"These aren't the missing features you're looking for", Steve Jobs waves his hand.
"Flash is bad! Flash is evil! I block Flash all the time! The iPhone doesn't support Flash? We haveta have Flash! It's stupid that it doesn't support it!", Slashdot nerds hit F5 and check their scores.
I would seriously like a serious opinion from other people. Are apple's machines, in particluar their notebooks overpriced?
I bought a Macbook Pro a couple of years ago. I paid a premium for it, but it was one of the few that served a couple of needs I have so it's not like, percentage-wise, I was going to do that much better then other machines. I had the money and I wanted to know if spending the extra money on a laptop would actually be worth it. Here's the short version of what I found:
- Smallest 17" laptop I've encountered. Well, thinnest is probably a better word. It's easier to lug around than the 15" Dell laptop I had. Do your homework on this, though.
- Smallest power supply. We have a Dell Laptop here that would bully around an XBOX 360 power brick. The Mac power supply, besides being magnetized, is a bit like carrying around a USB hub. Very small.
- Backlit keyboard, but I think those are more common these days than they were when I bought it.
- Good display, designed for work as opposed to playing DVDs.
- Having OSX around has been handy. The bigwigs I work with tend to be Mac guys. So being fluent Mac, as well as having a machine that can talk to theirs has been handy. I also personally think that OSX is a better laptop OS than Windows. I end up using both, really, but OSX does the 'close the lid' suspend much more reliably. I also don't feel like I'm fixing it all the time like I am with Windows. I feel like I'm getting some value from it just by having OSX available.
- Windows support on it is better than you'd expect. Due to the nature of it, you don't get all the bullshit you normally get with a Winders laptop.
I have to ding it, though, for its keyboard. Instead of taking advantage of the fact that it's a bigger laptop and putting more keys on it, it actually removed some, including the Insert key which is useful with Maya. WTF.
Based strictly on the component costs I probably could have assembled a cheaper notebook. But is it overpriced? I'm glad I bought it, and there's a good chance my next one will be a MBP. That's partly because of how OSX benefits me and it's partly because the smaller power supply and thin dimensions of it. It's also scoring points with me because I haven't reinstalled Windows or OSX on it since I bought it two years ago and it's still behaving like a champ.
Overpriced if all you're looking at is CPU cycles? Yes. Overpriced for lots of people? Yep. Overpriced for you? Probably, but I'm only saying that because I think you'd see more value with OSX if you worked with Mac users at your job. Overpriced for everybody? No. I'll put it another way: It's not like anybody around here would suggest you eat at McDonald's to save money on going to a restaurant.
It's common sense not to take the RIAA/MPAA at their word. Not just because of their previous questionable tactics (suing individuals, scare campaigns,etc.), and how wrong they have been(like the MPAA saying that the VHS would be "the Boston Strangler" of the film industry when it expanded their market tremendously)... they're going to hate anything that, in their view, has a negative impact on their revenue.
They think that everybody is spending heaps of energy looking for ways to not pay them for stuff. I'll never forget their claim (Hillary Rosen, if memory serves) that two billion songs floated around the net a month. A month or two after that announcement, record profits for the year. Just imagine their steady increase of income suddenly doubling if copy-restriction magically worked!
We're all very quick to hit Google when they do something wrong.
We appear smarter when we find ways for good news to not be good news.
"Neat! The product I have in my hands right now has a cool new feature!""Yeah, but that other product you didn't buy because you didn't know about it or it didn't suit your needs had that feature months ago. (Score:5, Insightful)"
All the software in the world is pointless if the teenager can simply swap some network cables.
I'm not sure why you think that. What teenager is going to want to be caught bypassing the punishment? Better to serve the punishment than to convince your parents a computer is too much work to parent with. (Notice you waited until you had a defensible need to defeat the password than just doing it the moment you got bored and wanted to play with it.)
My dad used to lock the keyboard when I was in trouble. I had a mechanical pencil that came with just the right sized bit to safely unlock it. Despite having this, I'd say at minimum the computer was still not in use 90% of the time the lock was engaged. Dad was home, simple as that.
What monopoly? Every day here it's "Apple has a miniscule market share compared to Nokia (Score: 5, Insightful)" and "Android is doubling in market-share every quarter and Apple is dying (Score: 5, Interesting)".
I just mean the people who had no idea they could even do this suddenly demanding a refund.
When you buy a product based on its potential (i.e. what games it'll have in the future...), it's unnerving when Sony decides to arbitrarily remove features that potentially affect whether you can get those new games.
I don't think it's simply a matter of whether or not you use the feature. It's a matter of trust.
Scott [Forrestal of iPhone software development] says the wrong solution is background processes. It kills battery life and performance in other applications. Microsoft uses a task manager with a horrifying interface in Windows Mobile. "This is nuts."
I remember finding this spin particularly silly....but purchased one regardless....Stupid Jobs and his Jedi mind trick:-)
You can label me a fanboy if you like, but I just wanted to touch on this topic for a sec. The biggest difference bewtween my iPhone and the previous 'smart' phones I had is that I can take it for granted. My Treo, POS Motorola, and Nokia 3650 have all frozen at inopportune times, meaning I wasn't getting calls. (or having alarms go off...) All three of those had to be rebooted at least once month. In the year that I've had it, I have only rebooted my iPhone due to a glitch a couple of times. With the other phones I just got used to the idea that I should check them once in a while to make sure they're okay.. even pre-emptively rebooting them if I was heading somewhere where phone service was important. The same goes for battery life. My iPhone's battery usage has been surprisingly consistent. I cannot say the same for the Treo or the Motorola. (Actually the Nokia was better behaved in that regard, lasted longer, too.)
My iPhone became the PDA I've always wanted, right down to being able to rely on it as an alarm clock. I used to own Microsoft PocketPC's and there is no fucking way I would EVER own a phone based on that OS. My girlfriend has an HTC Fuze and her experience with that is almost comical. She hasn't even tried installing an app on it, yet her email spontaneously broke and now she cannot send attachments. It regularly freezes and its battery often dies after only being off the charger like 4 hours. This sort of thing wouldn't have shocked me a whole lot back when I had a Treo, but after a year with this phone I can't believe she hasn't replaced the bloody thing.
So... yes, maybe I'm a fan boy, maybe I 'drank the kool aid' or whatever, but I agree with Apple's decision to withhold the multi-tasking. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to being able to multi-task with it. (Well I would be if I had a supported phone... GRR.) But if in a flurry of iPhone App downloads the masses' phones started acting all screwy, Apple would have been sunk. I think Blackberry users would probably get what I'm talking about.
Following the money means devs will focus their energies on where it's profitable. Make it dirt simple to do and the iPhone becomes a more attractive platform. Sway enough dev-work their way, Google responds with their own. Thus not being able to get away from it.
The ads are for the apps that choose to use them, not for the phone service.
Like them or hate them, the more money Apple funnels towards the developers, the better software support it will have. If it's successful expect Android to follow suit.
Slashdot Mirror
"These aren't the missing features you're looking for", Steve Jobs waves his hand.
"Flash is bad! Flash is evil! I block Flash all the time! The iPhone doesn't support Flash? We haveta have Flash! It's stupid that it doesn't support it!", Slashdot nerds hit F5 and check their scores.
It's being designed from the ground up to run Linux. Both of those facts should make it newsworthy, News for Nerds, remember?
Oh who are we kidding? The name invites potty humor and the people who hate the iPad post more often on the topic than those who don't.
Isn't that handled by...y'know...the sun?
Yes. That goal was fulfilled a few billion years ago and isn't talked about anymore.
I would seriously like a serious opinion from other people. Are apple's machines, in particluar their notebooks overpriced?
I bought a Macbook Pro a couple of years ago. I paid a premium for it, but it was one of the few that served a couple of needs I have so it's not like, percentage-wise, I was going to do that much better then other machines. I had the money and I wanted to know if spending the extra money on a laptop would actually be worth it. Here's the short version of what I found:
- Smallest 17" laptop I've encountered. Well, thinnest is probably a better word. It's easier to lug around than the 15" Dell laptop I had. Do your homework on this, though.
- Smallest power supply. We have a Dell Laptop here that would bully around an XBOX 360 power brick. The Mac power supply, besides being magnetized, is a bit like carrying around a USB hub. Very small.
- Backlit keyboard, but I think those are more common these days than they were when I bought it.
- Good display, designed for work as opposed to playing DVDs.
- Having OSX around has been handy. The bigwigs I work with tend to be Mac guys. So being fluent Mac, as well as having a machine that can talk to theirs has been handy. I also personally think that OSX is a better laptop OS than Windows. I end up using both, really, but OSX does the 'close the lid' suspend much more reliably. I also don't feel like I'm fixing it all the time like I am with Windows. I feel like I'm getting some value from it just by having OSX available.
- Windows support on it is better than you'd expect. Due to the nature of it, you don't get all the bullshit you normally get with a Winders laptop.
I have to ding it, though, for its keyboard. Instead of taking advantage of the fact that it's a bigger laptop and putting more keys on it, it actually removed some, including the Insert key which is useful with Maya. WTF.
Based strictly on the component costs I probably could have assembled a cheaper notebook. But is it overpriced? I'm glad I bought it, and there's a good chance my next one will be a MBP. That's partly because of how OSX benefits me and it's partly because the smaller power supply and thin dimensions of it. It's also scoring points with me because I haven't reinstalled Windows or OSX on it since I bought it two years ago and it's still behaving like a champ.
Overpriced if all you're looking at is CPU cycles? Yes. Overpriced for lots of people? Yep. Overpriced for you? Probably, but I'm only saying that because I think you'd see more value with OSX if you worked with Mac users at your job. Overpriced for everybody? No. I'll put it another way: It's not like anybody around here would suggest you eat at McDonald's to save money on going to a restaurant.
I suppose it's a coincidence that you posted that around lunch-time.
I'm looking forward to the idea of using a case-sensitive-*nix-CLI on it so I can tinker. Wee.
It's common sense not to take the RIAA/MPAA at their word. Not just because of their previous questionable tactics (suing individuals, scare campaigns,etc.), and how wrong they have been(like the MPAA saying that the VHS would be "the Boston Strangler" of the film industry when it expanded their market tremendously)... they're going to hate anything that, in their view, has a negative impact on their revenue.
They think that everybody is spending heaps of energy looking for ways to not pay them for stuff. I'll never forget their claim (Hillary Rosen, if memory serves) that two billion songs floated around the net a month. A month or two after that announcement, record profits for the year. Just imagine their steady increase of income suddenly doubling if copy-restriction magically worked!
We're all very quick to hit Google when they do something wrong.
We appear smarter when we find ways for good news to not be good news.
"Neat! The product I have in my hands right now has a cool new feature!" "Yeah, but that other product you didn't buy because you didn't know about it or it didn't suit your needs had that feature months ago. (Score:5, Insightful)"
Does anyone else think the submission sounds like an ad copy?
So?
Did the first color movies have the same problem? "Wow. Why was that door BRIGHT RED?"
All the software in the world is pointless if the teenager can simply swap some network cables.
I'm not sure why you think that. What teenager is going to want to be caught bypassing the punishment? Better to serve the punishment than to convince your parents a computer is too much work to parent with. (Notice you waited until you had a defensible need to defeat the password than just doing it the moment you got bored and wanted to play with it.)
My dad used to lock the keyboard when I was in trouble. I had a mechanical pencil that came with just the right sized bit to safely unlock it. Despite having this, I'd say at minimum the computer was still not in use 90% of the time the lock was engaged. Dad was home, simple as that.
Pointless? Hah. No.
What monopoly? Every day here it's "Apple has a miniscule market share compared to Nokia (Score: 5, Insightful)" and "Android is doubling in market-share every quarter and Apple is dying (Score: 5, Interesting)".
What is new is that Apple is trying to grab this market for themselves instead of leaving the choice up to the application developers.
You really should read more about the topic.
"the geeks at /."
As opposed to who else at /.?
This guy, for example.
Where was the word 'innovation' used?
I just mean the people who had no idea they could even do this suddenly demanding a refund.
When you buy a product based on its potential (i.e. what games it'll have in the future...), it's unnerving when Sony decides to arbitrarily remove features that potentially affect whether you can get those new games.
I don't think it's simply a matter of whether or not you use the feature. It's a matter of trust.
Yes it does. It's still ad-supported even if you block it, too.
Scott [Forrestal of iPhone software development] says the wrong solution is background processes. It kills battery life and performance in other applications. Microsoft uses a task manager with a horrifying interface in Windows Mobile. "This is nuts."
I remember finding this spin particularly silly....but purchased one regardless....Stupid Jobs and his Jedi mind trick :-)
You can label me a fanboy if you like, but I just wanted to touch on this topic for a sec. The biggest difference bewtween my iPhone and the previous 'smart' phones I had is that I can take it for granted. My Treo, POS Motorola, and Nokia 3650 have all frozen at inopportune times, meaning I wasn't getting calls. (or having alarms go off...) All three of those had to be rebooted at least once month. In the year that I've had it, I have only rebooted my iPhone due to a glitch a couple of times. With the other phones I just got used to the idea that I should check them once in a while to make sure they're okay.. even pre-emptively rebooting them if I was heading somewhere where phone service was important. The same goes for battery life. My iPhone's battery usage has been surprisingly consistent. I cannot say the same for the Treo or the Motorola. (Actually the Nokia was better behaved in that regard, lasted longer, too.)
My iPhone became the PDA I've always wanted, right down to being able to rely on it as an alarm clock. I used to own Microsoft PocketPC's and there is no fucking way I would EVER own a phone based on that OS. My girlfriend has an HTC Fuze and her experience with that is almost comical. She hasn't even tried installing an app on it, yet her email spontaneously broke and now she cannot send attachments. It regularly freezes and its battery often dies after only being off the charger like 4 hours. This sort of thing wouldn't have shocked me a whole lot back when I had a Treo, but after a year with this phone I can't believe she hasn't replaced the bloody thing.
So... yes, maybe I'm a fan boy, maybe I 'drank the kool aid' or whatever, but I agree with Apple's decision to withhold the multi-tasking. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to being able to multi-task with it. (Well I would be if I had a supported phone... GRR.) But if in a flurry of iPhone App downloads the masses' phones started acting all screwy, Apple would have been sunk. I think Blackberry users would probably get what I'm talking about.
Yes, because shoveling money at developers always results in higher quality software. :::coughcough microsoft.com :::coughcough:::
I'm curious why you don't think that argument works against your point.
It'll be pretty hard to "follow suit" since Apple has patented [slashdot.org] their method of showing ads.
Read the TFA in the article you linked to. iAd is *not* what that patent covers.
Following the money means devs will focus their energies on where it's profitable. Make it dirt simple to do and the iPhone becomes a more attractive platform. Sway enough dev-work their way, Google responds with their own. Thus not being able to get away from it.
Will ads only be shown when ad-supported apps are running...
Yes.
or ***HOT SLASHDOTTERS WANT TO TALK TO YOU!!!*** will you be interrupted with ads no matter where you are?
I'm sorry, but it's hard to take you seriously when you're happily posting on an ad-supported site about how you say 'no-thanks' to ad-supported apps.
Devs are going to follow the money. It doesn't matter if you're locked into the Android Marketplace or not.
The ads are for the apps that choose to use them, not for the phone service.
Like them or hate them, the more money Apple funnels towards the developers, the better software support it will have. If it's successful expect Android to follow suit.
Why 'now' and not years ago when people started buying smartphones that could do all that?