In order for MAP pricing to be legal, you cannot coerce the reseller into selling for a minimum price, only advertising below it. There is nothing stopping someone in a MAP agreement from lowering their price at the register, or even having a lower price on the shelf label, they just can't advertise it. Stores where the sales process is more hand holding (apple customers/computer sales) in MAP agreements give discounts like this regularly.
In fact, most stores aren't even in MAP agreements with Apple. I could see if maybe the large retail chains were, but I would be surprised if they were. And even if they were, there is nothing stopping them for selling the product for whatever they want, without the threat of pulling advertising funding.
You are trying to make it like Apple will pull all funding and be uncooperative if someone sold below their dream price. They wouldn't. If they are paying for their marketing (and with MAP agreements typically they are) then they are the ones who determine what will and will not go into that marketing. There is nothing "wrong" or "creepy" about it in my opinion.
Apple circumvents it by giving extremely low margin possibilities to their retailers. Mom and pop make at most 8% regularly and maybe seasonally they get a slightly better incentive to stock up on a thousand ipods for a few extra percent margin.
Bose doesn't circumvent it, but instead applies a (perfectly legal) MAP (minimum advertised price) contract to its resellers. This way you still follow the law (retailers can sell for whatever price they want) but they can't advertise any price below MAP. This is why you see stuff like "add to cart to see price" because they are contractually obligated to only show you the discounted price once you have "decided to buy it" per se.
Lots of brands do this, seinnheiser, bose, and lots of AV and other companies have done this type of thing for a long time.
Pair this MAP with extremely low margin opportunity, and you see why nobody sells below MSRP (because the image of bose is that you pay MSRP and nothing less). Most stores make probably 10% max on a bose system if sold at MSRP so there is not any room for them to move any lower.
Now, at the end of the quarter, if you make your sales projections and all sorts of other fancy stuff, you can get a quarterly rebate on your revenue (kindof like car dealerships get) but that is only for higher volume shops. And you can't built that into your price because you don't know for sure your sales will be up.
No, apple sells their product at such a high cost compared to MSRP that no retailer can afford to discount them. Try 8% margin on ipods that cost 150$. That barely covers the credit card swipe and the time it takes someone to stock it on the shelf and scan it at the register. Much less pay invoices, track shipments, pay the light bill, and hire supervisors/managers to oversee all that.
Move it to the internet sales, and its the same story. internet retailers survive off 5-10%. 8% isn't really that high a margin. Even if someone wanted to discount it to sell for cost and make up the money on upsells, WOO HOO, they sell it for 12$ off. Not much there in the way of discounting now is there?
Sure, the larger retailers can sometimes cut a slightly better margin deal with apple if they agree to purchase pallets at a time, and they do. But that is their competative advantage, and there is no reason for them to sell below MSRP (or a dollar below) when all their competitors are barely breaking even. It is much better for the Best Buy's of the world to bundle a free product like iTunes card or accessory discount with the full priced iPod.
Give me a greak. They bought Optiplex and Latitude systems which "barely" lasted 3 years? PLEASE. They all come with STANDARD 3 yr warranties. They ALWAYS last 3 years +. Meanwhile, the mac's come with 1 year warranties and most IT departments do not purchase the extended plan. (not at the price he is showing as the "average")
I'm sorry, but this article lost 100% total credibility by stating that dells can barely be supported for 3 years. If his so called "Dedicated IT Department" is having that many problems with the Dells, then they have some major competency problems. We deploy $4 million in dell client systems a year and around 1/2 million in apples in a managed environment. I can tell you for sure that the apples lifespan is around the same as any other brand. If anything, the apples cost the IT department more in labor per machine because their ASP certification process is more expensive and harder to maintain, and parts are not as available in the warranty realm as they are with Dell, which guarantees (and are the only one in the industry who comes through on it) overnighted parts on every optiplex and latitude sold.
The systems break equally as much at best, and if anything, more when you are dealing with gen1 apple products (gen1 macbook, gen1 macbook pro, gen1 intel iMac, gen1 PPC iMac (after the ilamp). When you are forced to deploy new motherboards to all your newly deployed gen1 macbooks, the labor costs tend to go up. The last time dell systems required major component replacements in a widespread environment was with the GX270 motherboard leaky capacitors (which did not cause substantial problems until most systems were out of the 3 year warranty). This issue is over 4 years old prior to it there were no other major issues. These types of major recalls are a regular occurrence from Apple with every gen1 product they ship. These aren't published recalls, they are ASP recalls. This means that the only people who know about them are the service providers and anyone they tell (like customers). Apple does not admit in the press that they are recalls, and it is against NDA for an ASP to.
If you have "read plenty of articles" stating that apples last longer then more power to you. But articles don't make facts. Real world events are facts. Articles are just articles. Most articles which state that apples last longer are not based on fact, but are based on the same personal experience of the author, who has had no extensive experience dealing with large scale deployments of PC hardware, or even mac hardware for that matter.
Who owns the copyright of a movie? The editor? The guy running the camera? The director? No, the company who employs these people. But who created the movie? Was it the cameraman? NO! Who actually got the copyright and signed it over to the company? It was everyone who was hired to make the movie. Every single one of them.
The same is true in a partnership environment. It isn't cut and dry, and your right, it is all about work for hire. But you are trying to make work for hire become some sort of black and white issue. It isn't.
In a verbal pertnership, the photographer is not always the copyright holder. If a group of actors get together and put on a performance and ask someone to go in and film it, i can GUARANTEE you that the cameraman does not own the copyright to it. He only owns the copyright to that particular filming of it, but the performance itself is still wholely owned by the actors and they must give permission for the photographer to copy the film. Likewise, they must have permission from the cameraman to copy his version of the film.
Ok, so now what if instead of a group of actors, it is just one person acting. Then who owns the copyright?
Ok, so now what about if it is just a model who wants some pictures of herself in front of some famus building, who owns the copyright then?
Ok, not who owns the copyright if you ask a tourist to take a picture of you in front of the washington monument?
Like I said, it isn't black and white. And the whole grey "work for hire" thing is in many times a verbal agreement between people. Technically, the IMAGE itself is copyrighted by the person taking it. But the content of the image is NOT his copyright and permission must be granted.
This actually is not true. This loophole only works if it is in a public place and "anybody" could have taken the picture.
If there is cooperation between the photographer and the people in the photo, ALL CONTRIBUTERS to the image are copyright holders. The photographer has no more or no less right to copy it than those in the image. Just as a model must sign rights over to the photographer (a verbal agreement is all that is needed legally) for the photographer to copy the image.
Actually, you are incorrect. All participants in an image are partial copyright owners. The photographer is not the one who created the image. Every person in the image, plus the photographer, plus anyone who helped the photographer.
The same works for movies. If you are in a movie, you are partial owner to a copyright.
This is why there are contracts for everyone in the movie/picture/etc. Typically, every person in the "work" has to sign a waiver of their copyright.
Just because the photographer you hired claims that he owns all copyrights to the work, doesn't make is so in the general case. You had either a written or verbal agreement to that effect. This is why he must ask YOUR permission before he can publish your photograph in his portfolio. And you must ask HIS permission before you can make duplicates of the photo.
I don't mean to be disrespectful to you, but why are you being a yes man to your boss?
That is the most ridiculous strategy I have ever heard about. I mean, there are times to bite your tung and take it, but 9 of 10? or even a majority of the time? Saying yes when you know its no should happen almost never. Maybe in extreme circumstances where you have too many battles already on your desk.
If you can't express yourself to your boss without being hated or whatever, then you need a new boss or a new job. Otherwise, maybe your just too lazy.
Not liking you because you said no is a problem your boss needs to deal with, not you. If you have one of "those kinds of bosses" then maybe a good strategy would be to train them to expect no, rather than just being a yes man.
I'm sorry, but if you can't admit Apple's extensive history of "proprietary for the sake of proprietary" then you have something to learn. Lets see.. Should I start from the beginning and work forward, or now and work backwards?
For the purposes of argument, I will start with the beginning of OSX and move forward. You can choose to ignore any which you feel "irrelevant" for whatever justification you want to use. You still wind up with an extensive list. And these are just the past few years.
Quicktime(to this day): Still can't play quicktime files by just downloading an official codec. No, you have to steal a codec replacement from freecodecs.org. If you go legit, you have to install Apple's spyware/bloatware on your system. Even ifyou think quicktime player is the ultimate awesome player, you should still be allowed to use just the codec.
ADC - proprietary DVI connector which needed a 99$ adapter to go to DVI. DVI was already standard on flat pannel monitors and desktop computers before they invented ADC. They refused to license the ADC connector and only belkin was allowed to make a one way connector for $49.00 (did not work in reverse).
Superdrives: Up until recently, only apple branded dvd burners would work with iDVD. All it checked for was the apple firmware installed in the drive. Lame.
iPod/iTunes: this one is obvious and everyone knows it. Even Jobs claims that the lockin is "bad for the customer experience" yet he continues to do it. There is only one reason Fairplay isn't being licensed. And it has nothing to do with the record labels.
OS X/Intel CPU: Finally, osX working on a standard intel motherboard, chipset, controllers, cpu, and video cards. The same ones that come on most dell and HP systems. Yet the only way for the system to install is if you have a motherboard with the "magic" apple firmware chip soldered on it. And you guessed it: not licensed.
iPhone/Cingular lockin: Same story over and over again. Only this time, the hardware is tied to the services AND there is a 2 year contract. So they got you locked in two ways. Don't even get me started on the additional lockin crap you haven't been exposed to that will make its showing once the product launches and people start realizing what they can(n't) do with the thing.
You describe Apple as an open company free from lockins and proprietary bullshit. Yet you sit around and IGNORE blatant (in the case of iTunes/iPod lockin) violations of compatibility and standards. If someone started a company and took Linux and did even ONE of the above things listed and started their own linux platform (say Peach Linux OS) and gained popularity, you would call him the devil. Yet when Apple does it, it is OK, because quite simply, "I don't give a flying fuck about all that bullshit, I just want to use my device"
Excuse me? What about the iPod + iTunes tie in? This is not about using their product with the services that are included? If it isn't, nothing else is.
You have a point about the out of box experience. Every manufacturer attempts to do this to some degree, and Apple does it as a major focus. But this is not what apple is all about. It is pretty far down the list when it comes to their "core competency."
You are fooling yourself if you think for one minute that the iPod + iTunes lockin has anything to do with maintaining control over the user experience. You are also fooling yourself if you think for one minute anything lock-in related apple does has anything to do with the "user experience" outside it being a minor positive side effect to people who fanboy around like you.
While I normally do not like to praise Apple, this is one thing I commend them on. With all the proprietary gimmicks Apple tries to shove down customer's throats, they are not as bad as the gimmicky trash shoved down wireless carrier's throats. For this reason, I have to take Apple's side on this.
The wireless carriers in the US (and a few other regions) have been gouging the eyes out of customers simply because they have always been considered a premium service, thanks to the federal subsidy known as the universal service fund on landline phones. While the rest of the world commoditized their wireless telephone markets, the US wireless carriers turned them into crap shoot proprietary bullshit.
The iPhone (though I refuse to admit it is a good deal, or worth anything close to $500) is the first step in finally commoditizing wireless telephone service. Not allowing the carriers to screw up the phone's firmware is what companies like Nokia and Motorola should have done a decade ago. It is no wonder the wireless carriers are doing what they do, look at how easilly the FCC allowed SBC to buy out AT&T Wireless and then buy out AT&T long distance all in a 3 year period, consolidating almost every drop of the original baby bells.
Thank you Apple for your willingness to play Hardball. I am glad you can see through the corporate crap that is Cingular/AT&T/SBC. My only hope is that you can take the same approach to your own business model and look at yourself from an outsider's perspective, just as you have approached this problem with Cingular.
lets see, you can buy 1GB SD cards for ~10$ at retail. So 320$ for the flash itself(apple will pay less than that). Considering that it is only 249$ for a 30GB ipod video, the chassis of the ipod couldn't cost more than 249. So 240+320 would be the maximum price of a 32GB ipod video flash. Unless they wanted to jack up the price more, which I doubt.
Now, take out the 30GB moving parts hard drive, that should save you about 100$. Add in the fact that apple isn't paying 10$/gig, but somewhat less than that.. say $8/gig.. so $256$. New total (retail) price would be about 405, or $399.00 for the new 32GB flash ipod video.
Unless Apple decides to mark up the flash memory more than they mark up the hard drive, your 800$ price point is pretty far off the mark. Factor in that the failure rate will be significantly less, and the battery requirement will be less , so smaller battery (or longer life), they could actually cut the price even more if they wanted to. I say they could sell it for $349 easy and still make just as much margin as they currently are on the 30GB video Hard drive ipod.
Factor in that the price of flash goes down every time production is ramped (about every couple months), you could have a $249 32GB flash video ipod within 6 months easy if they wanted to (but I doubt they will, Apple tends to wait and increase pricing when new stuff is available).
Slashdot Mirror
"which also assumes that they are using some sort of strong cryptography-based system with a key held on the motherboard somewhere that the hypervisor could securely "proxy" - rather than some security-by-obscurity kludge."
I don't see any point in avoiding your example of "security by obscurity kludge" when the whole idea of the motherboard/chip/OSX restriction is security by obscurity in the first place. I just don't see a valid reason why they would try to avoid an obscure hack if it can do the trick for cheap.
Trying to get that restriction to pass through the VM "the right way" would really be equivalent to polishing the turd.
Your statement seems misleading but it may just be incomplete (IMO).
"Finally I note that we are not really interested in planets that don't rotate in their orbital plane since otherwise they'd be roastingly hot on one side and freezing on the other."
The rotation of the planet has nothing to do with the detection of planets in this method, only the orbit determines the ability to detect it. So while some planets may or may not be rotating on the correct axis to support multiple seasons, it isn't accounted for in this type of study because they can't detect this with the transient method.
Also, there are actually a large variation of planes that can be detected with this method. Imagine our solar system as a disk. Then imaging looking at it from the top view. This view does not allow the planet detection using the transient method. However, angle your view down until you can see just one of the planets cross over the sun. From this angle on, and twisted up to 360 degrees, is where this transient method works. So actually, there are many planes of orbit which can be used to detect planets with this method. And assuming that a percentage of these planets are within the habitable distance from their star, and that a percentage of these rotate on a reasonable axis, then they could contain life. But nothing in these studies is determining that any of this is the case. Right now they are just looking for ANY planets. so we can detect extrasolar planets even if their orbital planes are perpendicular to the galactic disk, so long as they are close to parallel to our viewing line of site. With this in mind, you can imagine that if you can view stars in our galaxy from 360 degrees around our planet, that we would be able to detect every orbital plane angle available in the galaxy, depending on which direction we are looking from the earth. So while we can't see all of them, we can see a very large subset of them with this method.
Also, the reason that all the planets in the solar system follow close to same typical plane of orbit is because of the way solar systems form. They start as a gaseous body collapsing. As the rotation of the gas nears closer and closer to the center of the nebula, the rotational inertia causes the forming of a disk due to inertia. The same thing happens to drag car tires when they spin fast (they turn more disk-like). From this disk-like nebula the planets form. The center typically ends up with something larger than a gas giant (the sun, or a couple of suns) and the other planets turn into gas giants (Jupiter) or solid planets (i forgot the name, but they gain gravitational pull and pull in particles from the nebular disk)
So this is why the planets are all in one plane of orbit. If all star systems are formed in this general method (something that is assumed) then it is fairly easy to say that they should all be in a single plane. But each system does not necessarily have to be in the same plane relative to each other just because they are in the same galaxy. Each nebula forms independently and collapses typically from an outside force, but not necessarily on the same rotational plane.
Also, the planets have their own disks associated with them. The moons and rings of Uranus and Saturn and Jupiter follow different planes. They don't necessarily need to follow the same plane as the solar system. This is because each of those planets also formed independently of each other. The spin of those depends on the angular momentum of the local mass as it formed, which would be different than the parent nebular disk especially when you take into account collisions of forming bodies. The same could be said to happen on the galaxy level, if you compare the galaxy formation to solar system formation.
These are just my points of view of what I have studied. Many people will have different points of view formed from the same observations.
"Hydrogen cars are junk science. Sorry folks, but hydrogen takes MORE energy to make than you get back. A lot more."
By god, you have just discovered the second law of thermodynamics!!!
Come back when you realize that there is a science called physics which helps the so called "scientists" figure all this shit out.
fucking idiot.
Let me guess. Because now you had an automatic spell checker and grammerchecker?
You didn't bother to look spellings and definitions up before, now the computer does it for you..
Maybe that is good, and maybe you learned from your mistakes as the computer caught them. Or maybe you could just be lazy and the computer just did most of your assignment for you. 99% of the value of learning in writing a paper is in correcting your work, not in the content itself.
Nice one dude, you are full of really nice insults. You start the thread with one then end it with one. Eventually becoming completely oblivious to your original point.
Re: your concept of manipulation. Very funny! I will have to use that argument sometime...
1) Call someone a troll on slashdot because they mention a problem with Apple
2) Argue over and over again for the OP to prove it, ignoring that the problem really exists
3) Eventually admit you know about the problem but insist that its existence is irrelevant.
5) ???
4) Profit!
Way to make an ass of yourself by admitting what you rejected in your original argument. If you truly know about the lock-in problems at Apple enough to be jerking someone else around about it, then there is obviously no reason to ask someone to prove his point when he brings it up, as the fact he brought it up proves to you he knows the problem. In this case, if you disagree because you think you might know more about the problems than him, then it is up to YOU to show him why the lock-in is not really that big of a problem. Something you didn't do.
On the other hand, if you are unaware of it, and you wanted him to elaborate his point, then calling him a troll first thing is actually quite dumb. It can only serve to prove your ignorance on how extensive the lock-in really is.
BTW: Thanks for noticing my sig. It is idiots like you who make it shine.
"Quote me on the bit where I claimed to not know about Apple's extensive history"
It is not hard to cut and paste your claims. here goes....
"If somebody made a baseless statement[about apple's history and practice] I'd ask for more information, in this case I made a snide comment which should provoke that person" This is a claim of your ignorance on Apple's extensive history due to the fact that you imply his statement is baseless. If you knew apple's history, you would not be making that implication. His statement was specifically about Apple's practice of lock-in, which is of course part of Apple's history.
"but again, what are these lock ins of which you speak?" Yet another admission of your ignorance of Apple's extensive history of lock-in. If you can't admit apple has a history of lock-in, then you are in denial or are ignorant of that part of their history.
"yes I use a mac, doesn't mean I'm a fan boy, am I supposed to be taking you seriously?"
The fact that you claim to not know about Apple's extensive history (and current practice) of lock-in, combined with this statement, is the very definition of an Apple Fanboy.
The history is there. It is extensive. It continues to be put in practice with both current and new products. If you can't admit that, then you are by the very definition of an Apple Fanboy, exactly that. Denying that this history exists is more evidence you are a fanboy and are intentionally leaving this information out of your post.
Do you think that because this is an Apple thread that you will gain Karma by posting +2 as a fanboy? You are wrong. Slashdot may be Apple biased (due to a vocal minority) but the moderators are reasonably randomly assigned and so the vocal minority doesn't have as much power with these checks in place..
As for your "initial questioning" you are also wrong here. When you refute a claim by one party, it is your responsibility to provide refuting logic or evidence. A claim stands until refuted, and this is the exact situation we are in right now.
Now, do many people make bogus claims without evidence? yes. Do many people make accurate claims without evidence? Yes also. This is why it is up to the person questioning the claim to provide at least SOMETHING. And when the claim is all the more obvious (in this case) then you had better provide some real evidence.
Actually, 3DFX's road to failure started with their crappy OpenGL drivers and their inability to break their habits of locking gamers into their GLIDE api.
The STB purchase was just the nail in the coffin after they were trying to make their company (and thus their GLIDE api) larger and bigger to enable them to compete against OpenGL. It had the reverse effect because all the other vendors who used to sell GLIDE out there immediately put their support behind OpenGL and said "screw you".
You are the troll.
Where is your explanation to your comment? Apple has a well defined history of lock-in and they continue to follow that tradition today more than ever. Until they break that tradition, they will always give people who don't like it a bad aftertaste.
While Apple's lock-in strategies must be (and are) inversely proportional to their market share for practical reasons, they haven't gained enough market share to break their bad habits yet.
Fat chance,
Internet links in the US are extremely unstable. Maybe in larger (>1million) cities it is more reliable, but I live in a large area smaller than 1 million and internet outages (from consumer broadband providers, commercial broadband providers, to the university fiber optics, to the public library) all have multiple outages per day.
I have been to other places that are just as bad. I have been to places where it is better, but not very many. Probably California and New England is about it.
Add this to high latency which is the norm, not the exception (usually low but unreliable latency) and you can see that running your servers off site are really not an option for most places in the US.
This whole argument ignores any other problems that might be there for offsite servers..
Having dealt directly with apple in the resellers market for several years, I can tell you for sure the slate article is very slanted (probably not intentionally, but due to a lack of understanding of the situation IMO). Firstly, the record labels were not enforcing MAP pricing illegally, they were enforcing minimum RETAIL pricing illegally. There is a major difference. In order for MAP pricing to be legal, you cannot coerce the reseller into selling for a minimum price, only advertising below it. There is nothing stopping someone in a MAP agreement from lowering their price at the register, or even having a lower price on the shelf label, they just can't advertise it. Stores where the sales process is more hand holding (apple customers/computer sales) in MAP agreements give discounts like this regularly.
In fact, most stores aren't even in MAP agreements with Apple. I could see if maybe the large retail chains were, but I would be surprised if they were. And even if they were, there is nothing stopping them for selling the product for whatever they want, without the threat of pulling advertising funding.
You are trying to make it like Apple will pull all funding and be uncooperative if someone sold below their dream price. They wouldn't. If they are paying for their marketing (and with MAP agreements typically they are) then they are the ones who determine what will and will not go into that marketing. There is nothing "wrong" or "creepy" about it in my opinion.
Apple circumvents it by giving extremely low margin possibilities to their retailers. Mom and pop make at most 8% regularly and maybe seasonally they get a slightly better incentive to stock up on a thousand ipods for a few extra percent margin.
Bose doesn't circumvent it, but instead applies a (perfectly legal) MAP (minimum advertised price) contract to its resellers. This way you still follow the law (retailers can sell for whatever price they want) but they can't advertise any price below MAP. This is why you see stuff like "add to cart to see price" because they are contractually obligated to only show you the discounted price once you have "decided to buy it" per se.
Lots of brands do this, seinnheiser, bose, and lots of AV and other companies have done this type of thing for a long time.
Pair this MAP with extremely low margin opportunity, and you see why nobody sells below MSRP (because the image of bose is that you pay MSRP and nothing less). Most stores make probably 10% max on a bose system if sold at MSRP so there is not any room for them to move any lower.
Now, at the end of the quarter, if you make your sales projections and all sorts of other fancy stuff, you can get a quarterly rebate on your revenue (kindof like car dealerships get) but that is only for higher volume shops. And you can't built that into your price because you don't know for sure your sales will be up.
Hope that explains a little bit for you.
No, apple sells their product at such a high cost compared to MSRP that no retailer can afford to discount them. Try 8% margin on ipods that cost 150$. That barely covers the credit card swipe and the time it takes someone to stock it on the shelf and scan it at the register. Much less pay invoices, track shipments, pay the light bill, and hire supervisors/managers to oversee all that.
Move it to the internet sales, and its the same story. internet retailers survive off 5-10%. 8% isn't really that high a margin. Even if someone wanted to discount it to sell for cost and make up the money on upsells, WOO HOO, they sell it for 12$ off. Not much there in the way of discounting now is there?
Sure, the larger retailers can sometimes cut a slightly better margin deal with apple if they agree to purchase pallets at a time, and they do. But that is their competative advantage, and there is no reason for them to sell below MSRP (or a dollar below) when all their competitors are barely breaking even. It is much better for the Best Buy's of the world to bundle a free product like iTunes card or accessory discount with the full priced iPod.
Give me a greak. They bought Optiplex and Latitude systems which "barely" lasted 3 years? PLEASE. They all come with STANDARD 3 yr warranties. They ALWAYS last 3 years +. Meanwhile, the mac's come with 1 year warranties and most IT departments do not purchase the extended plan. (not at the price he is showing as the "average")
I'm sorry, but this article lost 100% total credibility by stating that dells can barely be supported for 3 years. If his so called "Dedicated IT Department" is having that many problems with the Dells, then they have some major competency problems. We deploy $4 million in dell client systems a year and around 1/2 million in apples in a managed environment. I can tell you for sure that the apples lifespan is around the same as any other brand. If anything, the apples cost the IT department more in labor per machine because their ASP certification process is more expensive and harder to maintain, and parts are not as available in the warranty realm as they are with Dell, which guarantees (and are the only one in the industry who comes through on it) overnighted parts on every optiplex and latitude sold.
The systems break equally as much at best, and if anything, more when you are dealing with gen1 apple products (gen1 macbook, gen1 macbook pro, gen1 intel iMac, gen1 PPC iMac (after the ilamp). When you are forced to deploy new motherboards to all your newly deployed gen1 macbooks, the labor costs tend to go up. The last time dell systems required major component replacements in a widespread environment was with the GX270 motherboard leaky capacitors (which did not cause substantial problems until most systems were out of the 3 year warranty). This issue is over 4 years old prior to it there were no other major issues. These types of major recalls are a regular occurrence from Apple with every gen1 product they ship. These aren't published recalls, they are ASP recalls. This means that the only people who know about them are the service providers and anyone they tell (like customers). Apple does not admit in the press that they are recalls, and it is against NDA for an ASP to.
If you have "read plenty of articles" stating that apples last longer then more power to you. But articles don't make facts. Real world events are facts. Articles are just articles. Most articles which state that apples last longer are not based on fact, but are based on the same personal experience of the author, who has had no extensive experience dealing with large scale deployments of PC hardware, or even mac hardware for that matter.
I'm not agreeing with you, but...
Who owns the copyright of a movie? The editor? The guy running the camera? The director? No, the company who employs these people. But who created the movie? Was it the cameraman? NO! Who actually got the copyright and signed it over to the company? It was everyone who was hired to make the movie. Every single one of them.
The same is true in a partnership environment. It isn't cut and dry, and your right, it is all about work for hire. But you are trying to make work for hire become some sort of black and white issue. It isn't.
In a verbal pertnership, the photographer is not always the copyright holder. If a group of actors get together and put on a performance and ask someone to go in and film it, i can GUARANTEE you that the cameraman does not own the copyright to it. He only owns the copyright to that particular filming of it, but the performance itself is still wholely owned by the actors and they must give permission for the photographer to copy the film. Likewise, they must have permission from the cameraman to copy his version of the film.
Ok, so now what if instead of a group of actors, it is just one person acting. Then who owns the copyright?
Ok, so now what about if it is just a model who wants some pictures of herself in front of some famus building, who owns the copyright then?
Ok, not who owns the copyright if you ask a tourist to take a picture of you in front of the washington monument?
Like I said, it isn't black and white. And the whole grey "work for hire" thing is in many times a verbal agreement between people. Technically, the IMAGE itself is copyrighted by the person taking it. But the content of the image is NOT his copyright and permission must be granted.
This actually is not true. This loophole only works if it is in a public place and "anybody" could have taken the picture.
If there is cooperation between the photographer and the people in the photo, ALL CONTRIBUTERS to the image are copyright holders. The photographer has no more or no less right to copy it than those in the image. Just as a model must sign rights over to the photographer (a verbal agreement is all that is needed legally) for the photographer to copy the image.
Actually, you are incorrect. All participants in an image are partial copyright owners. The photographer is not the one who created the image. Every person in the image, plus the photographer, plus anyone who helped the photographer.
The same works for movies. If you are in a movie, you are partial owner to a copyright.
This is why there are contracts for everyone in the movie/picture/etc. Typically, every person in the "work" has to sign a waiver of their copyright.
Just because the photographer you hired claims that he owns all copyrights to the work, doesn't make is so in the general case. You had either a written or verbal agreement to that effect. This is why he must ask YOUR permission before he can publish your photograph in his portfolio. And you must ask HIS permission before you can make duplicates of the photo.
A-fucking-men!
I don't mean to be disrespectful to you, but why are you being a yes man to your boss?
That is the most ridiculous strategy I have ever heard about. I mean, there are times to bite your tung and take it, but 9 of 10? or even a majority of the time? Saying yes when you know its no should happen almost never. Maybe in extreme circumstances where you have too many battles already on your desk.
If you can't express yourself to your boss without being hated or whatever, then you need a new boss or a new job. Otherwise, maybe your just too lazy.
Not liking you because you said no is a problem your boss needs to deal with, not you. If you have one of "those kinds of bosses" then maybe a good strategy would be to train them to expect no, rather than just being a yes man.
I'm sorry, but if you can't admit Apple's extensive history of "proprietary for the sake of proprietary" then you have something to learn. Lets see.. Should I start from the beginning and work forward, or now and work backwards?
For the purposes of argument, I will start with the beginning of OSX and move forward. You can choose to ignore any which you feel "irrelevant" for whatever justification you want to use. You still wind up with an extensive list. And these are just the past few years.
Quicktime(to this day): Still can't play quicktime files by just downloading an official codec. No, you have to steal a codec replacement from freecodecs.org. If you go legit, you have to install Apple's spyware/bloatware on your system. Even ifyou think quicktime player is the ultimate awesome player, you should still be allowed to use just the codec.
ADC - proprietary DVI connector which needed a 99$ adapter to go to DVI. DVI was already standard on flat pannel monitors and desktop computers before they invented ADC. They refused to license the ADC connector and only belkin was allowed to make a one way connector for $49.00 (did not work in reverse).
Superdrives: Up until recently, only apple branded dvd burners would work with iDVD. All it checked for was the apple firmware installed in the drive. Lame.
iPod/iTunes: this one is obvious and everyone knows it. Even Jobs claims that the lockin is "bad for the customer experience" yet he continues to do it. There is only one reason Fairplay isn't being licensed. And it has nothing to do with the record labels.
OS X/Intel CPU: Finally, osX working on a standard intel motherboard, chipset, controllers, cpu, and video cards. The same ones that come on most dell and HP systems. Yet the only way for the system to install is if you have a motherboard with the "magic" apple firmware chip soldered on it. And you guessed it: not licensed.
iPhone/Cingular lockin: Same story over and over again. Only this time, the hardware is tied to the services AND there is a 2 year contract. So they got you locked in two ways. Don't even get me started on the additional lockin crap you haven't been exposed to that will make its showing once the product launches and people start realizing what they can(n't) do with the thing.
You describe Apple as an open company free from lockins and proprietary bullshit. Yet you sit around and IGNORE blatant (in the case of iTunes/iPod lockin) violations of compatibility and standards. If someone started a company and took Linux and did even ONE of the above things listed and started their own linux platform (say Peach Linux OS) and gained popularity, you would call him the devil. Yet when Apple does it, it is OK, because quite simply, "I don't give a flying fuck about all that bullshit, I just want to use my device"
Please. Go ahead and keep fooling yourself.
It is the look of a mac fanboy rationalizing getting himself raped in the ass by his idol. Everyone look, isn't it sad how they live?
Excuse me? What about the iPod + iTunes tie in? This is not about using their product with the services that are included? If it isn't, nothing else is.
You have a point about the out of box experience. Every manufacturer attempts to do this to some degree, and Apple does it as a major focus. But this is not what apple is all about. It is pretty far down the list when it comes to their "core competency."
You are fooling yourself if you think for one minute that the iPod + iTunes lockin has anything to do with maintaining control over the user experience. You are also fooling yourself if you think for one minute anything lock-in related apple does has anything to do with the "user experience" outside it being a minor positive side effect to people who fanboy around like you.
While I normally do not like to praise Apple, this is one thing I commend them on. With all the proprietary gimmicks Apple tries to shove down customer's throats, they are not as bad as the gimmicky trash shoved down wireless carrier's throats. For this reason, I have to take Apple's side on this.
The wireless carriers in the US (and a few other regions) have been gouging the eyes out of customers simply because they have always been considered a premium service, thanks to the federal subsidy known as the universal service fund on landline phones. While the rest of the world commoditized their wireless telephone markets, the US wireless carriers turned them into crap shoot proprietary bullshit.
The iPhone (though I refuse to admit it is a good deal, or worth anything close to $500) is the first step in finally commoditizing wireless telephone service. Not allowing the carriers to screw up the phone's firmware is what companies like Nokia and Motorola should have done a decade ago. It is no wonder the wireless carriers are doing what they do, look at how easilly the FCC allowed SBC to buy out AT&T Wireless and then buy out AT&T long distance all in a 3 year period, consolidating almost every drop of the original baby bells.
Thank you Apple for your willingness to play Hardball. I am glad you can see through the corporate crap that is Cingular/AT&T/SBC. My only hope is that you can take the same approach to your own business model and look at yourself from an outsider's perspective, just as you have approached this problem with Cingular.
lets see, you can buy 1GB SD cards for ~10$ at retail. So 320$ for the flash itself(apple will pay less than that). Considering that it is only 249$ for a 30GB ipod video, the chassis of the ipod couldn't cost more than 249. So 240+320 would be the maximum price of a 32GB ipod video flash. Unless they wanted to jack up the price more, which I doubt.
Now, take out the 30GB moving parts hard drive, that should save you about 100$. Add in the fact that apple isn't paying 10$/gig, but somewhat less than that.. say $8/gig.. so $256$. New total (retail) price would be about 405, or $399.00 for the new 32GB flash ipod video.
Unless Apple decides to mark up the flash memory more than they mark up the hard drive, your 800$ price point is pretty far off the mark. Factor in that the failure rate will be significantly less, and the battery requirement will be less , so smaller battery (or longer life), they could actually cut the price even more if they wanted to. I say they could sell it for $349 easy and still make just as much margin as they currently are on the 30GB video Hard drive ipod.
Factor in that the price of flash goes down every time production is ramped (about every couple months), you could have a $249 32GB flash video ipod within 6 months easy if they wanted to (but I doubt they will, Apple tends to wait and increase pricing when new stuff is available).