Apple however doesn't seem to get on board. Not supporting both Flash and WebM leaves pretty much only H264 as a way to get video on an iPod/iPhone/iPad. I wonder how this will work out. Websites are basically forced to support more than one way of delivering video at this point if they want their content to work on all major platforms, which is all the more reason to just put your videos on YouTube and let them sort it out. I'm not sure that is the right direction for video on the web.
YouTube and the like may start to offer WebM next to H264, but I don't see any ditching of H264 any time soon. All sorts of devices (such as phones) are equiped with H264 decoder chips now, making it possible to watch video without draining the battery too much. As I'm not aware of any devices with WebM decoder chips, the web will stick with H264 at least until this situation changes.
I totally understand you don't look in manuals or support documents when you're not having problems. I guess that's true for most people. But what I don't understand, is that you would spend your money on a book such as this, instead of just looking for exactly the same information available from botht the supplier or your software, or various other sources on the web.
Altough Pogue did write a lot of books about Apple and Mac-related software, he also wrote lots of other stuff, including books about every major version of Windows since ME, but also books about things such as Twitter, the Palm Pilot and the Opera web browser.
But you don't need a book to learn the keyboard shortcuts of your operating system. Not only are they probably explained in the user interface, they're also listed in the manual that came with the OS and placed in the support section on the developer's website. Who doesn't check out these sort of sources before they go out and purchase a book?
Even in 1996 I saw books such as these and wondered who would buy them. I understand why people buy books about operating systems or applications that lack a GUI, or books about development or other non-obvious things you can't figure out by simply trying. But this is so extremely basic and obvious, I really can't imagine the intended audience. They talk about people having a "intermediate skill level", but I also can't really figure out what that means. What sort of stuff can't these people figure out and how does a book like this help them?
Yeah, most "supercomputers" are distributed systems, just like SETI@Home. The only real difference between a traditional supercomputer and a network like SETI@Home is how spread out the nodes are and the amount of bandwith between them.
I just can't stop thinking about a beowulf cluster of those!
If Apple really would have wanted a closed and proprietary web renderer, they could have developed one. If a small company from Norway can do it, surely Apple can too. But they went with something open instead. Not because they had to, but because they thought it was the right thing to do, business- and otherwise.
And most importantly: they kept WebKit open-source, which was also beneficial for KHTML. Everybody won with the way Apple created WebKit from KHTML. Microsoft has never done anything even close in it's entire existence.
KHTML was an underachieving render engine a decade ago, with little users and little developers. Now, WebKit is the world most advanced and most used web rendering technology out there, used by leading companies such as Nokia, Google, Adobe and even Microsoft to deliver web pages with speed and standard compliancy.
WebKit was the first web rendering engine to support a bytecode interpreter for Javascript, significantly increasing performance. They had support for HTML5 video back in 2007. It was the first engine to fully pass the Acid3 test. They created the basis for CSS transitions and animations, and relayed their concepts back to the W3C so other browsers can benefit from their work as well.
Long story short, WebKit is awesome. Sure, KHTML was the foundation for it, but KHTML never was what WebKit is today.
The funny thing is that Apple has created their fortune without ever really having a large user share in any market. Therefore, anti-trust laws don't apply. Apple's profits are huge, but they're not monopolists.
With Flash what we're trying to do is both beef it up and make it robust enough so that at least you can get one language that's platform-independent and will move from platform to platform without hitting you every time you turn around with different semantics.
*sigh* another company claiming that what they're doing is "platform independent" because they've created versions for a few platforms. Just like Microsoft with their Silverlight technology, Flash isn't platform independent at all. Sure Adobe has created Flash for a few different platforms, just like MS has created a Mac-version of Silverlight, but at the end of the day, Flash only works on the platforms Adobe have decided to create a binary for.
What platform independence is all about, is that the platform is completely irrelevant. You know, like the web is supposed to be. Javascript doesn't care if it's running on an Intel chip or an ARM chip, it doesn't care if you're running it in Windows or Linux, it doesn't care which browser you are using. THAT is platform independence. Loading the approriate binary for your platform is not, especially if you can't create these binaries yourself in the case Adobe doesn't support your platform.
This is why Flash is terrible for the web. When websites rely heavily on Flash, it basically turns the web into an Adobe-only platform. That's terrible for everyone, no matter how Adobe is trying to sell it to you.
but it will take decades for Google to get anywhere near the records set by Minesweeper and Solitaire
Don't forget Hearts. As a kid, I used to work during the summer at the office where my dad used to work. Every single time I launched MS Hearts, I could easily find a few people on the network to play with without ever inviting anyone. Actually, now that I think about it, because it was the pre-YouTube days and all, I'm guessing Hearts was probably a considerable portion of daily network traffic.
Yeah, because all computers are equal when the brand of the chips is the same.
Look, it's clear Apple isn't for you. And that's perfectly fine, as there is a whole world out there and loads of manufacturers offering loads of different systems. If you don't like Apple and think their products are too expensive, don't buy them. Simple as that.
But you just can't deny that business-wise, Apple is doing better than most other PC companies. So apparently, they must be doing something right, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to pull off their strategy. It's either this or you seriously believe that every single Apple customer is a brainless moron who doesn't know he is being ripped off.
::shrug:: defend it however you want. The fact is, they are selling less numbers of the same hardware, but making more money. If you can't see that means they are charging more than their competition for the same hardware, I don't know what to tell you.
I don't think Apple is selling the same hardware as most other PC companies. For instance, Apple is selling a lot of all-in-one desktop computers, which isn't big in the PC-world at all. Also, Apple is selling laptops with very long battery life, without sacrificing on the looks, weight and performance too much. That's the sort of stuff people will pay premium for. And that's why Apple is making more money than the rest.
And besides, if it's the software that people like so much, why not just build a Hackintosh?
Because of the same reasons the year of the Linux desktop has never arrived.
Or it just means they have invested in their products (in the form of industrial design, their own operating system etc) and that investment is now paying off. Apparently people are willing to pay more for an Apple computer than for another computer. You could argue that's because people or stupid, or it's because Apple's computer are worth their price or a little of both. Who knows? All we know is, buying some Apple shares might be a good idea, because as a business, they're doing a lot better than the competition, even without having a large market share.
As you can see, every single company is making less money than Apple, except for HP. And I'll bet you that when you look up HP's annual financial reports, it will show they're not making that money in the PC-market.
I don't know if Apple's market share is so much smaller comparing to Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer or any other PC manufacturer out there. But the real secret is of course that Apple is all about the "premium price point". Almost all of the computers they sell are in the $1000+ category, while the rest of the market mainly focusses on the low end.
Apple tries to gain a competitive advantage by offering better products, not cheaper ones like most other companies. You can agree or disagree on whether Apple is succesful at this, but it does lead to massive profits and revenues for Apple Inc. So calling this "failure" is a bit... strange, to say the least.
I would've preferred it if the drive presented the flash cache as a ReadyBoost drive to Windows and have the OS manage what needs to be cached. Certainly Windows knows more about which of its own disgusting innards needs to be readily accessible better than a hardware algorithm.
Microsoft would like this too, as they presented this idea in 2006 already with the "ReadyDrive" concept. But it hasn't caught on, mainly because of a lack of Vista adoption.
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Apple however doesn't seem to get on board. Not supporting both Flash and WebM leaves pretty much only H264 as a way to get video on an iPod/iPhone/iPad. I wonder how this will work out. Websites are basically forced to support more than one way of delivering video at this point if they want their content to work on all major platforms, which is all the more reason to just put your videos on YouTube and let them sort it out. I'm not sure that is the right direction for video on the web.
YouTube and the like may start to offer WebM next to H264, but I don't see any ditching of H264 any time soon. All sorts of devices (such as phones) are equiped with H264 decoder chips now, making it possible to watch video without draining the battery too much. As I'm not aware of any devices with WebM decoder chips, the web will stick with H264 at least until this situation changes.
He is a very talented writer and you should all buy his books.
In what sort of world do you live if buying a book from a store is less of a hassle than finding out about this stuff online?
I totally understand you don't look in manuals or support documents when you're not having problems. I guess that's true for most people. But what I don't understand, is that you would spend your money on a book such as this, instead of just looking for exactly the same information available from botht the supplier or your software, or various other sources on the web.
Altough Pogue did write a lot of books about Apple and Mac-related software, he also wrote lots of other stuff, including books about every major version of Windows since ME, but also books about things such as Twitter, the Palm Pilot and the Opera web browser.
Now that Apple's market cap is larger than Microsoft, Windows became the product of an underdog and with that comes a lot of love.
But you don't need a book to learn the keyboard shortcuts of your operating system. Not only are they probably explained in the user interface, they're also listed in the manual that came with the OS and placed in the support section on the developer's website. Who doesn't check out these sort of sources before they go out and purchase a book?
Even in 1996 I saw books such as these and wondered who would buy them. I understand why people buy books about operating systems or applications that lack a GUI, or books about development or other non-obvious things you can't figure out by simply trying. But this is so extremely basic and obvious, I really can't imagine the intended audience. They talk about people having a "intermediate skill level", but I also can't really figure out what that means. What sort of stuff can't these people figure out and how does a book like this help them?
I see the skills are quickly fading away, as even creating a basic link in HTML is now quite a challenge for some people.
Yeah, most "supercomputers" are distributed systems, just like SETI@Home. The only real difference between a traditional supercomputer and a network like SETI@Home is how spread out the nodes are and the amount of bandwith between them.
I just can't stop thinking about a beowulf cluster of those!
If Apple really would have wanted a closed and proprietary web renderer, they could have developed one. If a small company from Norway can do it, surely Apple can too. But they went with something open instead. Not because they had to, but because they thought it was the right thing to do, business- and otherwise.
Obviously, my point is that none of the awesomeness of WebKit would have happened if Apple hadn't forked KHTML into WebKit.
And most importantly: they kept WebKit open-source, which was also beneficial for KHTML. Everybody won with the way Apple created WebKit from KHTML. Microsoft has never done anything even close in it's entire existence.
KHTML was an underachieving render engine a decade ago, with little users and little developers. Now, WebKit is the world most advanced and most used web rendering technology out there, used by leading companies such as Nokia, Google, Adobe and even Microsoft to deliver web pages with speed and standard compliancy.
WebKit was the first web rendering engine to support a bytecode interpreter for Javascript, significantly increasing performance. They had support for HTML5 video back in 2007. It was the first engine to fully pass the Acid3 test. They created the basis for CSS transitions and animations, and relayed their concepts back to the W3C so other browsers can benefit from their work as well.
Long story short, WebKit is awesome. Sure, KHTML was the foundation for it, but KHTML never was what WebKit is today.
The funny thing is that Apple has created their fortune without ever really having a large user share in any market. Therefore, anti-trust laws don't apply. Apple's profits are huge, but they're not monopolists.
With Flash what we're trying to do is both beef it up and make it robust enough so that at least you can get one language that's platform-independent and will move from platform to platform without hitting you every time you turn around with different semantics.
*sigh* another company claiming that what they're doing is "platform independent" because they've created versions for a few platforms. Just like Microsoft with their Silverlight technology, Flash isn't platform independent at all. Sure Adobe has created Flash for a few different platforms, just like MS has created a Mac-version of Silverlight, but at the end of the day, Flash only works on the platforms Adobe have decided to create a binary for.
What platform independence is all about, is that the platform is completely irrelevant. You know, like the web is supposed to be. Javascript doesn't care if it's running on an Intel chip or an ARM chip, it doesn't care if you're running it in Windows or Linux, it doesn't care which browser you are using. THAT is platform independence. Loading the approriate binary for your platform is not, especially if you can't create these binaries yourself in the case Adobe doesn't support your platform.
This is why Flash is terrible for the web. When websites rely heavily on Flash, it basically turns the web into an Adobe-only platform. That's terrible for everyone, no matter how Adobe is trying to sell it to you.
but it will take decades for Google to get anywhere near the records set by Minesweeper and Solitaire
Don't forget Hearts. As a kid, I used to work during the summer at the office where my dad used to work. Every single time I launched MS Hearts, I could easily find a few people on the network to play with without ever inviting anyone. Actually, now that I think about it, because it was the pre-YouTube days and all, I'm guessing Hearts was probably a considerable portion of daily network traffic.
Yeah, because all computers are equal when the brand of the chips is the same.
Look, it's clear Apple isn't for you. And that's perfectly fine, as there is a whole world out there and loads of manufacturers offering loads of different systems. If you don't like Apple and think their products are too expensive, don't buy them. Simple as that.
But you just can't deny that business-wise, Apple is doing better than most other PC companies. So apparently, they must be doing something right, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to pull off their strategy. It's either this or you seriously believe that every single Apple customer is a brainless moron who doesn't know he is being ripped off.
::shrug:: defend it however you want. The fact is, they are selling less numbers of the same hardware, but making more money. If you can't see that means they are charging more than their competition for the same hardware, I don't know what to tell you.
I don't think Apple is selling the same hardware as most other PC companies. For instance, Apple is selling a lot of all-in-one desktop computers, which isn't big in the PC-world at all. Also, Apple is selling laptops with very long battery life, without sacrificing on the looks, weight and performance too much. That's the sort of stuff people will pay premium for. And that's why Apple is making more money than the rest.
And besides, if it's the software that people like so much, why not just build a Hackintosh?
Because of the same reasons the year of the Linux desktop has never arrived.
Or it just means they have invested in their products (in the form of industrial design, their own operating system etc) and that investment is now paying off. Apparently people are willing to pay more for an Apple computer than for another computer. You could argue that's because people or stupid, or it's because Apple's computer are worth their price or a little of both. Who knows? All we know is, buying some Apple shares might be a good idea, because as a business, they're doing a lot better than the competition, even without having a large market share.
Now see, I gave data to support my point (that others have higher sales). Do you have any data supporting that Apple has higher profits/revenues?
Just look at the revenues and profits of the companies listed on Wikipedia:
As you can see, every single company is making less money than Apple, except for HP. And I'll bet you that when you look up HP's annual financial reports, it will show they're not making that money in the PC-market.
I don't know if Apple's market share is so much smaller comparing to Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer or any other PC manufacturer out there. But the real secret is of course that Apple is all about the "premium price point". Almost all of the computers they sell are in the $1000+ category, while the rest of the market mainly focusses on the low end.
Apple tries to gain a competitive advantage by offering better products, not cheaper ones like most other companies. You can agree or disagree on whether Apple is succesful at this, but it does lead to massive profits and revenues for Apple Inc. So calling this "failure" is a bit... strange, to say the least.
I would've preferred it if the drive presented the flash cache as a ReadyBoost drive to Windows and have the OS manage what needs to be cached. Certainly Windows knows more about which of its own disgusting innards needs to be readily accessible better than a hardware algorithm.
Microsoft would like this too, as they presented this idea in 2006 already with the "ReadyDrive" concept. But it hasn't caught on, mainly because of a lack of Vista adoption.
So these guys are shipping more computers and making less money doing so, which makes Apple the loser? That's an interesting view on business.