I think your contention that Apple users will just buy it (i.e. drink the kool-aid) regardless of how well it works, is both insulting and disengenious.
I'm just pointing out the distinction in the perception of the products. The main point I wanted to make is that iPhone users are going to be happy when Apple puts out software updates for the phone, and they will view those updates in the context of Apple "responding to consumer demand." That can be contrasted to the response when Microsoft puts out software updates, "Too little, too late." or "It's about damn time."
I didn't say anything about the reasons people use to justify their purchases.
And in that case, is the Windows market fragmented as well? I mean, you have Win9x, Win2k, WinXP Home, WinXP Pro, WinXP 64, Win2003 Server, WinME, WinMCE, Vista Home, Vista Business, Vista Ultimate and several other flavours I have most certainly missed... how many different desktops, different Start menus, different browsers, different GUIs, different driver versions, different ways to uninstall a program...?
It's simple, just Run setup.exe, or if you want to push it out with Group Policy, run the associated.MSI file. How many ways to uninstall a program... Hmmmm, Add/Remove Programs. Or 98% of the time, you can just run setup.exe again and the system will recognize that the program is already installed and give you the option to Remove, Modify or Re-Install.
I've been thinking about this for the last day or two. When Microsoft releases a product, lets call it Vista, large segments of the computing world whine about what an unfinished product is. They laugh at Microsoft users and call them beta testers for an unfinished product that was pushed out the door sooner than it should have been.
Lets contrast that with Apple, and their beta product, the iPhone. It is still lacking some features. Other features aren't polished. Very few people clown the iPhone adopters and even the adopters themselves are comfortable justifying their purchase in terms of, "Well, I don't really need those features." I think that Apple is relying on the fact that their users are complete fanatics who will put up with a beta product. I predict that what we are going to see is Apple will eventually push out updates for the phone, and Apple users are going to say, "See, Apple is a great company. They LISTEN to what I have to say. They implement the features that I tell them that I want. I love Apple." Very few are going to point out that the features weren't even there in the first place.
Also, I'd just like to note that, for the record, I watch little TV, and I have barely noticed the hype that everyone is freaking out about.
I'm in the same boat that you are. I don't watch TV in my own home and only see it when I happen to be at someone else's house who has it on. I saw a grand total of one iTunes advertisement two times. I didn't see any billboards for it, or bus advertisements. I don't listen to the radio either, so I can't comment on whether or not there was any advertising done in that medium.
But I submitted this story because I think it shows just how different some companies (like Apple) view the consumers compared to others (like AT&T). This just happened to be a fantastic example of just how different the two ends of the spectrum are.
I think it also serves to highlight how different their perspectives are. For Apple, the iPhone is their cool new thing. I wouldn't say that they are betting the company's future on it, but it is definitely the "big thing" that they've been working on for lord only knows how long. As far as AT&T is concerned, it's just another phone. Marketting hype aside, it is just another phone. Remember when the Blackberry came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the Treo came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the Razr came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the iPhone came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when.... Get the picture? It's just another consumer device, and in a year from now it is going to be a lot less flashy. In three to five years from now, everything on the iPhone is going to be more or less standard on other phones.
The rush is all about the 0-day newness factor. Everyone who I spoke with who absolutely "had to have" an iPhone is some whiney, emo, scenester hipster. I work at an art museum. I live in southern California. I am absolutely submerged in the target audience for the iPhone. Everyone who I have spoken with looks at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that I don't want an iPhone, that I think it's over priced, that I think AT&T service sucks (which it does, my Blackberry 8800 through work is on AT&T), and that it is lacking some pretty key features (enterprise email, modem, etc).
I'm going out tonight, and I know that I'm going to run into at least one person with a crowd of people around them because they are showing off their spiffy new iPhone. The iPhone is like the Tickle Me Elmo doll for the 20+, need to be perceived as tuned in and cool with the cutting edge segment of society.
Game development is a complex process. Most game developers are using game engines that have been developed by another party. Microsoft started courting game developers A LONG TIME AGO when they released DirectX. Apple didn't give two shits. Linux... WTF was that? In those days it was FreeBSD, System V or SCO... Slackware, Debian and the few others were in their infancy and the people running them cared more about IRC and MUDs than anything else. While the rest of the computer world was focused on making enterprise (Unix) and consumer (Apple) friendly software, Microsoft was making computers a cool platform to play games on. Because of that, Microsoft Windows is the premiere game development platform at this point in time and will continue to be for the forseeable future. But maybe you can go get some uber Java games to run on your ultra cool iPhone.
A lot of $xx,xxx for a X myth comes from past, outdated accounting practices that aren't used anymore. Back in the day before there was so much oversight, projects were often sold as a lot. So if you have a million dollar aircraft with 20,000 parts, the cost of the aircraft would get divided equally across the number of parts and each part would end up costing $50. That way you end up with a single screw that costs $50 and an entire radar assembly that costs $50.
Because of all the whining and sensationalizing, contractors aren't allowed to bill the government like that anymore. Now they have to break out the cost of every part on the invoice. It makes for a lot more bookkeeping, but in these days of computers, supply chain automation, etc.... the bookkeeping is a lot easier to do.
Thanks for pointing this out. The conversation seems to have gone off onto a tangent about whether or not emails are private. That discussion misses the point of the ruling. The ruling just says that the government has to follow due process and obtain a warrant if they want to USE YOUR EMAILS AGAINST YOU IN COURT.
Personally I'm of the opinion that if you're up to shady stuff that carries any sort of legal liability you shouldn't be leaving a record of it anywhere. But, with the way the law is written, you're allowed to keep a record of what you're up to and also you're allowed to have the expectation that law enforcement will have to jump through some hoops to use your own records against you. I'm pretty sure that the Constitution was written in the way that it was written to give people the belief that they could freely criticize the government and perhaps even plot against it when it stops serving the people. I don't think it was written to protect child pornographers and drug dealers.
But it's just to protect the stupid people. I think that anytime it's possible to intercept your message, everyone should be able to do so, no warrant or probable cause needed, and use it in any way they want. That's the only way people will stop being so stupid that they think they have an expectation of privacy.
Your post got modded Insightful but it should be modded Sad. What kind of society are we living in where you have to assume that everyone else is out to screw you and if you don't you're "stupid"? I'm all for encryption and discretion and all of that. I'm also all for having the right to beat your ass for sticking your nose into my business. There are some societal understandings that we all agree to in order to have well, order. You don't listen into what your neighbors are doing because you don't want them doing the same thing to you. How is having an expectation of privacy any more "stupid" than having an expectation of safety? Are you stupid for thinking that I'm not going to beat your ass if you spout off some random crap? Of course not... there are laws there to punish me if I cause you bodily harm. There are also laws to punish you for listening into my conversations. Those laws lead to expectations. I don't think those expectations are necessarily stupid, especially when they're founded upon Constitutionally protected rights (the 4th amendment in this case).
Is anybody using this in a production environment? I've been trying to get HP OpenView implimented and it is one big fat PITA. All I really need to do at this point is monitor server disk/partition usage. It would also be nice to inventory the network but that is a secondary objective. Any suggestions for an easy to use tool. Will Zenoss do it?
Mod this guy up. I don't have the points today but he made all of the arguments that need to be made. I only administer a small BES server (30 devices) but I make full use of device profiles to configure the devices. If a device gets lost we can kill it from the server. In short, RIM has the market share for many reasons, one of them being their management tools. Unless Apple comes out with tools that equal or surpass what RIM has to offer, they aren't going to get the market share.
You must be one of those guys at the party who stands in the corner and just listens, just waiting to get home so that you can get on your computer and REALLY tell people what you think about their conversations.
You hit the nail right on the head with your remarks on the education system. Kids these days are being trained to serve the system, not to question it.
You're missing one key piece of the puzzle. The Hot Coffee content was on the original disc but Rockstar coded around the Hot Coffee code so that the content couldn't be accessed. "Hackers" found the content and released the Game Shark codes to access it.
The content being talked about here is DOWNLOADED. There isn't anything to hack... unless you're going to hack Xbox Live or whatever Microsoft's online service is called.
Is all of this complaining happening because Microsoft is "sticking users" with the weaker system? The last video game system I bought was a PS2. Most of my friends purchased the Xbox. I can tell you that I sure felt a bit ripped off when the XBox version of the GTA games had better graphics than what I got on my PS2. I didn't freak out and curse Sony for putting out a "weak" system though.
How is it different in spirit than when one of the fighting games (I think it was Tekken maybe) made different end of game characters for different platforms? On the Nintendo system you got Link. On the Microsoft system you got Venom from Spiderman. There was one other bad guy for the Playstation.
Or on another train of thought, Microsoft wants to provide content. Content doesn't come about for free. They have to pay for it. So they buy the content from Take Two and then resell it to Xbox 360 owners. How is that any different than a store buying a candy bar for 25 cents and selling it to you for 50 cents?
It's great having Excellent karma isn't it? =) Oops, lost another point on this one... -1 OffTopic. Then again, the guy with the wild hair up his butt who modded you down might have run out of mod points by now and I'll be safe.
Just because the WiFi is disabled, does that mean that it simply can't be enabled? The last time I was involved in anything phone related was 1994 with Oki 900s and CTEK, and Motorola G1, G2, G3 stuff. There were all sorts of things that the phones couldn't do from the factory, but with some updated firmware, they were wide open. Is there any reason to believe that the iPhone won't be the same way?
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And 23% of those that do? And 69% of those that contain two of the three? And what percent of statistics are complete bullshit again?
I'm just pointing out the distinction in the perception of the products. The main point I wanted to make is that iPhone users are going to be happy when Apple puts out software updates for the phone, and they will view those updates in the context of Apple "responding to consumer demand." That can be contrasted to the response when Microsoft puts out software updates, "Too little, too late." or "It's about damn time."
I didn't say anything about the reasons people use to justify their purchases.
It's simple, just Run setup.exe, or if you want to push it out with Group Policy, run the associated .MSI file. How many ways to uninstall a program... Hmmmm, Add/Remove Programs. Or 98% of the time, you can just run setup.exe again and the system will recognize that the program is already installed and give you the option to Remove, Modify or Re-Install.
Lets contrast that with Apple, and their beta product, the iPhone. It is still lacking some features. Other features aren't polished. Very few people clown the iPhone adopters and even the adopters themselves are comfortable justifying their purchase in terms of, "Well, I don't really need those features." I think that Apple is relying on the fact that their users are complete fanatics who will put up with a beta product. I predict that what we are going to see is Apple will eventually push out updates for the phone, and Apple users are going to say, "See, Apple is a great company. They LISTEN to what I have to say. They implement the features that I tell them that I want. I love Apple." Very few are going to point out that the features weren't even there in the first place.
I'm in the same boat that you are. I don't watch TV in my own home and only see it when I happen to be at someone else's house who has it on. I saw a grand total of one iTunes advertisement two times. I didn't see any billboards for it, or bus advertisements. I don't listen to the radio either, so I can't comment on whether or not there was any advertising done in that medium.
I got two phone numbers and laid in the middle of the park, and I didn't have to spend $500.
I think it also serves to highlight how different their perspectives are. For Apple, the iPhone is their cool new thing. I wouldn't say that they are betting the company's future on it, but it is definitely the "big thing" that they've been working on for lord only knows how long. As far as AT&T is concerned, it's just another phone. Marketting hype aside, it is just another phone. Remember when the Blackberry came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the Treo came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the Razr came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when the iPhone came out and everyone wanted one? Remember when.... Get the picture? It's just another consumer device, and in a year from now it is going to be a lot less flashy. In three to five years from now, everything on the iPhone is going to be more or less standard on other phones.
I'm going out tonight, and I know that I'm going to run into at least one person with a crowd of people around them because they are showing off their spiffy new iPhone. The iPhone is like the Tickle Me Elmo doll for the 20+, need to be perceived as tuned in and cool with the cutting edge segment of society.
Game development is a complex process. Most game developers are using game engines that have been developed by another party. Microsoft started courting game developers A LONG TIME AGO when they released DirectX. Apple didn't give two shits. Linux... WTF was that? In those days it was FreeBSD, System V or SCO... Slackware, Debian and the few others were in their infancy and the people running them cared more about IRC and MUDs than anything else. While the rest of the computer world was focused on making enterprise (Unix) and consumer (Apple) friendly software, Microsoft was making computers a cool platform to play games on. Because of that, Microsoft Windows is the premiere game development platform at this point in time and will continue to be for the forseeable future. But maybe you can go get some uber Java games to run on your ultra cool iPhone.
Because of all the whining and sensationalizing, contractors aren't allowed to bill the government like that anymore. Now they have to break out the cost of every part on the invoice. It makes for a lot more bookkeeping, but in these days of computers, supply chain automation, etc. ... the bookkeeping is a lot easier to do.
Yes they should. The people they are going after certainly do.
Good job on freaking out and throwing out a huge red herring to derail a pretty valid point.
Despite the fact that I completely disagreed with your definition of what makes someone stupid, I completely agree with what you've said here.
Personally I'm of the opinion that if you're up to shady stuff that carries any sort of legal liability you shouldn't be leaving a record of it anywhere. But, with the way the law is written, you're allowed to keep a record of what you're up to and also you're allowed to have the expectation that law enforcement will have to jump through some hoops to use your own records against you. I'm pretty sure that the Constitution was written in the way that it was written to give people the belief that they could freely criticize the government and perhaps even plot against it when it stops serving the people. I don't think it was written to protect child pornographers and drug dealers.
Your post got modded Insightful but it should be modded Sad. What kind of society are we living in where you have to assume that everyone else is out to screw you and if you don't you're "stupid"? I'm all for encryption and discretion and all of that. I'm also all for having the right to beat your ass for sticking your nose into my business. There are some societal understandings that we all agree to in order to have well, order. You don't listen into what your neighbors are doing because you don't want them doing the same thing to you. How is having an expectation of privacy any more "stupid" than having an expectation of safety? Are you stupid for thinking that I'm not going to beat your ass if you spout off some random crap? Of course not... there are laws there to punish me if I cause you bodily harm. There are also laws to punish you for listening into my conversations. Those laws lead to expectations. I don't think those expectations are necessarily stupid, especially when they're founded upon Constitutionally protected rights (the 4th amendment in this case).
Is anybody using this in a production environment? I've been trying to get HP OpenView implimented and it is one big fat PITA. All I really need to do at this point is monitor server disk/partition usage. It would also be nice to inventory the network but that is a secondary objective. Any suggestions for an easy to use tool. Will Zenoss do it?
Mod this guy up. I don't have the points today but he made all of the arguments that need to be made. I only administer a small BES server (30 devices) but I make full use of device profiles to configure the devices. If a device gets lost we can kill it from the server. In short, RIM has the market share for many reasons, one of them being their management tools. Unless Apple comes out with tools that equal or surpass what RIM has to offer, they aren't going to get the market share.
You must be one of those guys at the party who stands in the corner and just listens, just waiting to get home so that you can get on your computer and REALLY tell people what you think about their conversations.
You hit the nail right on the head with your remarks on the education system. Kids these days are being trained to serve the system, not to question it.
The content being talked about here is DOWNLOADED. There isn't anything to hack... unless you're going to hack Xbox Live or whatever Microsoft's online service is called.
Is all of this complaining happening because Microsoft is "sticking users" with the weaker system? The last video game system I bought was a PS2. Most of my friends purchased the Xbox. I can tell you that I sure felt a bit ripped off when the XBox version of the GTA games had better graphics than what I got on my PS2. I didn't freak out and curse Sony for putting out a "weak" system though.
Or on another train of thought, Microsoft wants to provide content. Content doesn't come about for free. They have to pay for it. So they buy the content from Take Two and then resell it to Xbox 360 owners. How is that any different than a store buying a candy bar for 25 cents and selling it to you for 50 cents?
Neither of those has anything to do with the technical implications of actually enabling "disabled" features on the phone.
It's great having Excellent karma isn't it? =) Oops, lost another point on this one... -1 OffTopic. Then again, the guy with the wild hair up his butt who modded you down might have run out of mod points by now and I'll be safe.
Just because the WiFi is disabled, does that mean that it simply can't be enabled? The last time I was involved in anything phone related was 1994 with Oki 900s and CTEK, and Motorola G1, G2, G3 stuff. There were all sorts of things that the phones couldn't do from the factory, but with some updated firmware, they were wide open. Is there any reason to believe that the iPhone won't be the same way?