The story I heard was that, since Star Trek was filmed (ie, on film, not videotape), they figured that they could do an HD release. The problem was that the special effects really looked bad in HD. So they redid them.
There's some cases where they added new shots. Check out "The Doomsday Machine" for some shots of the Enterprise swooping down and distracting the doomsday machine. "The Ultimate Computer" has some good shots of wrecked starships, though they could have done more. "The Galileo 7" also has some nice shots of the Galileo leaving the planet and the whole igniting the fuel sequence. The opening sequence in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (with the Enterprise in the atmosphere) also looks much better.
Well, the "telerobotics" would be an issue on Mars when you figure that there will be a delay between 4 and 20 minutes. So the whole "Wait, stop! That looks interesting!" part becomes a bit trickier.
and then not have to fuck with it to keep it working.
Unless you decide to deal with video. Then you have to find another computer that you can use to ssh into your Mac and either do a clean shutdown or figure out what's causing the problem.
But, hey, that's not "fucking with it."
We're not talking about web sites. This is about the App Store. The argument is that, in the real world, a storeowner can choose what they want to sell and don't necessarily have to worry about somebody suing them for not carrying a product. So, to use my above example, If I choose to not sell Playboy, I don't have to worry about some customer suing me over it because there are alternate stores for the person to go to.
So if we take that analogy to say iOS = town and App Store = Magazine Store, the owner the Magazine store also controls the town and restricts other stores that might compete with it. Needless to say, in the real world, that would probably evoke some sort of lawsuit.
Now, if we continue with our analogy, there are certainly other "towns" that you can live in.
The problem is that Apple has set itself up as the only store.
Consider the magazine example. You own a magazine shop and you find Playboy, Penthouse, and their ilk offensive. You don't want to carry those magazines.
Well, of course, you have every right to not carry them. However, it's likely that if you don't carry them, those customers who would buy those magazines will stop buying all their magazines from you. After all, a customer isn't going to buy Field & Stream and Guns & Ammo from your store and then go somewhere else to buy Playboy. They'll just go to the store that carries Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, and Playboy. If 10% of your customers buy Playboy and other magazines, you've just lost 10% of your customers. That might also factor into your decision: Is it worth losing 10% of your customers by not carrying those magazines? But, again, you have every right to make this decision.
Apple conveniently sidesteps this problem. To place Apple into the analogy, Apple owns the magazine shop and controls the zoning board so that they are the only magazine shop. Thus, they can make these decisions without fear of competition.
From a "Free Speech" angle, I agree. While Apple certainly has the "right" to not accept anything they feel may damage their image--it's their store, after all--because they are the only store, they have an "obligation" to not judge based on content. For example, banning porn apps is bad (especially when they have a rating system already in place to keep them away from those who perhaps shouldn't be viewing such material).
Where I disagree has not so much to do with the content of the App, but the fact that it's an App at all.
When Apple first released the iPhone, the mantra was that people could make websites customized for the iPhone. Developers complained that without Flash, they were limited to what they could do. They couldn't take advantage of the various sensors available in the iPhone, etc. So Apple came out with a way for developers to write real applications. So now everybody does an App--even if all the App does is display web pages. This is where the App Store ends up getting polluted.
In my opinion, if the App doesn't do anything worthwhile that can't be done on a webpage, I'd say don't accept it. I rashly assume that this App fits the bill.
We aren't wanted there? Ask the protesters. They want us there.
Depends on when you ask.
At the beginning, they didn't want us there (March 2nd). Of course, once the government started using tanks, fighters, etc. the opinions kinda changed...
There's just too much going on around the world right now for everything to get the coverage it deserves.
Not sure if you're being serious...
You're right, though. Let's see...we have a choice between reporting on corruption in India or showing the umptee-umpth video of a tsunami plowing into cars and houses and pictures of things where they are not supposed to be (cars in trees, buildings in the ocean, etc.)
No, NASA shouldn't develop it's own spacecraft to go to ISS when private industry can do just as good a job for less money. We don't need another expensive manned spacecraft launch to drop a few people off at ISS.
Yes, NASA should be going beyond what private industry can do. Lagrange points, Moon, Asteroids, Mars, whatever. They should be building the craft and technology that we need to go there.
This developer reiterates that if Apple didn't specifically introduce these problems in iOS, it's aware of them now. And he says that the Mobile Safari team has indicated the issues will not be fixed. [emphasis mine]
Agreed. However, if you were to boost revenue by doing something crazy--you know, like raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year---you could actually afford these things.
Which phones out there get vendor supplied updates after 3 years? Certainly not any that I've ever owned.
Nor I, I'll admit.
That said, here's the problem--especially as it relates to the iPhone: This update includes various bug fixes for the Safari browser which improve security. Yet I can't get those if I have an iPhone 3G. And it's not like I can say, "Well, I'll just use another browser" because Apple won't allow Chrome or Firefox browser in their store. So my choice is...buy another iPhone.
Don't get me wrong--I have no problem with Apple saying "Hey, you don't get any of the cool new features of iOS 4.3 on your iPhone 3G." I think it's a little tacky, but I can understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it. Where I have the problem is that Apple isn't even sending me bug fixes for applications.
Again, I suppose it's the way of the world for software. But your car doesn't work that way--hell, I had a recall notice for my Audi a year or two ago when the car was 7 years old. And we're not talking something like brakes failing where I could have been killed. So maybe it's time for software companies to support these things for a bit longer than 2 years...
I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're suggesting that MP3's bought from Amazon can't be loaded onto an iPod... and that's just blatantly false. The Amazon download utility automatically puts the software into your iTunes library if you tell it to.
I suppose I was unclear. I apologize. Nope, that's not what I meant.
I have an iPhone. I can buy music, via my iPhone, from the iTunes Store. But I cannot do the same thing with Amazon's store because Apple won't allow it. That's, arguably, tying a monopoly product (music downloads) to a product in another market (cellular phones).
Again, I Am Not A Lawyer so there's probably somewhere I'm off-base. But, as I've said, I have a feeling that iTunes may be Apple's weak-link and I could see the DOJ or FTC calling for Apple to divest itself of iTunes.
Keep in mind, "the market" can be measured in different ways. Consider that Microsoft tried to show Apple as a competitor. The Court's response was that since Apple used PowerPC processors and not Intel processors, they were not a competitor. Microsoft was deemed to have an operating system monopoly for computers running on Intel processors, not the "Personal Computer Market."
Where Apple is vulnerable, in my opinion, is in iTunes. iTunes has a huge market share in downloadable music--I think it's something like 80%. Apple's "tying" of iTunes to their devices exclusively could be seen as monopolistic behavior. After all, how does iTunes lose if I can purchase music and download it to my Palm Pre? The answer, of course, is that iTunes doesn't lose but Apple does (in that I bought a Pre and not an iPhone). Remember that, in theory, iTunes runs at a barely break-even point. They can do that because they are supported by Apple hardware sales. How can some other music store compete? I can't log onto the Amazon MP3 music store, purchase music, and have it show up on my iPhone because Apple restricts me from doing so in order to protect their position--only their software can do this.
I think if Apple ever runs afoul of antitrust regulations, it will start there. I think Apple will end up being required to "spin-off" iTunes.
Well, the new iPad came out and what do we have? The Xoom - an excellent tablet, but still more expensive than the iPad and still with no Flash, the supposed "necessary" thing that was missing from the iPad.
I was in a Verizon store today (my roomate's phone decided to go wonky) and had a chance to play with the Xoom. Very impressive.
What was just as impressive was the price: $599 with two year contract.
I've said this before, but it's still fun to watch. Way back when comparing Macs and PCs, you'd always have the guy who said, "Macs are expensive! I can get a Dell for $249! The cheapest Mac is $599!" Of course, the Mac guys would always note that the Dell in question had a Pentium IV whereas the Mac in question had a Core Duo or Core 2 Duo, the Mac had faster memory, and if you specced a PC to be equal to the Mac, the price difference was nowhere near as dramatic.
Now, it's the Mac guys' turn. "Xoom is expensive! I can get an iPad 2 for $499! The Xoom is $799!" Of course, that $499 iPad 2 has half the storage, a smaller screen, and no 3G. When you spec the iPad 2 to be equivalent to the Xoom (ie, same storage, 3G, SD Card reader, HDMI output) it comes to $797--a whole $2 cheaper.
In regards to Flash, it has at least been promised for the Xoom. It has not been promised for the iPad 2.
Without Apple there would have been no iPads, no iPhones, no iPod Touches, and no MacBook pros. Without Apple, a smartphone would still look like a Blackberry and laptops would look like a cheap plastic Dell.
While I'm not sure I disagree, you're treading on questionable ground.
I have a MacBook Pro. I think it's a great laptop. But to say that, if there was no Apple, laptops wouldn't exist or would be thicker or whatever is questionable. Secondly, technology advances and I think you would have iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches. You might not have them in 2011--you might have seen them in 2015 or so. But to say that they wouldn't ever exist is questionable.
I'm sort of reminded of the Mac mini. When Apple came out with it, all the fanbois proclaimed it as Apple innovation. Of course, there had been plenty of PCs that were the size of the the Mac mini. It's just that you didn't see them from the big name companies. Because these small companies didn't have the marketing capabilities of Apple, Apple was seen as the innovator.
All that said, I think you make a good point. Apple is not afraid to try new things and to invest in them. Big name PC companies, because of their low margins, don't have the resources to make the investment in R&D. The software companies with the margins, such as Microsoft, don't necessarily have an interest in upsetting the Status Quo. But some of Apple's bravery does come from it's "near death" experience.
Think of it this way: You paid $999 for a Mac laptop when you could have spend $699 for the same laptop running Windows. Well, it must be a better laptop, right? Look! The keyboard lights up when the room is dark! See? Better.
You're somewhat correct. However, if you develop a "full screen app" (ie, one that does not have the status bar at the top of the screen), the user will not see the Location services icon.
So a game like Angry Birds could access the GPS without letting the user know.
While I understand the sentiment, you have to make it worth my while before I'll relinquish control.
Step 1: The Automated Vehicle Lane on the Freeway. Take out those annoying carpool lanes and replace them with "Automated Vehicle Lanes." Since the vehicles are automated, they can travel at a faster rate. So I get to work in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes. I'd sign up for that. Step 2: DUIs So I can go out drinking, stagger to my car, climb in and slur "Home, James!" and I don't have to worry about a DUI? I'd sign up for that. Step 3: Cell-phone, laptop, etc. use So I can yack on the phone while using my laptop and shave and the car takes me to work? I'd sign up for that.
Sure, I want a switch to turn it off. But after awhile, my car would spend most of it's time in auto-drive because it's just too much of a nuisance.
Slashdot Mirror
The story I heard was that, since Star Trek was filmed (ie, on film, not videotape), they figured that they could do an HD release. The problem was that the special effects really looked bad in HD. So they redid them.
There's some cases where they added new shots. Check out "The Doomsday Machine" for some shots of the Enterprise swooping down and distracting the doomsday machine. "The Ultimate Computer" has some good shots of wrecked starships, though they could have done more. "The Galileo 7" also has some nice shots of the Galileo leaving the planet and the whole igniting the fuel sequence. The opening sequence in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (with the Enterprise in the atmosphere) also looks much better.
[...] the flight path would have been south from California so that any launch failure would either dump the NERVA into the ocean or the Antarctic.
And it's not like anything we eat actually comes from the ocean, so it's a great place to dump stuff.
Well, the "telerobotics" would be an issue on Mars when you figure that there will be a delay between 4 and 20 minutes. So the whole "Wait, stop! That looks interesting!" part becomes a bit trickier.
Apple products "Just work" until they don't. Then the fanbois fall back to, "Hey, every company has problems."
and then not have to fuck with it to keep it working.
Unless you decide to deal with video. Then you have to find another computer that you can use to ssh into your Mac and either do a clean shutdown or figure out what's causing the problem. But, hey, that's not "fucking with it."
Well, we're getting a bit off-topic here.
We're not talking about web sites. This is about the App Store. The argument is that, in the real world, a storeowner can choose what they want to sell and don't necessarily have to worry about somebody suing them for not carrying a product. So, to use my above example, If I choose to not sell Playboy, I don't have to worry about some customer suing me over it because there are alternate stores for the person to go to.
So if we take that analogy to say iOS = town and App Store = Magazine Store, the owner the Magazine store also controls the town and restricts other stores that might compete with it. Needless to say, in the real world, that would probably evoke some sort of lawsuit.
Now, if we continue with our analogy, there are certainly other "towns" that you can live in.
The problem is that Apple has set itself up as the only store.
Consider the magazine example. You own a magazine shop and you find Playboy, Penthouse, and their ilk offensive. You don't want to carry those magazines.
Well, of course, you have every right to not carry them. However, it's likely that if you don't carry them, those customers who would buy those magazines will stop buying all their magazines from you. After all, a customer isn't going to buy Field & Stream and Guns & Ammo from your store and then go somewhere else to buy Playboy. They'll just go to the store that carries Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, and Playboy. If 10% of your customers buy Playboy and other magazines, you've just lost 10% of your customers. That might also factor into your decision: Is it worth losing 10% of your customers by not carrying those magazines? But, again, you have every right to make this decision.
Apple conveniently sidesteps this problem. To place Apple into the analogy, Apple owns the magazine shop and controls the zoning board so that they are the only magazine shop. Thus, they can make these decisions without fear of competition.
Well, yes and no.
From a "Free Speech" angle, I agree. While Apple certainly has the "right" to not accept anything they feel may damage their image--it's their store, after all--because they are the only store, they have an "obligation" to not judge based on content. For example, banning porn apps is bad (especially when they have a rating system already in place to keep them away from those who perhaps shouldn't be viewing such material).
Where I disagree has not so much to do with the content of the App, but the fact that it's an App at all.
When Apple first released the iPhone, the mantra was that people could make websites customized for the iPhone. Developers complained that without Flash, they were limited to what they could do. They couldn't take advantage of the various sensors available in the iPhone, etc. So Apple came out with a way for developers to write real applications. So now everybody does an App--even if all the App does is display web pages. This is where the App Store ends up getting polluted.
In my opinion, if the App doesn't do anything worthwhile that can't be done on a webpage, I'd say don't accept it. I rashly assume that this App fits the bill.
It was going to be France, UK and Italy [...]
But what about Poland? Did they forget Poland?
We aren't wanted there? Ask the protesters. They want us there.
Depends on when you ask.
At the beginning, they didn't want us there (March 2nd). Of course, once the government started using tanks, fighters, etc. the opinions kinda changed...
There's just too much going on around the world right now for everything to get the coverage it deserves.
Not sure if you're being serious...
You're right, though. Let's see...we have a choice between reporting on corruption in India or showing the umptee-umpth video of a tsunami plowing into cars and houses and pictures of things where they are not supposed to be (cars in trees, buildings in the ocean, etc.)
Gosh. Decisions, decisions...
Well, yes and no.
No, NASA shouldn't develop it's own spacecraft to go to ISS when private industry can do just as good a job for less money. We don't need another expensive manned spacecraft launch to drop a few people off at ISS.
Yes, NASA should be going beyond what private industry can do. Lagrange points, Moon, Asteroids, Mars, whatever. They should be building the craft and technology that we need to go there.
This developer reiterates that if Apple didn't specifically introduce these problems in iOS, it's aware of them now. And he says that the Mobile Safari team has indicated the issues will not be fixed. [emphasis mine]
Now I have my doubts...
the fact is nothing is being slowed down it's just using a different slower javascript engine.
FTFY
Dance, fanboi, Dance!
The "some guy" happens to be the developer who has been communicating with Apple about the problem.
Agreed. However, if you were to boost revenue by doing something crazy--you know, like raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year---you could actually afford these things.
I know, I know. We have to "starve the beast."
Which phones out there get vendor supplied updates after 3 years? Certainly not any that I've ever owned.
Nor I, I'll admit.
That said, here's the problem--especially as it relates to the iPhone: This update includes various bug fixes for the Safari browser which improve security. Yet I can't get those if I have an iPhone 3G. And it's not like I can say, "Well, I'll just use another browser" because Apple won't allow Chrome or Firefox browser in their store. So my choice is...buy another iPhone.
Don't get me wrong--I have no problem with Apple saying "Hey, you don't get any of the cool new features of iOS 4.3 on your iPhone 3G." I think it's a little tacky, but I can understand that the hardware may not be able to deal with it. Where I have the problem is that Apple isn't even sending me bug fixes for applications.
Again, I suppose it's the way of the world for software. But your car doesn't work that way--hell, I had a recall notice for my Audi a year or two ago when the car was 7 years old. And we're not talking something like brakes failing where I could have been killed. So maybe it's time for software companies to support these things for a bit longer than 2 years...
I'm sorry, but it sounds like you're suggesting that MP3's bought from Amazon can't be loaded onto an iPod... and that's just blatantly false. The Amazon download utility automatically puts the software into your iTunes library if you tell it to.
I suppose I was unclear. I apologize. Nope, that's not what I meant.
I have an iPhone. I can buy music, via my iPhone, from the iTunes Store. But I cannot do the same thing with Amazon's store because Apple won't allow it. That's, arguably, tying a monopoly product (music downloads) to a product in another market (cellular phones).
Again, I Am Not A Lawyer so there's probably somewhere I'm off-base. But, as I've said, I have a feeling that iTunes may be Apple's weak-link and I could see the DOJ or FTC calling for Apple to divest itself of iTunes.
Keep in mind, "the market" can be measured in different ways. Consider that Microsoft tried to show Apple as a competitor. The Court's response was that since Apple used PowerPC processors and not Intel processors, they were not a competitor. Microsoft was deemed to have an operating system monopoly for computers running on Intel processors, not the "Personal Computer Market."
Where Apple is vulnerable, in my opinion, is in iTunes. iTunes has a huge market share in downloadable music--I think it's something like 80%. Apple's "tying" of iTunes to their devices exclusively could be seen as monopolistic behavior. After all, how does iTunes lose if I can purchase music and download it to my Palm Pre? The answer, of course, is that iTunes doesn't lose but Apple does (in that I bought a Pre and not an iPhone). Remember that, in theory, iTunes runs at a barely break-even point. They can do that because they are supported by Apple hardware sales. How can some other music store compete? I can't log onto the Amazon MP3 music store, purchase music, and have it show up on my iPhone because Apple restricts me from doing so in order to protect their position--only their software can do this.
I think if Apple ever runs afoul of antitrust regulations, it will start there. I think Apple will end up being required to "spin-off" iTunes.
But, as the saying goes, I Am Not A Lawyer.
Well, the new iPad came out and what do we have? The Xoom - an excellent tablet, but still more expensive than the iPad and still with no Flash, the supposed "necessary" thing that was missing from the iPad.
I was in a Verizon store today (my roomate's phone decided to go wonky) and had a chance to play with the Xoom. Very impressive.
What was just as impressive was the price: $599 with two year contract.
I've said this before, but it's still fun to watch. Way back when comparing Macs and PCs, you'd always have the guy who said, "Macs are expensive! I can get a Dell for $249! The cheapest Mac is $599!" Of course, the Mac guys would always note that the Dell in question had a Pentium IV whereas the Mac in question had a Core Duo or Core 2 Duo, the Mac had faster memory, and if you specced a PC to be equal to the Mac, the price difference was nowhere near as dramatic.
Now, it's the Mac guys' turn. "Xoom is expensive! I can get an iPad 2 for $499! The Xoom is $799!" Of course, that $499 iPad 2 has half the storage, a smaller screen, and no 3G. When you spec the iPad 2 to be equivalent to the Xoom (ie, same storage, 3G, SD Card reader, HDMI output) it comes to $797--a whole $2 cheaper.
In regards to Flash, it has at least been promised for the Xoom. It has not been promised for the iPad 2.
Without Apple there would have been no iPads, no iPhones, no iPod Touches, and no MacBook pros. Without Apple, a smartphone would still look like a Blackberry and laptops would look like a cheap plastic Dell.
While I'm not sure I disagree, you're treading on questionable ground.
I have a MacBook Pro. I think it's a great laptop. But to say that, if there was no Apple, laptops wouldn't exist or would be thicker or whatever is questionable. Secondly, technology advances and I think you would have iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches. You might not have them in 2011--you might have seen them in 2015 or so. But to say that they wouldn't ever exist is questionable.
I'm sort of reminded of the Mac mini. When Apple came out with it, all the fanbois proclaimed it as Apple innovation. Of course, there had been plenty of PCs that were the size of the the Mac mini. It's just that you didn't see them from the big name companies. Because these small companies didn't have the marketing capabilities of Apple, Apple was seen as the innovator.
All that said, I think you make a good point. Apple is not afraid to try new things and to invest in them. Big name PC companies, because of their low margins, don't have the resources to make the investment in R&D. The software companies with the margins, such as Microsoft, don't necessarily have an interest in upsetting the Status Quo. But some of Apple's bravery does come from it's "near death" experience.
Yeah, I've always heard of it referred to as Cognitive Dissonance.
Think of it this way: You paid $999 for a Mac laptop when you could have spend $699 for the same laptop running Windows. Well, it must be a better laptop, right? Look! The keyboard lights up when the room is dark! See? Better.
You're somewhat correct. However, if you develop a "full screen app" (ie, one that does not have the status bar at the top of the screen), the user will not see the Location services icon.
So a game like Angry Birds could access the GPS without letting the user know.
My God...it's full of Nazis!
While I understand the sentiment, you have to make it worth my while before I'll relinquish control.
Step 1: The Automated Vehicle Lane on the Freeway.
Take out those annoying carpool lanes and replace them with "Automated Vehicle Lanes." Since the vehicles are automated, they can travel at a faster rate. So I get to work in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes. I'd sign up for that.
Step 2: DUIs
So I can go out drinking, stagger to my car, climb in and slur "Home, James!" and I don't have to worry about a DUI? I'd sign up for that.
Step 3: Cell-phone, laptop, etc. use
So I can yack on the phone while using my laptop and shave and the car takes me to work? I'd sign up for that.
Sure, I want a switch to turn it off. But after awhile, my car would spend most of it's time in auto-drive because it's just too much of a nuisance.