It doesn't really matter why they were selling it. They were selling it and they did cut support after four years[*].
It matters greatly why. Suppose I announce in 2010 I'm going to sell X until 2014, and then discontinue it and replace it with product Y, but continue to provide support for X until 2020. Then the product has 6 years of extended support.
If, come 2014, you and all my biggest customers gnash your teeth and say we haven't done jack squat for the last 2 years to get ready to transition to Y, and none of our stuff works with Y because of it... can you please sell us some more X.
What am I supposed to do; X is obsolete and ridiculously insecure, and if I just keep selling you X you'll just keep buying it rather than fix your systems to support operating in the far more secure environment Y provides. But you are big customers... so I say, alright already... the current product is Y, X is officially discontinued, but if you buy a license of Y; you can keep getting copies of X bundled with it for another 2 years. Now get your shit together, because support for X is still done in 2020.
That's essentially what happened with XP and downgrade rights.
To be fair, Vista had some legitimate issues of its own, most of which were ironed out with 7. But the majority of enterprise stuff that broke was related to not being able to run as a "regular user" or a reliance on IE6... and come on... that HAD to change. Backwards compatibility is great... but Microsoft is right to force developers to develop userland code that ran with userland priviledges. And IE6... that should have been buried a while ago.
[*] They were selling it on cheap, low-end machines as a cheap, low-end OS
You mean netbooks? I was mostly talking about the extension of downgrade rights etc for enterprise customers.
I was addressing the context of this thread that referred to CIO's planning etc... You do have a valid point about netbooks and the support cycle, and consumers perhaps being somewhat unaware of the support situation, but meh... that was consumer junk, and even for them the XP EOL dates had been published, so they really have no excuse for being... surprised.
They continued selling it in large part because of the amount of pushback against having to to upgrade there was.
Seriously. IT admins buying XP machines in 2009, knowing full well that Vista had already been out for 2 years, service pack 2 had been released... if they really expected to get ANOTHER decade of support for XP, they truly deserve the pain they are feeling right now.
That is the correct and obvious and logical solution. Most of the objections against gay marriage are religious. And most of the arguments for gay marriage are civil -- two men or two women should have the right to be eachothers desigate etc for legal, banking, insurance, benefits, etc.
And marriage can be the realm of the churches. They can allow or disallow or regcognize or ignore whatever whatever they like.
So why will this never fly? The religious freak out and call it a "war on religion"... and it just gets no political support.
The other solution tossed about to this semantic nonsense, is to have the term marriage reserved for a civil union between a man and a woman, and have another term for one between same sex couples... but have them legally equivalent. This solves a lot of the problems as well.
The only downside there is the gays (rightfully I think) want to be equal not equivalent. Even so, i think this approach has a better shot at getting passed as legislation.
but I'm going to be generous and only denigrate the bottom 2% and those are the inhabitants of Facebook.
Its funny because its true.
600 million accounts, and half of them are extra accounts to prime farmville, and most of what is left are friends and family who have facebook accounts... just to stay in touch with the 2% who live there. And you can tell its circling the drain because companies are creating facebook accounts at breakneck speed... and you know something's cool when Pampers, Verizon, and "Cash for Gold USA" is there...
You haven't articulated how the webmail interface is more clumsy...
Its not "webmail" its all Javascript and HTML applications. They all have the same klutzy feel. The javascript / html substitutes just aren't as responsive as the native widgets, the javascript/html/dom just isn't as smooth as a native application -- whether its the threading model (or comparative lack thereof) or just the effect layers upon layers of code to achieve the same effect as native widgets... its good, its gotten a lot better over the last few years, but its not as good as a native application.
You cut out the part where my "access anywhere" has exactly the same UI, keyboard shortcuts, etc., as I use at home and at work. This is not a trivial difference.
Fair enough. But the only time i ever need to login somewhere at random to do email is if I want to send or save a file to or from that particular computer.
I am rarely away from my laptop or desktop... and even rarer still am I away from my phone.
Access anywhere is certainly relevant... and I consider it a valuable feature... but i need to use an arbitrary device to get my email so rarely that the consistency of the UI is virtually irrelevant to me.
And my point about plugins was to highlight that the features you are talking about are NOT "webmail vs standalone client" issues - so they aren't really relevant to a discussion on why people would prefer webmail to standalone or vice versa. I don't deny they are features that you might be interested in or find valuable... but that fact they are in gmail is coincidental to gmail being a web app. They can be implemented anywhere.
You can migrate it just fine via IMAP, as you mentioned. So it's not quite as efficient as it could be... big whoop. This is a reason to prefer standalone mail clients? I don't see it.
You misunderstood, that's not part of my argument. I only mentioned my annoyance with google's account migration features as an aside. It is neither here nor there with respect to the discussion about what sort of client one uses.
It struck me as an odd, annoying, and interesting gap in Google's toolset that you had to use such a clumsy workaround to migrate tagged data between cloud accounts.
Specifically that to migrate data between two googe apps accounts, you had to download all the data locally, filtered through imap (which doesn't handle google's tag model natively), and then push it all back. I expected something a little less clumsy for enterprise account management.
Gmail does it quite well, IMO. Just hit the link to "pop out" each message into a separate window.
The link to pop it out into a new window is "after" i open a message. It should be in the message list.
How so? The only difference is whether your attachment has to get uploaded while you compose the message or when you send the message.
If it takes me 5 minutes to compose a few messages and it takes the mail client 45 minutes to send them, that's a a lot better. I can go do something else.
. For batch handling, Gmail allows you to query for larger sets of threads and apply operations to the entire set at once (click "Select All" to select all visible, then click the link that pops up to select all matches). You can perform operations on thousands of messages at once.
Its much clumsier, especially for arbitrary selections.
You can do this with Gmail's tags. They can be nested, and they show up as expandable/collapsible folders within folders.
And it works, but its clumsier in html/javascript, than it is on a native application. Its less responsive, its less clear what it is doing, its less clear what is being selected. Especially on an older / slower computer.
So what you're really talking about here is a deficiency of IMAP.
If you restrict yourself to treating Gmail labels as though they were as limited as IMAP folders, the problem disappears.
What is the point of googles tag model if you are just going to use them like folders?
If you wanted to do something similar with a regular IMAP client, you'd have had to copy the message to each relevant folder (meaning you'd actually have 40GB of e-mail).
That's beside the point. People using folder systems tend to organize things in folders. People using tag systems tend to tag things. The problem is not that IMAP is a poor way to implement a tag system, the problem is that google gives us a tag system and no tools to properly migrate tagged data.
#1 Synchronization of drafts across multiple computers. Yeah, you can save something to your "Drafts" IMAP folder and then sync it to a different computer to start working on it, but with Gmail you can just start typing a response, then walk away, grab a different computer a few hours (or seconds!) later and there's your auto-saved draft, in the thread.
Thunderbird auto saves to drafts too.
#2 This auto-saving to the cloud is also awesome when your machine crashes, power goes out, etc.
Where do you think imap data is stored?
#3 Priority Inbox. If you handle large amounts of e-mail on a daily basis, priority inbox rocks....
This is not a webmail specific feature, and could be easily implemented in any client.
#4 Calendar integration. Most e-mail clients will handle proper calendar invitations sensibly, but Gmail also picks out "plaintext" invitations, giving me a link to automatically add extracted details to a calendar event when, for example, an old friend e-mails me an invitation to lunch.
Not really an advantage of webmail. Just a feature you like. If someone wanted it, its just a plug-in away.
#5 Integration with other contact methods. When I'm reading an e-mail from someone in my contacts list, Gmail gives icons to start an on-line chat with them, or call them on their phone.
Same as #4
#6 Integration with Google+, Docs and Voice
Google+ is irrelevant to me. I don't use or wish to use G+ or FB. I agree its a feature tho, but one i wouldn't want in Thunderbird... although its possibly a plugin.
And the docs handling is crap unless they were actually written in docs which they almost never are. So I'd prefer to just download them and launch them with excel and word proper. And that's easier with Thunderbird, since they're already downloaded.
#7 The grandaddy of pro-webmail arguments: Access anywhere.
You obviously believe that more choice is always better than less choice, as most americans and many europeans do. However, that point of view has scientifically proven to be incorrect. You might want to adapt your viewpoint to the facts.
I don't believe more choice is always better. If you thought it obvious that I do, then its you that needs to adapt your viewpoint.
I do believe apple not giving you any choice except the app store with iOS is too restrictive; and I justify this by pointing out many people are complaining about it. You never ever hear anyone complain that we don't have enough ketchup flavors to choose from, so more choice there isn't necessary. But people are genuinely feeling confined by the iOS restrictions to the point that they hack the device or avoid buying it entirely.
I'm not sure how that remotely justify's your assertion that i need to "adapt my viewpoint to the facts"?
Source?
How about you quote what I actually wrote which was:
Currently the default is to allow only software from app store and "identified developers".
cropping of the 'and "identified developers"' is just dishonest. I recognize that the default is app store + signed apps.
Further you had previously just stated that Apple would have to get into signed binaries and so forth to enforce that sort of lockdown... and gatekeeper does just that. The fact that its not a complete lockdown or that its an incremental update from pre-existing features is neither here nor there, it represents a step towards OS lockdown. That's all I am claiming.
And frankly, the fact that there is a loophole for USB files and other "attack vectors" is likely something that we will see resolved... in the next incremental step...... right... right... wild speculation... I know. Right.
Why not use the web interface? Email is simple enough that in my experience there really isn't a lot that a native app can do that a good webmail interface can't.
There are several things.
#1 I like really advanced complex features like having multiple messages open simultaneously, the average web interface either doesn't support this or does it poorly.
#2 I already have half a dozen browser windows and tabs open if not more. I -like- my email windows have a different title bar, a different icon in the task bar, etc. Having everything open via the web browser makes making sense of my open windows more of a hassle. Plus if i quit the mail program, all the mail windows close. Nice.
#3 Hotkeys - yes some web interfaces have them, but its a mess.
#4 Attachment handling - web clients are getting better but it still sucks, and its far worse if your internet connection is ever less than perfect.
#5 Mass message handling... most web clients let you handle a page of email at a time.
#6 Folders - yeah yeah... gmail has tags and they aren't bad either, but like being able to expand and collapse folders within folders within folders.
On the subject of tags...here's an interesting problem... migrate all your tagged mail from one gmail account to another one. This is painful as hell. I'm speaking as a Google Apps for Enterprises user here too... the paid version with phone support...
Only way to do is via IMAP,... which treats tags as folders. So if you've got someone with 5GB of email who is really got into tagging, and every message is tagged 3 or 4 different ways, IMAP sees it as 40GB of email. Now fortunately google and imap are smart enough to check message IDs and as each "tag" item is downloaded via imap as a folder, and then pushed into the new account folder where gmail converts it back to a tagged item it doesn't create duplicates of the message which is great. But it does still have to process them all as if they were separate messages.
Two small companies merged and two separate gmail accounts had to be consolidated...it took days. There was NO backend tool to do it "within the cloud", nope... every account had to be downloaded to a local workstation via IMAP and then pushed back up to the other account via imap... and every tagged item had to be evaluated separately for every tag on it...
Google provides a "legacy mail migration tool" to allow new clients to migrate data from your old email system to the new one via IMAP... and this is the same tool you need to use to move mailboxes between two different gmail hosted domains... or to move mail from one mailbox to another one in general (e.g. when an employee quits... although I think there postini stuff comes into play here too... I haven't gotten that deep into it...)
But the vocal minority can be misleading, we know that.
But we both can agree that it does in fact exist.
Wrong, it is. The effect is not in the personal iPad use, it is in looking at the iPad of your more geeky friend and noticing that he has stuff on there that you don't and can't find in the App Store. It fragments the device experience. It's not just that you don't open the hood - it's that your mechanic friend's car does things that yours doesn't.
Are you really arguing that my Mom who takes her BMW to the dealer for everything and lives happily in that BMW service garden for everything is the least bit concerned or even interested that the kid down the street has a custom bodykit, custom stereo, aftermarket rims, exhaust, sway bars, and a completely retuned engine? Of course not.
Visible things, not just 1% more fuel efficiency, but, say, he can turn his into a convertible and you can't.
Which side are you arguing? First you suggest that people would be happier in a walled garden where there was restricted choice? Then you suggest that it turns out they'd really like a convertible.
Secondly, you are abusing the principle of the tyranny of choice. Even the author of the article you linked says, "Does it mean that we would all be better off if our choices were severely restricted, even eliminated? I do not think so."
Giving people a managed garden, and the choice to stay inside or leave it is clearly a better compromise between too much choice and too much restriction, than building walls around the garden and locking the gate.
emind me, which ones? Launchpad or the inversion of the scroll bar?;-)
And the OSX app store, and the restrictions applied to apps that don't use it.
And the Gatekeeper security tool in Lion that includes a setting to lock a Mac down so it can only run software purchased from the App Store. Currently the default is to allow only software from app store and "identified developers". And you currently have to manually turn it off to allow software from "anywhere".*
So there is already a setting in OSX that makes it "app store" apps only operating system; and we're already seeing an api gap between what app store apps may use.
That's a huge, major change that would most likely be implemented in steps, like changes to the OS so that you can actually install, configure and run the system without having root access. Or changes to the kernel so that it runs only signed binaries, that would require a key infrastructure, again not something that you would implement over night, so show me the kernel hooks
The changes are right there. They've already taken the first step. The hooks are right there. What more do you want?
This is such a dumb argument. You think the scientists who invent the cure would keep their mouths shut about it?
While I agree with you the argument isn't as dumb as you think.
Of course if the scientists invented the cure they would announce it, and I think its clear that no one is "sitting on the cure".
However, it is legitimate to ask: are they even looking for a cure? Maybe one hasn't been found because they aren't looking. Its not as far fetched as you think.
Funding is limited after all, and there are innumerable avenues of possible research. So its legitimate to ask what is big pharma actually choosing to fund? What percentage of the research budget is looking for the cure AIDS vs the percentage of the budget looking to refine lipitor 2.0 with fewer incidents of upset stomach?
But that does not give a useful data point. You would have to compare the number who don't buy because of the walled garden to the number who do buy because of it. But it isn't that easy.
It isn't that easy. But it is easy to stipulate that there exist a lot of people who don't have one because its locked down. I know several vocal groups of people.
It is much harder to stipulate that there is ANYBODY on the planet who buys one because it IS locked down. I've never heard anywhere of anyone anywhere who has ever said "if I could install apps any other way in addition to the app store I wouldn't buy one".
The walled garden is part of a whole that a lot of people like a lot - the seamless experience that makes an iPad useable to people with absolutely no tech-know-how whatsoever.
One has nothing to do with the other. Adding the ability to go into settings, hit advanced, and enter in the URL for an alternative app source is not going to affect "non-technical users" in the slightest. Add that feature to an iOS device, and "nothing changes about the seamless experience for users with no technical no how." Nothing changes at all. For them its the same ipad it always was, and they'll like it just as much.
To use a car analogy, non-technical people with no mechanical interest or ability drive cars around with hoods they can open. They just don't open them.
The fact that they can open them doesn't impact their driving experience or enjoyment of the vehicle at all.
If the dealer decided one day to start bolting the hoods shut, the people who only ever service the car at authorized dealers and never look under the hood anyway... those people would be unaffected. Those people like the dealer garden... but, and here's they key... its not a "walled garden". Its JUST A GARDEN. They like the garden, and they stay in it, because they like it. The dealer doesn't need to bolt the hood down to force them into it, they are there in the garden because they don't need or want to do their own engine work, and consciously choose to just deal with the dealer.
And a lot of people like Apple's garden too, and if apple took the wall down, and -allowed- you out, non-technical users would still stay in the garden, because they like the garden.
I'm not making the bold claims here that the world is coming to an end and we will all become slaves to the evil overlords, remember?
Nobody actually made that claim. I claimed that I predict we will see iOS style lockdown gradually creep upmarket to the entry level consumer macs. The recent changes to OSX in Lion are evidence of that trend.
Your counterclaim so far has been to close your eyes and refuse to see anything you disagree with, while spouting gibberish about how its difficult to count the people who wouldn't buy an ipad if you could "jailbreak" it without hacking it.
I think we're done here, because speculations are a dime a dozen.
You need to engage the argument honestly. So far you haven't.
Speculating in the opposite direction would be just as easy.
Would it? What feature of iOS 6 opens it up a bit? And suggests that Apple may be laying the ground work to allow other app stores and end user installed apps?
Every single thing the government does is "not something we should be doing" in someone's opinion. If that's your standard we'd keep no secrets at all.
That's not my standard.
A whistleblower is taking a lot of risk already... they've pretty much guaranteed they lose their job, and get blacklisted within the industry, may even fear for their lives... do you think they make that decision lightly? Do you really think every mundane little secret is going to get leaked out?
Why does a "whistleblower" (of secret information) need to go public instead of going to those congresscritters cleared to know the secrets and charged with oversight?
Actually most whistleblowers do exactly this, so what if it doesn't work?
. Do you have even a single bit of evidence indicating that a different approach to software distribution would make them sell even more?
Yes. I don't have an ipad because its too locked down. Lots of people are like me.
Now do you have a single bit of evidence indicating that allowing an alternative to the app store for loading apps would make them sell less?
You do remember that we were talking about desktop computers, yes?
No. We're talking about the future. The people out there who use laptops for email, web applications, and some very light productivity.. just a bit too heavy for an ipad... but what about an ipad with a keyboard and trackpad in a laptop form factor? That would suit them just fine..
And that is the face of the new consumer mac.
The mac pro isn't going anywhere. And photoshop will run on it just fine.
Leaking of Secret/classified information is separate from ordinary whistleblowers working for the government. It's a bright-line distinction: each document is Secret, or not.
The bright-line distinction is not whether or not something is marked secret. Its whether some thing is right or wrong.
I don't give a shit how many times they stamp the word Top Secret on something. If its not something we should be doing then it needs to be outed. The US doesn't need secret prisons. And the mis-treatment of prisoners in them is a crime not a "secret".
So am I, but the right system is to police that through oversight committies with appropriate clearance to review the information in the first place, who aren't in anyone's chain of comman except the voters. And we have those.
Sometimes we have them. And sometimes they work. But there is no reason not to have other checks in the system... like protecting a whistleblower who is reporting on the criminal activity of the state.
History also shows that over reaching laws with a narrower "intent" tend to frequently get used used in over reaching ways when its convenient for those in power.
This isn't about "whistleblowers",
Then why not protect them? Where is the language that explicitly limits the scope to just what you think it is actually intended to be used for?
Sorry, not good enough. Application signing might be a way, because...
You are assuming you'll have local root without jail breaking?
Apple is a hardware vendor, why would they do something that makes purchasing their hardware less interesting?
Their entire walled garden approach makes purchasing their hardware less interesting. Its not even worth rebutting your previous argument if this is your position. You've just gone full fanboi now.
Now I don't have an issue with Apple having an app store. I don't even have an issue with it being installed by default, and even being the only way to load apps by default. But the fact that I have to jailbreak the device instead of merely flicking an option in settings to get out of their walled garden is proof positive that they have no qualms doing things that makes purchasing their hardware less interesting.
And then your ranting on about Microsoft, which is completely irrelevant here just solidifies my impression of you as a fanboi.
No one who used smartphones prior to iPhone can possibly take you seriously. By comparison all of the sucked unequivocally.
And Apple took all of that precedent learned from it and cleaned it up, and now therefore can tell everyone else they aren't allowed to take the iphone, learn from it, and and release a new product themselves? Say what now?
Its not like apple invented long battery life or good call quality. Lots of SmartPhones existed with that, they might otherwise have been crap, but the battery and or voice was good. Phones without carrier junk software? Hello Blackberry. Hello Windows Mobile 6. Lousy interfaces? Blackberry had a fine interface built around the clickwheel.
If you wanted to do an all touch interface, then the interface had to be designed for it, and it wasn't so much people copying apple, as people being forced to make many of the same design choices apple was because that's what makes sense for an all touch device.
And sure, as the other manufacturers went all touch, they followed the conventions that Apple had popularized (not invented) and that the market wanted. As for slide to unlock, what phones had slide to unlock prior to iPhone?
According the article this thread is linked to the Neonode nM1 had a touch interface where you slide from left to right along the bottom of the touch screen to answer calls. Sound familiar?
As for all phones looking like a flat rounded rectangle? What other shape could they possibly have? The second the market shifted to smartphones that was inevitable. Form follows function. 10 years ago phones could be all different shapes... you had your round pod shaped ones, your flat Razrs, your long thin ones that slid, but the moment the smartphone became about the screen the shape of the phone becomes rounded rectangle to hold the screen... some had a phsysical keyboard along the bottom, some with a sliding keyboard, and some with no keyboard. (the iphone wasn't even the first all touch smartphone).
Now 5 years on, the market has shown a strong preference for the on-screen keyboard -- so that pretty much forces phones to be flat round rectangles with no keyboard.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with cherry picking the best bits of existing technology and putting them together to make a better product. And nothing wrong with making that product aesthetically pleasing and putting your company's logo on it.
Well, nothing wrong when apple does it. But apparently god forbid anybody else do it?
It takes 10 seconds to change in System Preferences if you don't like the new default.
But I now prefer it because it's conceptually consistent across all my devices.
Meh.
When I play FPSes I push up with the mouse, and I expect to look up.
When I play flight sims when I push forward on the joystick or the console thumbstick or press the "up-arrow" key, I expect the aircraft's nose to push down.
I am "normal".(*)
Its NOT an arbitrary choice. And it shouldn't be just arbitrarily changed to be the same as something else just to be "consistent" with a different unrelated control metaphor.
Same goes for controlling the desktop. The long standing desktop metaphor is that we are controlling the window. Specifically we are adjusting the position of the scroll bar. And the "up"/"down" controls adust the position of the scroll bar of that window.
On a tablet/mobile touch screen, we have a different metaphor... our fingers are literally on the page and when we move our fingers, the page sticks to them, and we reposition our viewpoint by directly pulling or pushing the page around.
Both are valid and appropriate metaphors in there application, and there is no need or rational reason to mindlessly change one to use the same controls as the other one.
Its as silly as observing that your car doors swing outward, and thus rehanging the front door of your home (which odds are extremely good swings inward) to swing outward, you know, "to be consistent". Its just that stupid.
Now when I sit down in front of a computer there are good odds the trackpad is backwards. Not because the user wanted to change it (*) but because Apple did.
(*) There is nothing -wrong- with doing it the other way, and I fully support configurable options so users can set things such that they make sense to them.
It adds up because it's the only way free apps fit into that system
Why block free apps that are not on the app store? They're still free apps, and they, by not using the app store, by defnition use less infrastructure than apps on the app store... because they don't use the app store infrastructure.
And why not allow vendors like Adobe and Microsoft etc to just license access to the API?
No it doesn't add up as a method for paying for free apps.
I don't see them forcing it, though.
Not forcing it entirely... but I could see the next (or perhaps the next one after that...) macbook or imac targeted at the consumer market only support app store stuff. If you want to load 3rd party apps you'll have... step up to the mac pro series...
As for the iCloud API - the way I take it is that you're not paying for the API, but for use of the iCloud infrastructure.
Paid apps from elsewhere don't use app store infrastructure, and are barred from icloud even if the vendor is willing to pay something for it. Apps willing to pay for it can't.
Free Apps on the apps store use app store infrastructure and may also use icloud. So apps that tie up both app store and icloud resources get a free ride.
Free Apps from else where, don't use app store infrastructure, and are barred from icloud. So free apps that don't tie up app store resources are barred from icloud.
How does that add up?
Its not about paying for the icloud, its a carrot/stick situation for developers pure and simple. Apple is gradually to force more and more developers to distribute through the app store, until its gained enough momentum that it can force all of them.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't really matter why they were selling it. They were selling it and they did cut support after four years[*].
It matters greatly why. Suppose I announce in 2010 I'm going to sell X until 2014, and then discontinue it and replace it with product Y, but continue to provide support for X until 2020. Then the product has 6 years of extended support.
If, come 2014, you and all my biggest customers gnash your teeth and say we haven't done jack squat for the last 2 years to get ready to transition to Y, and none of our stuff works with Y because of it... can you please sell us some more X.
What am I supposed to do; X is obsolete and ridiculously insecure, and if I just keep selling you X you'll just keep buying it rather than fix your systems to support operating in the far more secure environment Y provides. But you are big customers... so I say, alright already... the current product is Y, X is officially discontinued, but if you buy a license of Y; you can keep getting copies of X bundled with it for another 2 years. Now get your shit together, because support for X is still done in 2020.
That's essentially what happened with XP and downgrade rights.
To be fair, Vista had some legitimate issues of its own, most of which were ironed out with 7. But the majority of enterprise stuff that broke was related to not being able to run as a "regular user" or a reliance on IE6... and come on... that HAD to change. Backwards compatibility is great... but Microsoft is right to force developers to develop userland code that ran with userland priviledges. And IE6... that should have been buried a while ago.
[*] They were selling it on cheap, low-end machines as a cheap, low-end OS
You mean netbooks? I was mostly talking about the extension of downgrade rights etc for enterprise customers.
I was addressing the context of this thread that referred to CIO's planning etc... You do have a valid point about netbooks and the support cycle, and consumers perhaps being somewhat unaware of the support situation, but meh... that was consumer junk, and even for them the XP EOL dates had been published, so they really have no excuse for being ... surprised.
They continued selling it up until 2010.
That's disengenuous too.
They continued selling it in large part because of the amount of pushback against having to to upgrade there was.
Seriously. IT admins buying XP machines in 2009, knowing full well that Vista had already been out for 2 years, service pack 2 had been released... if they really expected to get ANOTHER decade of support for XP, they truly deserve the pain they are feeling right now.
ROFL
Thanks for that.
That is the correct and obvious and logical solution. Most of the objections against gay marriage are religious. And most of the arguments for gay marriage are civil -- two men or two women should have the right to be eachothers desigate etc for legal, banking, insurance, benefits, etc.
And marriage can be the realm of the churches. They can allow or disallow or regcognize or ignore whatever whatever they like.
So why will this never fly? The religious freak out and call it a "war on religion" ... and it just gets no political support.
The other solution tossed about to this semantic nonsense, is to have the term marriage reserved for a civil union between a man and a woman, and have another term for one between same sex couples... but have them legally equivalent. This solves a lot of the problems as well.
The only downside there is the gays (rightfully I think) want to be equal not equivalent. Even so, i think this approach has a better shot at getting passed as legislation.
but I'm going to be generous and only denigrate the bottom 2% and those are the inhabitants of Facebook.
Its funny because its true.
600 million accounts, and half of them are extra accounts to prime farmville, and most of what is left are friends and family who have facebook accounts... just to stay in touch with the 2% who live there. And you can tell its circling the drain because companies are creating facebook accounts at breakneck speed... and you know something's cool when Pampers, Verizon, and "Cash for Gold USA" is there...
You haven't articulated how the webmail interface is more clumsy...
Its not "webmail" its all Javascript and HTML applications. They all have the same klutzy feel. The javascript / html substitutes just aren't as responsive as the native widgets, the javascript/html/dom just isn't as smooth as a native application -- whether its the threading model (or comparative lack thereof) or just the effect layers upon layers of code to achieve the same effect as native widgets ... its good, its gotten a lot better over the last few years, but its not as good as a native application.
You cut out the part where my "access anywhere" has exactly the same UI, keyboard shortcuts, etc., as I use at home and at work. This is not a trivial difference.
Fair enough. But the only time i ever need to login somewhere at random to do email is if I want to send or save a file to or from that particular computer.
I am rarely away from my laptop or desktop... and even rarer still am I away from my phone.
Access anywhere is certainly relevant... and I consider it a valuable feature... but i need to use an arbitrary device to get my email so rarely that the consistency of the UI is virtually irrelevant to me.
And my point about plugins was to highlight that the features you are talking about are NOT "webmail vs standalone client" issues - so they aren't really relevant to a discussion on why people would prefer webmail to standalone or vice versa. I don't deny they are features that you might be interested in or find valuable... but that fact they are in gmail is coincidental to gmail being a web app. They can be implemented anywhere.
You can migrate it just fine via IMAP, as you mentioned. So it's not quite as efficient as it could be... big whoop. This is a reason to prefer standalone mail clients? I don't see it.
You misunderstood, that's not part of my argument. I only mentioned my annoyance with google's account migration features as an aside. It is neither here nor there with respect to the discussion about what sort of client one uses.
It struck me as an odd, annoying, and interesting gap in Google's toolset that you had to use such a clumsy workaround to migrate tagged data between cloud accounts.
Specifically that to migrate data between two googe apps accounts, you had to download all the data locally, filtered through imap (which doesn't handle google's tag model natively), and then push it all back. I expected something a little less clumsy for enterprise account management.
Gmail does it quite well, IMO. Just hit the link to "pop out" each message into a separate window.
The link to pop it out into a new window is "after" i open a message. It should be in the message list.
How so? The only difference is whether your attachment has to get uploaded while you compose the message or when you send the message.
If it takes me 5 minutes to compose a few messages and it takes the mail client 45 minutes to send them, that's a a lot better. I can go do something else.
. For batch handling, Gmail allows you to query for larger sets of threads and apply operations to the entire set at once (click "Select All" to select all visible, then click the link that pops up to select all matches). You can perform operations on thousands of messages at once.
Its much clumsier, especially for arbitrary selections.
You can do this with Gmail's tags. They can be nested, and they show up as expandable/collapsible folders within folders.
And it works, but its clumsier in html/javascript, than it is on a native application. Its less responsive, its less clear what it is doing, its less clear what is being selected. Especially on an older / slower computer.
So what you're really talking about here is a deficiency of IMAP.
If you restrict yourself to treating Gmail labels as though they were as limited as IMAP folders, the problem disappears.
What is the point of googles tag model if you are just going to use them like folders?
If you wanted to do something similar with a regular IMAP client, you'd have had to copy the message to each relevant folder (meaning you'd actually have 40GB of e-mail).
That's beside the point. People using folder systems tend to organize things in folders. People using tag systems tend to tag things. The problem is not that IMAP is a poor way to implement a tag system, the problem is that google gives us a tag system and no tools to properly migrate tagged data.
#1 Synchronization of drafts across multiple computers. Yeah, you can save something to your "Drafts" IMAP folder and then sync it to a different computer to start working on it, but with Gmail you can just start typing a response, then walk away, grab a different computer a few hours (or seconds!) later and there's your auto-saved draft, in the thread.
Thunderbird auto saves to drafts too.
#2 This auto-saving to the cloud is also awesome when your machine crashes, power goes out, etc.
Where do you think imap data is stored?
#3 Priority Inbox. If you handle large amounts of e-mail on a daily basis, priority inbox rocks....
This is not a webmail specific feature, and could be easily implemented in any client.
#4 Calendar integration. Most e-mail clients will handle proper calendar invitations sensibly, but Gmail also picks out "plaintext" invitations, giving me a link to automatically add extracted details to a calendar event when, for example, an old friend e-mails me an invitation to lunch.
Not really an advantage of webmail. Just a feature you like. If someone wanted it, its just a plug-in away.
#5 Integration with other contact methods. When I'm reading an e-mail from someone in my contacts list, Gmail gives icons to start an on-line chat with them, or call them on their phone.
Same as #4
#6 Integration with Google+, Docs and Voice
Google+ is irrelevant to me. I don't use or wish to use G+ or FB. I agree its a feature tho, but one i wouldn't want in Thunderbird... although its possibly a plugin.
And the docs handling is crap unless they were actually written in docs which they almost never are. So I'd prefer to just download them and launch them with excel and word proper. And that's easier with Thunderbird, since they're already downloaded.
#7 The grandaddy of pro-webmail arguments: Access anywhere.
Yup, which is why i use IMAP. Still have al
But even then, the Bible says to give to Ceasar what is Caesar's
I always thought that meant that you had a duty to pay your taxes, serve the army, serve your country...
But that you also had to be mindful of a duty to tithe, serve god, and serve the church..
I'd never read that as "separation of church and state", just an admonishment that you had a duty to both, and should neglect neither.
You obviously believe that more choice is always better than less choice, as most americans and many europeans do. However, that point of view has scientifically proven to be incorrect. You might want to adapt your viewpoint to the facts.
I don't believe more choice is always better. If you thought it obvious that I do, then its you that needs to adapt your viewpoint.
I do believe apple not giving you any choice except the app store with iOS is too restrictive; and I justify this by pointing out many people are complaining about it. You never ever hear anyone complain that we don't have enough ketchup flavors to choose from, so more choice there isn't necessary. But people are genuinely feeling confined by the iOS restrictions to the point that they hack the device or avoid buying it entirely.
I'm not sure how that remotely justify's your assertion that i need to "adapt my viewpoint to the facts"?
Source?
How about you quote what I actually wrote which was:
Currently the default is to allow only software from app store and "identified developers".
cropping of the 'and "identified developers"' is just dishonest. I recognize that the default is app store + signed apps.
Further you had previously just stated that Apple would have to get into signed binaries and so forth to enforce that sort of lockdown... and gatekeeper does just that. The fact that its not a complete lockdown or that its an incremental update from pre-existing features is neither here nor there, it represents a step towards OS lockdown. That's all I am claiming.
And frankly, the fact that there is a loophole for USB files and other "attack vectors" is likely something that we will see resolved... in the next incremental step... ... right... right... wild speculation... I know. Right.
Why not use the web interface? Email is simple enough that in my experience there really isn't a lot that a native app can do that a good webmail interface can't.
There are several things.
#1 I like really advanced complex features like having multiple messages open simultaneously, the average web interface either doesn't support this or does it poorly.
#2 I already have half a dozen browser windows and tabs open if not more. I -like- my email windows have a different title bar, a different icon in the task bar, etc. Having everything open via the web browser makes making sense of my open windows more of a hassle. Plus if i quit the mail program, all the mail windows close. Nice.
#3 Hotkeys - yes some web interfaces have them, but its a mess.
#4 Attachment handling - web clients are getting better but it still sucks, and its far worse if your internet connection is ever less than perfect.
#5 Mass message handling... most web clients let you handle a page of email at a time.
#6 Folders - yeah yeah... gmail has tags and they aren't bad either, but like being able to expand and collapse folders within folders within folders.
On the subject of tags ...here's an interesting problem... migrate all your tagged mail from one gmail account to another one. This is painful as hell. I'm speaking as a Google Apps for Enterprises user here too... the paid version with phone support...
Only way to do is via IMAP,... which treats tags as folders. So if you've got someone with 5GB of email who is really got into tagging, and every message is tagged 3 or 4 different ways, IMAP sees it as 40GB of email. Now fortunately google and imap are smart enough to check message IDs and as each "tag" item is downloaded via imap as a folder, and then pushed into the new account folder where gmail converts it back to a tagged item it doesn't create duplicates of the message which is great. But it does still have to process them all as if they were separate messages.
Two small companies merged and two separate gmail accounts had to be consolidated...it took days. There was NO backend tool to do it "within the cloud", nope... every account had to be downloaded to a local workstation via IMAP and then pushed back up to the other account via imap... and every tagged item had to be evaluated separately for every tag on it...
Google provides a "legacy mail migration tool" to allow new clients to migrate data from your old email system to the new one via IMAP... and this is the same tool you need to use to move mailboxes between two different gmail hosted domains... or to move mail from one mailbox to another one in general (e.g. when an employee quits... although I think there postini stuff comes into play here too... I haven't gotten that deep into it...)
But the vocal minority can be misleading, we know that.
But we both can agree that it does in fact exist.
Wrong, it is. The effect is not in the personal iPad use, it is in looking at the iPad of your more geeky friend and noticing that he has stuff on there that you don't and can't find in the App Store. It fragments the device experience. It's not just that you don't open the hood - it's that your mechanic friend's car does things that yours doesn't.
Are you really arguing that my Mom who takes her BMW to the dealer for everything and lives happily in that BMW service garden for everything is the least bit concerned or even interested that the kid down the street has a custom bodykit, custom stereo, aftermarket rims, exhaust, sway bars, and a completely retuned engine? Of course not.
Visible things, not just 1% more fuel efficiency, but, say, he can turn his into a convertible and you can't.
Which side are you arguing? First you suggest that people would be happier in a walled garden where there was restricted choice? Then you suggest that it turns out they'd really like a convertible.
Secondly, you are abusing the principle of the tyranny of choice. Even the author of the article you linked says, "Does it mean that we would all be better off if our choices were severely restricted, even eliminated? I do not think so."
Giving people a managed garden, and the choice to stay inside or leave it is clearly a better compromise between too much choice and too much restriction, than building walls around the garden and locking the gate.
emind me, which ones? Launchpad or the inversion of the scroll bar? ;-)
And the OSX app store, and the restrictions applied to apps that don't use it.
And the Gatekeeper security tool in Lion that includes a setting to lock a Mac down so it can only run software purchased from the App Store. Currently the default is to allow only software from app store and "identified developers". And you currently have to manually turn it off to allow software from "anywhere".*
So there is already a setting in OSX that makes it "app store" apps only operating system; and we're already seeing an api gap between what app store apps may use.
That's a huge, major change that would most likely be implemented in steps, like changes to the OS so that you can actually install, configure and run the system without having root access. Or changes to the kernel so that it runs only signed binaries, that would require a key infrastructure, again not something that you would implement over night, so show me the kernel hooks
The changes are right there. They've already taken the first step. The hooks are right there. What more do you want?
This is such a dumb argument. You think the scientists who invent the cure would keep their mouths shut about it?
While I agree with you the argument isn't as dumb as you think.
Of course if the scientists invented the cure they would announce it, and I think its clear that no one is "sitting on the cure".
However, it is legitimate to ask: are they even looking for a cure? Maybe one hasn't been found because they aren't looking. Its not as far fetched as you think.
Funding is limited after all, and there are innumerable avenues of possible research. So its legitimate to ask what is big pharma actually choosing to fund? What percentage of the research budget is looking for the cure AIDS vs the percentage of the budget looking to refine lipitor 2.0 with fewer incidents of upset stomach?
But that does not give a useful data point. You would have to compare the number who don't buy because of the walled garden to the number who do buy because of it. But it isn't that easy.
It isn't that easy. But it is easy to stipulate that there exist a lot of people who don't have one because its locked down. I know several vocal groups of people.
It is much harder to stipulate that there is ANYBODY on the planet who buys one because it IS locked down. I've never heard anywhere of anyone anywhere who has ever said "if I could install apps any other way in addition to the app store I wouldn't buy one".
The walled garden is part of a whole that a lot of people like a lot - the seamless experience that makes an iPad useable to people with absolutely no tech-know-how whatsoever.
One has nothing to do with the other. Adding the ability to go into settings, hit advanced, and enter in the URL for an alternative app source is not going to affect "non-technical users" in the slightest. Add that feature to an iOS device, and "nothing changes about the seamless experience for users with no technical no how." Nothing changes at all. For them its the same ipad it always was, and they'll like it just as much.
To use a car analogy, non-technical people with no mechanical interest or ability drive cars around with hoods they can open. They just don't open them.
The fact that they can open them doesn't impact their driving experience or enjoyment of the vehicle at all.
If the dealer decided one day to start bolting the hoods shut, the people who only ever service the car at authorized dealers and never look under the hood anyway... those people would be unaffected. Those people like the dealer garden... but, and here's they key... its not a "walled garden". Its JUST A GARDEN. They like the garden, and they stay in it, because they like it. The dealer doesn't need to bolt the hood down to force them into it, they are there in the garden because they don't need or want to do their own engine work, and consciously choose to just deal with the dealer.
And a lot of people like Apple's garden too, and if apple took the wall down, and -allowed- you out, non-technical users would still stay in the garden, because they like the garden.
I'm not making the bold claims here that the world is coming to an end and we will all become slaves to the evil overlords, remember?
Nobody actually made that claim. I claimed that I predict we will see iOS style lockdown gradually creep upmarket to the entry level consumer macs. The recent changes to OSX in Lion are evidence of that trend.
Your counterclaim so far has been to close your eyes and refuse to see anything you disagree with, while spouting gibberish about how its difficult to count the people who wouldn't buy an ipad if you could "jailbreak" it without hacking it.
I think we're done here, because speculations are a dime a dozen.
You need to engage the argument honestly. So far you haven't.
Speculating in the opposite direction would be just as easy.
Would it? What feature of iOS 6 opens it up a bit? And suggests that Apple may be laying the ground work to allow other app stores and end user installed apps?
Every single thing the government does is "not something we should be doing" in someone's opinion. If that's your standard we'd keep no secrets at all.
That's not my standard.
A whistleblower is taking a lot of risk already... they've pretty much guaranteed they lose their job, and get blacklisted within the industry, may even fear for their lives... do you think they make that decision lightly? Do you really think every mundane little secret is going to get leaked out?
Why does a "whistleblower" (of secret information) need to go public instead of going to those congresscritters cleared to know the secrets and charged with oversight?
Actually most whistleblowers do exactly this, so what if it doesn't work?
. Do you have even a single bit of evidence indicating that a different approach to software distribution would make them sell even more?
Yes. I don't have an ipad because its too locked down. Lots of people are like me.
Now do you have a single bit of evidence indicating that allowing an alternative to the app store for loading apps would make them sell less?
You do remember that we were talking about desktop computers, yes?
No. We're talking about the future. The people out there who use laptops for email, web applications, and some very light productivity.. just a bit too heavy for an ipad... but what about an ipad with a keyboard and trackpad in a laptop form factor? That would suit them just fine..
And that is the face of the new consumer mac.
The mac pro isn't going anywhere. And photoshop will run on it just fine.
Leaking of Secret/classified information is separate from ordinary whistleblowers working for the government. It's a bright-line distinction: each document is Secret, or not.
The bright-line distinction is not whether or not something is marked secret. Its whether some thing is right or wrong.
I don't give a shit how many times they stamp the word Top Secret on something. If its not something we should be doing then it needs to be outed. The US doesn't need secret prisons. And the mis-treatment of prisoners in them is a crime not a "secret".
So am I, but the right system is to police that through oversight committies with appropriate clearance to review the information in the first place, who aren't in anyone's chain of comman except the voters. And we have those.
Sometimes we have them. And sometimes they work. But there is no reason not to have other checks in the system... like protecting a whistleblower who is reporting on the criminal activity of the state.
And history shows...
History also shows that over reaching laws with a narrower "intent" tend to frequently get used used in over reaching ways when its convenient for those in power.
This isn't about "whistleblowers",
Then why not protect them? Where is the language that explicitly limits the scope to just what you think it is actually intended to be used for?
Sorry, not good enough. Application signing might be a way, because...
You are assuming you'll have local root without jail breaking?
Apple is a hardware vendor, why would they do something that makes purchasing their hardware less interesting?
Their entire walled garden approach makes purchasing their hardware less interesting. Its not even worth rebutting your previous argument if this is your position. You've just gone full fanboi now.
Now I don't have an issue with Apple having an app store. I don't even have an issue with it being installed by default, and even being the only way to load apps by default. But the fact that I have to jailbreak the device instead of merely flicking an option in settings to get out of their walled garden is proof positive that they have no qualms doing things that makes purchasing their hardware less interesting.
And then your ranting on about Microsoft, which is completely irrelevant here just solidifies my impression of you as a fanboi.
No one who used smartphones prior to iPhone can possibly take you seriously. By comparison all of the sucked unequivocally.
And Apple took all of that precedent learned from it and cleaned it up, and now therefore can tell everyone else they aren't allowed to take the iphone, learn from it, and and release a new product themselves? Say what now?
Its not like apple invented long battery life or good call quality. Lots of SmartPhones existed with that, they might otherwise have been crap, but the battery and or voice was good. Phones without carrier junk software? Hello Blackberry. Hello Windows Mobile 6. Lousy interfaces? Blackberry had a fine interface built around the clickwheel.
If you wanted to do an all touch interface, then the interface had to be designed for it, and it wasn't so much people copying apple, as people being forced to make many of the same design choices apple was because that's what makes sense for an all touch device.
And sure, as the other manufacturers went all touch, they followed the conventions that Apple had popularized (not invented) and that the market wanted.
As for slide to unlock, what phones had slide to unlock prior to iPhone?
According the article this thread is linked to the Neonode nM1 had a touch interface where you slide from left to right along the bottom of the touch screen to answer calls. Sound familiar?
As for all phones looking like a flat rounded rectangle? What other shape could they possibly have? The second the market shifted to smartphones that was inevitable. Form follows function. 10 years ago phones could be all different shapes... you had your round pod shaped ones, your flat Razrs, your long thin ones that slid, but the moment the smartphone became about the screen the shape of the phone becomes rounded rectangle to hold the screen... some had a phsysical keyboard along the bottom, some with a sliding keyboard, and some with no keyboard. (the iphone wasn't even the first all touch smartphone).
Now 5 years on, the market has shown a strong preference for the on-screen keyboard -- so that pretty much forces phones to be flat round rectangles with no keyboard.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with cherry picking the best bits of existing technology and putting them together to make a better product. And nothing wrong with making that product aesthetically pleasing and putting your company's logo on it.
Well, nothing wrong when apple does it. But apparently god forbid anybody else do it?
How exactly do you suppose this is going to work, technically?
Macbook 2014 has some locked down osx/ios derivative that only accepts new application installation via the app store.
Photoshop isn't in the app store.
Photoshop is still available for OS X proper. OS X proper is only available on Mac Pros.
See, it wasn't that hard.
It takes 10 seconds to change in System Preferences if you don't like the new default.
But I now prefer it because it's conceptually consistent across all my devices.
Meh.
When I play FPSes I push up with the mouse, and I expect to look up.
When I play flight sims when I push forward on the joystick or the console thumbstick or press the "up-arrow" key, I expect the aircraft's nose to push down.
I am "normal".(*)
Its NOT an arbitrary choice. And it shouldn't be just arbitrarily changed to be the same as something else just to be "consistent" with a different unrelated control metaphor.
Same goes for controlling the desktop. The long standing desktop metaphor is that we are controlling the window. Specifically we are adjusting the position of the scroll bar. And the "up"/"down" controls adust the position of the scroll bar of that window.
On a tablet/mobile touch screen, we have a different metaphor... our fingers are literally on the page and when we move our fingers, the page sticks to them, and we reposition our viewpoint by directly pulling or pushing the page around.
Both are valid and appropriate metaphors in there application, and there is no need or rational reason to mindlessly change one to use the same controls as the other one.
Its as silly as observing that your car doors swing outward, and thus rehanging the front door of your home (which odds are extremely good swings inward) to swing outward, you know, "to be consistent". Its just that stupid.
Now when I sit down in front of a computer there are good odds the trackpad is backwards. Not because the user wanted to change it (*) but because Apple did.
(*) There is nothing -wrong- with doing it the other way, and I fully support configurable options so users can set things such that they make sense to them.
What apple did was idiotic.
Roman history in science fiction?
Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
And yeah, pigs fly.
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a-10/ ;)
It does if you consider everything. Allowing free, but not paid, apps to use the iCloud API would be a) the kind of fragmentation Apple dislikes
The only reason there is any "fragmentation" around the icloud API is because apple arbitrarily decided to create some.
b) require constant checking if every unknown party plays by the rules.
???
But I don't see Adobe putting Photoshop there.
Nor do I. But then I wouldn't be surprised if Photoshop was not supported on the next generation of consumer macs either.
I don't see any evidence into that direction.
I see plenty.
I could easily see the next macbook air being pretty much an iOS device...or "OS X Home". A locked down Lion, or a beefed up iOS... either way...
If you want Photoshop buy a Mac Pro with "OS X Pro"
It adds up because it's the only way free apps fit into that system
Why block free apps that are not on the app store? They're still free apps, and they, by not using the app store, by defnition use less infrastructure than apps on the app store... because they don't use the app store infrastructure.
And why not allow vendors like Adobe and Microsoft etc to just license access to the API?
No it doesn't add up as a method for paying for free apps.
I don't see them forcing it, though.
Not forcing it entirely... but I could see the next (or perhaps the next one after that...) macbook or imac targeted at the consumer market only support app store stuff. If you want to load 3rd party apps you'll have... step up to the mac pro series...
As for the iCloud API - the way I take it is that you're not paying for the API, but for use of the iCloud infrastructure.
Paid apps from elsewhere don't use app store infrastructure, and are barred from icloud even if the vendor is willing to pay something for it. Apps willing to pay for it can't.
Free Apps on the apps store use app store infrastructure and may also use icloud. So apps that tie up both app store and icloud resources get a free ride.
Free Apps from else where, don't use app store infrastructure, and are barred from icloud. So free apps that don't tie up app store resources are barred from icloud.
How does that add up?
Its not about paying for the icloud, its a carrot/stick situation for developers pure and simple. Apple is gradually to force more and more developers to distribute through the app store, until its gained enough momentum that it can force all of them.