If the US service is as good as the UK service, this should do quite well. Neat little DVD holders, clever postage packaging and fast turn around and the price was significantly cheaper than renting from Blockbusters. My only complaint was that my girlfriend has taken it over. In the last month she has made me watch The Notebook, Million Dollar Baby and Piglet the Movie. Apparently, I'm not allowed to rent Shaolin Soccer because we can't both watch it?!?!?!
You buy a kid a laptop when they are so cheap that you can afford to buy a new one every month. You know they're going to get broken, stolen, lost etc.
Its a British thing. If someone is talking to you we can't walk away. We just smile politely whilst plotting to kill (or hoping a that someone/thing will do it for us) them in our heads. Same with telephone calls. My girlfriend thought I was mad when I just hung up on someone trying to sell me double glazing. Its so bad, that we have radio shows (Radio 1) with bits dedicated to seeing how long people will put up with people talking to them on the phone. Try it! Phone a Brit and, provided you stay polite, see how long they will stay on the phone even if you don't say anything at all.
How are the people that are buying digital cameras from Dixons using a digital camera? The software that comes with Windows XP is bad, the software that comes with the camera is worse and Googles excellent offering is hidden away, and involves a knowledge of web searching and software installation.
My Dad, who though far from computer illiterate, uses the software that came with his FujiFilm SLR. The camera is excellent, but the software is so bad, that it takes him 20 minutes to find the picture he wants, and he keeps a paper index to give him an idea of when he took the photo so he can find it by date. He doesn't do any photo editing, because its too complicated (the guy runs a primary school, and uses computers on a daily basis... he's not stupid) and getting the pictures to print well is an effort.
My completely computer illiterate girlfriends mother really struggles to use iPhoto. And why wouldn't she? In order to get the pictures off the camera she has to find the right wire, make sure its connected in the right socket, makes sure the camera is on (this always confuses her) and then has to eject the camera before she can disconnect it. She has mastered albums, but can't do keywords. She can't burn a CD of her favourites to take down Boots to get it printed without my help.
I'm no expert, in fact I would shudder to call myself a novice when it comes to digital photography, but they are fascinated that I can put together a DVD of the trip we've just taken in iDVD and iPhoto even though most of the work is done for me by the Mac, or that I can type 'Zoes birthday' in Spotlight an be provided with every picture from Zoes birthday instantly.
I always thought the advantages of digital photography were having a searchable library of of all my pictures, and being able to email them to friends, and take out the odd bit of red eye. It turns out the reason people by digital cameras is that they can take over hundred photos without changing the film (great for holidays), can see those photo immediately and delete them if they're bad (perceived reduction of cost), and continue to just hand the camera over to the guy at Boots and get the pictures back an hour later. For this they are willing to pay over £100 for a camera that has a lower picture quality, artifacts and dead pixels, than a £20 35mm film. Norms are funny arn't they?
Am I missing something or does this work something similar to the lines of a fly catcher plant? Something is in my reach -> grab. All that is happening is that they have developed motors and photosensors fast enough so that they can do it at incredible speeds.
The reality is that the robot has no idea what its catching. It doesn't know how to recognise a ball. The chances are that a fast moving object is easier to identify that a stationary one, as you just grab the thing that is moving rather than identifying a shape and deciding if that is the thing you want to collect.
Still an interesting technology showcase, but I'm still no closer to my robot slave:(
You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts, anti-spyware and iApp equivalents and upgrade the OS to Pro, OS X comes with support for multiple CPUs, remote access (SSH, X11, VNC) etc out of the box so you need to upgrade from Home.
Time isn't cheap. Playing with computers is fun, but then so is playing with cars. If someone bought a fiat panda and tried to upgrade it to a Mercades A-Class they're going to bill you for time.
Then we'll be in the situation expressed in HHGG, where we have to monitor the mass of the planet and account for all mass imports. For every tonne of plutonium we bring back we'll have to 'export' 1 tonne of something useless, like.... squirels!
(That would be worth the entrance price... 1000 squirels getting ejected from the planet on a giant catapult)
This makes me worried about government contracts. What happens when there isn't any 'market' and the software is essential to running a country?
In the UK that means that there is a bid. The lowest bidder gets it, they employ the cheapest coders on the planet, farm as much off shore as possible, and then waste millions supporting crappy software. We're now in a situation where we can't trust the government with ANY software creation. They got the passport software wrong (well to start with), they got the tax software wrong (New Tax Credits was a fiasco) and they got the air traffic control wrong (fortunately nobody has died... yet).
What Joel says rings so true that its scary to think that the really important software will NEVER be written like this. But what can you do to remedy the situation? Because there is no market, you can't expect competition to improve the quality of the code, the only incentive being fines to companies when they get it wrong - thats no incentive, that just makes accountants want to do just a good enough job not to get fined.
Do you open source the problem? While I agree that security through obscurity is not security at all, you will never get a country that thinks its a good idea to ahve its tax software open to all to see. There is also Brookes law to deal with and there is still no guarentee that you will attract the best of the best.
Sorry to admit this in public, but... I... have sweaty palms. OK I said it. Now these white mice are all very well and good for normal people but to me they are like an advertisement to that fact. I have a G5 and the mouse that came with that is constantly filthy.
The other problem I have is with this scroll wheel. I love the concept. 360 degree scrolling is a great idea, but didn't we get rid of balls from mice for a good reason? I mean, how many time a week will it be necessary to clean the scroll ball... if indeed you can? Its not really an issue with scroll wheels because you are directly manipulating the wheel, but on ball mice you were relying on the friction between ball and wheel - which dirt and grime gummed up.
Did the clever bods at Apple think about this in advance and use one of those fancy optical balls?
The other issue is the short cable. My G5 has bluetooth. Apple's bluetooth keyboard is a delight, but it, obviously, doesn't come with a USB hub built in. So where am I supposed to plug the mighty mouse in? If the the cable on the traditional Apple mouse is anything to go by its not long enough to be useful if connected to the rear of the G5. So will I be forced to use a bulky extension cable on a premium mouse - should I decide to buy one?
I don't think Apples decission to use DRM is evil so much as unamerican. In fact the whole Apple philosphy seems wholy un-american.
I'm going to tread carefully with this because, as a rule I like both America and Apple, this is a theory I'm trying out, not flame tinder.
Americans, quite rightly, demand choice. You guys, perceive it as representative of freedom. Choice makes things both cheaper, because of market forces of competition, and more expensive because of the market forces of economies of scale. Look at Starbucks, you walk in wanting a coffee, you walk you having with a tall, skinny, low foam mocha with wings and sprinkles.
But this is exactly what Apple is not about. Apple are not about choice at all, they are about freedom from choice. You walk into an Apple store and you come out with an Apple. There are a few choices for the masses, but essentially those choices are Mini or iBook. If they were a coffee shop they would sell the best coffee in the world in a variety of bone china cups with an option of milk.
The funny thing about Apple is that despite selling the best coffee in the world, people buy the coffee for the cups. Until recently, MicroCoff caused Apple cups to dissolve. Apple have now 'fixed' that 'problem' by buying they're cups wholesale from the same place as everyone else. This made the coffee cheaper, and may mean that less people get burned on the move, but the cups are generally agreed by everyone in the cup industry as being a step backwards. But Apple are worried that people won't want their coffee any more, and just come in to buy the cups - so they've put a lock on the cups.
Now is this evil? If they were selling choice before, and they had taken that choice away I would say yes. They fact is that they are just trying to maintain the status quo. Is it a slippery slope? Only if the dicks at MicroCoff think that locks are the reason Apple are allowed to sell they're coffee for a premium, and not because the coffee is better.
I know what you mean, but I always listen to 'relaxing' music like Texas and Natalie Umbruglia (it was the mid 90s) to calm my thoughts and make me more deadly. You know your in trouble when your walking through a supermarket, 'Torn' comes on and your the only one reaching for your sidearm, calculating the threat and looking for cover.
There have been two other games that have temperally changed my worldly perspective. Jet Set Radio Future: driving along and thinking that I could be going faster if I'd bought my skates and was grinding along the central reservation and up that lamp post, jumping 30 meters over that build etc... and Tekkan 3: after a 24 hour tournament, left me in situation where everytime I moved my fingers I could see the moves it would produce. Very distracting - especially when coding.
I always think this is a sign of a good game, but it is always the precursor to a big argument. My significantly better half, quite rightly, doesn't like it when 'that stupid z box thingy' gets more attention than her.
This is a very good point. Not everyone can pay for music on iTMS. Kids are at the mercy of their parents buying them vouchers (The UK doesn't have these in stores) and not everyone wants to have a credit card - I sure as hell don't.
And you're right, there isn't enough choice with formats - even real life stores allow for choice of media - they have vinyl sections, cd, even tape and mini-disk. Why can't there be a lossless store for enthusiasts? - I'd really like to see this happen. They have an audiobook store and podcasts, why not lossless?
As for DRM... the RIAA dropped a bollock with CDs. Somebody had to be first into the digital media market and given the technology at the time it was hardly suprising that they decided to go with additional quality rather than copy protection - given the chance again I have no doubt they would put copy protection on vinyl, tape and CD, they just didn't have the technology at the time. But its not as if DRM, particularly Fairplay, is hard to crack, its there to make sharing songs more trouble than its worth.
As for iTMS locking you into iPod, well thats the point isn't it? You pay less money for a 'better' MP3 player that supports OGG/Vorbis but can't use it with the most popular online store - leaving piracy as the easiest option. The reason the better portables arn't selling as well is because they are more difficult to use for street consumers - its a package thing. Don't like the package? Don't buy the iPod... is that starting to sound weak to anyone else?
It just seems to me that this is all backwards. Selling CDs is just one way an artist can make money from they're music. If we imagine a world where the ability to transfer music is fast, free and easy - making the sale of CDs unnecessary (its easy if you try;) ) are there other ways that recording companies can continue to make money?
Selling music to music radio, music television and dance clubs. Some people see a way to induce people to by CDs others see a market in its own right. This is the way it should be as people, even those in industry are careful not to spend their money on rubbish.
Live performance. Some musicians can actually sing outside of a studio. People will pay to see this. Others are pretty good at putting on a show and miming, people will pay to see this too. This is the product that musicians should be trying to sell - entertainment, not plastic discs. In the old days this is how musicians got discovered - you know before Simon Cowel invented Pap Idol
Selling interviews. If you are not trying to sell anything, but people are interested in what you have to say, people will pay to hear it, so you can charge the people who want to write it down and sell it. This might mean that music journalists finally get some sense out musicians, and are free to interview interesting people, as opposed the people who will do anything to promote they're album.
Merchandise. People will buy actually high profit products that are endorsed by the people they rate.
Work in other art industries where you have no right to concider yourself an artist. Britney / Crossroads - we're looking at you.
Sure I'm deluded - this will never happen. I mean - a technology that removes the need to sell music facsimilies to the masses? No-one will ever invent that! But I can dream can't I?
When something is essentially free to make, it should be free to use - with one exception: when it is used to generate a profit. Thats when copyright and licence fees should kick in and not before.
Individual likes music. Buys music. Distributes it to friends and family. Gets caught by the RIAA and gets slapped with a criminal record.
Record company hates music, loves advertisments. Gets given music. Gives it away for free over an unencrypted medium to anyone who cares to listen. Gets given a huge 'bribe' by record company to keep doing this and the record company is a criminal.
I know this is an over simplification, but this really is nuts.
I miss Isaac Guillory. Man, that guy could play ( and write and sing). If any of you guys know of his living equal please post so that I can support them.
BSD makes sense to me - much less work all round. You write the code you want to, that does the job you want it to do and you do the best job you can given your resources. Then you set it free. If it comes back to you better than it left; your happy. If grows elsewhere and changes the world; your happy. If it goes nowhere, and just continues to work for you; your happy. If someone figures out a way to make money from it and doesn't give you any, shame on them, but thats OK too, your just pleased that someone has taken your hobby project and given it the time and resources it needed to turn into a commercial project.
It doesn't matter how great my code is, I know I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. I didn't design the chips, the OS, the compiler, the language and most of the design patterns and data structures will have been used in other applications before mine, I just arranged them in a pattern that was unique to my application. Do I deserve to get paid for my work? Only if I market it and the BSD licence doesn't stop me from doing that. Do I want to spend the rest of my life hiring lawyers chasing people who should know better, no - I just want to code. Do I want to spend the rest of my life concidering code patches for an application I'm no longer interested in, no - I'm probably thinking of the next big thing. Do I want to be the next Bill Gates, hell no. I'm not saying the guy isn't happy, but to be honest my life is complicated enough without all that power and responsibility. I may not be rich, but I don't have whole websites devouted to hating me either (yet). To be honest I think that people getting mega rich off the back of software alone is an event of the past. If your going to get rich making software, your going to need to be selling whatever it is that your software makes easier to produce.
I understand that most of that applies to the GPL as well, but how your software free if your forcing an ideology on to people? Thats just not my way, not that its a bad way. At the end of the day, your contribution to your code is tiny, if you didn't write it somebody else will. If your writing something genuinely uselful, let everybody else use it. Remember the guy that invented the wheel, the hammer, the horse bit? Me neither, but I'm grateful everyday and so is the rest of the world - surely thats worth more than ego.
This never ceases to amaze me and its disgraceful computer science. It seems to me that the gap between those who can and those who can't use a computer is widening rapidly. Its like learning to ride a bike the minute you get it, you just can't imagine not being able to get it, which makes you unqualified to solve the problem of making it easier to get.
Other things that must appear terrafying to the uninitiated:
Keyboards: 105 keys, randomly ordered. Most of the keys you'll never use. Huge learning curve
Mouse: The learning curves on these things is suprising huge. Keeping you wrist on the table is counter intuitive. People are convinced their arms arn't long enough
Pointers: You know its related to the movements your making with the mouse, your just not sure how.
Icons: Double click? Single Click? Right Click? Drag and Drop? Context Menu? These actions are hard enough for people to get - but then you have to explain that they represent their work XOR the application XOR folders and that all of these things have different behaviours.
I think GUIs are scary for a lot of fresh meat. "Click here to start" is not suffient instruction for somebody who doesn't know how to use a computer
Getting the lightsaber would really upset me. Taking it from the auctioneers, holding it for the first time, and then the heart explodingly bad feeling when no, the light saber doesn't work, no matter how badly you want it too. Some dreams are better left unpurchased.
I get the feeling this is a war that will continue for as long as American corporations have software patents. Can this rulling be used to restart the debate in the US? What is the point of patents if they can only be enforced in one market (all be it a VERY large market)?
Apple can only benefit from having more apps. Having an IDE that can compile to more than one platform is very different to having binaries that run on every platform. Developers would be free to target the platforms they want. For example Apple could release the iApps for Linux but not Windows, but it would probably make more sense to use them as carrots for switchers - opening the API would free them to make these business decisions with much lower impacts, knowing that if it suddenly made business sense to relase Final Cut Pro for Windows, they could, and have it on the market in a month, even if they choose not too is surely a strong business case.
My second business case is for a reality check. If you have an innovative software product to develop, why would you relase it for Mac? With the excepetion of the media, Macs market share makes it difficult to justify pursuing Mac only development. At the outside, you could hope to try and push Qt and C++ on to those in charge. I would struggle to convince people the Qt makes business sense. Its not that its not a good API, its that its just a GUI Toolkit. Cocoa is much, much more than that. There already appears to be an understanding within Apple that the IDE should be free as this stimulates development. This is the next logical step - empower developers to ease themselves off the Windows development path by offering them better tools for free. Make XCode available for Linux, BSD and Windows for $500 with a commercial licence and free on Mac or with a GPL. $500 is cheap compared to Qt and VS and to a developer looking to buy a new box its like getting a $500 discount on 'expensive' Apple hardware. That seems like a stonger business case. Not only are you strengthening the platform your potentially creating a new stream of revenue as people licence Xcode, or start buying hardware.
Getting Wintel and Sun to support this is irrelevant. They don't have to support the IDE out of the box - the installer can include it on the DVD - downloaded apps can offer to install it via another download (groan, but its the only way). Java failed because there weren't enough apps that required the IDE. Apple already have that App: iTunes - they can push it through the back door. Linux needs this to happen - it needs the apps more than Apple. I venture that this will swell Linux' market share, but at the expense of Windows, not Apple.
What are the competitors in this market? Qt. Thats it..Net and Java only seem to make sesne in the enterprise market, Cocoa is not an enterprise product, its a desktop product. Python, Ruby, RealBASIC arn't in the same league. GNUStep is simply the best building block to fork to make this a reality faster.
This is the nub of what really annoys me about this situation. At some point somebody decided that this work was worth minium wage for 3-4 hours a day. Now if I tender for that work, knowing full well that I have aquired the skills elsewhere to automate that task, I don't declare that I'm going to automate it, and I write the code on my own time (because 9/10 time the code is trivial and can be writen and tested in a lunch hour). Why do I have to turn up for work?
They're getting exactly what they paid for, but faster, more accurate and with no need to heat/cool or water me. Surely this is a good thing? How is this any different from outsourcing? Nike doesn't think twice about using companies that just outsource the work they win to overseas companies - all they care about is getting the product they paid for.
Why do companies still think they can get away with paying individuals for their time? If you're employed to do a job, why should it matter how you do it - unless the work you produce is below the standard they require. The real problem I think is ego. Managers just arn't prepared to admit they've been 'had', what they don't realize is that they haven't. Just because a human isn't doing these menial, repetitive tasks doesn't mean they're worth any less - they are still worth minimum wage for 3-4 hours.
As tech pros we all know that our job is about making other people unemployed. The way we solace this is by telling oursleves that the only tasks we can do it for are jobs which humans are really bad at. Who misses filing jobs, calculating log tables, hand weaving, remembering a store full of prices. I'm really looking forward to intelligent voice recognition (not that its going to happen any time soon). Not because I want to be able to dictate an essay (I'm faster on a keyboard) but because it might mean we can rid our world of the worst thing to happen in the 20th century - call centres. After that I want to get rid of text file programming. The only reason we have to outsource coding is because its unnecessarily labour intensive. We'll still need IT pros, its just they'll be designing systems, not writing megabytes of the same code.
... because I have too. Isn't targeting OSs becoming a bit tired? For the most part, the OS should be transparent to the developer as should the hardware. The only time this shouldn't be true is when the program requires to talk to the hardware or OS directly - which for most apps is never.
The other problem is GUI - different OS, different ideology, different GUI. If Qt have proven nothing else, they have proven that this can be a problem of the past.
What I would love to see is XCode and Cocoa compiling for Linux, Wintel and Sun. They don't even have to release XCode for different platforms, just open up the API so that you can write once compile anywhere. This will fill a huge gap in the market - high performance, cross platform desktop software development. Is it possible? Well yes. I'm not sure how easy core data et al. would be to port, but GNUStep seems to have the rest covered.
Will this mean that less apps are built for Mac? No. Surely it would mean that more apps are writen for Mac, as developers don't have to worry about missing out on the Wintel market, just because they targeted Mac.
Will Apple loose market share? Unlikely. Sure there is a chance that people will see less of a need to switch. But the three major OSs all have different strengths. Linux provides the best-of-the-best in terms of customization. Its not for me, but I can understand the appeal - it just needs pro apps. Macs offer a good spectrum of usability, but suck at server stuff, and some people just don't like Aqua. Windows is what everybody is comfortable with - and thats worth more than a lot of us will ever understand.
Apple might think that keeping technologies like Core* and Aqua proprietary gives them the edge but I don't see how. Mac end users are interested in getting there work done, and unless they're developers, they don't care how. Mac users notice expose, the dock, dashboard and spotlight. Thats how they differentiate between platforms. Getting more developers on to XCode can only be a good thing as it means more apps, and less switchers saying - I hate Mac because it doesn't have app X. It could also be good for Linux, closed source might be the anti-christ, but its difficult to fight the good fight with 2% market share - and there is nothing stopping you from realsing your spanking Cocoa app under the BSD or even GPL.
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If the US service is as good as the UK service, this should do quite well. Neat little DVD holders, clever postage packaging and fast turn around and the price was significantly cheaper than renting from Blockbusters. My only complaint was that my girlfriend has taken it over. In the last month she has made me watch The Notebook, Million Dollar Baby and Piglet the Movie. Apparently, I'm not allowed to rent Shaolin Soccer because we can't both watch it?!?!?!
You buy a kid a laptop when they are so cheap that you can afford to buy a new one every month. You know they're going to get broken, stolen, lost etc.
Its a British thing. If someone is talking to you we can't walk away. We just smile politely whilst plotting to kill (or hoping a that someone/thing will do it for us) them in our heads. Same with telephone calls. My girlfriend thought I was mad when I just hung up on someone trying to sell me double glazing. Its so bad, that we have radio shows (Radio 1) with bits dedicated to seeing how long people will put up with people talking to them on the phone. Try it! Phone a Brit and, provided you stay polite, see how long they will stay on the phone even if you don't say anything at all.
How are the people that are buying digital cameras from Dixons using a digital camera? The software that comes with Windows XP is bad, the software that comes with the camera is worse and Googles excellent offering is hidden away, and involves a knowledge of web searching and software installation.
My Dad, who though far from computer illiterate, uses the software that came with his FujiFilm SLR. The camera is excellent, but the software is so bad, that it takes him 20 minutes to find the picture he wants, and he keeps a paper index to give him an idea of when he took the photo so he can find it by date. He doesn't do any photo editing, because its too complicated (the guy runs a primary school, and uses computers on a daily basis... he's not stupid) and getting the pictures to print well is an effort.
My completely computer illiterate girlfriends mother really struggles to use iPhoto. And why wouldn't she? In order to get the pictures off the camera she has to find the right wire, make sure its connected in the right socket, makes sure the camera is on (this always confuses her) and then has to eject the camera before she can disconnect it. She has mastered albums, but can't do keywords. She can't burn a CD of her favourites to take down Boots to get it printed without my help.
I'm no expert, in fact I would shudder to call myself a novice when it comes to digital photography, but they are fascinated that I can put together a DVD of the trip we've just taken in iDVD and iPhoto even though most of the work is done for me by the Mac, or that I can type 'Zoes birthday' in Spotlight an be provided with every picture from Zoes birthday instantly.
I always thought the advantages of digital photography were having a searchable library of of all my pictures, and being able to email them to friends, and take out the odd bit of red eye. It turns out the reason people by digital cameras is that they can take over hundred photos without changing the film (great for holidays), can see those photo immediately and delete them if they're bad (perceived reduction of cost), and continue to just hand the camera over to the guy at Boots and get the pictures back an hour later. For this they are willing to pay over £100 for a camera that has a lower picture quality, artifacts and dead pixels, than a £20 35mm film. Norms are funny arn't they?
Am I missing something or does this work something similar to the lines of a fly catcher plant? Something is in my reach -> grab. All that is happening is that they have developed motors and photosensors fast enough so that they can do it at incredible speeds.
:(
The reality is that the robot has no idea what its catching. It doesn't know how to recognise a ball. The chances are that a fast moving object is easier to identify that a stationary one, as you just grab the thing that is moving rather than identifying a shape and deciding if that is the thing you want to collect.
Still an interesting technology showcase, but I'm still no closer to my robot slave
You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts, anti-spyware and iApp equivalents and upgrade the OS to Pro, OS X comes with support for multiple CPUs, remote access (SSH, X11, VNC) etc out of the box so you need to upgrade from Home.
Time isn't cheap. Playing with computers is fun, but then so is playing with cars. If someone bought a fiat panda and tried to upgrade it to a Mercades A-Class they're going to bill you for time.
Then we'll be in the situation expressed in HHGG, where we have to monitor the mass of the planet and account for all mass imports. For every tonne of plutonium we bring back we'll have to 'export' 1 tonne of something useless, like.... squirels!
(That would be worth the entrance price... 1000 squirels getting ejected from the planet on a giant catapult)
This makes me worried about government contracts. What happens when there isn't any 'market' and the software is essential to running a country?
In the UK that means that there is a bid. The lowest bidder gets it, they employ the cheapest coders on the planet, farm as much off shore as possible, and then waste millions supporting crappy software. We're now in a situation where we can't trust the government with ANY software creation. They got the passport software wrong (well to start with), they got the tax software wrong (New Tax Credits was a fiasco) and they got the air traffic control wrong (fortunately nobody has died... yet).
What Joel says rings so true that its scary to think that the really important software will NEVER be written like this. But what can you do to remedy the situation? Because there is no market, you can't expect competition to improve the quality of the code, the only incentive being fines to companies when they get it wrong - thats no incentive, that just makes accountants want to do just a good enough job not to get fined.
Do you open source the problem? While I agree that security through obscurity is not security at all, you will never get a country that thinks its a good idea to ahve its tax software open to all to see. There is also Brookes law to deal with and there is still no guarentee that you will attract the best of the best.
Anyways... fascinating article!
Sorry to admit this in public, but... I... have sweaty palms. OK I said it. Now these white mice are all very well and good for normal people but to me they are like an advertisement to that fact. I have a G5 and the mouse that came with that is constantly filthy.
The other problem I have is with this scroll wheel. I love the concept. 360 degree scrolling is a great idea, but didn't we get rid of balls from mice for a good reason? I mean, how many time a week will it be necessary to clean the scroll ball... if indeed you can? Its not really an issue with scroll wheels because you are directly manipulating the wheel, but on ball mice you were relying on the friction between ball and wheel - which dirt and grime gummed up.
Did the clever bods at Apple think about this in advance and use one of those fancy optical balls?
The other issue is the short cable. My G5 has bluetooth. Apple's bluetooth keyboard is a delight, but it, obviously, doesn't come with a USB hub built in. So where am I supposed to plug the mighty mouse in? If the the cable on the traditional Apple mouse is anything to go by its not long enough to be useful if connected to the rear of the G5. So will I be forced to use a bulky extension cable on a premium mouse - should I decide to buy one?
I think we should take this one step further and just put an optical movement sensor on the bottom of the keyboard! Eat my 113 button mouse suckers!
;) )
(Yes I know this is a dumb idea, but at least you would have to take your hands off the keyboard
I don't think Apples decission to use DRM is evil so much as unamerican. In fact the whole Apple philosphy seems wholy un-american.
I'm going to tread carefully with this because, as a rule I like both America and Apple, this is a theory I'm trying out, not flame tinder.
Americans, quite rightly, demand choice. You guys, perceive it as representative of freedom. Choice makes things both cheaper, because of market forces of competition, and more expensive because of the market forces of economies of scale. Look at Starbucks, you walk in wanting a coffee, you walk you having with a tall, skinny, low foam mocha with wings and sprinkles.
But this is exactly what Apple is not about. Apple are not about choice at all, they are about freedom from choice. You walk into an Apple store and you come out with an Apple. There are a few choices for the masses, but essentially those choices are Mini or iBook. If they were a coffee shop they would sell the best coffee in the world in a variety of bone china cups with an option of milk.
The funny thing about Apple is that despite selling the best coffee in the world, people buy the coffee for the cups. Until recently, MicroCoff caused Apple cups to dissolve. Apple have now 'fixed' that 'problem' by buying they're cups wholesale from the same place as everyone else. This made the coffee cheaper, and may mean that less people get burned on the move, but the cups are generally agreed by everyone in the cup industry as being a step backwards. But Apple are worried that people won't want their coffee any more, and just come in to buy the cups - so they've put a lock on the cups.
Now is this evil? If they were selling choice before, and they had taken that choice away I would say yes. They fact is that they are just trying to maintain the status quo. Is it a slippery slope? Only if the dicks at MicroCoff think that locks are the reason Apple are allowed to sell they're coffee for a premium, and not because the coffee is better.
I know what you mean, but I always listen to 'relaxing' music like Texas and Natalie Umbruglia (it was the mid 90s) to calm my thoughts and make me more deadly. You know your in trouble when your walking through a supermarket, 'Torn' comes on and your the only one reaching for your sidearm, calculating the threat and looking for cover.
There have been two other games that have temperally changed my worldly perspective. Jet Set Radio Future: driving along and thinking that I could be going faster if I'd bought my skates and was grinding along the central reservation and up that lamp post, jumping 30 meters over that build etc... and Tekkan 3: after a 24 hour tournament, left me in situation where everytime I moved my fingers I could see the moves it would produce. Very distracting - especially when coding.
I always think this is a sign of a good game, but it is always the precursor to a big argument. My significantly better half, quite rightly, doesn't like it when 'that stupid z box thingy' gets more attention than her.
This is a very good point. Not everyone can pay for music on iTMS. Kids are at the mercy of their parents buying them vouchers (The UK doesn't have these in stores) and not everyone wants to have a credit card - I sure as hell don't.
And you're right, there isn't enough choice with formats - even real life stores allow for choice of media - they have vinyl sections, cd, even tape and mini-disk. Why can't there be a lossless store for enthusiasts? - I'd really like to see this happen. They have an audiobook store and podcasts, why not lossless?
As for DRM... the RIAA dropped a bollock with CDs. Somebody had to be first into the digital media market and given the technology at the time it was hardly suprising that they decided to go with additional quality rather than copy protection - given the chance again I have no doubt they would put copy protection on vinyl, tape and CD, they just didn't have the technology at the time. But its not as if DRM, particularly Fairplay, is hard to crack, its there to make sharing songs more trouble than its worth.
As for iTMS locking you into iPod, well thats the point isn't it? You pay less money for a 'better' MP3 player that supports OGG/Vorbis but can't use it with the most popular online store - leaving piracy as the easiest option. The reason the better portables arn't selling as well is because they are more difficult to use for street consumers - its a package thing. Don't like the package? Don't buy the iPod... is that starting to sound weak to anyone else?
Sure I'm deluded - this will never happen. I mean - a technology that removes the need to sell music facsimilies to the masses? No-one will ever invent that! But I can dream can't I?
When something is essentially free to make, it should be free to use - with one exception: when it is used to generate a profit. Thats when copyright and licence fees should kick in and not before.
Individual likes music. Buys music. Distributes it to friends and family. Gets caught by the RIAA and gets slapped with a criminal record.
Record company hates music, loves advertisments. Gets given music. Gives it away for free over an unencrypted medium to anyone who cares to listen. Gets given a huge 'bribe' by record company to keep doing this and the record company is a criminal.
I know this is an over simplification, but this really is nuts.
I miss Isaac Guillory. Man, that guy could play ( and write and sing). If any of you guys know of his living equal please post so that I can support them.
It doesn't matter how great my code is, I know I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. I didn't design the chips, the OS, the compiler, the language and most of the design patterns and data structures will have been used in other applications before mine, I just arranged them in a pattern that was unique to my application. Do I deserve to get paid for my work? Only if I market it and the BSD licence doesn't stop me from doing that. Do I want to spend the rest of my life hiring lawyers chasing people who should know better, no - I just want to code. Do I want to spend the rest of my life concidering code patches for an application I'm no longer interested in, no - I'm probably thinking of the next big thing. Do I want to be the next Bill Gates, hell no. I'm not saying the guy isn't happy, but to be honest my life is complicated enough without all that power and responsibility. I may not be rich, but I don't have whole websites devouted to hating me either (yet). To be honest I think that people getting mega rich off the back of software alone is an event of the past. If your going to get rich making software, your going to need to be selling whatever it is that your software makes easier to produce.
I understand that most of that applies to the GPL as well, but how your software free if your forcing an ideology on to people? Thats just not my way, not that its a bad way. At the end of the day, your contribution to your code is tiny, if you didn't write it somebody else will. If your writing something genuinely uselful, let everybody else use it. Remember the guy that invented the wheel, the hammer, the horse bit? Me neither, but I'm grateful everyday and so is the rest of the world - surely thats worth more than ego.
Other things that must appear terrafying to the uninitiated:
I think GUIs are scary for a lot of fresh meat. "Click here to start" is not suffient instruction for somebody who doesn't know how to use a computer
OK - you got me. I'm a Sith.
Wouldn't that kinda defeat the whole point of owning porn?
Getting the lightsaber would really upset me. Taking it from the auctioneers, holding it for the first time, and then the heart explodingly bad feeling when no, the light saber doesn't work, no matter how badly you want it too. Some dreams are better left unpurchased.
I get the feeling this is a war that will continue for as long as American corporations have software patents. Can this rulling be used to restart the debate in the US? What is the point of patents if they can only be enforced in one market (all be it a VERY large market)?
Apple can only benefit from having more apps. Having an IDE that can compile to more than one platform is very different to having binaries that run on every platform. Developers would be free to target the platforms they want. For example Apple could release the iApps for Linux but not Windows, but it would probably make more sense to use them as carrots for switchers - opening the API would free them to make these business decisions with much lower impacts, knowing that if it suddenly made business sense to relase Final Cut Pro for Windows, they could, and have it on the market in a month, even if they choose not too is surely a strong business case.
My second business case is for a reality check. If you have an innovative software product to develop, why would you relase it for Mac? With the excepetion of the media, Macs market share makes it difficult to justify pursuing Mac only development. At the outside, you could hope to try and push Qt and C++ on to those in charge. I would struggle to convince people the Qt makes business sense. Its not that its not a good API, its that its just a GUI Toolkit. Cocoa is much, much more than that. There already appears to be an understanding within Apple that the IDE should be free as this stimulates development. This is the next logical step - empower developers to ease themselves off the Windows development path by offering them better tools for free. Make XCode available for Linux, BSD and Windows for $500 with a commercial licence and free on Mac or with a GPL. $500 is cheap compared to Qt and VS and to a developer looking to buy a new box its like getting a $500 discount on 'expensive' Apple hardware. That seems like a stonger business case. Not only are you strengthening the platform your potentially creating a new stream of revenue as people licence Xcode, or start buying hardware.
Getting Wintel and Sun to support this is irrelevant. They don't have to support the IDE out of the box - the installer can include it on the DVD - downloaded apps can offer to install it via another download (groan, but its the only way). Java failed because there weren't enough apps that required the IDE. Apple already have that App: iTunes - they can push it through the back door. Linux needs this to happen - it needs the apps more than Apple. I venture that this will swell Linux' market share, but at the expense of Windows, not Apple.
What are the competitors in this market? Qt. Thats it. .Net and Java only seem to make sesne in the enterprise market, Cocoa is not an enterprise product, its a desktop product. Python, Ruby, RealBASIC arn't in the same league. GNUStep is simply the best building block to fork to make this a reality faster.
They're getting exactly what they paid for, but faster, more accurate and with no need to heat/cool or water me. Surely this is a good thing? How is this any different from outsourcing? Nike doesn't think twice about using companies that just outsource the work they win to overseas companies - all they care about is getting the product they paid for.
Why do companies still think they can get away with paying individuals for their time? If you're employed to do a job, why should it matter how you do it - unless the work you produce is below the standard they require. The real problem I think is ego. Managers just arn't prepared to admit they've been 'had', what they don't realize is that they haven't. Just because a human isn't doing these menial, repetitive tasks doesn't mean they're worth any less - they are still worth minimum wage for 3-4 hours.
As tech pros we all know that our job is about making other people unemployed. The way we solace this is by telling oursleves that the only tasks we can do it for are jobs which humans are really bad at. Who misses filing jobs, calculating log tables, hand weaving, remembering a store full of prices. I'm really looking forward to intelligent voice recognition (not that its going to happen any time soon). Not because I want to be able to dictate an essay (I'm faster on a keyboard) but because it might mean we can rid our world of the worst thing to happen in the 20th century - call centres. After that I want to get rid of text file programming. The only reason we have to outsource coding is because its unnecessarily labour intensive. We'll still need IT pros, its just they'll be designing systems, not writing megabytes of the same code.
... because I have too. Isn't targeting OSs becoming a bit tired? For the most part, the OS should be transparent to the developer as should the hardware. The only time this shouldn't be true is when the program requires to talk to the hardware or OS directly - which for most apps is never.
The other problem is GUI - different OS, different ideology, different GUI. If Qt have proven nothing else, they have proven that this can be a problem of the past.
What I would love to see is XCode and Cocoa compiling for Linux, Wintel and Sun. They don't even have to release XCode for different platforms, just open up the API so that you can write once compile anywhere. This will fill a huge gap in the market - high performance, cross platform desktop software development. Is it possible? Well yes. I'm not sure how easy core data et al. would be to port, but GNUStep seems to have the rest covered.
Will this mean that less apps are built for Mac? No. Surely it would mean that more apps are writen for Mac, as developers don't have to worry about missing out on the Wintel market, just because they targeted Mac.
Will Apple loose market share? Unlikely. Sure there is a chance that people will see less of a need to switch. But the three major OSs all have different strengths. Linux provides the best-of-the-best in terms of customization. Its not for me, but I can understand the appeal - it just needs pro apps. Macs offer a good spectrum of usability, but suck at server stuff, and some people just don't like Aqua. Windows is what everybody is comfortable with - and thats worth more than a lot of us will ever understand.
Apple might think that keeping technologies like Core* and Aqua proprietary gives them the edge but I don't see how. Mac end users are interested in getting there work done, and unless they're developers, they don't care how. Mac users notice expose, the dock, dashboard and spotlight. Thats how they differentiate between platforms. Getting more developers on to XCode can only be a good thing as it means more apps, and less switchers saying - I hate Mac because it doesn't have app X. It could also be good for Linux, closed source might be the anti-christ, but its difficult to fight the good fight with 2% market share - and there is nothing stopping you from realsing your spanking Cocoa app under the BSD or even GPL.