Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing.
Apple's design is consistent, with the one ad, and main menu items to get you where you want. MS has pop-ups on numerous pages that get in the way when you try to actually go places. That's a usability problem. You do know this is a usability study, right?
So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content.
No, Apple gets points for having consistent main headings that are easy to understand, while MS's are inconsistent categorizations and overlap confusing the user. If I want to know about Excel to I go to "Windows and Office" or "All Products" or will both get me there? What if I want support on it? Do I go to "Support" or one of the previous two?
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?
Because Apple hires and listens to usability experts for the Web while MS listens to each department head for a given area first, then tries to get usability people to make it "OK" after. It's not like this is surprising or new though. Anyone who has ever taken a course or read books on usability sees MS UI's as examples of what not to do or "common mistakes". MS has never been serious about usability testing for whatever reason.
..can you explain the probable cause to me? I don't see logic:
Actually a lot of courts will grant a subpoena for something that simple, but that doesn't really matter because that was an example used for purposes of analogy. How about we change it to, you're found selling marijuana laced with cocaine to kids at an elementary school and teaching online classes on how to steal money from a parent's pocketbook which you advertise via a Facebook link. Substitute whatever you want since it's a completely hypothetical situation used to explain a concept.
I refuse to get locked into Apple's lossless format...
How do you get "locked into" a lossless format without DRM? That's kind of the point, in that you can convert to any other lossless format without loss. Either you're talking about something completely new to me or you don't understand what lock-in is.
How do you figure that? Apple is the last of the old school Vertical Integrators...
Actually, they're more of a new school company whose model sometimes fits into vertical integration and sometimes consists of polished integration with partners. What Apple has been doing differently is finding market segments that are very small due to poor usability and overall user experience. They then create a product that opens up that market to the general public by creating an entry that may not be the most powerful or have the longest list of features, but actually works easily and well for the general public.
For the ipod this used vertical integration because no one else made the parts Apple needed to make it work. For the iPhone Apple tried to partner with several cell service providers before going with AT&T as the only one willing to make the concessions Apple needed for the level of functionality and ease of overall experience required. In both cases they opened a market to non-geeks. Another good example of this strategy would be the Nintendo Wii, which relied upon much the same ideas and which some analysts claimed used the iPod as a marketing model.
It's funny because you did not provide even one example of how the PC provides more options than your Mac
OK, one thing... AMD processors, Competitive hardware pricing/vendors, error free connectivity to domains. Wait, that's three.
You seem to have missed a vital part of the discussion. We were talking about how Apple artificially limits Macs to the detriment of Geeks. For the first two things you mention, not offering every product you want is not artificially limiting the products they do offer. For the last, I'm not sure I know what the hell you're talking about.
Apple really hates geeks because of two reasons, 1. they ruin the image of the "cool" mac...
Blah blah blah. Can you show me an example of Apple actions that demonstrate they are trying to get rid of geeks? Why the hell o they include a bash shell if they hate geeks? All you have is an opinion based upon your own feelings. Please actually support it with examples of decisions Apple has made to intentionally drive away geeks, as I supported my position with examples of things they've done to specifically cater to them. You make assertions that Apple is all about control, but I've shown a common threat that better fits their actual philosophy, and which does lead them to take tight control in some product lines. So please, enough speculation... please show some facts and examples.
Umm, you can run Windows on a Mac you know, right? We're talking about how PC's provide users with more options for geeks, as in how Apple's products are artificially restricting "geeks". Software developed for Windows doesn't count until Apple intentionally prevents people from running Windows on Macs.
Then have a look here:
Again, you seem to have completely missed the topic we were discussing. Unless Apple is preventing NVidia from offering cards for the Mac, that doesn't apply. Please try to keep up and stay on topic.
So you're saying that the illegal, unconstitutional, interception of our communication systems had nothing to do with this successful derailing of a terrorist attack.
That does seem to be the case. In fact, if anything the US intelligence community jeopardized the case as reported earlier this week. The brits briefed the US president and company on the issue and asked the US to hold off any action until they had the evidence to convict. Instead, it appears Cheney immediately dispatched an agent, without notifying the british, and that agent had Pakistani officials arrest the primary terrorist contact tipping off all the potential terrorists in the UK. As a result the UK had to round up everyone prematurely and without sufficient time to plan and could not wait for them to buy the plane tickets which would have been important evidence.
At least that is what the british police specialist in charge of the investigation told the Times. It basically destroyed all US credibility with the british police for some time and made them a lot less willing to share information with the US, lest the US muck up their operations without warning while lying about it.
Oh yeah, that makes the title wrong also.
Well sort of. The e-mail did help in the conviction, not derailing the attack, which is what the title says. Except, of course, that the e-mail actually was subpoenaed from Yahoo who had the records instead of using the NSA ones.
In subpoena-ing facebook, have they gotten probable cause without relying on the illegal search to obtain that knowledge in the first place?
I wrote, " the cops subpoena Facebook without using the found weed, just your having been arrested in public to get the warrant". So yes, they have to have probable cause without the search or the judge won't let them subpeona FaceBook.
Similarly, the cops in britain had enough evidence to arrest and get a subpoena for the e-mail records from Yahoo without having the e-mail records from the US intercepts.
P.S. I don't have weed in my house, but I do have weeds on my lawn. Can the government come and confiscate them?
Maybe, but be sure they'll charge you a fine. You go away for a week and come home to find the city has "helpfully" mowed your lawn and sent you a bill for $200. And yet they do nothing about the dozens of properties with foot tall weeds in the from yard owned by banks and real estate agencies. Grumble grumble. Get off my lawn!
You added the smoking in public, without that it would all be fruit of the poison tree.
You're misunderstanding the scenario I present. The smoking in public arrest has to be separate from the finding pot in the house happening. That is, in this case, the british police had these suspects under surveillance and were gathering their own intelligence that had nothing to do with the e-mail intercepts from the US intelligence. The british were briefing the US on what was going on (which they now sort of regret) but the arrests had sufficient cause based upon the surveillance and informant information, not the e-mail which it is not clear the british had access to during the investigation.
I'm not a lawyer, and am especially not a British lawyer... but if intercepted communication is not legal, then isn't getting information from a warrant based on intercepted communication not legal? I mean if a cop illegally searches my house, finds pot, then uses that as a basis for a warrant, it would be thrown out.
In keeping with your analogy, a cop illegally searches your house and finds weed, you go to court and the evidence is thrown out, but, having been arrested for smoking weed in public at the same time and now knowing you have weed in your house and coincidentally knowing you use facebook, the cops subpoena Facebook without using the found weed, just your having been arrested in public to get the warrant. Facebook sends them the stuff on your account which includes pictures of the weed in your house. The pictures are still valid, untainted evidence.
I agree with the premise that one movie can be a fluke, but del Toro has more of a track record than that. As serious fables he's done both "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Devil's Backbone". They were both eerie and both had beautiful imagery, but only the former really relied upon special effects. As for the Hellboy movies, well they were very cheesy but I'm not sure that makes them bad. They were light CGI-athons based upon a comic book. He could have gone all serious and dark with them, but I think the lighter comic book feel was more appropriate given the target audience, even if I don't like it as much. I don't think he's a sell out for doing some lighter, fun projects. Not everything has to be deep and contemplative. His involvement is, frankly, one of the only reasons I have any hope for a Hobbit movie. It's probably going to be another blockbuster movie with ton's of CG and a huge budget. I'm counting on Toro to make the CG interesting and well done and to provide a good feel to the film as whole. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't, but I'm not thinking of anyone else I think even has a chance to pull it off.
well done, Tolkien "trust" Sue company for "an undisclosed sum", then allow them to go ahead and make the movie(s).
Maybe you're not familiar with the modern film industry. Here's how it works. You own rights to a book series. A movie company wants to make it a film. They offer you a percentage of the take, you sign a contract, they make a couple of movies, and a pile of cash. Then they tell you the movie flopped and the millions they made were actually from unrelated marketing of the characters to fast food and all the money from the box office was spent on advertising. Sorry, we'll pay you nothing for the rights and just try to make us. So you go to court and 5-10 years later if you had enough money to keep up in the courts you win and actually see the first money.
The difference here is the film company wanted make another movie with rights from the person still suing them for not having paid for the last movie, so said person (trust actually) told them to go to hell until they were paid for the first one. So the film company settled and paid them for the first movie and now the lawyers get to sit down and start over with the hope that the contract for the second movie will be more ironclad and they'll actually be paid in a timely fashion. Maybe they'll just demand a flat fee up front. In any case, I'm inclined to place the blame for this mess on the very, very deceptive and crooked movie industry.
When you're talking about usability, choice is not always good. Sometimes it's even lazy.
In this case there was an option to let the application handle the work instead of the user. Now, the user has to manually manage it. I agree that unneeded choices can be problematic, but users are losing real functionality here, which some professionals depend upon.
I think the idea was good, but it seems that it confused more than it helped.
There is no doubt that there was confusion created by Apple's inconsistent handling of file identifiers (three mechanisms per file) and lack of accurate documentation. Further, while I have no problem with their changing the default, when you do that it's nice to give advanced users a control to easily make things work they way they have been, even if it is on a per application basis.
Flexibility can be good, but so can clear behavior.
I have no problem with Apple clarifying the behavior or changing the default. What's clear to me though is now many users have to do more work to get the same result. They have three choices:
manually change the setting on each file every time they create a file.
learn some obscure scripting to do the same and then run that script regularly while experiencing random problems for newly created files; or hope a third party writes something to fix this.
stop opening files by double clicking on them since that behavior is now broken for their workflows.
I've actually worked as a usability testing expert in the past, so I'm not unfamiliar with this sort of situation. I feel Apple handled it poorly and basically decided to ignore current power users such as graphics pros. It doesn't really affect my workflow, which is nice, but Apple should really address this failing and provide an option for application developers and users alike. There's no reason users should have to do all the heavy lifting manually.
As I understand applications on the iPhone are required to use the Apple supplied javascript libraries via their APIs. It's one of the reasons there are so few competing Web browsers for the iPhone. They can use javascript, but only in that it is part of the normal dev environment.
Huh...I have to do that under 10.3.9. What, exactly, has changed?
In 10.0-10.5 Photoshop or BBedit or some other program can set itself as the default for files it creates, when it creates them, so the next time you double click the file, it opens in Photoshop or BBedit.
In 10.6, those programs can no longer set themselves as the default program. That means you can set all text files to open in TextEdit or all to open in BBedit, but if you want most files to open in TextEdit but the ones you create in BBedit to open in BBedit, you have to go through each file after you create it in BBEdit and set it to open in BBedit. There is no way for BBedit to set itself as the default for a specific file when it makes it.
But it's a C64 emulator... you could just write your own ROM, how is that any different than BASIC?
I don't think the emulator runs arbitrary, user supplied ROMs. My understanding was it would only run the ROMs supplied by Manomio through their server connection.
Wrong. They do care, they just don't have a good way of enforcing it.
Why do they care? They've already made their money and a jailbroken phone is not supported and any security or other problems are moot since the user hacked it into an unsupported state. So, I can see why AT&T cares and Apple will do what they need to keep AT&T happy, but financially, Apple has no real incentive to do more than a token effort towards stopping jailbreaking. Apple is a corporation you know, pretty much ruled by the bottom line.
But it's not really that clear. It's reasonable to argue that this way gives the user more choice, not less. It will no longer allow application developers to be able to override the user's settings.
Except users (at least competent ones) already had that option. Moreover, even if I except your premise that they're just changing what choice you have, that's still a choice that changes the way things are done now and disrupts existing user's workflows. That is to say, a lot of people depend upon applications making such assignments so there files open in the application they want.
Graphics people in particular are really pissed about this if you read the forums. A lot of them have 5 or 6 different graphics programs they use to edit different types of graphics, photos, paintings, buttons, Images of text, etc. Now they have to completely change how they open all those files because every file has forgotten which program has been opening it for the last 5 years.
If you say, "should OS X allow the App to ignore my settings" you're sort of giving them the choice to give up their right to choose.
I disagree. You're giving them the choice to let the application handle a job for them which they otherwise have to do manually. If users don't like an application making that assignment, even without any option, they can always stop using that program or file it as a bug and developers have a direct, financial motivation to do what the user wants. Hopefully Apple thinks they have the same motivation and will respond to all their upset users and make an official mechanism and user controls.
Which smartphones sold in the United States aren't locked down?
You mean what smartphones can you run arbitrary, unapproved software like emulators? Most of them. Blackberry, Linux, and Windows Mobile based phones almost all do that. There are, in fact, very few smartphones that don't, like the iPhone and a few new Android phones. One of the reasons the iPhone is so popular, however, is that it is restricted and that results in a better signal to noise ratio when trying to buy applications to run on it. The average person doesn't care if they can run a C64 emulator and those that do mostly only care about one that gets them to the classic games, not the Basic interpreter.
No seriously. Apple hates geeks. This isn't flamebait, btw.
No, not flamebait, just idiocy. Apple is largely made of geeks. I find it hard to find a more apt description of a former NextStep employee or a former BSD developer or the guy who wrote and maintains CUPS.
But ultimately Apple's corporate strategy can be summed up in one word: Control.
Actually, Apple's strategy with regard to both the iPod and iPhone has been about limited, but polished functionality. Blackberry has been all about providing the most and most varied functionality. Apple has been about providing a limited subset of that functionality, but polished so it is really, really easy. In order to do that, and maintain that for submissions from others, they maintain significant control; but that is not the core philosophy.
I would note that this strategy is not one designed to cater to geeks. That is certainly not their target market and if you are a hardcore geek you might be happier using a product that does cater to your market segment. There are lots of other options. Go for it.
For all of Apple's "Think Different" public image, the reality is that Apple encourages nothing of the sort: "Think Alike" is the mission. And they prove it at every turn.
I'd actually say Apple does think differently. Their business model has been different from what others have tried and it has worked for them quite well. It just hasn't targeted you. Get over it.
For their Mac computers, on the other hand, Apple has been targeting geeks pretty heavily and it has worked. Look around at Blackhat or Defcon or any technology related conference and the truth is evident. OS X developers (some of whom are also iPhone developers) are geeks and they target geeks in OS X. That's why they have a bash shell. That's why they pulled in UI features from X11 to make the UNIX geeks looking to switch happy. Normal users don't care about or use multiple desktops and never drop to a shell. That's just for geeks. I know a few people at Apple. One used to work for Cray doing OS development. He's about as big of a geek as you can imagine.
Apple fanboys will probably mod this flamebait. It isn't. I have multiple computers and phones, and own an iPhone and a Mac. But I'm constantly being made aware that my PC represents a nearly infinite amount of options...
It's funny because you did not provide even one example of how the PC provides more options than your Mac... something rather critical to your premise, no?
That doesn't make sense. Code that can break out of an emulator sandbox would be exploiting a security vulnerability.
Yes, it would.
You could apply the same argument to say that Apple shouldn't allow email on the iPhone, because that could exploit some vulnerability and install malware.
No, because an e-mail client on the iPhone is not designed to run arbitrary code. For arbitrary code to run using an e-mail client there has to be a vulnerability in the e-mail client which Apple failed to find when the approved the app (not that they look hard) and a second vulnerability in the sandbox which can be exploited using the first vulnerability.
With applications designed to run arbitrary code they just need a vulnerability in the sandbox and they have the full range of a programming language to use, not just what can fit in the first exploit. In addition, if there is an e-mail client that breaks out of the sandbox, Apple can revoke the key and all the iPhones stop being vulnerable to the malware with just that client being affected. With a run-time that executes other code they have to revoke the run-time's key, disabling every program that relies upon it which, if they allowed such things, could be a significant portion of the applications.
An emulator is just a program that takes some user input and does something with it... there's nothing special there and any program which 'takes some user input and does something with it' is equally problematic.
I thought I was clear in my first post why it is problematic. If not, hopefully my clarification above has solidified the explanation. Applications that execute arbitrary code break Apple's reactive security model granularity and are a lot easier to use for creating malware.
More and more companies are looking to Apple as an example on how to lock down their platforms.
True. Hopefully some others will come up with a better model that provides the advantages of the iPhone's lock-in without the disadvantages.
The only real solution is to legalize and strengthen fair use, so that jail breaking and other DRM circumvention is completely legal and encouraged.
That actually won't matter much. The real solution is to deal with the antitrust issues in adjacent markets so we can have properly operating competition and someone can make a better solution without having to kowtow to AT&T and the MPAA and RIAA and several other criminal gatekeepers.
The US and other governments should also declare Apple's App Store to be an illegal monopoly for their platform...
That's not how antitrust law should or does work. The iPhone is only one (admittedly high profile) player in a very large and diverse marketplace. Apple has done nothing to undermine any market in their technical decisions for the iPhone (although some of their partners have). In terms of antitrust law, in fact, Apple is one of the victims being forced to make choices that get them fewer sales because of illegal actions by their partners.
If people don't like iPhones being locked down, they can effectively vote with their wallets and buy any number of other phones both for use on AT&T's network or another. Apple has, in no way leveraged any monopoly influence in any market in what they're doing with the ecosystem for apps on the iPhone.
I submit that anyone that conceivable _could_ do any damage of any significant nature through the BASIC interpreter on a C64 emulator on an iPhone has almost certainly already jail broken their phone and are already doing much wackier things.
Apple doesn't care if you jailbreak your own phone. That poses no risk. They care if you write arbitrary code that can be used to hack phones that aren't jailbroken. Thus, no applications that execute arbitrary code from other sources. It's the rule they made and developers have to stick to, even if in this case it is unlikely to be too serious.
The reasons for this are twofold:
First, they don't want people running an interpreter and installing apps on top of it, because one new app that runs on top, which Apple does not have an opportunity to test, could violate Apple's agreement with AT&T or break out of the sandbox and install malware. At that point Apple has to disable a whole swath of programs to stop one noncompliant or malicious program.
Second, Apple doesn't want any runtimes becoming critical components of the iPhone. They don't want Java or.Net or a DOS emulator with intellectual property out of Apple's control to become a Gatekeeper for any significant number of applications on the IPhone. Apple wants to be the only gatekeeper and it's up to the buyer to decide if that is a good thing, a bad thing, or a mix of both.
I think the complaint is that apps in 10.6 are not flagging their own documents to open with themselves.
That is not the complaint in the article. The complaint is that Apple removed the old way applications flagged documents to open in themselves and does not seem to have provided any way for applications to do that using the new method. Rather, applications can tag documents, but the user must still go through and select the files by hand or using a non-obvious script to open in the application after each file is created. It could be that the article writer is mistaken and there is such a method, but no one has yet pointed it out that I've seen and the documentation from Apple is vague and does not seem to provide a method.
What's the point of making a default application if half the files will ignore it?
The idea was application developers had the power to make files they made open in that application by default and if you didn't like it you could file a bug with the application provider. Now, application providers don't seem to have a way to do this, which many people are unhappy about as they relied on that ability of applications.
The "right" solution is for Apple to have provided a way for applications to claim files and given the user the option to honor or not honor that choice (regardless of the default). This change has lost functionality for some while not giving users or application developers a choice.
Note, I don't really care much on this one as it doesn't really impact my workflow, but I'm generally against changes that remove user choice altogether. Flexibility is good.
Another point on the same topic. What the fuck does American precedent have to do with Mexico?
This is not a case of legal precedent which, does not have any real influence across legal systems. Rather, this is about findings of fact and filed legal statements, which can and often are cited across legal systems. If you go to court in the US and file a statement claiming you are a legal citizen, other countries can and have considered this evidence in their own courts that you are a US citizen and therefor not eligible for citizenship in their own country (when they don't allow dual citizenships).
When Sony has presented sworn testimony in US courts as to what they feel the damage are from a copyrighted song being shared without the permission of a the copyright holder, that can absolutely be used in Mexican courts. That's not to say Sony can't argue these song are not as valuable or the Mexican market is not as valuable and that translates to the damages or even that Mexican law is different and does not allow for such outrageous damages for for minor infractions. So the court cases in the US are not a legal precedent but neither are they useless as evidence in the Mexican case.
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Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing.
Apple's design is consistent, with the one ad, and main menu items to get you where you want. MS has pop-ups on numerous pages that get in the way when you try to actually go places. That's a usability problem. You do know this is a usability study, right?
So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content.
No, Apple gets points for having consistent main headings that are easy to understand, while MS's are inconsistent categorizations and overlap confusing the user. If I want to know about Excel to I go to "Windows and Office" or "All Products" or will both get me there? What if I want support on it? Do I go to "Support" or one of the previous two?
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?
Because Apple hires and listens to usability experts for the Web while MS listens to each department head for a given area first, then tries to get usability people to make it "OK" after. It's not like this is surprising or new though. Anyone who has ever taken a course or read books on usability sees MS UI's as examples of what not to do or "common mistakes". MS has never been serious about usability testing for whatever reason.
..can you explain the probable cause to me? I don't see logic:
Actually a lot of courts will grant a subpoena for something that simple, but that doesn't really matter because that was an example used for purposes of analogy. How about we change it to, you're found selling marijuana laced with cocaine to kids at an elementary school and teaching online classes on how to steal money from a parent's pocketbook which you advertise via a Facebook link. Substitute whatever you want since it's a completely hypothetical situation used to explain a concept.
I refuse to get locked into Apple's lossless format...
How do you get "locked into" a lossless format without DRM? That's kind of the point, in that you can convert to any other lossless format without loss. Either you're talking about something completely new to me or you don't understand what lock-in is.
How do you figure that? Apple is the last of the old school Vertical Integrators...
Actually, they're more of a new school company whose model sometimes fits into vertical integration and sometimes consists of polished integration with partners. What Apple has been doing differently is finding market segments that are very small due to poor usability and overall user experience. They then create a product that opens up that market to the general public by creating an entry that may not be the most powerful or have the longest list of features, but actually works easily and well for the general public.
For the ipod this used vertical integration because no one else made the parts Apple needed to make it work. For the iPhone Apple tried to partner with several cell service providers before going with AT&T as the only one willing to make the concessions Apple needed for the level of functionality and ease of overall experience required. In both cases they opened a market to non-geeks. Another good example of this strategy would be the Nintendo Wii, which relied upon much the same ideas and which some analysts claimed used the iPod as a marketing model.
It's funny because you did not provide even one example of how the PC provides more options than your Mac
OK, one thing... AMD processors, Competitive hardware pricing/vendors, error free connectivity to domains. Wait, that's three.
You seem to have missed a vital part of the discussion. We were talking about how Apple artificially limits Macs to the detriment of Geeks. For the first two things you mention, not offering every product you want is not artificially limiting the products they do offer. For the last, I'm not sure I know what the hell you're talking about.
Apple really hates geeks because of two reasons, 1. they ruin the image of the "cool" mac...
Blah blah blah. Can you show me an example of Apple actions that demonstrate they are trying to get rid of geeks? Why the hell o they include a bash shell if they hate geeks? All you have is an opinion based upon your own feelings. Please actually support it with examples of decisions Apple has made to intentionally drive away geeks, as I supported my position with examples of things they've done to specifically cater to them. You make assertions that Apple is all about control, but I've shown a common threat that better fits their actual philosophy, and which does lead them to take tight control in some product lines. So please, enough speculation... please show some facts and examples.
Take a look at this:
Umm, you can run Windows on a Mac you know, right? We're talking about how PC's provide users with more options for geeks, as in how Apple's products are artificially restricting "geeks". Software developed for Windows doesn't count until Apple intentionally prevents people from running Windows on Macs.
Then have a look here:
Again, you seem to have completely missed the topic we were discussing. Unless Apple is preventing NVidia from offering cards for the Mac, that doesn't apply. Please try to keep up and stay on topic.
So you're saying that the illegal, unconstitutional, interception of our communication systems had nothing to do with this successful derailing of a terrorist attack.
That does seem to be the case. In fact, if anything the US intelligence community jeopardized the case as reported earlier this week. The brits briefed the US president and company on the issue and asked the US to hold off any action until they had the evidence to convict. Instead, it appears Cheney immediately dispatched an agent, without notifying the british, and that agent had Pakistani officials arrest the primary terrorist contact tipping off all the potential terrorists in the UK. As a result the UK had to round up everyone prematurely and without sufficient time to plan and could not wait for them to buy the plane tickets which would have been important evidence.
At least that is what the british police specialist in charge of the investigation told the Times. It basically destroyed all US credibility with the british police for some time and made them a lot less willing to share information with the US, lest the US muck up their operations without warning while lying about it.
Oh yeah, that makes the title wrong also.
Well sort of. The e-mail did help in the conviction, not derailing the attack, which is what the title says. Except, of course, that the e-mail actually was subpoenaed from Yahoo who had the records instead of using the NSA ones.
In subpoena-ing facebook, have they gotten probable cause without relying on the illegal search to obtain that knowledge in the first place?
I wrote, " the cops subpoena Facebook without using the found weed, just your having been arrested in public to get the warrant". So yes, they have to have probable cause without the search or the judge won't let them subpeona FaceBook.
Similarly, the cops in britain had enough evidence to arrest and get a subpoena for the e-mail records from Yahoo without having the e-mail records from the US intercepts.
P.S. I don't have weed in my house, but I do have weeds on my lawn. Can the government come and confiscate them?
Maybe, but be sure they'll charge you a fine. You go away for a week and come home to find the city has "helpfully" mowed your lawn and sent you a bill for $200. And yet they do nothing about the dozens of properties with foot tall weeds in the from yard owned by banks and real estate agencies. Grumble grumble. Get off my lawn!
You added the smoking in public, without that it would all be fruit of the poison tree.
You're misunderstanding the scenario I present. The smoking in public arrest has to be separate from the finding pot in the house happening. That is, in this case, the british police had these suspects under surveillance and were gathering their own intelligence that had nothing to do with the e-mail intercepts from the US intelligence. The british were briefing the US on what was going on (which they now sort of regret) but the arrests had sufficient cause based upon the surveillance and informant information, not the e-mail which it is not clear the british had access to during the investigation.
I'm not a lawyer, and am especially not a British lawyer... but if intercepted communication is not legal, then isn't getting information from a warrant based on intercepted communication not legal? I mean if a cop illegally searches my house, finds pot, then uses that as a basis for a warrant, it would be thrown out.
In keeping with your analogy, a cop illegally searches your house and finds weed, you go to court and the evidence is thrown out, but, having been arrested for smoking weed in public at the same time and now knowing you have weed in your house and coincidentally knowing you use facebook, the cops subpoena Facebook without using the found weed, just your having been arrested in public to get the warrant. Facebook sends them the stuff on your account which includes pictures of the weed in your house. The pictures are still valid, untainted evidence.
I agree with the premise that one movie can be a fluke, but del Toro has more of a track record than that. As serious fables he's done both "Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Devil's Backbone". They were both eerie and both had beautiful imagery, but only the former really relied upon special effects. As for the Hellboy movies, well they were very cheesy but I'm not sure that makes them bad. They were light CGI-athons based upon a comic book. He could have gone all serious and dark with them, but I think the lighter comic book feel was more appropriate given the target audience, even if I don't like it as much. I don't think he's a sell out for doing some lighter, fun projects. Not everything has to be deep and contemplative. His involvement is, frankly, one of the only reasons I have any hope for a Hobbit movie. It's probably going to be another blockbuster movie with ton's of CG and a huge budget. I'm counting on Toro to make the CG interesting and well done and to provide a good feel to the film as whole. Maybe it will work and maybe it won't, but I'm not thinking of anyone else I think even has a chance to pull it off.
well done, Tolkien "trust" Sue company for "an undisclosed sum", then allow them to go ahead and make the movie(s).
Maybe you're not familiar with the modern film industry. Here's how it works. You own rights to a book series. A movie company wants to make it a film. They offer you a percentage of the take, you sign a contract, they make a couple of movies, and a pile of cash. Then they tell you the movie flopped and the millions they made were actually from unrelated marketing of the characters to fast food and all the money from the box office was spent on advertising. Sorry, we'll pay you nothing for the rights and just try to make us. So you go to court and 5-10 years later if you had enough money to keep up in the courts you win and actually see the first money.
The difference here is the film company wanted make another movie with rights from the person still suing them for not having paid for the last movie, so said person (trust actually) told them to go to hell until they were paid for the first one. So the film company settled and paid them for the first movie and now the lawyers get to sit down and start over with the hope that the contract for the second movie will be more ironclad and they'll actually be paid in a timely fashion. Maybe they'll just demand a flat fee up front. In any case, I'm inclined to place the blame for this mess on the very, very deceptive and crooked movie industry.
When you're talking about usability, choice is not always good. Sometimes it's even lazy.
In this case there was an option to let the application handle the work instead of the user. Now, the user has to manually manage it. I agree that unneeded choices can be problematic, but users are losing real functionality here, which some professionals depend upon.
I think the idea was good, but it seems that it confused more than it helped.
There is no doubt that there was confusion created by Apple's inconsistent handling of file identifiers (three mechanisms per file) and lack of accurate documentation. Further, while I have no problem with their changing the default, when you do that it's nice to give advanced users a control to easily make things work they way they have been, even if it is on a per application basis.
Flexibility can be good, but so can clear behavior.
I have no problem with Apple clarifying the behavior or changing the default. What's clear to me though is now many users have to do more work to get the same result. They have three choices:
I've actually worked as a usability testing expert in the past, so I'm not unfamiliar with this sort of situation. I feel Apple handled it poorly and basically decided to ignore current power users such as graphics pros. It doesn't really affect my workflow, which is nice, but Apple should really address this failing and provide an option for application developers and users alike. There's no reason users should have to do all the heavy lifting manually.
Arbitrary code like, say, javascript?
As I understand applications on the iPhone are required to use the Apple supplied javascript libraries via their APIs. It's one of the reasons there are so few competing Web browsers for the iPhone. They can use javascript, but only in that it is part of the normal dev environment.
Huh...I have to do that under 10.3.9. What, exactly, has changed?
In 10.0-10.5 Photoshop or BBedit or some other program can set itself as the default for files it creates, when it creates them, so the next time you double click the file, it opens in Photoshop or BBedit.
In 10.6, those programs can no longer set themselves as the default program. That means you can set all text files to open in TextEdit or all to open in BBedit, but if you want most files to open in TextEdit but the ones you create in BBedit to open in BBedit, you have to go through each file after you create it in BBEdit and set it to open in BBedit. There is no way for BBedit to set itself as the default for a specific file when it makes it.
But it's a C64 emulator... you could just write your own ROM, how is that any different than BASIC?
I don't think the emulator runs arbitrary, user supplied ROMs. My understanding was it would only run the ROMs supplied by Manomio through their server connection.
Wrong. They do care, they just don't have a good way of enforcing it.
Why do they care? They've already made their money and a jailbroken phone is not supported and any security or other problems are moot since the user hacked it into an unsupported state. So, I can see why AT&T cares and Apple will do what they need to keep AT&T happy, but financially, Apple has no real incentive to do more than a token effort towards stopping jailbreaking. Apple is a corporation you know, pretty much ruled by the bottom line.
But it's not really that clear. It's reasonable to argue that this way gives the user more choice, not less. It will no longer allow application developers to be able to override the user's settings.
Except users (at least competent ones) already had that option. Moreover, even if I except your premise that they're just changing what choice you have, that's still a choice that changes the way things are done now and disrupts existing user's workflows. That is to say, a lot of people depend upon applications making such assignments so there files open in the application they want.
Graphics people in particular are really pissed about this if you read the forums. A lot of them have 5 or 6 different graphics programs they use to edit different types of graphics, photos, paintings, buttons, Images of text, etc. Now they have to completely change how they open all those files because every file has forgotten which program has been opening it for the last 5 years.
If you say, "should OS X allow the App to ignore my settings" you're sort of giving them the choice to give up their right to choose.
I disagree. You're giving them the choice to let the application handle a job for them which they otherwise have to do manually. If users don't like an application making that assignment, even without any option, they can always stop using that program or file it as a bug and developers have a direct, financial motivation to do what the user wants. Hopefully Apple thinks they have the same motivation and will respond to all their upset users and make an official mechanism and user controls.
Which smartphones sold in the United States aren't locked down?
You mean what smartphones can you run arbitrary, unapproved software like emulators? Most of them. Blackberry, Linux, and Windows Mobile based phones almost all do that. There are, in fact, very few smartphones that don't, like the iPhone and a few new Android phones. One of the reasons the iPhone is so popular, however, is that it is restricted and that results in a better signal to noise ratio when trying to buy applications to run on it. The average person doesn't care if they can run a C64 emulator and those that do mostly only care about one that gets them to the classic games, not the Basic interpreter.
No seriously. Apple hates geeks. This isn't flamebait, btw.
No, not flamebait, just idiocy. Apple is largely made of geeks. I find it hard to find a more apt description of a former NextStep employee or a former BSD developer or the guy who wrote and maintains CUPS.
But ultimately Apple's corporate strategy can be summed up in one word: Control.
Actually, Apple's strategy with regard to both the iPod and iPhone has been about limited, but polished functionality. Blackberry has been all about providing the most and most varied functionality. Apple has been about providing a limited subset of that functionality, but polished so it is really, really easy. In order to do that, and maintain that for submissions from others, they maintain significant control; but that is not the core philosophy.
I would note that this strategy is not one designed to cater to geeks. That is certainly not their target market and if you are a hardcore geek you might be happier using a product that does cater to your market segment. There are lots of other options. Go for it.
For all of Apple's "Think Different" public image, the reality is that Apple encourages nothing of the sort: "Think Alike" is the mission. And they prove it at every turn.
I'd actually say Apple does think differently. Their business model has been different from what others have tried and it has worked for them quite well. It just hasn't targeted you. Get over it.
For their Mac computers, on the other hand, Apple has been targeting geeks pretty heavily and it has worked. Look around at Blackhat or Defcon or any technology related conference and the truth is evident. OS X developers (some of whom are also iPhone developers) are geeks and they target geeks in OS X. That's why they have a bash shell. That's why they pulled in UI features from X11 to make the UNIX geeks looking to switch happy. Normal users don't care about or use multiple desktops and never drop to a shell. That's just for geeks. I know a few people at Apple. One used to work for Cray doing OS development. He's about as big of a geek as you can imagine.
Apple fanboys will probably mod this flamebait. It isn't. I have multiple computers and phones, and own an iPhone and a Mac. But I'm constantly being made aware that my PC represents a nearly infinite amount of options...
It's funny because you did not provide even one example of how the PC provides more options than your Mac... something rather critical to your premise, no?
That doesn't make sense. Code that can break out of an emulator sandbox would be exploiting a security vulnerability.
Yes, it would.
You could apply the same argument to say that Apple shouldn't allow email on the iPhone, because that could exploit some vulnerability and install malware.
No, because an e-mail client on the iPhone is not designed to run arbitrary code. For arbitrary code to run using an e-mail client there has to be a vulnerability in the e-mail client which Apple failed to find when the approved the app (not that they look hard) and a second vulnerability in the sandbox which can be exploited using the first vulnerability.
With applications designed to run arbitrary code they just need a vulnerability in the sandbox and they have the full range of a programming language to use, not just what can fit in the first exploit. In addition, if there is an e-mail client that breaks out of the sandbox, Apple can revoke the key and all the iPhones stop being vulnerable to the malware with just that client being affected. With a run-time that executes other code they have to revoke the run-time's key, disabling every program that relies upon it which, if they allowed such things, could be a significant portion of the applications.
An emulator is just a program that takes some user input and does something with it... there's nothing special there and any program which 'takes some user input and does something with it' is equally problematic.
I thought I was clear in my first post why it is problematic. If not, hopefully my clarification above has solidified the explanation. Applications that execute arbitrary code break Apple's reactive security model granularity and are a lot easier to use for creating malware.
More and more companies are looking to Apple as an example on how to lock down their platforms.
True. Hopefully some others will come up with a better model that provides the advantages of the iPhone's lock-in without the disadvantages.
The only real solution is to legalize and strengthen fair use, so that jail breaking and other DRM circumvention is completely legal and encouraged.
That actually won't matter much. The real solution is to deal with the antitrust issues in adjacent markets so we can have properly operating competition and someone can make a better solution without having to kowtow to AT&T and the MPAA and RIAA and several other criminal gatekeepers.
The US and other governments should also declare Apple's App Store to be an illegal monopoly for their platform...
That's not how antitrust law should or does work. The iPhone is only one (admittedly high profile) player in a very large and diverse marketplace. Apple has done nothing to undermine any market in their technical decisions for the iPhone (although some of their partners have). In terms of antitrust law, in fact, Apple is one of the victims being forced to make choices that get them fewer sales because of illegal actions by their partners.
If people don't like iPhones being locked down, they can effectively vote with their wallets and buy any number of other phones both for use on AT&T's network or another. Apple has, in no way leveraged any monopoly influence in any market in what they're doing with the ecosystem for apps on the iPhone.
I submit that anyone that conceivable _could_ do any damage of any significant nature through the BASIC interpreter on a C64 emulator on an iPhone has almost certainly already jail broken their phone and are already doing much wackier things.
Apple doesn't care if you jailbreak your own phone. That poses no risk. They care if you write arbitrary code that can be used to hack phones that aren't jailbroken. Thus, no applications that execute arbitrary code from other sources. It's the rule they made and developers have to stick to, even if in this case it is unlikely to be too serious.
The reasons for this are twofold:
First, they don't want people running an interpreter and installing apps on top of it, because one new app that runs on top, which Apple does not have an opportunity to test, could violate Apple's agreement with AT&T or break out of the sandbox and install malware. At that point Apple has to disable a whole swath of programs to stop one noncompliant or malicious program.
Second, Apple doesn't want any runtimes becoming critical components of the iPhone. They don't want Java or .Net or a DOS emulator with intellectual property out of Apple's control to become a Gatekeeper for any significant number of applications on the IPhone. Apple wants to be the only gatekeeper and it's up to the buyer to decide if that is a good thing, a bad thing, or a mix of both.
I think the complaint is that apps in 10.6 are not flagging their own documents to open with themselves.
That is not the complaint in the article. The complaint is that Apple removed the old way applications flagged documents to open in themselves and does not seem to have provided any way for applications to do that using the new method. Rather, applications can tag documents, but the user must still go through and select the files by hand or using a non-obvious script to open in the application after each file is created. It could be that the article writer is mistaken and there is such a method, but no one has yet pointed it out that I've seen and the documentation from Apple is vague and does not seem to provide a method.
What's the point of making a default application if half the files will ignore it?
The idea was application developers had the power to make files they made open in that application by default and if you didn't like it you could file a bug with the application provider. Now, application providers don't seem to have a way to do this, which many people are unhappy about as they relied on that ability of applications.
The "right" solution is for Apple to have provided a way for applications to claim files and given the user the option to honor or not honor that choice (regardless of the default). This change has lost functionality for some while not giving users or application developers a choice.
Note, I don't really care much on this one as it doesn't really impact my workflow, but I'm generally against changes that remove user choice altogether. Flexibility is good.
Another point on the same topic. What the fuck does American precedent have to do with Mexico?
This is not a case of legal precedent which, does not have any real influence across legal systems. Rather, this is about findings of fact and filed legal statements, which can and often are cited across legal systems. If you go to court in the US and file a statement claiming you are a legal citizen, other countries can and have considered this evidence in their own courts that you are a US citizen and therefor not eligible for citizenship in their own country (when they don't allow dual citizenships).
When Sony has presented sworn testimony in US courts as to what they feel the damage are from a copyrighted song being shared without the permission of a the copyright holder, that can absolutely be used in Mexican courts. That's not to say Sony can't argue these song are not as valuable or the Mexican market is not as valuable and that translates to the damages or even that Mexican law is different and does not allow for such outrageous damages for for minor infractions. So the court cases in the US are not a legal precedent but neither are they useless as evidence in the Mexican case.