I seem to recall a recent change in terms of service. My guess is that if you actually read the whole thing, it would have told you that personal info is attached to files you download.
I'm betting 99.9999% of the folks just clicked accept without reading the new terms.
My only gripe on these sorts of changes in terms of service is that I think they should highlight what has recently changed.
Due to the fact that we're not providing a whole set of channels we claimed we would, you'll be receiving a nice credit to your account.
There should be no reason that TWC should be able to collect from their customers and then say "thanks, now go to the internet."
It's bad enough I have to pay for stupid channels I will *NEVER* watch. I'm no longer with TWC, but was never a fan of their crappy service when I was.
Since hybrids are much lighter (to help achieve better gas mileage), they have much less wear on the road than an SUV.
This miles traveled argument sounds "fair" when you first hear it, but the only benefit it brings is the ability for the State (and Feds) to be able to track every movement of your car. This is a bad idea. The Constitution has already been shit upon for the last 8 years. I am no longer confident it would protect me from abuse by the State Gov't and Feds.
States are always looking to find new ways generate revenue from their citizens. I would first like a better accounting of where all the current money is being spent. It may all be valid, but they sure are generating a lot of revenue already.
Sorry, my experience with TW in TX differed greatly. The worst is that ANY (and I mean absolutely ANY) call required a 30-45 minute wait to even talk to a person. The set top boxes they were pushing were so buggy that I spend more time restarting my cable box than I ever did my computers and when they didn't crash, you had about a 40% chance of it actually recording the show you asked it to record. The response from the people was absolutely useless.
I finally gave up. I returned their DVR and gave up the digital channels. And I had many friends and family with similar problems. Nothing but frustration in dealing with them. I was happy to be done with TWC.
That was the same type of response AT&T used to give their customers when they forced them to rent AT&T phones. If you don't want a phone, just don't subscribe to the service. Mind you, this was 20+ years ago when they had everything locked up.
Once they were forced to allow other phones onto their networks, then features were added to phones and so forth. In other words, there is (slightly) LESS giving you the finger.
Comcast (and other cable cos like Time Warner) have the worst customer service and they don't care, because you don't have anywhere else to really go. Verizon FIOS is not widely available and DirectTV and DISH can't give you (real high-speed) internet. You can get highspeed internet from Comcast and TV from DISH/DTV, but it'll cost you an extra $20/mo. because you didn't "bundle" it. They own the market and are using their monopoly to expand into new areas.
iTunes 8 isn't just a problem on Vista, it's buggy on Mac OS X too.
They pushed this thing out without real testing and spent way too much time on bullshit features like album covert art display and "Genius" up-sell feature.
How about making it rock solid to sync with iPods and iPhones -- you know, the main purpose behind iTunes in the first place. They keep grafting on eye-candy, but I think the architecture is starting to show its age.
Fact is, they should require a brand new iTunes with every new iPod. They should be using some plug-in mechanism to support new iPods. Come on. Of course, it wasn't designed with real extensibility in mind.
Apple needs to rewrite iTunes so that we don't have to always wait for N.0.1 release to fix all the nasty bugs they decided to ship with. Apple should be embarrassed over iTunes 8.
Relax. This is a temporary situation. I think they had to rush things a bit for the iPhone 3G date and are prepping for the final release of the SDK (probably linked to a 2.0.1 update).
Yes, it would have been nice for them to release it from the NDA when it shipped, less than 2 weeks ago. But they're probably addressing some internal process issues before opening the flood gates, lest they have you bitching about how the process to sign up is too slow, etc, etc.
More likely, Apple is still getting all their iPhone developer program ducks in a row. I think Apple probably rushed the SDK a bit and wants to address some core issues before having to counter all the nay-sayers that will start rambling as soon as the lift the NDA.
I doubt Apple expect quite this much interest in the SDK. They need to get the developer licensing process setup, the review process for adding new products to the store and the review process for handling updates.
IMHO, I think once those ducks are in a row, Apple will lift the NDA.
The EULA issue is COMPLETELY different issue and one that Apple is in the right here. The Mac "clone" folks are buying upgrade copies of OS X and treating them as full licenses. They are modifying the code and passing it as an Apple-compatible product, directly benefiting from APPLE's trademarks.
That has absolutely NOTHING to do with their current stand on the iPhone SDK. Will the SDK be opened up soon enough, very likely. There is no conspiracy here.
And what flavor is your anti-Kool-Aid. You seem to be on a mission to discount any of Apple's efforts.
Apple took KHTML, turned it into a lean, mean HTML machine and now many folks are benefiting from those efforts. Likewise, folks are (or soon will be) benefiting from all the Javascript work recently done.
Apple could have taken Mozilla-code if they wanted to avoid opening up their work via LGPL. In fact, I think there is some bitterness among Mozilla fans because they didn't take that route.
I assume you also just buy the upgrades of Creative Suite and Office even though you've never owned those before. After all you paid for something, so you should be able to do as you damn will please.
The retail box is an UPGRADE. Now, perhaps if folks don't mind paying $300-$400 for a FULL RETAIL COPY, then Apple might consider selling it to you w/o regards to you already having Mac OS on your machine.
Yeah, because Microsoft and the Unix community have made the computing world SO much better.
The whole reason this issue is around is because some cheap bastards want to use OS X.
The retail box says that it requires a Mac is an upgrade. If the EULA is not enforceable, Apple will likely go the DRM approach. That will make everyone a loser. Apple will have to play a cat and mouse game with hackers, users will have to deal with more headaches associated with DRM.
Come on. They knew they were intentionally violating the EULA. Your intent is to try and work the system to get a cheap version of OS X. That only results in Apple spending more time insuring it only runs on true Macs (read DRM wars) and charging $400 for a retail copy of OS X.
Then yeah, you can do what you want with the $400 piece of software. And with this theory of yours, you can just buy software upgrades and install them w/o actually owning the software that you're upgrading. Again, the result will be that software companies will simply stop offering upgrade prices to customers.
Your "dream" will cost everyone. So thanks in advance for screwing it up for everyone.
When he says Apple is a software company, it is in recognition that software plays a key role in its product. Steve is right that it is the software that makes the product unique. Without the "software", Apple would be someone putting out another crappy PC, MP3 player or smartphone.
But the quarterly reports tell the real story. Apple gets its money from hardware sales. It's true other areas (iTunes) are growing, but if you can know whether or not Apple had or will have a great quarter by looking at Mac/MacBook sales, iPod sales, iPhone sales. Last I checked, all four were hardware.
So I think you misunderstand what he means when he calls Apple a software company. They are a software company, but the software is designed to help sell the hardware. That's where their money is (at least right now).
If Apple were to stop selling hardware and only sell software (including licensing OS X), they would lose about 60-70% of their revenue.
Apparently you've never purchased a PC from a major vendor like Compaq or DELL. I can tell you from personal experience that the price difference dwindles quickly once you go past the bare bones machine prices seen in ads.
I don't have a problem with folks choosing something else because of Apple's pricing. That's the beauty of capitalism. Vote with your wallet.
I do take issue with those same folks demanding that Apple should be making their OS available to them because they want OS X, but want an ultra-cheap PC hardware solution. Apple chooses not to and that is their prerogative. The monopolist arguments others have made are just disconnected from reality.
The laptop RAM issue sounds a bit red herring. Apple has been using standard RAM for quite some time and in most cases, the RAM has been user upgradeable.
Apple is, and always has been, a hardware company. Check the numbers, a huge percentage of revenue comes from HW sales. The OS is designed to support those hardware sales. Sales of upgrades to existing hardware customers should not be misinterpreted to mean that Apple is selling its OS to the general public as a software company.
OS X is like the iDrive menu technology BMW built for its cars (and sometimes just as controversial). You cannot buy that Audi car and demand that BMW's iDrive run on it. iDrive was designed for BMW cars. And OS X was designed for Macs. You might be able to hack the iDrive software and get it to run on the Audi system, but that does not mean that BMW is now forced to make iDrive software available to any Audi owner that would like it. BMW may offer upgrades and improvements to existing owners, but that does not mean everyone is entitled to buy iDrive and put it on arbitrary hardware.
Wow, what reality do you live in? Apple's charging of hardware upgrades has absolutely NOTHING to do with their bundling the OS with their hardware.
I'm waiting for the demand of customers to be able to buy the engines separate from their car. I mean, do you realize how much BMW is charging for that engine. And they just bundle it right in.
This is pure capitalism. If you don't like the upgrade options, don't buy them (there are many alternatives available to buy upgrades for memory and hard drives). Apple is charging a premium for their upgrades just like BMW charges to get navigation or a 6-CD changer.
Where do you live? 'Cause I'd like to avoid that money-grubbing gov't entity if possible.
It's a total scam of your gov't when they just send you a photo in the mail and tell you to pay up. I once got such a ticket, except it wasn't for me (delivered to the wrong address). In determining what it was, I did read the fine print. If you don't pay the ticket by such and such date, you automatically assume guilt and start paying additional penalties.
Never mind that the actual recipient never got the ticket -- his failure to respond made him automatically guilty. That's what happens when you don't verify who is doing what and are more interested in making money than actual safety.
Ticket writing has become a major source of local law enforcement revenues. Many police office budgets depend on the revenues from writing tickets. So much for protect and serve (unless the serve is "serve you a ticket")./rant
yeah, the point of trying to scare people to settle early is because they know that RIAA's chances at actually winning in court are dropping every day.
So, like the sleazy car salesman, have they got a deal for you. If you settle right now, they'll just steal away $3K from you.
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I seem to recall a recent change in terms of service. My guess is that if you actually read the whole thing, it would have told you that personal info is attached to files you download.
I'm betting 99.9999% of the folks just clicked accept without reading the new terms.
My only gripe on these sorts of changes in terms of service is that I think they should highlight what has recently changed.
Due to the fact that we're not providing a whole set of channels we claimed we would, you'll be receiving a nice credit to your account.
There should be no reason that TWC should be able to collect from their customers and then say "thanks, now go to the internet."
It's bad enough I have to pay for stupid channels I will *NEVER* watch. I'm no longer with TWC, but was never a fan of their crappy service when I was.
Since hybrids are much lighter (to help achieve better gas mileage), they have much less wear on the road than an SUV.
This miles traveled argument sounds "fair" when you first hear it, but the only benefit it brings is the ability for the State (and Feds) to be able to track every movement of your car. This is a bad idea. The Constitution has already been shit upon for the last 8 years. I am no longer confident it would protect me from abuse by the State Gov't and Feds.
States are always looking to find new ways generate revenue from their citizens. I would first like a better accounting of where all the current money is being spent. It may all be valid, but they sure are generating a lot of revenue already.
Sorry, my experience with TW in TX differed greatly. The worst is that ANY (and I mean absolutely ANY) call required a 30-45 minute wait to even talk to a person. The set top boxes they were pushing were so buggy that I spend more time restarting my cable box than I ever did my computers and when they didn't crash, you had about a 40% chance of it actually recording the show you asked it to record. The response from the people was absolutely useless.
I finally gave up. I returned their DVR and gave up the digital channels. And I had many friends and family with similar problems. Nothing but frustration in dealing with them. I was happy to be done with TWC.
That was the same type of response AT&T used to give their customers when they forced them to rent AT&T phones. If you don't want a phone, just don't subscribe to the service. Mind you, this was 20+ years ago when they had everything locked up.
Once they were forced to allow other phones onto their networks, then features were added to phones and so forth. In other words, there is (slightly) LESS giving you the finger.
Comcast (and other cable cos like Time Warner) have the worst customer service and they don't care, because you don't have anywhere else to really go. Verizon FIOS is not widely available and DirectTV and DISH can't give you (real high-speed) internet. You can get highspeed internet from Comcast and TV from DISH/DTV, but it'll cost you an extra $20/mo. because you didn't "bundle" it. They own the market and are using their monopoly to expand into new areas.
iTunes 8 isn't just a problem on Vista, it's buggy on Mac OS X too.
They pushed this thing out without real testing and spent way too much time on bullshit features like album covert art display and "Genius" up-sell feature.
How about making it rock solid to sync with iPods and iPhones -- you know, the main purpose behind iTunes in the first place. They keep grafting on eye-candy, but I think the architecture is starting to show its age.
Fact is, they should require a brand new iTunes with every new iPod. They should be using some plug-in mechanism to support new iPods. Come on. Of course, it wasn't designed with real extensibility in mind.
Apple needs to rewrite iTunes so that we don't have to always wait for N.0.1 release to fix all the nasty bugs they decided to ship with. Apple should be embarrassed over iTunes 8.
Relax. This is a temporary situation. I think they had to rush things a bit for the iPhone 3G date and are prepping for the final release of the SDK (probably linked to a 2.0.1 update).
Yes, it would have been nice for them to release it from the NDA when it shipped, less than 2 weeks ago. But they're probably addressing some internal process issues before opening the flood gates, lest they have you bitching about how the process to sign up is too slow, etc, etc.
More likely, Apple is still getting all their iPhone developer program ducks in a row. I think Apple probably rushed the SDK a bit and wants to address some core issues before having to counter all the nay-sayers that will start rambling as soon as the lift the NDA.
I doubt Apple expect quite this much interest in the SDK. They need to get the developer licensing process setup, the review process for adding new products to the store and the review process for handling updates.
IMHO, I think once those ducks are in a row, Apple will lift the NDA.
The EULA issue is COMPLETELY different issue and one that Apple is in the right here. The Mac "clone" folks are buying upgrade copies of OS X and treating them as full licenses. They are modifying the code and passing it as an Apple-compatible product, directly benefiting from APPLE's trademarks.
That has absolutely NOTHING to do with their current stand on the iPhone SDK. Will the SDK be opened up soon enough, very likely. There is no conspiracy here.
And what flavor is your anti-Kool-Aid.
You seem to be on a mission to discount any of Apple's efforts.
Apple took KHTML, turned it into a lean, mean HTML machine and now many folks are benefiting from those efforts. Likewise, folks are (or soon will be) benefiting from all the Javascript work recently done.
Apple could have taken Mozilla-code if they wanted to avoid opening up their work via LGPL. In fact, I think there is some bitterness among Mozilla fans because they didn't take that route.
I assume you also just buy the upgrades of Creative Suite and Office even though you've never owned those before. After all you paid for something, so you should be able to do as you damn will please.
The retail box is an UPGRADE. Now, perhaps if folks don't mind paying $300-$400 for a FULL RETAIL COPY, then Apple might consider selling it to you w/o regards to you already having Mac OS on your machine.
Yeah, because Microsoft and the Unix community have made the computing world SO much better.
The whole reason this issue is around is because some cheap bastards want to use OS X.
The retail box says that it requires a Mac is an upgrade. If the EULA is not enforceable, Apple will likely go the DRM approach. That will make everyone a loser. Apple will have to play a cat and mouse game with hackers, users will have to deal with more headaches associated with DRM.
THEY ARE PIRATING because they are buying FULL UPGRADES and treating them as FULL RETAIL.
Buying a BOX copy does not mean it is a full license. Perhaps if they are willing to pay the full retail price (which would be closer to $400).
They were not buying full retail copies. They are buying retail upgrades. That's the whole point of the lawsuit.
All Macs come with Mac OS, so you're purchasing an upgrade to the OS that came with your machine when you buy that retail box.
But it IS NOT a full retail copy. If it were, it would likely cost $300-$400 and not $130.
Come on. They knew they were intentionally violating the EULA. Your intent is to try and work the system to get a cheap version of OS X. That only results in Apple spending more time insuring it only runs on true Macs (read DRM wars) and charging $400 for a retail copy of OS X.
Then yeah, you can do what you want with the $400 piece of software. And with this theory of yours, you can just buy software upgrades and install them w/o actually owning the software that you're upgrading. Again, the result will be that software companies will simply stop offering upgrade prices to customers.
Your "dream" will cost everyone. So thanks in advance for screwing it up for everyone.
When he says Apple is a software company, it is in recognition that software plays a key role in its product. Steve is right that it is the software that makes the product unique. Without the "software", Apple would be someone putting out another crappy PC, MP3 player or smartphone.
But the quarterly reports tell the real story. Apple gets its money from hardware sales. It's true other areas (iTunes) are growing, but if you can know whether or not Apple had or will have a great quarter by looking at Mac/MacBook sales, iPod sales, iPhone sales. Last I checked, all four were hardware.
So I think you misunderstand what he means when he calls Apple a software company. They are a software company, but the software is designed to help sell the hardware. That's where their money is (at least right now).
If Apple were to stop selling hardware and only sell software (including licensing OS X), they would lose about 60-70% of their revenue.
Apparently you've never purchased a PC from a major vendor like Compaq or DELL. I can tell you from personal experience that the price difference dwindles quickly once you go past the bare bones machine prices seen in ads.
I don't have a problem with folks choosing something else because of Apple's pricing. That's the beauty of capitalism. Vote with your wallet.
I do take issue with those same folks demanding that Apple should be making their OS available to them because they want OS X, but want an ultra-cheap PC hardware solution. Apple chooses not to and that is their prerogative. The monopolist arguments others have made are just disconnected from reality.
The laptop RAM issue sounds a bit red herring. Apple has been using standard RAM for quite some time and in most cases, the RAM has been user upgradeable.
Apple is, and always has been, a hardware company. Check the numbers, a huge percentage of revenue comes from HW sales. The OS is designed to support those hardware sales. Sales of upgrades to existing hardware customers should not be misinterpreted to mean that Apple is selling its OS to the general public as a software company.
OS X is like the iDrive menu technology BMW built for its cars (and sometimes just as controversial). You cannot buy that Audi car and demand that BMW's iDrive run on it. iDrive was designed for BMW cars. And OS X was designed for Macs. You might be able to hack the iDrive software and get it to run on the Audi system, but that does not mean that BMW is now forced to make iDrive software available to any Audi owner that would like it. BMW may offer upgrades and improvements to existing owners, but that does not mean everyone is entitled to buy iDrive and put it on arbitrary hardware.
Wow, what reality do you live in? Apple's charging of hardware upgrades has absolutely NOTHING to do with their bundling the OS with their hardware.
I'm waiting for the demand of customers to be able to buy the engines separate from their car. I mean, do you realize how much BMW is charging for that engine. And they just bundle it right in.
This is pure capitalism. If you don't like the upgrade options, don't buy them (there are many alternatives available to buy upgrades for memory and hard drives). Apple is charging a premium for their upgrades just like BMW charges to get navigation or a 6-CD changer.
This is the sort of stunt you'd expect from a 6 year-old, sticking his fingers in his ear so as to not hear you.
Wow, can this President act more immature?
Where do you live? 'Cause I'd like to avoid that money-grubbing gov't entity if possible.
/rant
It's a total scam of your gov't when they just send you a photo in the mail and tell you to pay up. I once got such a ticket, except it wasn't for me (delivered to the wrong address). In determining what it was, I did read the fine print. If you don't pay the ticket by such and such date, you automatically assume guilt and start paying additional penalties.
Never mind that the actual recipient never got the ticket -- his failure to respond made him automatically guilty. That's what happens when you don't verify who is doing what and are more interested in making money than actual safety.
Ticket writing has become a major source of local law enforcement revenues. Many police office budgets depend on the revenues from writing tickets. So much for protect and serve (unless the serve is "serve you a ticket").
yeah, the point of trying to scare people to settle early is because they know that RIAA's chances at actually winning in court are dropping every day.
So, like the sleazy car salesman, have they got a deal for you. If you settle right now, they'll just steal away $3K from you.
Wow.. where is my wallet at.
Actually, there is no one that makes the RIAA look like the smart, honest ones. Hell, mobsters have more honesty and integrity than the RIAA.
The secret to their business plan is that they never pay out any chunks of winnings to the artists.
Then my advice to you is to still with Dell.