Ashamed to admit it, but I did RTFA and have a look at their graph. Nowhere did I see a mention that the research was limited to x86 desktops, but clearly it was. I'm absolutely certain PPC (IBM + Freescale) has a larger than one percent market share.
I actually did send them feedback already. Taking great pains not to appear trollish, I asked them why they continually referred to Apple's DRMd files as proprietary, but never used that word to describe their own system. I also suggested that their campaign (and Real's) to "open the iPod" would resonate better with informed consumers if their own DRMd files were cross-platform compatible like Apple's. For those of us who run both platforms, Apple's is the only solution that works for all of our computers.
They can wave their arms and gripe all day about the iPod not supporting WMA, but the bottom line is that Apple's not doing anything to prevent Microsoft themselves from supporting DRMd WMA files in Windows Media Player for Mac. If their appeals for openness were genuine, as opposed to strictly self-serving, a good place to start would be to make their own DRM compatible with their own media player on OS X.
What I would have liked to hear about the iPod was how they came up for the idea of the scroll wheel. AFAIK that's Apple's patent, and the defining feature of the iPod's interface that sets it above the competition.
According to the Newsweek cover story this week, it was Apple's VP of Marketing Phil Schiller who proposed the scroll wheel and its acceleration. To my knowledge this is the first time Apple has credited a specific individual. Does his name appear on the patent?
Re:A legitimate complaint? large music libraries
on
iTunes 4.6, DRM, and Hymn
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Simply put, don't be a target. Carry yourself with the attitude that you aren't anyone's target, you belong exactly where you are, and know exactly what's going down.
I think this post and other similar ones are by far the best advice. I've travelled around the world, including most major cities in North America and Europe, without incident. I'm white, of average size and weight and the only martial arts training I've had is from watching Hollywood movies.
That said I'm very observant and always make an effort to dress and act to blend in as much as possible in whatever environment I'm in at the time. Although I never flash around expensive toys or jewelry, I sure don't go out of my way to avoid bad neighborhoods or the like. In fact I'm insomniac and my favourite way to discover a new city is to wander around (alone) at night!
Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky, but I'm convinced it's all in the attitude you project. If you think like a victim you will undoubtedly become one.
... that only single guys are condemned to a diet of TV dinners. Some of us married guys who have wives working evening shifts can't be bothered (or don't see the need) to learn to cook either!
My barbeque is a few concrete blocks stacked together with a grill on top of it, and an old oil pan that used to sit under my car for making a fire on. You need flames for stuff to taste really good
You might want to look into the toxicity of used motor oil before you cook your next meal over a fire in that pan. Frankly you might as well be using a barbeque fueled by PCBs instead of propane.
I bought a different player, which looks less stylish but works a whole lot better.
And you don't name it because? Let me guess... it's either a lot larger or heavier or has some other obvious defect preventing its acceptance in the mass market. It's easy to name players that have one or two features that are better than an iPod, but so far none have exceeded its balance or overall feature set. Having owned other mp3 players before getting an iPod, I find the only legitimate complaint is its 8-hour runtime.
I found the wheel to be a pain for scrolling through long lists.
You say you "tried out" an iPod. Perhaps a few minutes in a store was not enough to appreciate the scroll pad design.
And, anyway, whoever said that removing your finger and reapplying it was bad?
I did. I have RSI from a decade's heavy use of such devices.
A better design is a pressure-sensitive rocker: press hard, scroll quickly, press softly, scroll slowly, and click to step.
It's very difficult to use devices that depend on pressure sensitivity while you're moving -- walking, jogging or basically doing anything beyond sitting or standing still. This is why there are no pressure-sensitive controls in your car. Too easy to "click to step", hit a bump (or whatever) and wind up twenty tunes from your target.
Look, I'm not saying that the iPod is a perfect design. What is? But the way you've had to scrape the barrel to come up with reasons against buying one (while not revealing your own "superior" choice) makes me think your bias has another source.
The parent poster specifically talked about Apple trying to enforce look and feel rights and I just pointed out that such rights don't exist according to US courts.
The parent poster specifically said "look/feel or other infringement issues."
It's good that Apple is now using the patent system, because that forces them to state ahead of time what they are actually claiming to own, and it allows their claims to be challenged specifically.
Which would be just dandy if the system functioned properly, but it doesn't. People and companies are awarded patents all the time for things that ought not to have survived a comprehensive review or an equitable application of the rules.
I think the real reason you aren't going to see another MP3 player with a scroll wheel is that there are better, more standard input devices: touch pads, track points, game-controller like pads, etc. The wheel gives the iPod brand identity, that's all.
Yes the wheel provides brand identity, but if you think those other input devices you mentioned are better suited for this purpose -- i.e. for tasks like scrolling long lists like those found in an mp3 library -- then I'm forced to conclude you've never used an iPod.
Apple's wheel is the only design so far that lets you do that without continually removing your finger and reapplying it. It's also extremely intuitive, which negates any "familiarity advantage" of those other methods.
I expect Apple to defend the scroll wheel design vigorously. Even though I don't think such obvious "inventions" should be patentable, it is their right under the existing system.
Another recent example of this was the story over feature cuts to Longhorn. They way they fell over themselves denying that any important promised features would be missing was comical as hell:-)
Will Apple lower its prices to compete with the iPod clones or will they foolishly lose command of a market again on the belief that superior quality will save them?
In an optimum scenario they could license their FairPlay DRM to a few companies who were willing to limit their sights to less expensive, lower capacity devices (currently flash memory based). Players in this market segment south of the iPod Mini, have tiny margins that are of little interest to Apple, but their sales volumes could soar in the next few years.
By doing this they could limit cannibalization of the iPod (by ensuring the licensees don't encroach on its turf) yet consumers would be offered a full range of AAC and iTunes Music Store compatible devices at all price points.
The lesson Apple ought to have learned from the last two decades is that the winner is the competitor whose file format locks in the most users (see MS Windows, MS Office, etc). Sad, but true and it means they should promote AAC/FairPlay even at the cost of the profit on a few iPods.
Fortunately, Apple's grandiose notions of protecting their "look and feel" have also been soundly defeated in the US.
The ancient history lawsuit whose entry you linked to was an attempt by Apple to seek redress based on the nebulous concept of software copyright. These days Apple looks to the admittedly fucked up (but nevertheless easier to litigate) patent process to protect their IP. I'm no fan of the US Patent and Trademark Office, but they're the real reason you're not likely to see another mp3 player with a scroll wheel/pad.
Man you've got the story so wrong I barely know where to start:
1. Apple gave Xerox a bunch of pre-IPO stock for the few elements of the PARC GUI used in Lisa and Mac. There was no theft.
2. Apple didn't "sell" any rights to Microsoft. MS was developing apps for the Mac (prior to its release) and Apple issued them a license to use elements of the Mac's GUI for this purpose.
3. Apple Legal wasn't always the crack team they are today. In the license they granted to MS, the language wasn't specific enough to restrict the use of those GUI elements to Mac apps (as was Apple's intent) and MS prevailed in court, securing the right to use the same concepts in the first version of Windows.
4. Yes of course there was more to the story than that, but those are the important facts, the rest is details.
5. You clearly have a twisted view of the world if you believe either (a) that Apple tries to prevent progress in the computer industry or (b) that Microsoft is some benevolent organization whose goal was to democratize the GUI.
Dude they are both for-profit corporations whose only goal is to make money. Apple has modestly accomplished that goal by (a) betting on new technologies early in their adoption curve and (b) creating ease of use by controlling both the hardware and software in their products (vertical integration). MS has been more of an overachiever by (a) out-negotiating IBM in a contract to supply the OS for the original PC by making it "non-exclusive" , (b) licensing it also to the clone manufacturers who appeared shortly thereafter, and (c) defending the resulting monopoly via any means necessary.
Re:Thinking of Switching to a OSX for a laptop
on
Fix a Troubled Mac
·
· Score: 1
Built in ethernet on a Powerbook 165c? Now I've got something to strive for again.
It had a dealer-installed, combination 14.4 modem and ethernet card -- the only one I ever had that accepted both RJ-11 and RJ-45 plugs in the same port. Very cool. Unfortunately I can't remember the brand name of the card and a quick Google didn't turn up anything except SCSI and serial port adaptor ethernet solutions for the 100 series.
My two most favourite features of the 165c though were its smooth-working trackball (bring them back -- please!) and those awesome rotating rear legs that gave the perfect tilt to the keyboard.
Re:Thinking of Switching to a OSX for a laptop
on
Fix a Troubled Mac
·
· Score: 1
Laptops with trackballs, ahh those were the days! A 165c was my first notebook and it was a beaut. Suspend worked great even back then in System 7. My 165c had a colour screen (all 256 of them) with video out and excellent connectivity -- built-in modem, ethernet, SCSI, PCMCIA and even infrared. It was pretty damn schweet in 1993! My friends with PC portables tried to call it a toy, but none of their lead bricks running DOS were as well equipped.
Anyway thanks for prompting my little trip down memory lane! Back to the present though, the 1400 shoulda been waaay faster (i.e. 117 or more MHz vs 33 for the 165c) and it did finally have an internal optical drive, so I'm not sure I'd have made the same choice:-)
Yep, way more times than I care to recall in fact:-) In many of those cases though, a.pdf would have been equally useless. If I were to buy Fix a Troubled Mac the first thing I'd do is print a copy.
Same here. Only positive experiences with multiple modules and APE installed on four machines. On small screens I particularly like the module that prevents new Safari windows from advancing to the right (a feature that's redundant with Exposé anyway).
Having praised APE's stability I should mention that I have studiously avoided ShapeShifter. I've had nothing but negative experiences with OS X theming software in the past and I finally decided just to give up and embrace aqua + brushed metal. The stability has been worth it.
If MS really thought that way why don't more of their existing products (WMP9 for example) play nice with Linux? And would a penguinista using an MS music player really constitute a vindication of their PC and server software? Would it be more of an endorsement than say using an MS mouse or keyboard etc.? Frankly I don't think MS gives a damn about making anyone eat crow... and they probably won't as long as they continue to command a monopoly in desktop OSes and office suites.;-)
BusinessWeek are notorious for wrongly predicting Apple's next move. Job's 100 million goal was only announced after he'd been forced to raise the song download target several times since the conservative, pre-launch forecasts he supplied to RIAA members. Further, the 100 million target was announced during the intro of iTMS for Windows (when there was only 6 months left in the year it referenced) and was probably missed in large measure due to snafus with the Pepsi promotion (that led to disappointing results).
As BusinessWeek pointed out, Apple execs hadn't sold many shares in a long time, so why would it be surprising that they'd do so when the share price shot to a recent-year high? Finally, since that article was written Apple did create a separate operating division for iPod, claiming it would enhance their ability to simultaneously focus on iPod and Mac. Although it could be argued that the new division would make a spin-off easier, if that were the goal it's unlikely they'd have put one of their most senior people -- Jon Rubenstein (who like Avie Tevanian was with Jobs at Next) -- in charge.
The same can be said of similar offerings from Apple, but at least with them, they haven't handled the real thing before because it was a lifestyle choice, not a lack of opportunity.:)
Apple really, really needs... [to]... aggressively start licensing the FairPlay DRM and some kind of fancy "iTunes Music Store Compatibility" logo to other music player creators.
I couldn't agree more. Particularly in the $50-$150 (or 64MB-512MB) market where the margins are too small for them to be bothered producing their own player. Licensing FairPlay to a few producers of low end flash-based players would take the wind out of MS's Choice! argument and help prevent WMA from becoming a de facto standard.
They don't call it the "entry level" market for nothing. For many people their first digital music player will be a device in this category and it's in Apple's interest to have them buying AACs from iTMS and not building a collection of DRMd WMAs. Even if they forfeit the hardware profit the first time around, at least iPod and iPod Mini will be viable trade up options next time.
I doubt you'd need windows.... Plus MS seems to like Macintosh, so that'll be supported.
You do understand that all WMA+DRM music being sold online by MS-powered music stores requires Windows Media 9, which is NOT available for Mac? In a bizarre twist Apple is the only one offering any kind of cross-platform support for music downloads at the moment.
On the other hand, after reading your comment about MS courting Linux folks, perhaps you were joking?
If iPods are over priced why is it that Sony's having trouble competing with them on price? Both the VGF-AP1 (recently announced for the Japanese market at $465) and the HMP-A1 (announced today at $563) are priced significantly higher than the equivalent capacity iPod model (20GB at $399).
As for MS... only a true believer would place any faith in their non-announcement. Until they've got some hardware to show I'm forced to conclude that they're just up to their old tricks. Over the years a lot of companies have been seriously harmed by MS's early announcement of products that, upon delivery (if they get produced at all), don't measure up to what was promised in terms of features or price. Too bad neither the US nor EU antitrust settlements addressed this particular "competitive practice".
Slashdot Mirror
And last time I checked "Mac" didn't make processors.
You're 0 for 2 AP.
Ashamed to admit it, but I did RTFA and have a look at their graph. Nowhere did I see a mention that the research was limited to x86 desktops, but clearly it was. I'm absolutely certain PPC (IBM + Freescale) has a larger than one percent market share.
They can wave their arms and gripe all day about the iPod not supporting WMA, but the bottom line is that Apple's not doing anything to prevent Microsoft themselves from supporting DRMd WMA files in Windows Media Player for Mac. If their appeals for openness were genuine, as opposed to strictly self-serving, a good place to start would be to make their own DRM compatible with their own media player on OS X.
What I would have liked to hear about the iPod was how they came up for the idea of the scroll wheel. AFAIK that's Apple's patent, and the defining feature of the iPod's interface that sets it above the competition.
According to the Newsweek cover story this week, it was Apple's VP of Marketing Phil Schiller who proposed the scroll wheel and its acceleration. To my knowledge this is the first time Apple has credited a specific individual. Does his name appear on the patent?
This is supposedly fixed in the 4.6 Release
I think this post and other similar ones are by far the best advice. I've travelled around the world, including most major cities in North America and Europe, without incident. I'm white, of average size and weight and the only martial arts training I've had is from watching Hollywood movies.
That said I'm very observant and always make an effort to dress and act to blend in as much as possible in whatever environment I'm in at the time. Although I never flash around expensive toys or jewelry, I sure don't go out of my way to avoid bad neighborhoods or the like. In fact I'm insomniac and my favourite way to discover a new city is to wander around (alone) at night!
Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky, but I'm convinced it's all in the attitude you project. If you think like a victim you will undoubtedly become one.
... that only single guys are condemned to a diet of TV dinners. Some of us married guys who have wives working evening shifts can't be bothered (or don't see the need) to learn to cook either!
You might want to look into the toxicity of used motor oil before you cook your next meal over a fire in that pan. Frankly you might as well be using a barbeque fueled by PCBs instead of propane.
I do agree with you about dishwashers tho :-)
And you don't name it because? Let me guess ... it's either a lot larger or heavier or has some other obvious defect preventing its acceptance in the mass market. It's easy to name players that have one or two features that are better than an iPod, but so far none have exceeded its balance or overall feature set. Having owned other mp3 players before getting an iPod, I find the only legitimate complaint is its 8-hour runtime.
I found the wheel to be a pain for scrolling through long lists.
You say you "tried out" an iPod. Perhaps a few minutes in a store was not enough to appreciate the scroll pad design.
And, anyway, whoever said that removing your finger and reapplying it was bad?
I did. I have RSI from a decade's heavy use of such devices.
A better design is a pressure-sensitive rocker: press hard, scroll quickly, press softly, scroll slowly, and click to step.
It's very difficult to use devices that depend on pressure sensitivity while you're moving -- walking, jogging or basically doing anything beyond sitting or standing still. This is why there are no pressure-sensitive controls in your car. Too easy to "click to step", hit a bump (or whatever) and wind up twenty tunes from your target.
Look, I'm not saying that the iPod is a perfect design. What is? But the way you've had to scrape the barrel to come up with reasons against buying one (while not revealing your own "superior" choice) makes me think your bias has another source.
The parent poster specifically said "look/feel or other infringement issues."
It's good that Apple is now using the patent system, because that forces them to state ahead of time what they are actually claiming to own, and it allows their claims to be challenged specifically.
Which would be just dandy if the system functioned properly, but it doesn't. People and companies are awarded patents all the time for things that ought not to have survived a comprehensive review or an equitable application of the rules.
I think the real reason you aren't going to see another MP3 player with a scroll wheel is that there are better, more standard input devices: touch pads, track points, game-controller like pads, etc. The wheel gives the iPod brand identity, that's all.
Yes the wheel provides brand identity, but if you think those other input devices you mentioned are better suited for this purpose -- i.e. for tasks like scrolling long lists like those found in an mp3 library -- then I'm forced to conclude you've never used an iPod.
Apple's wheel is the only design so far that lets you do that without continually removing your finger and reapplying it. It's also extremely intuitive, which negates any "familiarity advantage" of those other methods.
I expect Apple to defend the scroll wheel design vigorously. Even though I don't think such obvious "inventions" should be patentable, it is their right under the existing system.
Another recent example of this was the story over feature cuts to Longhorn. They way they fell over themselves denying that any important promised features would be missing was comical as hell :-)
In an optimum scenario they could license their FairPlay DRM to a few companies who were willing to limit their sights to less expensive, lower capacity devices (currently flash memory based). Players in this market segment south of the iPod Mini, have tiny margins that are of little interest to Apple, but their sales volumes could soar in the next few years .
By doing this they could limit cannibalization of the iPod (by ensuring the licensees don't encroach on its turf) yet consumers would be offered a full range of AAC and iTunes Music Store compatible devices at all price points.
The lesson Apple ought to have learned from the last two decades is that the winner is the competitor whose file format locks in the most users (see MS Windows, MS Office, etc). Sad, but true and it means they should promote AAC/FairPlay even at the cost of the profit on a few iPods.
The ancient history lawsuit whose entry you linked to was an attempt by Apple to seek redress based on the nebulous concept of software copyright. These days Apple looks to the admittedly fucked up (but nevertheless easier to litigate) patent process to protect their IP. I'm no fan of the US Patent and Trademark Office, but they're the real reason you're not likely to see another mp3 player with a scroll wheel/pad.
1. Apple gave Xerox a bunch of pre-IPO stock for the few elements of the PARC GUI used in Lisa and Mac. There was no theft.
2. Apple didn't "sell" any rights to Microsoft. MS was developing apps for the Mac (prior to its release) and Apple issued them a license to use elements of the Mac's GUI for this purpose.
3. Apple Legal wasn't always the crack team they are today. In the license they granted to MS, the language wasn't specific enough to restrict the use of those GUI elements to Mac apps (as was Apple's intent) and MS prevailed in court, securing the right to use the same concepts in the first version of Windows.
4. Yes of course there was more to the story than that, but those are the important facts, the rest is details.
5. You clearly have a twisted view of the world if you believe either (a) that Apple tries to prevent progress in the computer industry or (b) that Microsoft is some benevolent organization whose goal was to democratize the GUI.
Dude they are both for-profit corporations whose only goal is to make money. Apple has modestly accomplished that goal by (a) betting on new technologies early in their adoption curve and (b) creating ease of use by controlling both the hardware and software in their products (vertical integration). MS has been more of an overachiever by (a) out-negotiating IBM in a contract to supply the OS for the original PC by making it "non-exclusive" , (b) licensing it also to the clone manufacturers who appeared shortly thereafter, and (c) defending the resulting monopoly via any means necessary.
It had a dealer-installed, combination 14.4 modem and ethernet card -- the only one I ever had that accepted both RJ-11 and RJ-45 plugs in the same port. Very cool. Unfortunately I can't remember the brand name of the card and a quick Google didn't turn up anything except SCSI and serial port adaptor ethernet solutions for the 100 series.
My two most favourite features of the 165c though were its smooth-working trackball (bring them back -- please!) and those awesome rotating rear legs that gave the perfect tilt to the keyboard.
Anyway thanks for prompting my little trip down memory lane! Back to the present though, the 1400 shoulda been waaay faster (i.e. 117 or more MHz vs 33 for the 165c) and it did finally have an internal optical drive, so I'm not sure I'd have made the same choice :-)
Yep, way more times than I care to recall in fact :-) In many of those cases though, a .pdf would have been equally useless. If I were to buy Fix a Troubled Mac the first thing I'd do is print a copy.
Having praised APE's stability I should mention that I have studiously avoided ShapeShifter. I've had nothing but negative experiences with OS X theming software in the past and I finally decided just to give up and embrace aqua + brushed metal. The stability has been worth it.
If MS really thought that way why don't more of their existing products (WMP9 for example) play nice with Linux? And would a penguinista using an MS music player really constitute a vindication of their PC and server software? Would it be more of an endorsement than say using an MS mouse or keyboard etc.? Frankly I don't think MS gives a damn about making anyone eat crow ... and they probably won't as long as they continue to command a monopoly in desktop OSes and office suites. ;-)
As BusinessWeek pointed out, Apple execs hadn't sold many shares in a long time, so why would it be surprising that they'd do so when the share price shot to a recent-year high? Finally, since that article was written Apple did create a separate operating division for iPod, claiming it would enhance their ability to simultaneously focus on iPod and Mac. Although it could be argued that the new division would make a spin-off easier, if that were the goal it's unlikely they'd have put one of their most senior people -- Jon Rubenstein (who like Avie Tevanian was with Jobs at Next) -- in charge.
Ouch, ouch ... and ouch! :-)
I couldn't agree more. Particularly in the $50-$150 (or 64MB-512MB) market where the margins are too small for them to be bothered producing their own player. Licensing FairPlay to a few producers of low end flash-based players would take the wind out of MS's Choice! argument and help prevent WMA from becoming a de facto standard.
They don't call it the "entry level" market for nothing. For many people their first digital music player will be a device in this category and it's in Apple's interest to have them buying AACs from iTMS and not building a collection of DRMd WMAs. Even if they forfeit the hardware profit the first time around, at least iPod and iPod Mini will be viable trade up options next time.
You do understand that all WMA+DRM music being sold online by MS-powered music stores requires Windows Media 9, which is NOT available for Mac? In a bizarre twist Apple is the only one offering any kind of cross-platform support for music downloads at the moment.
On the other hand, after reading your comment about MS courting Linux folks, perhaps you were joking?
If iPods are over priced why is it that Sony's having trouble competing with them on price? Both the VGF-AP1 (recently announced for the Japanese market at $465) and the HMP-A1 (announced today at $563) are priced significantly higher than the equivalent capacity iPod model (20GB at $399). As for MS ... only a true believer would place any faith in their non-announcement. Until they've got some hardware to show I'm forced to conclude that they're just up to their old tricks. Over the years a lot of companies have been seriously harmed by MS's early announcement of products that, upon delivery (if they get produced at all), don't measure up to what was promised in terms of features or price. Too bad neither the US nor EU antitrust settlements addressed this particular "competitive practice".
I'd say Apple's *music* business is a darn sight more successful than Napster's, even ignoring iPod profits.