The issue is that Apple has refused to license their DRM to Real for the purposes of interoperability. They both want to use DRM, but iPods only support Apple's DRM. Apple doesn't need to support them, it doesn't even need to license the technology, but -- from the wording of the DMCA and from recent court cases -- it appears Real has the right to go it alone if they want to.
They're not complaining. There is the possibility that Apple will sue them, and they are legally required to disclose that.
When it's against the law to keep silent, I don't think it's fair to call it "complaining".
"How many CISC architectures are still alive and kicking?"
There's a few (68k, Z80, etc) but I'll admit they're getting rare.
But that's not really an issue. Most new designs will be RISC or post-RISC so over time we'll see a move away from CISC, but x86 is entrenched enough to persist in isolation.
I'm not saying they weren't wrong, I'm saying they realized it and changed their course long enough ago that they've been shipping the results for some time.
Niagara is great, and it might save Sun (I doubt it, but we'll see), but it's no good as a desktop chip.
Servers and PCs are fundementally different in how they behave. Servers can assume an unlimited number of runnable threads, PCs cannot. For example, I've got a few dozen applications open, I'm playing music, etc, and my load average is 0.3. That means that most of the time there are 0 runnable threads on my system. Sometimes that spikes, but it rarely spikes to a level where Niagara could be utilized effectively.
Desktop applications rarely have much parallelism. They might use threads as a sane replacement for non-blocking I/O, but that doesn't mean they need extra CPUs. An extra core can help with responsiveness issues, but there are rarely multiple CPU-bound applications on a desktop machine at any given time so more than that is usually a waste.
If the load average of a desktop machine is less than 1 most of the time, and less than 2 almost all of the time, how is Niagara with its 32 threads supposed to help?
"Performance per watt? Notice now Intel is singing the exact same tune that Apple is?"
Not only is Intel singing the same tune as Apple, but they have been for several years. Pentium M chips have been superior to any mobile PowerPC chip since they were released.
The point I think the parent was making is that RISC processors were supposed to take over the desktop. What we've seen happen is x86 getting pushed out of most areas except for desktop, laptop, and small server, but it has thoroughly consolidated those areas. Until Apple caved, there was still hope (however unjustified) that a RISC would win out in the end, but now the situation is pretty much permanent.
PowerPC/POWER/Cell and ARM aren't going anywhere, but I think the rest of the major architechtures are dead. They just haven't been EOLed yet.
"What is it about computers that makes people draw analogies to automobiles?"
Deceptive simplicity with the promise of something that novices can understand, followed by the intellectual challenge of figuring out how to make an accurate analogy when they realize cars and computers are completely different.
If they're better for something than the open source alternatives, have at it. If they're enough better for something to draw people away from open source alternatives that don't cost anything, then they're doing something right and they deserve to make a bit of money.
"That isn't quite true. Media applications could get a huge boost from the powerful vector processors in the cell. Since media applications and games are the only desktop applications that really require lots of CPU power, I would imagine that a Cell desktop could be pretty fast."
Three points:
First, games do need lots of CPU power, but a Cell isn't necessarily the way to go. Did you see those benchmarks with Pentium Ms in a desktop system? Not only did they annihilate Pentium 4s, they did very well against Athlon64s at higher clock speeds. Pentium Ms are terrible at vector and floating point performance, so evidently games do well on chips with good integer performance. I'm not saying vector performance wouldn't help particularly for games designed around taking advantage of it, but the advantage is not clear right now.
Second, media applications, particularly those new video codecs at HD resolutions, do benefit from lots of vector performance. But current x86 and PowerPC chips can manage playback without dropping frames, which means any improvement above that isn't helpful unless you're doing something more demanding. Only a small minority do something more demanding.
Third, there are other CPU-bound applications. Just as an example, javascript in webpages. Javascript is going to become more important in the future as web applications get more common. There are other examples, but that should be enough to prove my point. Cell would be terrible at things like that, and Mac users will be at a huge disadvantage unless they have a CPU that's good at things like that. Fortunately, the Pentium M line of processors is fantastic at it, so Mac users will be okay.
If Apple is serious about the content creation side of things, one can imagine them releasing a line of Cell workstations or PowerMacs with Cell coprocessors, but it's the wrong CPU for the vast majority of their users.
"and you've paid for how many of them?" I paid about a week each.
"And apple has extended that recall voluntarily how many times?"
They did the repair extension when threatened with a class-action lawsuit. I'm not impressed.
"Three "covered repairs" means you are entitled to a NEW LAPTOP. Complain and you WILL get a new ibook G4. Failure to be an "informed consumer" means you're just bending over and taking it."
I asked Apple Customer Relations the 3rd and 4th times, and they refused.
My shuffle hasn't had any problems, and it's actually recieved the coveted "ArbitraryConstant has no specific complaints" award, which means it meets my expectations in every way and is the highest praise I have to give.
But when Apple makes crap I'm going to call them on it. I don't know why people reply to posts like mine with "I've had X for Y years, no problems". Is it to balance out the public impression made when someone's been having issues? Drunkenbatman said it better than me, there's an instinct to try to keep issues "in the family", but I think that's dangerous. If they are protected from the fallout when bad things happen, they will be less likely to prevent them from happening in the future.
"After a quarter of a century waiting for and working for an operating system that didn't suck that actually had quality polished applications, well, I'm not so pragmatic about going backwards as I used to be."
I'm a youngin', so from my perspective the things that distinguish BSD and Linux are based entirely on what you want to do with them. Linux is better for my development workstation, OpenBSD is better for my firewall, etc. I'll use whatever suits the task. To me, the only people that lose out are the ones that are married to a particular OS.
If Linux didn't exist, I'd probably use FreeBSD instead of MacOS for the reasons stated earlier (and also without Linux all the good software would be for FreeBSD).
"So there isn't anything to really like about Linux except that there's up-to-date Java. And since Java itself has negative value for me, too, there's no contest."
I don't deny that BSD or MacOS can be better for some particular person or application.:)
"And are you sure the Powermac G5 has that much of a "Mac Tax"? It's a pretty speedy machine, and when I was looking at comparable Athlon64 boxes it was closer to 50% than 100%..."
I glanced at a local whiteboxers and HP, and they have Athlon64 systems for less than CDN$1000 as compared to CDN$2500 ($2630 with 1 gb which is what the HP box had, I won't use 3rd party because Apple has broken my memory during repairs in the past) for the cheapest PowerMac.
The second CPU is an issue, but it doesn't help Apple look good. When they had single-CPU PowerMacs they were CDN$2000 which is still twice as much, and dual-core Athlon64s will leave a dual-G5 in the dust for a lot less. I don't even want the second CPU, so I'm pretty much the worst case. I don't need it and therefore don't want to pay for it.
"That's because you haven't been using BSD for a quarter of a century."
I do prefer BSD. It's just that too much software (like up to date Java) isn't available. I've got the iBook (they didn't suck so much when I bought it), and an OpenBSD firewall.
"The difference between a complete operating system and a kernel is immense, and the way Linux bridges the gap by abandoning the very idea of a core and leaving it up to the distros has led to the same kind of fragmentation that almost destroyed UNIX in far less time."
I agree, but in practice the better distros (I use Debian, don't claim it's the best) do a fairly reasonable job of holding the kernel and userspace together. It's not perfect, but from a pragmatic POV it's rarely a problem for me.
"With the Mac mini, it about hit that point."
If I were in the market for a box like that I'd probably get one, but everything about the mini is too slow or too small for my needs.
I guess I just don't assign that much negative value to Linux. Not everyone can/will deal with it, but someone who doesn't mind it can save a lot of money. Also, for a programmer there are issues with OS X (eg the perennially out of date Java implementation) that keep it from being free.
I'd use OS X up to about a 50% premium. Right now for some of the stuff, you're lucky if a 100% premium will get get you a comparable computer at all. Unless they shape up, they're just not going to be a consideration for me in the future.
I guess some people place a nearly infinite value on OS X, and are therefore willing to compromise quite a bit to get it. That's not wrong, but I guess I don't agree with that assesment of its value.
I knew of the Screen Spanning Doctor, but I wasn't prepared to make a core requirement of the system dependant on something that was completely unsupported. A dual-G4 may have cut it, but all else being I prefer to avoid eBay and I prefer to get a machine that's under warranty. Also, I don't care about vector performance and a dual-G4 would be significantly slower than the Athlon64 I got.
However, you're right. A dual-G4 is probably the closest Apple computer to what I wanted that I could have gotten. Had I been willing to risk eBay and take the performance downgrade, that's what I would have done. It's a shame Apple's primary competition is their own used parts. If they brought back the single-CPU PowerMac (and priced it within reason), it would be a very attractive computer.
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The issue is that Apple has refused to license their DRM to Real for the purposes of interoperability. They both want to use DRM, but iPods only support Apple's DRM. Apple doesn't need to support them, it doesn't even need to license the technology, but -- from the wording of the DMCA and from recent court cases -- it appears Real has the right to go it alone if they want to.
They're not complaining. There is the possibility that Apple will sue them, and they are legally required to disclose that.
When it's against the law to keep silent, I don't think it's fair to call it "complaining".
"How many CISC architectures are still alive and kicking?"
There's a few (68k, Z80, etc) but I'll admit they're getting rare.
But that's not really an issue. Most new designs will be RISC or post-RISC so over time we'll see a move away from CISC, but x86 is entrenched enough to persist in isolation.
Of course.
I'm not saying they weren't wrong, I'm saying they realized it and changed their course long enough ago that they've been shipping the results for some time.
Niagara is great, and it might save Sun (I doubt it, but we'll see), but it's no good as a desktop chip.
Servers and PCs are fundementally different in how they behave. Servers can assume an unlimited number of runnable threads, PCs cannot. For example, I've got a few dozen applications open, I'm playing music, etc, and my load average is 0.3. That means that most of the time there are 0 runnable threads on my system. Sometimes that spikes, but it rarely spikes to a level where Niagara could be utilized effectively.
Desktop applications rarely have much parallelism. They might use threads as a sane replacement for non-blocking I/O, but that doesn't mean they need extra CPUs. An extra core can help with responsiveness issues, but there are rarely multiple CPU-bound applications on a desktop machine at any given time so more than that is usually a waste.
If the load average of a desktop machine is less than 1 most of the time, and less than 2 almost all of the time, how is Niagara with its 32 threads supposed to help?
"Performance per watt? Notice now Intel is singing the exact same tune that Apple is?"
Not only is Intel singing the same tune as Apple, but they have been for several years. Pentium M chips have been superior to any mobile PowerPC chip since they were released.
The point I think the parent was making is that RISC processors were supposed to take over the desktop. What we've seen happen is x86 getting pushed out of most areas except for desktop, laptop, and small server, but it has thoroughly consolidated those areas. Until Apple caved, there was still hope (however unjustified) that a RISC would win out in the end, but now the situation is pretty much permanent.
PowerPC/POWER/Cell and ARM aren't going anywhere, but I think the rest of the major architechtures are dead. They just haven't been EOLed yet.
"What is it about computers that makes people draw analogies to automobiles?"
Deceptive simplicity with the promise of something that novices can understand, followed by the intellectual challenge of figuring out how to make an accurate analogy when they realize cars and computers are completely different.
If they're better for something than the open source alternatives, have at it. If they're enough better for something to draw people away from open source alternatives that don't cost anything, then they're doing something right and they deserve to make a bit of money.
It proves it's very unlikely that anything else happened.
Until someone breaks MD5.
Thanks for the feedback. :)
Unfortunately, I don't believe Alberta has a lemon law.
"That isn't quite true. Media applications could get a huge boost from the powerful vector processors in the cell. Since media applications and games are the only desktop applications that really require lots of CPU power, I would imagine that a Cell desktop could be pretty fast."
Three points:
First, games do need lots of CPU power, but a Cell isn't necessarily the way to go. Did you see those benchmarks with Pentium Ms in a desktop system? Not only did they annihilate Pentium 4s, they did very well against Athlon64s at higher clock speeds. Pentium Ms are terrible at vector and floating point performance, so evidently games do well on chips with good integer performance. I'm not saying vector performance wouldn't help particularly for games designed around taking advantage of it, but the advantage is not clear right now.
Second, media applications, particularly those new video codecs at HD resolutions, do benefit from lots of vector performance. But current x86 and PowerPC chips can manage playback without dropping frames, which means any improvement above that isn't helpful unless you're doing something more demanding. Only a small minority do something more demanding.
Third, there are other CPU-bound applications. Just as an example, javascript in webpages. Javascript is going to become more important in the future as web applications get more common. There are other examples, but that should be enough to prove my point. Cell would be terrible at things like that, and Mac users will be at a huge disadvantage unless they have a CPU that's good at things like that. Fortunately, the Pentium M line of processors is fantastic at it, so Mac users will be okay.
If Apple is serious about the content creation side of things, one can imagine them releasing a line of Cell workstations or PowerMacs with Cell coprocessors, but it's the wrong CPU for the vast majority of their users.
The difference is that people say Apple is significantly better. Overall they might be right, but models with design flaws are significantly worse.
"and you've paid for how many of them?"
I paid about a week each.
"And apple has extended that recall voluntarily how many times?"
They did the repair extension when threatened with a class-action lawsuit. I'm not impressed.
"Three "covered repairs" means you are entitled to a NEW LAPTOP. Complain and you WILL get a new ibook G4. Failure to be an "informed consumer" means you're just bending over and taking it."
I asked Apple Customer Relations the 3rd and 4th times, and they refused.
My shuffle hasn't had any problems, and it's actually recieved the coveted "ArbitraryConstant has no specific complaints" award, which means it meets my expectations in every way and is the highest praise I have to give.
But when Apple makes crap I'm going to call them on it. I don't know why people reply to posts like mine with "I've had X for Y years, no problems". Is it to balance out the public impression made when someone's been having issues? Drunkenbatman said it better than me, there's an instinct to try to keep issues "in the family", but I think that's dangerous. If they are protected from the fallout when bad things happen, they will be less likely to prevent them from happening in the future.
"Um, you havn't asked for a full replacement."
I did and they refused, the 3rd and 4th times it broke.
Canadians pay a levy every time they buy certain types of media. They have already paid for the sin, individually and repeatedly.
"Hardly one to comment on the "deficiencies" of the product, especially if you don't even own one."
Can I comment? My iBook is on its 5th logic board...
NASA's budget is $16.5 billion. The US deficit is $318 billion.
How will cutting NASA funding pay down the debt?
"After a quarter of a century waiting for and working for an operating system that didn't suck that actually had quality polished applications, well, I'm not so pragmatic about going backwards as I used to be."
:)
I'm a youngin', so from my perspective the things that distinguish BSD and Linux are based entirely on what you want to do with them. Linux is better for my development workstation, OpenBSD is better for my firewall, etc. I'll use whatever suits the task. To me, the only people that lose out are the ones that are married to a particular OS.
If Linux didn't exist, I'd probably use FreeBSD instead of MacOS for the reasons stated earlier (and also without Linux all the good software would be for FreeBSD).
"So there isn't anything to really like about Linux except that there's up-to-date Java. And since Java itself has negative value for me, too, there's no contest."
I don't deny that BSD or MacOS can be better for some particular person or application.
"And are you sure the Powermac G5 has that much of a "Mac Tax"? It's a pretty speedy machine, and when I was looking at comparable Athlon64 boxes it was closer to 50% than 100%..."
I glanced at a local whiteboxers and HP, and they have Athlon64 systems for less than CDN$1000 as compared to CDN$2500 ($2630 with 1 gb which is what the HP box had, I won't use 3rd party because Apple has broken my memory during repairs in the past) for the cheapest PowerMac.
The second CPU is an issue, but it doesn't help Apple look good. When they had single-CPU PowerMacs they were CDN$2000 which is still twice as much, and dual-core Athlon64s will leave a dual-G5 in the dust for a lot less. I don't even want the second CPU, so I'm pretty much the worst case. I don't need it and therefore don't want to pay for it.
"That's because you haven't been using BSD for a quarter of a century."
I do prefer BSD. It's just that too much software (like up to date Java) isn't available. I've got the iBook (they didn't suck so much when I bought it), and an OpenBSD firewall.
"The difference between a complete operating system and a kernel is immense, and the way Linux bridges the gap by abandoning the very idea of a core and leaving it up to the distros has led to the same kind of fragmentation that almost destroyed UNIX in far less time."
I agree, but in practice the better distros (I use Debian, don't claim it's the best) do a fairly reasonable job of holding the kernel and userspace together. It's not perfect, but from a pragmatic POV it's rarely a problem for me.
"With the Mac mini, it about hit that point."
If I were in the market for a box like that I'd probably get one, but everything about the mini is too slow or too small for my needs.
I guess I just don't assign that much negative value to Linux. Not everyone can/will deal with it, but someone who doesn't mind it can save a lot of money. Also, for a programmer there are issues with OS X (eg the perennially out of date Java implementation) that keep it from being free.
I'd use OS X up to about a 50% premium. Right now for some of the stuff, you're lucky if a 100% premium will get get you a comparable computer at all. Unless they shape up, they're just not going to be a consideration for me in the future.
Who said anything about Windows? :)
I'd probably tolerate Windows for a factor of two on the money side, but I'm glad I don't have to.
I guess some people place a nearly infinite value on OS X, and are therefore willing to compromise quite a bit to get it. That's not wrong, but I guess I don't agree with that assesment of its value.
I knew of the Screen Spanning Doctor, but I wasn't prepared to make a core requirement of the system dependant on something that was completely unsupported. A dual-G4 may have cut it, but all else being I prefer to avoid eBay and I prefer to get a machine that's under warranty. Also, I don't care about vector performance and a dual-G4 would be significantly slower than the Athlon64 I got.
However, you're right. A dual-G4 is probably the closest Apple computer to what I wanted that I could have gotten. Had I been willing to risk eBay and take the performance downgrade, that's what I would have done. It's a shame Apple's primary competition is their own used parts. If they brought back the single-CPU PowerMac (and priced it within reason), it would be a very attractive computer.
This is why I don't have a Mac desktop now.
I needed dual displays and a few other things, and I wasn't prepared to pay for a PowerMac to get them. OS X isn't worth CDN$1500 to me.