I can assure you that Apple does not see this fashionability as a problem.
On the contrary, Apple assiduously uses fashion to both create and retain customers, and has been doing so since their beginning.
Fashion is perhaps what Apple understands and other device makers who would sell their first-born for nine million unit sales in a weekend emphatically do not.
That said, if you think that the cohesiveness and stickiness of the Apple ecosystem is just fashion, I have a poop-coloured zune to sell you.
Someday, people will understand that consumers don't know what the specs on phones even mean, they just want a device that's priced within reach, looks cool, and works well for their needs.
I've often thought that the USA way of taxing is a lot better than the Canadian way. In the US, money that you really don't deserve (inheritance, lotteries, etc.) is taxed quite hard but the money that you earn or invest (to create jobs) is not. In Canada, it is the reverse - lottery wins and other winfalls are not taxed at all but the money you actually earn is way, way over taxed.
first off you should do some research on the canadian taxation system. you will note that canadian income taxes are not much higher (and are lower in many brackets) unless you are making over $100,000; that corporate taxes are significantly (more than 10 points) lower; and that universal healthcare is included in the deal. the pension plan is also fully funded and the banking system is the strongest in the world.
lottery wins, estates, and other windfalls are taxed quite heavily in canada as well.
however, the size of the US debt, deficit, income disparity, and unemployment rate certainly point to an enlightened taxation system south of the border.
is it just me or have they dropped the apple remote on both the macbook and macbook pros? can't see any mention of it in the tech specs, what's included in the box. i would be surprised if they moved away from this, it seems like the whole front row display software is built around it.
i couldn't agree more, there are only a handful of films i would be interested in owning. films are not music and the vast majority of them do not merit a second viewing, much less a third or fourth. as for the cd collection, i converted ninety percent of mine into cash when i suddenly realised i hadn't played a single one of them once in the year since i got my first mp3 player. i haven't looked back at the decision at all, just kept the really special ones and ditched the rest.
the real advantage of online service is in not having to step foot in a rental store *ever again*, they are certainly among my least favourite places of all time. i almost never go unless i know they have what i want-- if browsing i set a strict time limit before the inevitable headache begins and i start fantasizing about the murders of the desk staff.
umm... touch screen? bigger screen? wi-fi? smaller? newer? more capabilities? if that doesn't sound like a premium offering over the old ipod line-up then i don't know what would be. the prices will come down-- but really, storage space is not a commodity that is reflective of the price of these products. what's the cost difference between an 80 gig and a 160 gig drive these days? not much. all of the fabrication, design, marketing, wi-fi, screen, and delivery of these products dwarfs the price differential between a 16 gig flash touchpod and the 160 gig platter ipod.
plus, dear slashdotters, please try and comprehend that the rest of the technology-using world does not have 100 gig pR0n collections they need to carry around with them 24/7. they can't even fill an 8 gig ipod much less a 16 gig one. apple research showed them that their buyers weren't even filling their 4 gig nano's. these devices aren't designed to be the repository of all of your media, that's (gasp!) what your computer is for. surprising to some, apple appears to have a few staff members dedicated to achieving the correct marketing mix, shocking as that may seem. discount the massive coup apple has pulled off with the ipod and itunes at your own peril-- to think that apple wouldn't protect it's huge lead in media players and online music downloads is as ignorant as it is stupid.
the touchpod is going to be a huge seller with capacities increasing as cheaper flash memory becomes availability, similar to the nano, and in lock-step with the iphone. one day there will be 160 gig touchpods at the same price as this offering, but who would pay for that now? nobody, and that's why apple ain't selling them. the early availability of both a discounted iphone and the touchpod are shots across the bow of the other cell and media player makers, not to mention the telecommunications providers who are about to see an itunes-esque shift in power away from their traditional oligopolies.
if you think there is an apple premium over what the other manufacturers are selling, how is it that you simply cannot buy a player with similar storage and rough feature set at the same price point? if there is such a huge market for cheaper players how come nobody offers them? i'll take the apple "premium" on their machines any day, given that nothing competes with them on price, feature set, ease of use, or integration.
and lastly, spare us the lament about how little money there is in your pocket for a particular feature set, just don't buy it if you don't like it-- there are many out there who feel differently.
Good lord, the article about Apple flops mentions the iMac as a failure, even though the original series was the best-selling desktop computer of all time and basically heralded an age of all-in-one computers. He even states "iMac, great computer, but when was the last time you saw one? That craze died pretty fast" For chrissakes they still make the bloody things. Yeah, yeah, he was talking about the original ones, but for crying out loud, that was more than five years ago. The craze died out because they discontinued that model. Idiot.
We all know that Jobs will make a shitload of money off the iPhone and so will the Cingular. Apple is bringing the whole PDA / phone / iPod / camera thing to the masses, which is substantial and loving of silvery new gadgetry, in addition to being immensely profitable. Anyone would kill for Apple's margins. Did you know that the Apple Stores, less than five years old, reached a billion in sales faster than any company in the history of commerce? That their stores are the most profitable in dollars per square foot than any in retailing anywhere? That several of their models, including the iMac and the iBook, are the best selling computers ever? People now have a way of combining their TV, their movies, their computer, their iPod, their camera, their phone all through a single vendor that proffers integrated products, ease of use, and price competitiveness.
Apple has a lot of profit leverage, and they exercise this through their product line, their capacity to deliver content, and their market share. They will negotiate with their gatekeeper status to a large pool of price-unconscious consumers that are willing to spend $400 bucks on an iPod just for music and spend money on their integrated, easy-to-use, computing platform. Apple has taken a gamble here to be sure, but a very savvy and profitable one. They protect the iPod market from mobile manufacturers, further the future iPod technology, and make a profit in a new market all at the same time. They will sell 10 million iPhones next year, and all of those new or existing customers will be drawn in to a neat little profit circle where their next purchase could very well contribute to Apple's bottom line either through direct purchasers or licensing. You will have to admit that Apple has parlayed the iPod into an incredibly stable media profit machine. They arguably have more control over the coming music industry than anybody else, and will be able to strike mutually profitable deals with any telco out there from what they've learned in far more complex negotiations. Apple needs deals with all the movie houses and the big five music companies, whereas they only need one or two telcos in each market-- they will be able to play the telcos off each other far more easily than Warner and EMI. Wait.
I think they know how to throw their share-halving weight around so that everyone makes a tidy sum.
It doesn't mean this version won't be the cube-- but it will change things and you can bet the sons and daughters of rev 1.0 will be nothing to sneeze at as money-printing machines for the telcos.
Umm, visiting a site once to download the software and having it be the default page every time you open the browser are two fairly different things. Apple changes the home page more than weekly and thus present a billboard of product and service offerings to the newly Safari-converted every time. Page views, page views, page views.
Imply what you like, but GIMP most certainly isn't on the radar for anything serious. Most designers have never even heard of it. GIMP is like the Microsoft Access of graphic design as far as usefulness goes. Of course one can figure it out, we learn new software almost every day, but what would be the point? It lacks so many fundamental features, like a CMYK workspace, which is essential for printers, for it to be useful.
If you're really any good at your job, the tool doesn't matter as much as you make it out to.
I think you have a fundamental lack of understanding about the design industry. I am good at my job, and I know it can't be done with anything else, not at the moment anyway. If there were alternatives, people would be using them. The Adobe CS is just so ingrained in the graphic design workflow that replacing it is going to take a lot of doing, perhaps even a paradigm shift. GIMP has its place, but not as part of a professional design suite.
Ask a carpenter to build a house with a handsaw instead of a skil saw and they'll tell you it just isn't worth it, there's no money to be made there.
A real professional insists on using the proper tool for the job, whether that be Photoshop or something else. You don't use chisels to open paint cans, a hammer to take out screws, or nails to hold up drywall... and you don't use GIMP for professional-level anything.
Those are meaningless comparisons. None of the designers in my circle know or give a shit about GIMP, because we all make our money with Photoshop and the rest of CS3, not some half-ass open source also-ran. If you aren't going to hire someone to do your graphics because they know the industry standard software suite but don't know some mickey-mouse wannabe program, best of luck to you.
Unfortunately, the iPhone will NEVER become that great skypable device in the sky that we have all been waiting for for so long now. Apple is a business and a publicly traded one at that. If their phones became that cell-killer device, their contract with cingular would go bye-bye in a big huge hurry. Not to mention that no cell provider would want to come near the phone if that ever happens.
But it won't be because of some little contract with Cingular. You think that something Skype-like is going to kill the cellphone industry overnight, or even ever? Reliability is worth more to people than free calls on Skype, and what you're talking about is more than five years off. And it's not as though Apple is chained to Cingular, in fact, quite the opposite. Cell-phone companies will be falling all over each other to try and carry the iPhone after the exclusivity agreement runs its course. The current arrangement will be extremely profitable to Cingular, and others will be clamouring for a piece of the action, placing Apple in the position of delivering customers to suppliers, just like how the iPod delivers customers to the record companies via iTunes.
And, uh, MS is hated here more than Apple because they fight for more DRM, because their products suck and stifle innovation, because they create redundant industry standards and break them continually, and because they make hella money off everyone with illegal business practices.
Its an embarassing climbdown. Apple are notorious for tying to control everything, the negative feedback from the marketplace has obviously influenced this 'shift'.
Right. You think that Apple hadn't anticipated a market demand for third party apps? Apple pays a lot of attention to the upgrade path and lifespan of their products, in addition to looking at competitor capabilities-- you think they are building in the capability of third-party apps as some sort of afterthought on one of the most anticipated product launches in history? Apple isn't some garage-shop start-up, some fly-by-night operation that responds to nerds on Slashdot.
Given that we all knew Apple itself would be releasing future software upgrade apps for the iPhone, it isn't hard to imagine they've thoroughly thought through having third-party developers on board. What Apple really is is notoriously mum on future products and capabilities, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand why Apple doesn't show its cards all of the time in scenarios such as this. History shows that Apple is not a market follower, but a market leader. Pandering to markets is very different from creating them.
And believe me, Apple is still going to control everything on the iPhone. There is no way this is going to be open season on the iPhone, not without taking over the device completely Amarok-style (which would result in a huge loss of system integration, the very feature that most poeple are willing to pay for). Apps are going to be added and removed via an iTunes-like interface just like games on the iPod, and Apple is going to stand in the middle taking its cut, but most importantly controlling/defending the quality of the iPhone experience, which is their most valuable asset.
What on earth are you talking about? This isn't a 'win' for Apple and Microsoft, it's a win for Walt Mossberg. These are two of the most powerful people on earth, neither they nor their companies give a shit about what Walt Mossberg thinks, they own Walt Mossberg. Walt's not going to ruffle any feathers because he's paid to keep his mouth shit and his opinions to himself. I think you have the PR thing backward, Mossberg's going to be licking their boots. Seriously man, Bill Gates is the richest man on earth with the richest company ever and Steve Jobs is an visionary in computer marketing, to imagine they need Mossberg for anything is delusional. Walt Mossberg and the media need people and stories like this, not the other way around.
No, I post on slashdot and don't know what a service pack is.
I would hardly call service packs, which primarily fix bugs, major releases. Look buddy, I get it, try and understand that defending Microsoft as some sort of bleeding-edge update angel is a losing battle. Wrong crowd, wrong product, wrong company.
This argument comes and goes more often than I care to know. Thus, I will spout the standard rebuttal:
Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. They make money on hardware. The minute they license OS X is the minute they see their hardware sales jump off a cliff. Apple is a successful computer manufacturer, both now and in the past. Their experiences with licensing MacOS in the nineties were disastrous.
Apple ensures the OS X experience via a highly standardised hardware platform, Macs run seamlessly because the hardware configurations are so few and manageable. OS X runs the way it does because it was designed to work on a very specific, high-quality hardware set, it will not run that way on box xyz, and not only do they not want to support it, they don't want to try and market that hell. Apple sells the 'experience' of OS X, they are not about to rely on someone else to uphold that aspect of the system.
Yes, a lot of people would like to see OS X on random boxen-- but it just ain't gonna happen in a million years. Now please let us never speak of it again.
At a fundamental level Apple culture is in opposition to what the mass market and corporations need. Frankly OS X is not as polished as XP in many important area's. Certainly OS X has groovy features, but a surprising amount of really basic stuff is problematic. Today alone I bumped up against window management inconsistency, finder cock-ups, and plain old reproducible bugs. I'm not talking matters of taste, I'm specifically talking about fuck-ups. Windows certainly has it's share of bugs, but here is a key difference...
I think that perhaps you have a differing set of criteria for "window management inconsistency", "finder cock-ups", "bugs", and what the "mass market and corporations need" than a lot of other people.
I certainly know that one thing I treasure about the OS X experience is how much more consistent the window management is over, say, XP. Yes there are inconsistencies, but compared to windows? I get more done on programs I've never used before because the development tools on OS X allow programmers to make rational, conistent, and powerful user interfaces across the board. Yes, OS X 10.4.8 is in the middle of some sort of decision-making process about what the standard window should look like and function, but mentally I seem to be able to handle it over, say, the junk that shows up in XP.
Finder cock-ups? Yes, they exist, but relative to windows my OS X is far more predictable. For the most part it does what it says it's going to do and stays under the radar. I don't consider being bothered by countless query dialogs a non-cock-up. In fact, it gets my cock down quite frankly.
And let's just pretend that you didn't mention bugs. Or polish. Just how is it that you never hear Mac users bitching about their buggy OS and how nothing seems to work seamlessly?
As for what the mass market or corporations "need", I think that an important underlying reason they don't know that they "need" a system that is intuitive, does 95% of what any PC does far better and spends less time screwing things up, is because they haven't had the opportunity to try one. Breaking into a business market that runs a lot of proprietary windows-only software is not going to happen easily for Apple with an entrenched competitor like Miscrosoft. But for common office chores the Mac excels, is cheaper to run and maintain, provides superior security, and offers higher productivity all around.
And as far as that mass market goes, you could certainly make the argument that not only does the hardware fit what Joe six-pack is actually looking for, but the software (iLife suite) easily trumps whatever else there is out there. The iMac and the iBook are not the best selling computers ever in their class because Apple has somehow fallen off of the price point / marketing mix bus. Again, it takes time to reach a consumer sector-- but to argue that Microsoft understands the mass market better than Apple does just isn't borne out by the data or anecdotal evidence.
Apple would have you believe that they are the panacea while ignoring buggy/broken features between major releases. As if to say "Our software is perfect until we charge you for a perfecter version".
At least Apple is producing major releases every 18 months (not five+ years) with six-month point updates that not only fix the broken bits but actually make older machines run faster. If there is one major company out there that is at least trying to get it right, don't choose Microsoft as your answer. And don't think that M$ somehow updates their operating systems for free either.
Refusing to talk about failure? Which company are we talking about? Personally, I think you've got the whole thing ass-backwards.
You miss several key points about how Walmart's business practices 'screw' the consumer as well as the producer:
When Walmart can dictate which producers to choose and what the pricing will be they inherently reduce competition in that product area. I cannot buy the variety of products that I want because Walmart has priced them all out the market. The consumer loses out on choice in the rest of the marketplace
Similiarly, Walmart also prices other retailers out the market, narrowing where I can choose to buy. Walmart aggressively targets smaller retailers using their marketshare to reduce local competition. Walmart actively promotes the monoculture that removes the Mom and Pop shops that used to be able to deliver highly personalised service.
By using pricing as its most aggressive strategy, Walmart turns to the third world and dubious business and environmental practices. The consumer may win in the short term, but only because another country is bearing the weight of this financial arrangement.
All of the 'consumers' who actually work for Walmart and their producers also get screwed. Lower wages, limited benefits, and union-busting methods all underwrite the lower prices that you enjoy. Someone has to pay for your savings, and millions do.
If you commit a crime just about anywhere and you are not a citizen, landed immigrant, or have permanent resident status, chances are you will be deported back to your own country.
so yes, that would have been cleary if it had read:
"If you are convicted of a crime just about anywhere and you are not a citizen, landed immigrant, or have permanent resident status, chances are you will be deported back to your own country, after being tried, found guilty, and serve your sentence in Canada."
The point I was trying to make was that the law is definitely different for foreigners. Not only cam you be deported instantly, but you can essentially be declared a 'foreign element', an enemy combatant if you will, depending on what suspicions the police might have. You can be held without charge, without the government allowing you access to legal counsel, without revealing to the public that they have detained you. You can be tried without many of the basic basic rights that citizens have, such as habeas corpus, and never be allowed to even hear the charges, or know the evidence, for reasons of national security. You can be deported without ever being charged.
Those sound like a very different set of rules than the ones you and I live by, and aren't those the laws that we are talking about in this thread? I don't see how 'citizen laws' are somehow off-topic, it would be very difficult to hold a Canadian citizen indefinitely in Canada without charge, isn't that the whole point of what we are talking about, different laws for foreigners, ones with less rights?
There won't be a vote of confidence in the House until the budget in March, and even then none of the oppostion parties want an election right now. This is Harper's true ace at the moment, he can deliver a budget that he knows no one wants to defeat.
The Liberals want Stephan Dion to work the summer barbecue circuit to improve his english and get over the transition to office. The summer will be a scorcher and they are hoping that Canadians will blame global warming on the government of the day, as Dion is hoping to be the green candidate. The Liberals need to raise some serious coin and get their election machine up to snuff after the leadership convention. So the Liberals want to wait.
The Bloc Quebecois is going down to defeat in the Quebec election whith their PQ counterparts (they share the same electoral machine and platform). They are being squeezed by Liberal fortunes and Conservatives gains around Quebec City. They are at a high-water mark in a minority parliament and will not be eager to go to the polls soon. Spring, summer, and fall in Afghanistan means more casualties for Canadian troops there, possibly in the middle of an election campaign which would be disastrous for Harper, especially in Quebec, the only real place he has to grow.
The New Democrats are being squeezed by the green Dion and the new Green Party, with polling numbers that would spell many defeats for them in the coming, likely highly polarised election. They have a bargaining chip in being able to keep the government afloat, something they won't have in the next parliament. So, they don't want one either. That said, only Jack Layton is stupid enough to rock the boat, because that's what he did last time.
So there you have it folks, no spring election in Canada unless Harper engineers his own defeat, which he is loathe to do as the voters will not be happy going to the polls for the third time in three years.
Since when do we have different laws for foreigners within our jurisdiction?
hmm... since deportation laws, voting laws, access to healthcare laws, social assistance laws, taxation laws... oh my god, all sorts of laws came into existence. Citizenship status certainly defines what services you have access to, and what taxation levels you are subject to. If you commit a crime just about anywhere and you are not a citizen, landed immigrant, or have permanent resident status, chances are you will be deported back to your own country.
Well, if you want to go back into history, the Air India Bombing occurred in 1985, during the couple of years of the Progressive Conservative's eight year stint of power. The screw-ups from the RCMP happened under their watch (the RCMP even trailed one of the suspects and watched him test his detonators in a field the week before the bombing!) and no one from the government investigated or charged the RCMP in the following six years. It took a Liberal government to finally call an inquiry fifteen years later. The Conservatives have called a useless Royal Commission just one one year after the public inquiry concluded.
Now that's what I call politics.
Note to American slashdotters: things are way better up here than down there, believe me.
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I can assure you that Apple does not see this fashionability as a problem. On the contrary, Apple assiduously uses fashion to both create and retain customers, and has been doing so since their beginning. Fashion is perhaps what Apple understands and other device makers who would sell their first-born for nine million unit sales in a weekend emphatically do not. That said, if you think that the cohesiveness and stickiness of the Apple ecosystem is just fashion, I have a poop-coloured zune to sell you. Someday, people will understand that consumers don't know what the specs on phones even mean, they just want a device that's priced within reach, looks cool, and works well for their needs.
I've often thought that the USA way of taxing is a lot better than the Canadian way. In the US, money that you really don't deserve (inheritance, lotteries, etc.) is taxed quite hard but the money that you earn or invest (to create jobs) is not. In Canada, it is the reverse - lottery wins and other winfalls are not taxed at all but the money you actually earn is way, way over taxed.
first off you should do some research on the canadian taxation system. you will note that canadian income taxes are not much higher (and are lower in many brackets) unless you are making over $100,000; that corporate taxes are significantly (more than 10 points) lower; and that universal healthcare is included in the deal. the pension plan is also fully funded and the banking system is the strongest in the world. lottery wins, estates, and other windfalls are taxed quite heavily in canada as well. however, the size of the US debt, deficit, income disparity, and unemployment rate certainly point to an enlightened taxation system south of the border.
is it just me or have they dropped the apple remote on both the macbook and macbook pros? can't see any mention of it in the tech specs, what's included in the box. i would be surprised if they moved away from this, it seems like the whole front row display software is built around it.
i couldn't agree more, there are only a handful of films i would be interested in owning. films are not music and the vast majority of them do not merit a second viewing, much less a third or fourth. as for the cd collection, i converted ninety percent of mine into cash when i suddenly realised i hadn't played a single one of them once in the year since i got my first mp3 player. i haven't looked back at the decision at all, just kept the really special ones and ditched the rest.
the real advantage of online service is in not having to step foot in a rental store *ever again*, they are certainly among my least favourite places of all time. i almost never go unless i know they have what i want-- if browsing i set a strict time limit before the inevitable headache begins and i start fantasizing about the murders of the desk staff.
umm... touch screen? bigger screen? wi-fi? smaller? newer? more capabilities? if that doesn't sound like a premium offering over the old ipod line-up then i don't know what would be. the prices will come down-- but really, storage space is not a commodity that is reflective of the price of these products. what's the cost difference between an 80 gig and a 160 gig drive these days? not much. all of the fabrication, design, marketing, wi-fi, screen, and delivery of these products dwarfs the price differential between a 16 gig flash touchpod and the 160 gig platter ipod.
plus, dear slashdotters, please try and comprehend that the rest of the technology-using world does not have 100 gig pR0n collections they need to carry around with them 24/7. they can't even fill an 8 gig ipod much less a 16 gig one. apple research showed them that their buyers weren't even filling their 4 gig nano's. these devices aren't designed to be the repository of all of your media, that's (gasp!) what your computer is for. surprising to some, apple appears to have a few staff members dedicated to achieving the correct marketing mix, shocking as that may seem. discount the massive coup apple has pulled off with the ipod and itunes at your own peril-- to think that apple wouldn't protect it's huge lead in media players and online music downloads is as ignorant as it is stupid.
the touchpod is going to be a huge seller with capacities increasing as cheaper flash memory becomes availability, similar to the nano, and in lock-step with the iphone. one day there will be 160 gig touchpods at the same price as this offering, but who would pay for that now? nobody, and that's why apple ain't selling them. the early availability of both a discounted iphone and the touchpod are shots across the bow of the other cell and media player makers, not to mention the telecommunications providers who are about to see an itunes-esque shift in power away from their traditional oligopolies.
if you think there is an apple premium over what the other manufacturers are selling, how is it that you simply cannot buy a player with similar storage and rough feature set at the same price point? if there is such a huge market for cheaper players how come nobody offers them? i'll take the apple "premium" on their machines any day, given that nothing competes with them on price, feature set, ease of use, or integration.
and lastly, spare us the lament about how little money there is in your pocket for a particular feature set, just don't buy it if you don't like it-- there are many out there who feel differently.
yes, that must be it, a lack of money or skills. brilliant, why didn't i think of that?
Indeed, the sad state of affairs is that there is much more interest in a cell phone (that may even cause cancer0 than there is in a cure for cancer.
Welcome to the 90s as they used to say, truth is stranger than fiction.
Good lord, the article about Apple flops mentions the iMac as a failure, even though the original series was the best-selling desktop computer of all time and basically heralded an age of all-in-one computers. He even states "iMac, great computer, but when was the last time you saw one? That craze died pretty fast" For chrissakes they still make the bloody things. Yeah, yeah, he was talking about the original ones, but for crying out loud, that was more than five years ago. The craze died out because they discontinued that model. Idiot.
We all know that Jobs will make a shitload of money off the iPhone and so will the Cingular. Apple is bringing the whole PDA / phone / iPod / camera thing to the masses, which is substantial and loving of silvery new gadgetry, in addition to being immensely profitable. Anyone would kill for Apple's margins. Did you know that the Apple Stores, less than five years old, reached a billion in sales faster than any company in the history of commerce? That their stores are the most profitable in dollars per square foot than any in retailing anywhere? That several of their models, including the iMac and the iBook, are the best selling computers ever? People now have a way of combining their TV, their movies, their computer, their iPod, their camera, their phone all through a single vendor that proffers integrated products, ease of use, and price competitiveness.
Apple has a lot of profit leverage, and they exercise this through their product line, their capacity to deliver content, and their market share. They will negotiate with their gatekeeper status to a large pool of price-unconscious consumers that are willing to spend $400 bucks on an iPod just for music and spend money on their integrated, easy-to-use, computing platform. Apple has taken a gamble here to be sure, but a very savvy and profitable one. They protect the iPod market from mobile manufacturers, further the future iPod technology, and make a profit in a new market all at the same time. They will sell 10 million iPhones next year, and all of those new or existing customers will be drawn in to a neat little profit circle where their next purchase could very well contribute to Apple's bottom line either through direct purchasers or licensing. You will have to admit that Apple has parlayed the iPod into an incredibly stable media profit machine. They arguably have more control over the coming music industry than anybody else, and will be able to strike mutually profitable deals with any telco out there from what they've learned in far more complex negotiations. Apple needs deals with all the movie houses and the big five music companies, whereas they only need one or two telcos in each market-- they will be able to play the telcos off each other far more easily than Warner and EMI. Wait.
I think they know how to throw their share-halving weight around so that everyone makes a tidy sum.
It doesn't mean this version won't be the cube-- but it will change things and you can bet the sons and daughters of rev 1.0 will be nothing to sneeze at as money-printing machines for the telcos.
Umm, visiting a site once to download the software and having it be the default page every time you open the browser are two fairly different things. Apple changes the home page more than weekly and thus present a billboard of product and service offerings to the newly Safari-converted every time. Page views, page views, page views.
Ask a carpenter to build a house with a handsaw instead of a skil saw and they'll tell you it just isn't worth it, there's no money to be made there.
A real professional insists on using the proper tool for the job, whether that be Photoshop or something else. You don't use chisels to open paint cans, a hammer to take out screws, or nails to hold up drywall... and you don't use GIMP for professional-level anything.
Those are meaningless comparisons. None of the designers in my circle know or give a shit about GIMP, because we all make our money with Photoshop and the rest of CS3, not some half-ass open source also-ran. If you aren't going to hire someone to do your graphics because they know the industry standard software suite but don't know some mickey-mouse wannabe program, best of luck to you.
But it won't be because of some little contract with Cingular. You think that something Skype-like is going to kill the cellphone industry overnight, or even ever? Reliability is worth more to people than free calls on Skype, and what you're talking about is more than five years off. And it's not as though Apple is chained to Cingular, in fact, quite the opposite. Cell-phone companies will be falling all over each other to try and carry the iPhone after the exclusivity agreement runs its course. The current arrangement will be extremely profitable to Cingular, and others will be clamouring for a piece of the action, placing Apple in the position of delivering customers to suppliers, just like how the iPod delivers customers to the record companies via iTunes.
And, uh, MS is hated here more than Apple because they fight for more DRM, because their products suck and stifle innovation, because they create redundant industry standards and break them continually, and because they make hella money off everyone with illegal business practices.
Right. You think that Apple hadn't anticipated a market demand for third party apps? Apple pays a lot of attention to the upgrade path and lifespan of their products, in addition to looking at competitor capabilities-- you think they are building in the capability of third-party apps as some sort of afterthought on one of the most anticipated product launches in history? Apple isn't some garage-shop start-up, some fly-by-night operation that responds to nerds on Slashdot.
Given that we all knew Apple itself would be releasing future software upgrade apps for the iPhone, it isn't hard to imagine they've thoroughly thought through having third-party developers on board. What Apple really is is notoriously mum on future products and capabilities, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to understand why Apple doesn't show its cards all of the time in scenarios such as this. History shows that Apple is not a market follower, but a market leader. Pandering to markets is very different from creating them.
And believe me, Apple is still going to control everything on the iPhone. There is no way this is going to be open season on the iPhone, not without taking over the device completely Amarok-style (which would result in a huge loss of system integration, the very feature that most poeple are willing to pay for). Apps are going to be added and removed via an iTunes-like interface just like games on the iPod, and Apple is going to stand in the middle taking its cut, but most importantly controlling/defending the quality of the iPhone experience, which is their most valuable asset.
What on earth are you talking about? This isn't a 'win' for Apple and Microsoft, it's a win for Walt Mossberg. These are two of the most powerful people on earth, neither they nor their companies give a shit about what Walt Mossberg thinks, they own Walt Mossberg. Walt's not going to ruffle any feathers because he's paid to keep his mouth shit and his opinions to himself. I think you have the PR thing backward, Mossberg's going to be licking their boots. Seriously man, Bill Gates is the richest man on earth with the richest company ever and Steve Jobs is an visionary in computer marketing, to imagine they need Mossberg for anything is delusional. Walt Mossberg and the media need people and stories like this, not the other way around.
No, I post on slashdot and don't know what a service pack is.
I would hardly call service packs, which primarily fix bugs, major releases. Look buddy, I get it, try and understand that defending Microsoft as some sort of bleeding-edge update angel is a losing battle. Wrong crowd, wrong product, wrong company.
This argument comes and goes more often than I care to know. Thus, I will spout the standard rebuttal:
Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. They make money on hardware. The minute they license OS X is the minute they see their hardware sales jump off a cliff. Apple is a successful computer manufacturer, both now and in the past. Their experiences with licensing MacOS in the nineties were disastrous.
Apple ensures the OS X experience via a highly standardised hardware platform, Macs run seamlessly because the hardware configurations are so few and manageable. OS X runs the way it does because it was designed to work on a very specific, high-quality hardware set, it will not run that way on box xyz, and not only do they not want to support it, they don't want to try and market that hell. Apple sells the 'experience' of OS X, they are not about to rely on someone else to uphold that aspect of the system.
Yes, a lot of people would like to see OS X on random boxen-- but it just ain't gonna happen in a million years. Now please let us never speak of it again.
I certainly know that one thing I treasure about the OS X experience is how much more consistent the window management is over, say, XP. Yes there are inconsistencies, but compared to windows? I get more done on programs I've never used before because the development tools on OS X allow programmers to make rational, conistent, and powerful user interfaces across the board. Yes, OS X 10.4.8 is in the middle of some sort of decision-making process about what the standard window should look like and function, but mentally I seem to be able to handle it over, say, the junk that shows up in XP.
Finder cock-ups? Yes, they exist, but relative to windows my OS X is far more predictable. For the most part it does what it says it's going to do and stays under the radar. I don't consider being bothered by countless query dialogs a non-cock-up. In fact, it gets my cock down quite frankly.
And let's just pretend that you didn't mention bugs. Or polish. Just how is it that you never hear Mac users bitching about their buggy OS and how nothing seems to work seamlessly?
As for what the mass market or corporations "need", I think that an important underlying reason they don't know that they "need" a system that is intuitive, does 95% of what any PC does far better and spends less time screwing things up, is because they haven't had the opportunity to try one. Breaking into a business market that runs a lot of proprietary windows-only software is not going to happen easily for Apple with an entrenched competitor like Miscrosoft. But for common office chores the Mac excels, is cheaper to run and maintain, provides superior security, and offers higher productivity all around.
And as far as that mass market goes, you could certainly make the argument that not only does the hardware fit what Joe six-pack is actually looking for, but the software (iLife suite) easily trumps whatever else there is out there. The iMac and the iBook are not the best selling computers ever in their class because Apple has somehow fallen off of the price point / marketing mix bus. Again, it takes time to reach a consumer sector-- but to argue that Microsoft understands the mass market better than Apple does just isn't borne out by the data or anecdotal evidence.
At least Apple is producing major releases every 18 months (not five+ years) with six-month point updates that not only fix the broken bits but actually make older machines run faster. If there is one major company out there that is at least trying to get it right, don't choose Microsoft as your answer. And don't think that M$ somehow updates their operating systems for free either.
Refusing to talk about failure? Which company are we talking about? Personally, I think you've got the whole thing ass-backwards.
You miss several key points about how Walmart's business practices 'screw' the consumer as well as the producer:
When Walmart can dictate which producers to choose and what the pricing will be they inherently reduce competition in that product area. I cannot buy the variety of products that I want because Walmart has priced them all out the market. The consumer loses out on choice in the rest of the marketplace
Similiarly, Walmart also prices other retailers out the market, narrowing where I can choose to buy. Walmart aggressively targets smaller retailers using their marketshare to reduce local competition. Walmart actively promotes the monoculture that removes the Mom and Pop shops that used to be able to deliver highly personalised service.
By using pricing as its most aggressive strategy, Walmart turns to the third world and dubious business and environmental practices. The consumer may win in the short term, but only because another country is bearing the weight of this financial arrangement.
All of the 'consumers' who actually work for Walmart and their producers also get screwed. Lower wages, limited benefits, and union-busting methods all underwrite the lower prices that you enjoy. Someone has to pay for your savings, and millions do.
Those sound like a very different set of rules than the ones you and I live by, and aren't those the laws that we are talking about in this thread? I don't see how 'citizen laws' are somehow off-topic, it would be very difficult to hold a Canadian citizen indefinitely in Canada without charge, isn't that the whole point of what we are talking about, different laws for foreigners, ones with less rights?
There won't be a vote of confidence in the House until the budget in March, and even then none of the oppostion parties want an election right now. This is Harper's true ace at the moment, he can deliver a budget that he knows no one wants to defeat.
The Liberals want Stephan Dion to work the summer barbecue circuit to improve his english and get over the transition to office. The summer will be a scorcher and they are hoping that Canadians will blame global warming on the government of the day, as Dion is hoping to be the green candidate. The Liberals need to raise some serious coin and get their election machine up to snuff after the leadership convention. So the Liberals want to wait.
The Bloc Quebecois is going down to defeat in the Quebec election whith their PQ counterparts (they share the same electoral machine and platform). They are being squeezed by Liberal fortunes and Conservatives gains around Quebec City. They are at a high-water mark in a minority parliament and will not be eager to go to the polls soon. Spring, summer, and fall in Afghanistan means more casualties for Canadian troops there, possibly in the middle of an election campaign which would be disastrous for Harper, especially in Quebec, the only real place he has to grow.
The New Democrats are being squeezed by the green Dion and the new Green Party, with polling numbers that would spell many defeats for them in the coming, likely highly polarised election. They have a bargaining chip in being able to keep the government afloat, something they won't have in the next parliament. So, they don't want one either. That said, only Jack Layton is stupid enough to rock the boat, because that's what he did last time.
So there you have it folks, no spring election in Canada unless Harper engineers his own defeat, which he is loathe to do as the voters will not be happy going to the polls for the third time in three years.
Well, if you want to go back into history, the Air India Bombing occurred in 1985, during the couple of years of the Progressive Conservative's eight year stint of power. The screw-ups from the RCMP happened under their watch (the RCMP even trailed one of the suspects and watched him test his detonators in a field the week before the bombing!) and no one from the government investigated or charged the RCMP in the following six years. It took a Liberal government to finally call an inquiry fifteen years later. The Conservatives have called a useless Royal Commission just one one year after the public inquiry concluded.
Now that's what I call politics.
Note to American slashdotters: things are way better up here than down there, believe me.