Not to be rude, but there are more people in the Flat Earth Society, or who can translate Klingon to Esperanto.
I like old computers, but a few hundred people is not a market for an operating system, it's a small hobby. Apple is derided as a bit player on the Macintosh, and it has around 22 million active users of Mac OS X and thousands of developers.
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s In the 80s, a new generation of graphical computers from Apple, Atari, Commodore, and NeXT--all based on the Motorola 68000 family of processors--leapt past the previous generation of 8-bit computers. That new hardware enabled more powerful software using a fully graphical user interface.
Microsoft has been in negative stories on Slashdot since 1997, and this has not resulted in any problem for the company. Don't overestimate the power of whining.
As for the iPhone, there are no major US carriers who lack a "very bad reputation." Sprint, TMobile, and Verizon are equally horrific compared to Cingular/AT&T. I've used them all. They all have horrible customer service. They all sell garbage-DRM media services, overpriced ringtones, and cheat customers with one-sided contracts and high fees while offering nothing really novel in terms of service.
Apple used its leverage to force one of them (logically the largest GSM carrier by far) to force it to deliver its Visual Voicemail, lower service prices significantly, and block all the unnecessary garbage services, allowing Apple to let users load their own music and video content. So the RIAA won't let Apple copy ringtones for free; pffft - I'd rather pick my own content than ringtones. When you deal with the devil, you can't win every concession at version 1.0.
Apple had to hold its nose to partner with AT&T just as it does in partnering with the RIAA labels, the studios, and Microsoft. In each case, Apple has pushed for its own interests, lowered prices and provided better products for consumers. Without Apple, pop music wouldn't be 99 cents, and Microsoft wouldn't have to keep cutting its prices on the Zune. We wouldn't have an iPhone, and Motorola and Nokia would be touting its basic phones that do nothing interesting at fake subsidy prices.
You can have the opinion that the iPhone doesn't do what you'd like, but it just isn't true to suggest that Apple found a bad mobile partner to lock their phone to so you would be upset.
The iPhone costs less to own for two years than really any other smartphone on the market from Verizon or Sprint. As I like to point out, the $99 Motorola Q cost around $200 more than the iPhone over two years of service... and since then Apple has dropped the iPhone's price $200. So stop harping that the iPhone is so terribly expensive. Most of the people whining about the iPhone's price tout features of the TyTn and N95, both of which retail for around $800, and are clunky piles of crap.
Apple (and every other company) is involved in lawsuits from a variety of moron customers who insist that they don't understand that their products couldn't be used underwater or swallowed or whatever. It is mostly Apple who has its frivolous ambulance chaser lawsuits paraded through the headlines, because those writers are desperate to find something scare-worthy about the company. Show me a lawsuit that has done anything but enrich lawyers. Even the states' lawsuits against Microsoft for cheating customers--while resulting in billion dollar settlements--have done very little for consumers. Some people got back a $100 or so on their purchases of thousands. It's only attorneys who make any money on the vast majority of these class action cases.
Do you really think that the woman suing Apple for a million dollars because "her market for reselling the iPhone doesn't exist anymore" will prevail? Why not sue the car makers for making a product that devalues by 50% when you drive it off the lot? It's all tripe and you know it, you're just fostering false information. Like Mike Elgan.
Arrogance Unleashed: The Foul Stench of Computerworld's Mike ElganMike Elgan, a former editor of Windows Magazine, has recently gone on an anti-Apple rampage, posting countless articles on why users should torment themselves with fear, doubt, and uncertainty about Apple. Elgan's desperation is so overreaching that it is, like Rob Enderle, an embarrassment even to Windows Enthusiasts.
Microsoft earlier tried to push VC-1 on standard DVDs; it would make a lot of sense for consumers to deliver AVC on DVD. It would not do much for producers and studios however, because DVDs are already easy to rip and the format is falling in price. Once "good enough" movie downloads start, the ability to market HD discs will become far harder, just as MP3s killed any real market for SACD/DVD-A.
That sounds good but isn't really accurate. NeXT was indeed based upon BSD, but didn't run an open source program, and didn't need to because BSD wasn't GPL. Microsoft used BSD's network stack, but didn't release anything because it similarly didn't need to do so. NeXT used BSD because it worked.
When Apple bought NeXT, it was already hosting some limited open source projects, including MkLinux from early 1996. That was a GPL project hosting the Linux kernel + GNU on top of the OSF microkernel (with some similarities to Mach+BSD). To suggest that Apple had to buy NeXT nearly a year later to get any interest in open source is therefore simply wrong.
Further, after Apple acquired NeXT, it had no obligation to release anything in NeXT's portfolio. Apple actually continued its own unrelated open source projects, including NetSprockets for cross platform gaming (an open source alternative to networking/input portions of DirectX, mostly rejected by the market).
Apple released the core OS of Mac OS X as Darwin in 2000, shortly before the first commercial release of Mac OS X and four years after buying NeXT. Darwin significantly improved upon NeXTSTEP 4, and updated it with a 5 years of newer code that had been released by the *BSDs. Very little of that code was under the GPL, and had Apple not decided that open source was in its own interests, it could have easily released a completely closed Mac OS X with very little work, or by simply isolating the difficult to replicate bits like GCC.
So Apple's open source programs weren't inherited from NeXT (which had none), and weren't forced by the GPL. They also weren't to irritate Microsoft, because Apple desperately needed Microsoft as a partner between 1998 and 2000. Why would Microsoft even care? MS doesn't hate open source any more than the Saudis "hate our freedom." (They hate their own freedom, remember?) Microsoft doesn't hate open source, it hates competition, and in the locked up PC monopoly, the only real competition is volunteer work.
Apple released its various code projects because they made business sense. Sometimes the code it released was to gain traction behind a strategy, such as when in opened up QuickTime Streaming Server to find interest in a product that would have otherwise died. Sometimes it's to allow developers access to code, such as with Darwin/Mac OS X. Sometimes its because good code has already been written and it makes no sense for Apple to reinvent a new wheel, such as Safari/WebKit based on KDE's KHTML.
Trying to attribute malice to Apple related to its open source projects is like hating Starbucks for trying to sell shade grown coffee. It's valid to feel righteous for hating chain stores or to have the opinion that Starbucks coffee isn't that good, but trying to vilify a big corporation when it does something decent--even if it's in its own interests--is a bit too much to have to listen to.
If the troll posting the original blurb had meant to say that Apple used open source to beat the crap out of Microsoft's OS development plans, then yes, that would be accurate. By leveraging open source, Apple can focus its efforts on things it does well, and incorporate lots of community development related to security, networking, and OS performance, which happen to be the three core competencies of the Open/Net/FreeBSD.
Your Microsoft spin: "Being able to play MP3s wouldn't do any good if the world could only obtain pop music from iTunes on a rental basis, and DVDs only came with FairPlay encrypted video, and CDs became vehicles for AAC with FairPlay rather than raw AIFF data."
Except that Apple doesn't sell Janus-like DRM that expires content (no iTunes rentals like all the Napster/Rhapsody Microsoft WMA stores) and never made any deals to push FairPlay on DVD (as Microsoft did, ever hear of WM9 DVDs? Terminator 2?) and didn't set its sights on deploying a monoculture of WMA in the model of Microsoft's PC monopoly.
It's tiring to hear from morons who weren't paying attention in 2004 when the shills were all jizzing themselves over a world locked up tight by Windows Media and policed by Bill Gates' Palladium hardware. Trying to suggest iTunes is anything similar just highlights your ignorance of what happen when you were apparently not paying any attention. Go read CNET archives from 2001-2005.
Apple doesn't have to license FairPlay, because it doesn't run a purportedly open media platform. It sells a device, and sells content for it. That system does not lock out anyone else from selling their own device and selling content, and the fact that Apple is kicking Microsofts ass doesn't make that any different. Apple no more has a monopoly in music than Sony had in Walkmen or Nintendo had in gaming. Apple has lots of large competitors, and does not have exclusive contracts with content providers. Again, your ignorance of the issues is astounding.
Apple's shareholders need new customers to buy its products. Microsoft's shareholder need Microsoft to maintain its dominance of the market. Not the same thing.
"It's no better than Microsoft."
Obviously, you're not a shareholder.
Forbes' Fake Steve Jobs Is Also Fake On Apple Daniel Lyons is the author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog and a columnist at Forbes. After developing a reputation for attacking bloggers, open source, and any alternatives to Microsoft, Lyons has shed his skin to escape from one scandal while at the same time squirming into position to choke the truth out of his next victim: Apple.
Yes anonymous coward, I get lots of ad revenue from my Amazon links and free iTunes badge. I am rolling in dough from Diggtards, because there's such a high value in compiling facts and writing free reports.
The real monetization of Diggtards comes from sites like engadget and gizmodo, which post three lines of sassy comments and supposition based on a photo, then print a retraction the next day, and get two waves of Diggtards voting both of them up into 2000 Diggs, without any effort expended at all. Diggtards don't read, they just comment on comments of comments, much like yourself. They have no real opinions, they only repeat things that sound good without thinking.
I hear the head Diggtard says the new iPhone will have two batteries, one for the phone, another for the music player. And will work on every network. Sounds good. You heard it on Digg.
Yes there are driver issues with Vista, but the biggest complaints I see are from users who don't see the value of slowing down everything in order to deliver the Aero glass effects. Vista delivers Microsoft's first version of WPF, which is similar to Mac OS X's first version of Quartz back in 2001: entirely new and not entirely optimized. The only difference it that graphics compositing isn't novel in 2007.
When WGA crashed and turned off the features of the few Vista users who were trying to be happy with their purchase, it had the side effect of revealing that Vista's premium features were eating up significant resources, and simply turning them off made the system far more usable.
WGA the Dog: Microsoft's DRM Failure Earns Zoon Nomination One disadvantage to Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage DRM program--which forces Windows users to verify their software as "not-stolen" in order to receive certain patches and updates, including Internet Explorer 7--is that Microsoft's WGA server is not as highly reliable as Microsoft likes to advertise.
I say "Vista is XP with a new theme, plus DRM support for the dying HD-DVD, and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF) and Cocoa (.Net)."
And you ignore "and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF)" to tell me Vista's "brand new rendering engine is a new "theme" as much as the OSX interface is a new "theme" for OS9. They're quite analogous in terms of changes made. Feel free to complain how MS ripped Apple on that one, at least it'll be more accurate" ?
You then tell me I'm stupid for comparing Quartz to WPF? And then back track to say that Shadow Copy is analogous to Time Machine? Wow.
Shadow Copy is an API designed to allow administrators to perform incremental backups. It has offered no real UI in previous versions of Windows. In my experience, it doesn't even work very well.
Time Machine is a hard link back service for creating local backups to a disk, with much of its value coming from its interface, which is usable by even non-technical people. Time Machine also does lots of things a regular backup system can't do, such as restoring individual contacts, emails, or other items from a collection, or include backed up items as results for Spotlight file system queries (search back in time). It does all this without an army of IT staff rushing in to help you out.
Time Machine is no clone of Shadow Copy, however much Paul Thurrott and other giddy Windows Enthusiasts might like it to be. Comparing Time Machine to Shadow Copy is like comparing all of Mac OS X to the Linux kernel; it might make you feel smart to say, but it makes no sense.
That's your Miss Carolina. Feel free to critique what I say, because I do make mistakes, but come armed with some facts.
NT 3 = first version 1994 NT 4 = second half of the 90s NT 5 = Windows 2000 NT 5.1 = XP 2001 NT 6 = Vista 2007 NT 7 = Seven 2015
So even Microsoft fails to agree with your assessment that Vista is more than a significant retooling of Windows XP. Suggesting that Microsoft has accomplished more to deliver Vista that Apple has to deliver several generations of Mac OS X is particularly comical given that most of the significant features in Vista were copied wholesale from Mac OS X, including its new graphic engine and the fundamentals of its development frameworks.
Of course, Microsoft based its earlier GDI graphics model on Apple's QuickDraw a half decade after Apple released it, so copying Quartz a half decade later for Vista is to be expected.
If Vista runs so well on 7 year old PCs, why are so many consumers demanding to roll back to XP on their brand new ones? What, don't tell me.
Ann Coulter is a hateful, evil-defending shell of a person who can't discuss issues or facts and prefers to slink along instead by making cowardly, groundless accusations and calling here enemies names.
I'm not the Ann Coulter in our relationship, Mr Anonymous Coward.
Not every PC in 2001 had "Designed for Windows XP" stickers. Wonder why?
"Barely running" and "no problem running" could overlap depending on your level of Windows Enthusiasm.
Windows XP had major and significant problems until SP2 in 2004.
Vista came out in 2007 (technically 2006). Do PCs from 2007 have no problem running Vista?
To reliably run Windows with features on par with 2005's Mac OS X Tiger, wait for Vista Service Pack 2 in 2010, or perhaps Seven in 2013, or Seven SP2 in 2016.
Is that because you're not using it yet? I see a lot of people complaining about Leopard, but I've been using it since June, and I can't imagine going back.
Leopard is as great of a jump from Tiger as Tiger was from Panther. Nice refinements everywhere, significant new apps and features like Spaces/Time Machine, major improvements to Mail/iCal/Safari/Quicktime/iChat, lots of major improvements under the hood that will propel third party development, including Core Animation.
Vista is XP with a new theme, plus DRM support for the dying HD-DVD, and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF) and Cocoa (.Net).
Leopard makes modern machines more usable. Trying to use it on a sub-800 Mhz G4 (which would include Powerbooks and iMacs prior to 2002, or PowerMacs from before 2001) might be unreasonable. Those machines are now over a half decade old. PCs from 2001 would barely run XP, let alone Vista.
The summary is wrong - it confuses "less than 800 MHz G4s" with "non G5s." There are more than a half decade of G4 Macs that will run Leopard.
You can invent all the prices you want, but I outlined a real comparison in my articles the detailed the software costs involved.
Quibble about what Dell features you like, but the hardware isn't really different. The Microsoft licensing is. It is outrageously expensive once you pay for all the hidden costs. That's why Windows Enthusiasts lie about it.
You're quick to mutter about how I'm wrong about a lot of things, but you can't point anything out. Typical of those without a foundation to stand upon.
Consider a $5000 Apple Xserve and a similarly priced, similarly equipped Dell.
Apple bundles a copy of Mac OS X Server Unlimited with the hardware at no cost; bought alone, it would cost $999. Including or not including the software would make no difference in price. Apple could sell you an Xserve with no software and it would still cost $5000.
Dell does not include a free copy of Windows Server or Exchange Server, nor the client access licenses required. Dell has to buy these from Microsoft and resell them. So in addition to your $5000 Dell server, you have to buy two server products and 100 CALs for each, which totals $10,000 in software licensing.
Apple's $5000 server, for any number of users, costs $5000.
Dell's $5000 server costs $5000 plus $10,000 of Microsoft software to support 100 users = $15,000.
Dell can sell you a $5000 server with Linux (or without anything) for $5000.
Think about that for a while. Now consider desktops. Dell has to buy a Windows license to sell a desktop PC. It probably pays around $30 for each OEM license, a low price it gets because it is locked into a secret deal with a monopoly provider. If it advertises other operating systems in its ads, it loses its premiere partner standing with Microsoft and has to pay more for each PC it sells. If users had to buy their OS separately, the automatic $15 Billion Microsoft rakes in from Windows, almost entirely from OEM deals, would be opened up to a free market, and Linux and Mac OS X could compete.
You know nothing about Apple or why it does what it does. The reason Apple competes as it does now is largely influenced by the existing condition of the market. There is no functional market for PC operating systems. If there were, Apple's business would change.
If you think Microsoft would maintain its monopoly if there was a free market in PC software, you haven't been paying attention.
It wouldn't save you anything, as Apple doesn't pay itself to put Mac OS X on its Macs. "Unbundling" it would only allow you to obtain Windows or Linux to run on it, which you can already do (although not at the Windows OEM price).
Unbundling on a Dell or HP computer would mean consumers wouldn't be forced to pay for Windows if they didn't want it, because all PC makers pay Microsoft for Windows. That would cut Microsoft's air supply. Nobody with the option to pay $400 for Windows Vista Ultimatum, $200 for XP, $129 for Mac OS X, or nothing for Linux would buy Windows.
Apple hasn't entered the OEM PC market because it has no way to compete against Microsoft's OEM contracts, which charge vendors more if they make any mention of alternative operating systems or fail to publish the "we recommend Windows" mantra in their ads. Imagine how Mac OS X would rip Microsoft in half, and how Linux would eat up most of both halves.
No more 81% profit margins on sales of half decade old OS software from Microsoft; the company would dry up and blow away in two years.
You wrote too much to read, but you've mischaracterize what I said so I'll correct that.
When I said "it also looks like the OS X architecture wasn't designed from the start to accommodate open development, so providing open access now is not just a matter of letting people in but in making sure the system can handle it," I was referring to the fact that apps on the iPhone appear to all run in the same security context as the same user. That means an errant 3rd party app can not only cause problems, but also can read all your data. That's a can-of-worms problem that indicates the iPhone isn't going to open up anytime soon. It is not a flattering observation.
So after you put your third party mobile Quicken financial software on the iPhone, and then you load some third party game you found on the interweb, and find that Russians are selling your data to Korean hackers via your own WiFi connection, and yes that would make Apple look bad. To prevent that, Apple doesn't currently let you operate outside the known security context of a web session.
Expecting Apple to deliver the iPhone as 'more than a product' within six months is unreasonable. It could have copied Windows Mobile/Palm/Symbian to deliver its own unique platform, but it wouldn't be able to deliver it as quickly (a lot more work than just delivering a closed iPhone) and would then have to maintain every app ever written (imagine the cost of certifying them) and make sure it outlined a stable API. Apple's making rapid changes and defining the iPhone as it goes. It's only been out for three months!
Microsoft can dump out a horrible public API as it did with WinCE 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc and Gartner will continue to recommend people consume it. But Apple was hounded when hackers discovered flaws in its web API that were based on third party open software libraries. Apple has to meet a standard far higher than Microsoft.
I mentioned the market for Ajax apps because it takes time to deliver products. If there was a consuming demand for iPhone software, why aren't there any Ajax apps? Remember too that in 1984, Mac software didn't start coming out for a year after it launched, and nothing revolutionary came out until the killer apps in 1986. How long was Mac OS X out before lots of serious apps appeared for it, 2-3 years? Expecting an instant mature platform for the iPhone is silly. And mobiles are very different from desktop PCs. There's no market for $100 mobile apps, as there is for commercial desktop software. It's a different market. So Apple should drop its plans to cater to a shareware/hobbyist market? That's what OpenMoko is for.
I think your position that Apple "just open the phone" because you'd like a wide open platform is unreasonable, and attacking me for discussing the issues involved doesn't prove your point at all.
The article you refer to was pointing out Apple's motivations, not describing why any of it was "desirable to me." I pointed that out very clearly in the article. I'm not advocating the iPhone stay an appliance because Apple Says It Should, but rather looking at the subject rationally rather than emotionally. I don't make money selling software, so I have a different outlook than many developers who feel shut out. I understand why Shipley describes his position as he does. I'm also an iPhone user, so I have no reason to want its capacity to be limited artificially. I gain nothing from a closed iPhone platform, so calling me a "shill" for describing it as a likely event is nonsensical.
I have also repeatedly questioned Apple pointedly on a variety of subjects, and was among the first people to pin down Steve Jobs in public on the issue of third party software for the iPhone and the needs of companies who want to offer customized or vertical solutions for it. I don't think anyone really stopped and asked Jobs about it before in front of journalists the way I did, and few journalists present even covered it.
It is unfair to start personal attacks on my character because you disagree
Apple users pay for software, not plastic. Compare the volumes of plastic in the clunky Zune to the iPods; clearly, plastic buyers would go for the Zune, and pay more to do so.
And when you say elite, are you talking about the Xbox 360 Elite, which charges you more for an HDMI connector, but doesn't even include WiFi? Or the Zune Halo, which has a painting on it? Or the Ultimatum version of Vista, which delivers Media Center features for the price of an Apple TV, without the hardware?
It's the Windows Enthusiasts who paid for Microsoft's 81% profit margins buying copies of the half decade old Windows XP last year. Sounds like the foolish customers are those that didn't get a Mac.
No I'm saying you're unreasonable in demanding that Apple more than match Microsoft's abilities in the last ten years of its futile WinCE development within just six months of iPhone sales. Well, more than match... or perhaps 'exceed in every way possible.' Apple does have limited resources.
Apple doesn't make 81% profit margins from sales of half decade old software, as Microsoft reports in its earning statements. Perhaps Windows users are the real chumps, paying a premium to run old software laden with WGA spyware, unwelcomed auto-updates, and donating 25% of their processing power to run antivirus software because Windows will fall apart and make a mess without tightly fastened diapers.
Am I a slave for running out to pay $600 for a phone that does everything I want the way I want it to work, and saving myself several hundred dollars over the cost of buying a less capable Windows Mobile phone that technically "runs third party software," of which 90% of is worthless, overpriced garbage, and ties me to a CDMA2000 plan that only works in the US, and only on Verizon? Or only on Sprint?
Oh, and I got $100 back. When has Microsoft done that?
Think about that as you play your $600 xbox elite and its $50 games, or your $4000 gamer PC which you invest a $1000 of new video card hardware into every year. I don't complain about your spending, so don't fantasize sexual violence just because I bought a phone I'm happy with.
Why would Creative omit support for open standards? Because as a licensee to Windows Media hardware and software, Microsoft would have the leverage to demand it.
You might as well wonder out loud why PC makers don't offer free operating systems on their PCs, since it would please customers and offer attractive options to Windows.
Have any PC makers worried too much about alienating consumers? No, they're only worried about pushing whatever Microsoft sells them. Look how many failures they've trotted out with enthusiastic backing, from Handheld PC to PocketPC to UMPC to Mira to Media2Go and PlaysForSure. They just keep lining up for more poorly conceived, Microsoft-centric ideas that aren't very good. None of them have innovated much on their own, whether Creative/Rio on the music end or HP/Dell/Samsumg/etc on the PC side.
You give a good example of hardware makers ready to support the broadcast flag, unaware of what that means for consumers. What about the really outrageous levels of DRM being pushed in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, or even what came with DVD? Every generation of tech gets worse and more restricted, and more expensive.
Remember that nobody believed that the iPod would make a big difference back in 2001, because Microsoft was fated to rule the world with Windows Media. And now the Windows Enthusiasts are all lined up to agree amongst themselves what a bad thing it might be to have a real rival to Microsoft, able to line up content and offer it for cheaper.
Microsoft needs all the competition it can get, and if it has to face a music business dominated by Apple and a mobile smartphone business dominated by Symbian, let's not weep too long for the company that screwed us through the 90s with its monopoly in PC operating systems and desktop software, and then worked to destroy the web and media downloads and set up a Palladium police force to cage us in little DRM boxes.
I'm not getting religious, I'm simply pointing out that Creative had absolutely no motivation to set up an independent, competing effort against WMA. It pushed WMA-DRM subscriptions and exploding media because Microsoft invented it, just as the PC makers all went along with every version of Windows. Dell never threatened to compete against Windows ME, it simply shipped it out. Same as Creative.
Being able to play MP3s wouldn't do any good if the world could only obtain pop music from WMA stores on a rental basis, and DVDs only came with WM video (which MS was pioneering with Disney), and CDs became vehicles for WMA rather than raw AIFF data.
Apple didn't shoot down WMA because it was the Right Thing To Do, but because a world of Windows Media content would not be compatible with the Mac, and Apple would be left at the mercy of MS for licensing its iTunes playback. Apple wanted an open standard licensed in a non discriminatory fashion.
So Apple sold music in AAC, which is cheaper to license than MP3, and devised a simple DRM system that is easy to work around, allowing anyone who buys AAC-protected music to remove the protection. WMA is designed to be far more difficult to crack, and far easier to patch.
It happens that Apple's own best interests are aligned with consumers. Microsoft's partners are aligned with Microsoft's interests, because Microsoft runs an operation that only follows its own best interests. It just happens that Microsoft's bests interests are not aligned with consumers' best interests.
Apple can do wrong, it just doesn't do as wrong as Microsoft, and no complaining on your part about me pointing out reality changes that fact.
RIM's BlackBerry runs a proprietary OS with an extremely simplistic development environment. It's like comparing a DOS app to an object oriented development framework for a graphical desktop = no comparison.
We blame Windows for bugs, instability, and security problems related to problems that are often related to third party software. Flacks and shills are already attacking the iPhone for imagined issues that might arise from third party development. Remember how the browser was potentially "hacked" giving "full access to sending your personal information to China and/or terrorists"?
Imagine what might happen if anyone could actually control the iPhone. Nothing but Rob Enderle, Bill Thompson, John Dvorak, and Alan Kay and all day long warning us about what terrible things might happen.
Which is why Apple dropped the price of the iPhone to $399, when it could have continued to sell millions at $600. The iPhone was already cheaper than other phones when the cost of service was included. It cost nearly $200 less than the "$99" Motorola Q after two years of mobile service. It's now nearly $400 less than the Q, which is far inferior in every way.
We have yet to see what third party software is going to get delivered. Clearly, its in Shipley's interests to have open access to the iPhone, and I'm sure he could deliver so really cool apps. At the same time, it also looks like the OS X architecture wasn't designed from the start to accommodate open development, so providing open access now is not just a matter of "letting people in," but in making sure the system can handle it.
It's a bit like people waiting in line at a busy restaurant. They see open tables and bitch because they think they should be seated immediately, but if they were, they'd be complaining about the service being slow and the kitchen being backed up. It's easy to run multibillion dollar operations from the safety of home, but Apple seems to be doing a good job of actually delivering real technology.
If developers really wanted to impress us with their work, why haven't we seen very many web apps tuned for the iPhone like Facebook's iphone.facebook.com ? That app demonstrates what can be done, and is pretty impressive. If they can't master regular AJAX, why are they demanding to have open inside access to the yet unfinished iPhone OS X 1.0.2 system? Apple doesn't even have its own apps done yet; its waiting on Leopard to deliver iCal/Notes integration.
It took Microsoft ten years to deliver its mobile platform, and its still a steaming pile of crap. Windows Enthusiasts are saying the iPhone can't do revocation, but that's a laugh because Windows Mobile 5 can't even remote erase Flash RAM cards. Since WM phones don't have enough RAM on them to do anything, users have all their content (and "company secrets") on Flash RAM cards that the IT staff can't remotely wipe anyway. WM is a joke. WM apps are a joke. WM phones are a joke.
Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone outlined the rationale behind the strategy driving Apple's software plans for its new mobile. At the same time, it's important to take a reasonable appraisal of the iPhone's supposedly closed nature. While Apple is unlikely to open up the iPhone in the same sense as the Mac anytime soon, it is already an open platform in ways that matter. How Closed Is the iPhone? and How Open will the iPhone Get?
"If you think that people would pay $2.50 for a track, you would be wrong."
Ever hear about the multibillion dollar ringtone business? Sprint charges $2.50 for a song CLIP that expires after a few months. Verizon charges $3 for the same thing, but they last for a whole year. Verizon uses Microsoft's DRM to accomplish this.
Had the music industry not been blindsided by Apple's iPod, your Creative Zen and the rest of the Microsoft PlaysForSure players would have weened the world off MP3s years ago and made certain that all commercial popular music was only available in WMA format, which expired at the content providers whim, and was offered for sale at whatever price the high end of the market might bear.
As for comparing the Mac to the Zune, go back to math class and learn about how percentages are not comparable between numbers. The Zune claims ~3% of the US retail MP3 player market. Apple has 3% of the worldwide market for all servers/desktop computers, a market that is 70 times larger. That's why Apple still makes more money from its 3% share in PCs than its 70% share in players with the iPod.
Also notice that Apple just grabbed 1.5% of the smartphone market in its debut month, outselling every other model, eclipsing Palm entirely, nearly matching RIM, and biting out a chunk roughly half of Microsoft's entire Windows Mobile licensee pool.
You might like your Creative Zen, but the company is only a follower behind Microsoft, and supported the plan to homogenize the world being one absolute DRM dictator. It's in your own interests that Apple kicked Microsoft's ass, because otherwise your CDs would have WMA files on them and the only download stores would be Urge and Walmart and other MediaNet supplied DRM subscriptions.
Forbes Prints Insanely Self Serving Attack on iTunes by MediaNet CEO Alan McGlade Forbes, best known to many readers as the soapbox Daniel Lyons used to promote--perhaps unwittingly--a pro-Microsoft agenda backing SCO and vilifying Linux and open source, has taken another opportunity to present outrageously false information serving the interests of Microsoft: an impassioned outcry of rage over the success of iTunes.
The TyTN is also a foot thick. I'm sure Apple could give users a strap on battery pack to last longer, but users want a phone the size of a phone, not one that's too big to fit in a pocket.
Seriously, take your TyTN and shave off a 13.5mm wafer - that's what an iPhone looks like, but in a metal case instead of a cheap flimsy Zune box.
Forbes Prints Insanely Self Serving Attack on iTunes by MediaNet CEO Alan McGlade Forbes, best known to many readers as the soapbox Daniel Lyons used to promote--perhaps unwittingly--a pro-Microsoft agenda backing SCO and vilifying Linux and open source, has taken another opportunity to present outrageously false information serving the interests of Microsoft: an impassioned outcry of rage over the success of iTunes.
The iPhone delivers software that simply blows the N95 away. It also has WiFi, which is far faster than 3G. Even so, I'd rather have a phone I like that requires me to bathe in WiFi for top speed than a highly-featured N95 that requires me to juggle spare batteries to actually use any of its features. If you prefer the N95, knock yourself out, but don't complain that everyone who doesn't agree is wrong.
Apple does make money from its service contracts. It does not make anything close to 40% of those revenues however. That's a myth.
Apple is being investigated over the contracts of music labels. Jobs has laid out that he would much rather set up one EU store and charge one price (obviously) but the territorial European labels refuse to allow it. Trying to suggest that the claims against Apple's music stores is in any way similar to the monopolistic Microsoft, convicted repeatedly and internationally for cheating customers, defrauding partners, and erecting artificial barriers to fair competition--is silly.
Ripping CDs is not the same thing as burning a CD from your purchased iTunes tracks. If that's illegal, your problem isn't Apple, it's your own F-ed up country.
BBC's Bill Thompson Hates Being Fingered As a Fraud In response to the article "BBC Prints Irresponsible Rubbish on Apple," Bill Thompson wrote me explaining that he didn't like being called out on his errors. However, he failed to explain how he was accurate in his rambling diatribe assailing Apple as equal to Microsoft in anticompetitive, market monopolizing behavior.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be rude, but there are more people in the Flat Earth Society, or who can translate Klingon to Esperanto.
I like old computers, but a few hundred people is not a market for an operating system, it's a small hobby. Apple is derided as a bit player on the Macintosh, and it has around 22 million active users of Mac OS X and thousands of developers.
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s
In the 80s, a new generation of graphical computers from Apple, Atari, Commodore, and NeXT--all based on the Motorola 68000 family of processors--leapt past the previous generation of 8-bit computers. That new hardware enabled more powerful software using a fully graphical user interface.
Microsoft has been in negative stories on Slashdot since 1997, and this has not resulted in any problem for the company. Don't overestimate the power of whining.
As for the iPhone, there are no major US carriers who lack a "very bad reputation." Sprint, TMobile, and Verizon are equally horrific compared to Cingular/AT&T. I've used them all. They all have horrible customer service. They all sell garbage-DRM media services, overpriced ringtones, and cheat customers with one-sided contracts and high fees while offering nothing really novel in terms of service.
Apple used its leverage to force one of them (logically the largest GSM carrier by far) to force it to deliver its Visual Voicemail, lower service prices significantly, and block all the unnecessary garbage services, allowing Apple to let users load their own music and video content. So the RIAA won't let Apple copy ringtones for free; pffft - I'd rather pick my own content than ringtones. When you deal with the devil, you can't win every concession at version 1.0.
Apple had to hold its nose to partner with AT&T just as it does in partnering with the RIAA labels, the studios, and Microsoft. In each case, Apple has pushed for its own interests, lowered prices and provided better products for consumers. Without Apple, pop music wouldn't be 99 cents, and Microsoft wouldn't have to keep cutting its prices on the Zune. We wouldn't have an iPhone, and Motorola and Nokia would be touting its basic phones that do nothing interesting at fake subsidy prices.
You can have the opinion that the iPhone doesn't do what you'd like, but it just isn't true to suggest that Apple found a bad mobile partner to lock their phone to so you would be upset.
The iPhone costs less to own for two years than really any other smartphone on the market from Verizon or Sprint. As I like to point out, the $99 Motorola Q cost around $200 more than the iPhone over two years of service... and since then Apple has dropped the iPhone's price $200. So stop harping that the iPhone is so terribly expensive. Most of the people whining about the iPhone's price tout features of the TyTn and N95, both of which retail for around $800, and are clunky piles of crap.
Apple (and every other company) is involved in lawsuits from a variety of moron customers who insist that they don't understand that their products couldn't be used underwater or swallowed or whatever. It is mostly Apple who has its frivolous ambulance chaser lawsuits paraded through the headlines, because those writers are desperate to find something scare-worthy about the company. Show me a lawsuit that has done anything but enrich lawyers. Even the states' lawsuits against Microsoft for cheating customers--while resulting in billion dollar settlements--have done very little for consumers. Some people got back a $100 or so on their purchases of thousands. It's only attorneys who make any money on the vast majority of these class action cases.
Do you really think that the woman suing Apple for a million dollars because "her market for reselling the iPhone doesn't exist anymore" will prevail? Why not sue the car makers for making a product that devalues by 50% when you drive it off the lot? It's all tripe and you know it, you're just fostering false information. Like Mike Elgan.
Arrogance Unleashed: The Foul Stench of Computerworld's Mike ElganMike Elgan, a former editor of Windows Magazine, has recently gone on an anti-Apple rampage, posting countless articles on why users should torment themselves with fear, doubt, and uncertainty about Apple. Elgan's desperation is so overreaching that it is, like Rob Enderle, an embarrassment even to Windows Enthusiasts.
Microsoft earlier tried to push VC-1 on standard DVDs; it would make a lot of sense for consumers to deliver AVC on DVD. It would not do much for producers and studios however, because DVDs are already easy to rip and the format is falling in price. Once "good enough" movie downloads start, the ability to market HD discs will become far harder, just as MP3s killed any real market for SACD/DVD-A.
Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
Blu-ray vs HD-DVD in Next Generation Game Consoles
That sounds good but isn't really accurate. NeXT was indeed based upon BSD, but didn't run an open source program, and didn't need to because BSD wasn't GPL. Microsoft used BSD's network stack, but didn't release anything because it similarly didn't need to do so. NeXT used BSD because it worked.
When Apple bought NeXT, it was already hosting some limited open source projects, including MkLinux from early 1996. That was a GPL project hosting the Linux kernel + GNU on top of the OSF microkernel (with some similarities to Mach+BSD). To suggest that Apple had to buy NeXT nearly a year later to get any interest in open source is therefore simply wrong.
Further, after Apple acquired NeXT, it had no obligation to release anything in NeXT's portfolio. Apple actually continued its own unrelated open source projects, including NetSprockets for cross platform gaming (an open source alternative to networking/input portions of DirectX, mostly rejected by the market).
Apple released the core OS of Mac OS X as Darwin in 2000, shortly before the first commercial release of Mac OS X and four years after buying NeXT. Darwin significantly improved upon NeXTSTEP 4, and updated it with a 5 years of newer code that had been released by the *BSDs. Very little of that code was under the GPL, and had Apple not decided that open source was in its own interests, it could have easily released a completely closed Mac OS X with very little work, or by simply isolating the difficult to replicate bits like GCC.
So Apple's open source programs weren't inherited from NeXT (which had none), and weren't forced by the GPL. They also weren't to irritate Microsoft, because Apple desperately needed Microsoft as a partner between 1998 and 2000. Why would Microsoft even care? MS doesn't hate open source any more than the Saudis "hate our freedom." (They hate their own freedom, remember?) Microsoft doesn't hate open source, it hates competition, and in the locked up PC monopoly, the only real competition is volunteer work.
Apple released its various code projects because they made business sense. Sometimes the code it released was to gain traction behind a strategy, such as when in opened up QuickTime Streaming Server to find interest in a product that would have otherwise died. Sometimes it's to allow developers access to code, such as with Darwin/Mac OS X. Sometimes its because good code has already been written and it makes no sense for Apple to reinvent a new wheel, such as Safari/WebKit based on KDE's KHTML.
Trying to attribute malice to Apple related to its open source projects is like hating Starbucks for trying to sell shade grown coffee. It's valid to feel righteous for hating chain stores or to have the opinion that Starbucks coffee isn't that good, but trying to vilify a big corporation when it does something decent--even if it's in its own interests--is a bit too much to have to listen to.
If the troll posting the original blurb had meant to say that Apple used open source to beat the crap out of Microsoft's OS development plans, then yes, that would be accurate. By leveraging open source, Apple can focus its efforts on things it does well, and incorporate lots of community development related to security, networking, and OS performance, which happen to be the three core competencies of the Open/Net/FreeBSD.
Apple's Open Source Assault
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source
Your Microsoft spin: "Being able to play MP3s wouldn't do any good if the world could only obtain pop music from iTunes on a rental basis, and DVDs only came with FairPlay encrypted video, and CDs became vehicles for AAC with FairPlay rather than raw AIFF data."
Except that Apple doesn't sell Janus-like DRM that expires content (no iTunes rentals like all the Napster/Rhapsody Microsoft WMA stores) and never made any deals to push FairPlay on DVD (as Microsoft did, ever hear of WM9 DVDs? Terminator 2?) and didn't set its sights on deploying a monoculture of WMA in the model of Microsoft's PC monopoly.
It's tiring to hear from morons who weren't paying attention in 2004 when the shills were all jizzing themselves over a world locked up tight by Windows Media and policed by Bill Gates' Palladium hardware. Trying to suggest iTunes is anything similar just highlights your ignorance of what happen when you were apparently not paying any attention. Go read CNET archives from 2001-2005.
Apple doesn't have to license FairPlay, because it doesn't run a purportedly open media platform. It sells a device, and sells content for it. That system does not lock out anyone else from selling their own device and selling content, and the fact that Apple is kicking Microsofts ass doesn't make that any different. Apple no more has a monopoly in music than Sony had in Walkmen or Nintendo had in gaming. Apple has lots of large competitors, and does not have exclusive contracts with content providers. Again, your ignorance of the issues is astounding.
Apple's shareholders need new customers to buy its products. Microsoft's shareholder need Microsoft to maintain its dominance of the market. Not the same thing.
"It's no better than Microsoft."
Obviously, you're not a shareholder.
Forbes' Fake Steve Jobs Is Also Fake On Apple
Daniel Lyons is the author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog and a columnist at Forbes. After developing a reputation for attacking bloggers, open source, and any alternatives to Microsoft, Lyons has shed his skin to escape from one scandal while at the same time squirming into position to choke the truth out of his next victim: Apple.
Yes anonymous coward, I get lots of ad revenue from my Amazon links and free iTunes badge. I am rolling in dough from Diggtards, because there's such a high value in compiling facts and writing free reports.
The real monetization of Diggtards comes from sites like engadget and gizmodo, which post three lines of sassy comments and supposition based on a photo, then print a retraction the next day, and get two waves of Diggtards voting both of them up into 2000 Diggs, without any effort expended at all. Diggtards don't read, they just comment on comments of comments, much like yourself. They have no real opinions, they only repeat things that sound good without thinking.
I hear the head Diggtard says the new iPhone will have two batteries, one for the phone, another for the music player. And will work on every network. Sounds good. You heard it on Digg.
Yes there are driver issues with Vista, but the biggest complaints I see are from users who don't see the value of slowing down everything in order to deliver the Aero glass effects. Vista delivers Microsoft's first version of WPF, which is similar to Mac OS X's first version of Quartz back in 2001: entirely new and not entirely optimized. The only difference it that graphics compositing isn't novel in 2007.
When WGA crashed and turned off the features of the few Vista users who were trying to be happy with their purchase, it had the side effect of revealing that Vista's premium features were eating up significant resources, and simply turning them off made the system far more usable.
WGA the Dog: Microsoft's DRM Failure Earns Zoon Nomination
One disadvantage to Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage DRM program--which forces Windows users to verify their software as "not-stolen" in order to receive certain patches and updates, including Internet Explorer 7--is that Microsoft's WGA server is not as highly reliable as Microsoft likes to advertise.
I say "Vista is XP with a new theme, plus DRM support for the dying HD-DVD, and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF) and Cocoa (.Net)."
And you ignore "and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF)" to tell me Vista's "brand new rendering engine is a new "theme" as much as the OSX interface is a new "theme" for OS9. They're quite analogous in terms of changes made. Feel free to complain how MS ripped Apple on that one, at least it'll be more accurate" ?
You then tell me I'm stupid for comparing Quartz to WPF? And then back track to say that Shadow Copy is analogous to Time Machine? Wow.
Shadow Copy is an API designed to allow administrators to perform incremental backups. It has offered no real UI in previous versions of Windows. In my experience, it doesn't even work very well.
Time Machine is a hard link back service for creating local backups to a disk, with much of its value coming from its interface, which is usable by even non-technical people. Time Machine also does lots of things a regular backup system can't do, such as restoring individual contacts, emails, or other items from a collection, or include backed up items as results for Spotlight file system queries (search back in time). It does all this without an army of IT staff rushing in to help you out.
Time Machine is no clone of Shadow Copy, however much Paul Thurrott and other giddy Windows Enthusiasts might like it to be. Comparing Time Machine to Shadow Copy is like comparing all of Mac OS X to the Linux kernel; it might make you feel smart to say, but it makes no sense.
That's your Miss Carolina. Feel free to critique what I say, because I do make mistakes, but come armed with some facts.
Forbes' Fake Steve Jobs Is Also Fake On Apple
"Vista is as big a change from XP as OS X 10.4 (and probably .5) is from NeXT/OPENSTEP 4."
Tiger 10.4 is not even backwardly compatible with NeXTSTEP 4.
Tiger is actually Darwin 8, with the 8 being the major succession number dating back to NeXTSTEP releases.
NS1 = 1989
NS2 = 1992
NS3 = 1993
NS4 = OPENSTEP 4.0 -- 94-96
NS5 = 10.0/10.1 2001
NS6 = Jaguar 10.2 2002
NS7 = Panther 10.3 2003
NS8 = Tiger 10.4 2005
NS9 = Leopard 10.5 2007
Vista is NT 6.0
NT 3 = first version 1994
NT 4 = second half of the 90s
NT 5 = Windows 2000
NT 5.1 = XP 2001
NT 6 = Vista 2007
NT 7 = Seven 2015
So even Microsoft fails to agree with your assessment that Vista is more than a significant retooling of Windows XP. Suggesting that Microsoft has accomplished more to deliver Vista that Apple has to deliver several generations of Mac OS X is particularly comical given that most of the significant features in Vista were copied wholesale from Mac OS X, including its new graphic engine and the fundamentals of its development frameworks.
Of course, Microsoft based its earlier GDI graphics model on Apple's QuickDraw a half decade after Apple released it, so copying Quartz a half decade later for Vista is to be expected.
If Vista runs so well on 7 year old PCs, why are so many consumers demanding to roll back to XP on their brand new ones? What, don't tell me.
Forbes' Fake Steve Jobs Is Also Fake On Apple
Ann Coulter is a hateful, evil-defending shell of a person who can't discuss issues or facts and prefers to slink along instead by making cowardly, groundless accusations and calling here enemies names.
I'm not the Ann Coulter in our relationship, Mr Anonymous Coward.
Things to consider:
Not every PC in 2001 had "Designed for Windows XP" stickers. Wonder why?
"Barely running" and "no problem running" could overlap depending on your level of Windows Enthusiasm.
Windows XP had major and significant problems until SP2 in 2004.
Vista came out in 2007 (technically 2006). Do PCs from 2007 have no problem running Vista?
To reliably run Windows with features on par with 2005's Mac OS X Tiger, wait for Vista Service Pack 2 in 2010, or perhaps Seven in 2013, or Seven SP2 in 2016.
Yes I'm kidding, but no not really so much.
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 2000s
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1980s
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1970s
Is that because you're not using it yet? I see a lot of people complaining about Leopard, but I've been using it since June, and I can't imagine going back.
Leopard is as great of a jump from Tiger as Tiger was from Panther. Nice refinements everywhere, significant new apps and features like Spaces/Time Machine, major improvements to Mail/iCal/Safari/Quicktime/iChat, lots of major improvements under the hood that will propel third party development, including Core Animation.
Vista is XP with a new theme, plus DRM support for the dying HD-DVD, and a bolted on version of Apple's Quartz (WPF) and Cocoa (.Net).
Leopard makes modern machines more usable. Trying to use it on a sub-800 Mhz G4 (which would include Powerbooks and iMacs prior to 2002, or PowerMacs from before 2001) might be unreasonable. Those machines are now over a half decade old. PCs from 2001 would barely run XP, let alone Vista.
The summary is wrong - it confuses "less than 800 MHz G4s" with "non G5s." There are more than a half decade of G4 Macs that will run Leopard.
Leopard, Vista and the iPhone OS X Architecture
You can invent all the prices you want, but I outlined a real comparison in my articles the detailed the software costs involved.
Quibble about what Dell features you like, but the hardware isn't really different. The Microsoft licensing is. It is outrageously expensive once you pay for all the hidden costs. That's why Windows Enthusiasts lie about it.
You're quick to mutter about how I'm wrong about a lot of things, but you can't point anything out. Typical of those without a foundation to stand upon.
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1990s
No you are wrong.
Consider a $5000 Apple Xserve and a similarly priced, similarly equipped Dell.
Apple bundles a copy of Mac OS X Server Unlimited with the hardware at no cost; bought alone, it would cost $999. Including or not including the software would make no difference in price. Apple could sell you an Xserve with no software and it would still cost $5000.
Dell does not include a free copy of Windows Server or Exchange Server, nor the client access licenses required. Dell has to buy these from Microsoft and resell them. So in addition to your $5000 Dell server, you have to buy two server products and 100 CALs for each, which totals $10,000 in software licensing.
Apple's $5000 server, for any number of users, costs $5000.
Dell's $5000 server costs $5000 plus $10,000 of Microsoft software to support 100 users = $15,000.
Dell can sell you a $5000 server with Linux (or without anything) for $5000.
Think about that for a while. Now consider desktops. Dell has to buy a Windows license to sell a desktop PC. It probably pays around $30 for each OEM license, a low price it gets because it is locked into a secret deal with a monopoly provider. If it advertises other operating systems in its ads, it loses its premiere partner standing with Microsoft and has to pay more for each PC it sells. If users had to buy their OS separately, the automatic $15 Billion Microsoft rakes in from Windows, almost entirely from OEM deals, would be opened up to a free market, and Linux and Mac OS X could compete.
You know nothing about Apple or why it does what it does. The reason Apple competes as it does now is largely influenced by the existing condition of the market. There is no functional market for PC operating systems. If there were, Apple's business would change.
If you think Microsoft would maintain its monopoly if there was a free market in PC software, you haven't been paying attention.
How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly
Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits
It wouldn't save you anything, as Apple doesn't pay itself to put Mac OS X on its Macs. "Unbundling" it would only allow you to obtain Windows or Linux to run on it, which you can already do (although not at the Windows OEM price).
Unbundling on a Dell or HP computer would mean consumers wouldn't be forced to pay for Windows if they didn't want it, because all PC makers pay Microsoft for Windows. That would cut Microsoft's air supply. Nobody with the option to pay $400 for Windows Vista Ultimatum, $200 for XP, $129 for Mac OS X, or nothing for Linux would buy Windows.
Apple hasn't entered the OEM PC market because it has no way to compete against Microsoft's OEM contracts, which charge vendors more if they make any mention of alternative operating systems or fail to publish the "we recommend Windows" mantra in their ads. Imagine how Mac OS X would rip Microsoft in half, and how Linux would eat up most of both halves.
No more 81% profit margins on sales of half decade old OS software from Microsoft; the company would dry up and blow away in two years.
Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits
You wrote too much to read, but you've mischaracterize what I said so I'll correct that.
When I said "it also looks like the OS X architecture wasn't designed from the start to accommodate open development, so providing open access now is not just a matter of letting people in but in making sure the system can handle it," I was referring to the fact that apps on the iPhone appear to all run in the same security context as the same user. That means an errant 3rd party app can not only cause problems, but also can read all your data. That's a can-of-worms problem that indicates the iPhone isn't going to open up anytime soon. It is not a flattering observation.
So after you put your third party mobile Quicken financial software on the iPhone, and then you load some third party game you found on the interweb, and find that Russians are selling your data to Korean hackers via your own WiFi connection, and yes that would make Apple look bad. To prevent that, Apple doesn't currently let you operate outside the known security context of a web session.
Expecting Apple to deliver the iPhone as 'more than a product' within six months is unreasonable. It could have copied Windows Mobile/Palm/Symbian to deliver its own unique platform, but it wouldn't be able to deliver it as quickly (a lot more work than just delivering a closed iPhone) and would then have to maintain every app ever written (imagine the cost of certifying them) and make sure it outlined a stable API. Apple's making rapid changes and defining the iPhone as it goes. It's only been out for three months!
Microsoft can dump out a horrible public API as it did with WinCE 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc and Gartner will continue to recommend people consume it. But Apple was hounded when hackers discovered flaws in its web API that were based on third party open software libraries. Apple has to meet a standard far higher than Microsoft.
I mentioned the market for Ajax apps because it takes time to deliver products. If there was a consuming demand for iPhone software, why aren't there any Ajax apps? Remember too that in 1984, Mac software didn't start coming out for a year after it launched, and nothing revolutionary came out until the killer apps in 1986. How long was Mac OS X out before lots of serious apps appeared for it, 2-3 years? Expecting an instant mature platform for the iPhone is silly. And mobiles are very different from desktop PCs. There's no market for $100 mobile apps, as there is for commercial desktop software. It's a different market. So Apple should drop its plans to cater to a shareware/hobbyist market? That's what OpenMoko is for.
I think your position that Apple "just open the phone" because you'd like a wide open platform is unreasonable, and attacking me for discussing the issues involved doesn't prove your point at all.
The article you refer to was pointing out Apple's motivations, not describing why any of it was "desirable to me." I pointed that out very clearly in the article. I'm not advocating the iPhone stay an appliance because Apple Says It Should, but rather looking at the subject rationally rather than emotionally. I don't make money selling software, so I have a different outlook than many developers who feel shut out. I understand why Shipley describes his position as he does. I'm also an iPhone user, so I have no reason to want its capacity to be limited artificially. I gain nothing from a closed iPhone platform, so calling me a "shill" for describing it as a likely event is nonsensical.
I have also repeatedly questioned Apple pointedly on a variety of subjects, and was among the first people to pin down Steve Jobs in public on the issue of third party software for the iPhone and the needs of companies who want to offer customized or vertical solutions for it. I don't think anyone really stopped and asked Jobs about it before in front of journalists the way I did, and few journalists present even covered it.
It is unfair to start personal attacks on my character because you disagree
Apple users pay for software, not plastic. Compare the volumes of plastic in the clunky Zune to the iPods; clearly, plastic buyers would go for the Zune, and pay more to do so.
And when you say elite, are you talking about the Xbox 360 Elite, which charges you more for an HDMI connector, but doesn't even include WiFi? Or the Zune Halo, which has a painting on it? Or the Ultimatum version of Vista, which delivers Media Center features for the price of an Apple TV, without the hardware?
It's the Windows Enthusiasts who paid for Microsoft's 81% profit margins buying copies of the half decade old Windows XP last year. Sounds like the foolish customers are those that didn't get a Mac.
Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits
No I'm saying you're unreasonable in demanding that Apple more than match Microsoft's abilities in the last ten years of its futile WinCE development within just six months of iPhone sales. Well, more than match... or perhaps 'exceed in every way possible.' Apple does have limited resources.
Apple doesn't make 81% profit margins from sales of half decade old software, as Microsoft reports in its earning statements. Perhaps Windows users are the real chumps, paying a premium to run old software laden with WGA spyware, unwelcomed auto-updates, and donating 25% of their processing power to run antivirus software because Windows will fall apart and make a mess without tightly fastened diapers.
Am I a slave for running out to pay $600 for a phone that does everything I want the way I want it to work, and saving myself several hundred dollars over the cost of buying a less capable Windows Mobile phone that technically "runs third party software," of which 90% of is worthless, overpriced garbage, and ties me to a CDMA2000 plan that only works in the US, and only on Verizon? Or only on Sprint?
Oh, and I got $100 back. When has Microsoft done that?
Think about that as you play your $600 xbox elite and its $50 games, or your $4000 gamer PC which you invest a $1000 of new video card hardware into every year. I don't complain about your spending, so don't fantasize sexual violence just because I bought a phone I'm happy with.
Microsoft's Outrageous Office Profits
WGA the Dog: Microsoft's DRM Failure Earns Zoon Nomination
Why would Creative omit support for open standards? Because as a licensee to Windows Media hardware and software, Microsoft would have the leverage to demand it.
You might as well wonder out loud why PC makers don't offer free operating systems on their PCs, since it would please customers and offer attractive options to Windows.
Have any PC makers worried too much about alienating consumers? No, they're only worried about pushing whatever Microsoft sells them. Look how many failures they've trotted out with enthusiastic backing, from Handheld PC to PocketPC to UMPC to Mira to Media2Go and PlaysForSure. They just keep lining up for more poorly conceived, Microsoft-centric ideas that aren't very good. None of them have innovated much on their own, whether Creative/Rio on the music end or HP/Dell/Samsumg/etc on the PC side.
You give a good example of hardware makers ready to support the broadcast flag, unaware of what that means for consumers. What about the really outrageous levels of DRM being pushed in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, or even what came with DVD? Every generation of tech gets worse and more restricted, and more expensive.
Remember that nobody believed that the iPod would make a big difference back in 2001, because Microsoft was fated to rule the world with Windows Media. And now the Windows Enthusiasts are all lined up to agree amongst themselves what a bad thing it might be to have a real rival to Microsoft, able to line up content and offer it for cheaper.
Microsoft needs all the competition it can get, and if it has to face a music business dominated by Apple and a mobile smartphone business dominated by Symbian, let's not weep too long for the company that screwed us through the 90s with its monopoly in PC operating systems and desktop software, and then worked to destroy the web and media downloads and set up a Palladium police force to cage us in little DRM boxes.
How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly
Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 2000s
I'm not getting religious, I'm simply pointing out that Creative had absolutely no motivation to set up an independent, competing effort against WMA. It pushed WMA-DRM subscriptions and exploding media because Microsoft invented it, just as the PC makers all went along with every version of Windows. Dell never threatened to compete against Windows ME, it simply shipped it out. Same as Creative.
Being able to play MP3s wouldn't do any good if the world could only obtain pop music from WMA stores on a rental basis, and DVDs only came with WM video (which MS was pioneering with Disney), and CDs became vehicles for WMA rather than raw AIFF data.
Apple didn't shoot down WMA because it was the Right Thing To Do, but because a world of Windows Media content would not be compatible with the Mac, and Apple would be left at the mercy of MS for licensing its iTunes playback. Apple wanted an open standard licensed in a non discriminatory fashion.
So Apple sold music in AAC, which is cheaper to license than MP3, and devised a simple DRM system that is easy to work around, allowing anyone who buys AAC-protected music to remove the protection. WMA is designed to be far more difficult to crack, and far easier to patch.
It happens that Apple's own best interests are aligned with consumers. Microsoft's partners are aligned with Microsoft's interests, because Microsoft runs an operation that only follows its own best interests. It just happens that Microsoft's bests interests are not aligned with consumers' best interests.
Apple can do wrong, it just doesn't do as wrong as Microsoft, and no complaining on your part about me pointing out reality changes that fact.
Universal vs Apple in the iTunes Store Contracts
RIM's BlackBerry runs a proprietary OS with an extremely simplistic development environment. It's like comparing a DOS app to an object oriented development framework for a graphical desktop = no comparison.
We blame Windows for bugs, instability, and security problems related to problems that are often related to third party software. Flacks and shills are already attacking the iPhone for imagined issues that might arise from third party development. Remember how the browser was potentially "hacked" giving "full access to sending your personal information to China and/or terrorists"?
Imagine what might happen if anyone could actually control the iPhone. Nothing but Rob Enderle, Bill Thompson, John Dvorak, and Alan Kay and all day long warning us about what terrible things might happen.
Why Dan Frommer and Scott Moritz Are Wrong on iPhone Sales
BBC Prints Irresponsible Rubbish on Apple
New York Times Violates its Own Microsoft Shill Policy
Which is why Apple dropped the price of the iPhone to $399, when it could have continued to sell millions at $600. The iPhone was already cheaper than other phones when the cost of service was included. It cost nearly $200 less than the "$99" Motorola Q after two years of mobile service. It's now nearly $400 less than the Q, which is far inferior in every way.
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 1 - Phony Rage About iPhone Price and Profits
We have yet to see what third party software is going to get delivered. Clearly, its in Shipley's interests to have open access to the iPhone, and I'm sure he could deliver so really cool apps. At the same time, it also looks like the OS X architecture wasn't designed from the start to accommodate open development, so providing open access now is not just a matter of "letting people in," but in making sure the system can handle it.
It's a bit like people waiting in line at a busy restaurant. They see open tables and bitch because they think they should be seated immediately, but if they were, they'd be complaining about the service being slow and the kitchen being backed up. It's easy to run multibillion dollar operations from the safety of home, but Apple seems to be doing a good job of actually delivering real technology.
If developers really wanted to impress us with their work, why haven't we seen very many web apps tuned for the iPhone like Facebook's iphone.facebook.com ? That app demonstrates what can be done, and is pretty impressive. If they can't master regular AJAX, why are they demanding to have open inside access to the yet unfinished iPhone OS X 1.0.2 system? Apple doesn't even have its own apps done yet; its waiting on Leopard to deliver iCal/Notes integration.
Using iPhone: iCal, CalDAV Calendar Servers, and Mac OS X Leopard
It took Microsoft ten years to deliver its mobile platform, and its still a steaming pile of crap. Windows Enthusiasts are saying the iPhone can't do revocation, but that's a laugh because Windows Mobile 5 can't even remote erase Flash RAM cards. Since WM phones don't have enough RAM on them to do anything, users have all their content (and "company secrets") on Flash RAM cards that the IT staff can't remotely wipe anyway. WM is a joke. WM apps are a joke. WM phones are a joke.
Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone outlined the rationale behind the strategy driving Apple's software plans for its new mobile. At the same time, it's important to take a reasonable appraisal of the iPhone's supposedly closed nature. While Apple is unlikely to open up the iPhone in the same sense as the Mac anytime soon, it is already an open platform in ways that matter. How Closed Is the iPhone? and How Open will the iPhone Get?
"If you think that people would pay $2.50 for a track, you would be wrong."
Ever hear about the multibillion dollar ringtone business? Sprint charges $2.50 for a song CLIP that expires after a few months. Verizon charges $3 for the same thing, but they last for a whole year. Verizon uses Microsoft's DRM to accomplish this.
Had the music industry not been blindsided by Apple's iPod, your Creative Zen and the rest of the Microsoft PlaysForSure players would have weened the world off MP3s years ago and made certain that all commercial popular music was only available in WMA format, which expired at the content providers whim, and was offered for sale at whatever price the high end of the market might bear.
As for comparing the Mac to the Zune, go back to math class and learn about how percentages are not comparable between numbers. The Zune claims ~3% of the US retail MP3 player market. Apple has 3% of the worldwide market for all servers/desktop computers, a market that is 70 times larger. That's why Apple still makes more money from its 3% share in PCs than its 70% share in players with the iPod.
Also notice that Apple just grabbed 1.5% of the smartphone market in its debut month, outselling every other model, eclipsing Palm entirely, nearly matching RIM, and biting out a chunk roughly half of Microsoft's entire Windows Mobile licensee pool.
You might like your Creative Zen, but the company is only a follower behind Microsoft, and supported the plan to homogenize the world being one absolute DRM dictator. It's in your own interests that Apple kicked Microsoft's ass, because otherwise your CDs would have WMA files on them and the only download stores would be Urge and Walmart and other MediaNet supplied DRM subscriptions.
Forbes Prints Insanely Self Serving Attack on iTunes by MediaNet CEO Alan McGlade
Forbes, best known to many readers as the soapbox Daniel Lyons used to promote--perhaps unwittingly--a pro-Microsoft agenda backing SCO and vilifying Linux and open source, has taken another opportunity to present outrageously false information serving the interests of Microsoft: an impassioned outcry of rage over the success of iTunes.
The TyTN is also a foot thick. I'm sure Apple could give users a strap on battery pack to last longer, but users want a phone the size of a phone, not one that's too big to fit in a pocket.
Seriously, take your TyTN and shave off a 13.5mm wafer - that's what an iPhone looks like, but in a metal case instead of a cheap flimsy Zune box.
Forbes Prints Insanely Self Serving Attack on iTunes by MediaNet CEO Alan McGlade
Forbes, best known to many readers as the soapbox Daniel Lyons used to promote--perhaps unwittingly--a pro-Microsoft agenda backing SCO and vilifying Linux and open source, has taken another opportunity to present outrageously false information serving the interests of Microsoft: an impassioned outcry of rage over the success of iTunes.
The iPhone delivers software that simply blows the N95 away. It also has WiFi, which is far faster than 3G. Even so, I'd rather have a phone I like that requires me to bathe in WiFi for top speed than a highly-featured N95 that requires me to juggle spare batteries to actually use any of its features. If you prefer the N95, knock yourself out, but don't complain that everyone who doesn't agree is wrong.
Apple does make money from its service contracts. It does not make anything close to 40% of those revenues however. That's a myth.
Apple is being investigated over the contracts of music labels. Jobs has laid out that he would much rather set up one EU store and charge one price (obviously) but the territorial European labels refuse to allow it. Trying to suggest that the claims against Apple's music stores is in any way similar to the monopolistic Microsoft, convicted repeatedly and internationally for cheating customers, defrauding partners, and erecting artificial barriers to fair competition--is silly.
Ripping CDs is not the same thing as burning a CD from your purchased iTunes tracks. If that's illegal, your problem isn't Apple, it's your own F-ed up country.
BBC's Bill Thompson Hates Being Fingered As a Fraud
In response to the article "BBC Prints Irresponsible Rubbish on Apple," Bill Thompson wrote me explaining that he didn't like being called out on his errors. However, he failed to explain how he was accurate in his rambling diatribe assailing Apple as equal to Microsoft in anticompetitive, market monopolizing behavior.