if you look at the software that comes with a Mac, you get the picture that Mac users might have a different use for their computers than just blowing things up. Instead of playing games they make moives, take photos, compose music, or podcast for fun.
Well what do you know, I run Linux, and I don't use it to just write Perl scripts! I use it for the exact same reasons you said. Except I'm not locked into ridiculous underperforming hardware.
You mean the games that sell hundreds of thousands of copies? Those "hardcore" ones? When fraternities have Halo contests and you see people with Greek hats at LAN parties, its hard to argue that its merely the geeky "hardcore" who are somehow buying and playing these games.
Gaming isn't part of Apple's "grown up" image? You mean the same grown up image that has one actor making fun of another actor whose labelled as a PC? The same image that has dancing silouettes to the latest "hip" music? Are we honestly talking about the same company here?
2. The "Get a Mac" ads say something subtle about power. Recall what I said previously about the two actors representing the computer, not the user. There is some additional, subtle symbolism in those ads that says something about Apple's public (not internal) image of power. The PC, who wears a suit, is the computer that's used as an instrument of power. Having been in federal sales, I can tell you that the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy have embraced Microsoft almost completely. [1] The PC can be taken as an instrument of willfulness and power that shouldn't be but often is abused in that role.
Of course it says something about the users. PC users are boring and staid, and Apple users talk to cute Japanese girls. I also like the subtle hint that Apple's public message is not about power, but its internal dynamic, driven by mini-tyrant Steve Jobs, is all about command and control.
Remember, it's not in Apple's culture to hold people back. They create insanely great tools for people to build whatever their imagination can conjure up. In addition, Apple could try to build the greatest game machine on earth. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) built those kinds of expensive graphics toys for years. Today, they are in bankruptcy.
This guy is absurd. SGI? SGI got into the spot it did because of shoddy and delayed execution of their transition from their MIPS processor line to Itanium, as well as the general loss of proprietary market of IRIX to Linux. SGI did not build gaming rigs. Alienware does. And last time I checked, Alienware seemed to be doing well enough to get bought out by Dell. So much for "bankruptcy".
So Apple doesn't mind supporting game developers, but they just don't want to let outrageous success in gaming cause them to lose control of the Apple message.
This line is a hoot. Time and time again Apple fan(atics) claim that the reason Apple isn't in x,y,z market is because they're simply too good for it. You really have to question ones investment in a company (and a number of people here have mentioned they own stock in the company) that willfully turns down markets because they're too good for them.
And for the piece de resistance.
Rather than complain, this should be taken as an outward sign of Apple's most serious branding intentions:
Don't complain about Apple selling you underpowered, underwhelming computers, but rather realize how the overpriced MacGuffin you just bought is all about the "branding intentions".
I'm willing to bet that one man's write-up on a website has little to no effect on the markets, especially when its just pure speculation.
Why would RIM need Apple? Is Apple now the top-place for patent lawyers, or am I missing something? Why would a business partnership help someone out with their legal claims? The answer is it wouldn't.
Don't you feel that astroturf? The smooth feel and just-right green color.
Seriously, Apple's "end to end" model does nothing of the sort, and funny enough, alot of their supposed "end to end innovation" is based on distinctly open-source innovation (FreeBSD, KHTML), stuff other people invented (Mach), or adhering to open standards for more credibility (POSIX). The idea that Apple could somehow take the mobile market by storm with one phone is ludicrous at best, Apple fanboy-ism at worst. Symbian currently has a lock on most phones due to the fact that its creators are some of the biggest phone companies on the planet, Linux is increasingly taking up more and more of companies cell phone lines (witness Motorola releasing a whole entire line of phones utilizing Montavista's embedded Linux kernel), and even Windows CE, backed mostly by Microsoft's dominance elsewhere and seemingly endless supply of money to throw at things, is a serious contender. You know where this leaves Apple? Nowhere. Even presuming they were to launch ONE phone in the next year or so, it wouldn't be enough to seriously challenge the behemoths of the industry.
It's also a positive for Nintendo, a company that's pretty well liked around here. Hell, I own enough of their systems and games to appreciate their contribution to console gaming, and the fact that the Wii is going to be seriously innovative. That said, sure, people like sticking it to Microsoft whenever they can around here, but its not like people didn't beat the shit out of Sony for their ill-advised DRM'ed CD's, their ridiculous arrogance on the PS3's pricepoint, and their continued support of proprietary standards.
Re:Mac OS X is *much* more common than Linux
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Lenovo To Shun Linux
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Marketshare by browser is not useful, especially when most of Linux' userbase is in the server and embedded market, two areas where Apple is paltry to non-existant. As of 2003 according to IDC Linux makes up 15.3% of the server market. Where's Apple? Oh that's right 1.2%. And where is Apple in the embedded market? Outside of the iPod, non-existant. Mac OS X is not powering cell-phones, PDA's, routers and the like. The number of Motorola cellphones with Linux sold in a quarter outsell the number of Mac's in a couple of years worth of sales.- Even if Apple did launch an iPhone, theres no way it would outstrip the major cellphone companies, and ironically, the second version of the ITunes playing ROKR, got replaced with a Linux powered model!
The reality is that desktop linux, while not as polished as Mac OS X, will eventually overtake Mac OS X on sheer ubiquity of it in other areas, and the integration of Linux on desktop computers in the work environment, its cross portability with embedded devices, and its easy integration with Linux and other *nix powered back end servers. I'm not going to be one of oft-quoted but never fulfilled Apple doom-sayers, but Apple is statistically not of consequence anymore. They may very well keep carving themselves a niche, and able to capitalize on their image and their brand, but they're are no longer relevent.
I don't think most people will use the Linux provided on the PS3 but I DO think that it will benefit overall Linux application development, especially on homebrew games, presuming Sony doesn't muck it up with a bunch of restrictions ala the PS2 Linux dev kit. While I don't expect them to provide a free developers kit to everyone, I would like to see some support for SDL and OpenGL. I don't think you will see FPS styled games and the like, but it will most certainly give indie developers a solid platform for making interesting and beefed up games with the help of the Cell architecture inside.
So what? It's not like Linux was ever greatly supported by really large OEM's outside of the server side anyways. It certainly strikes a blow for the concept of desktop linux if large OEM's still refuse to pre-load a Linux destroy onboard, but it just means either building a machine yourself or buying from one of the smaller Linux-friendly vendors if that's what you care about. I know in the future for my laptop purposes I'll just buy from a smaller Linux OEM.
more than likely, will come thru the backdoor for most people, like myself, who switched to a dual boot environment and eventually migrated to a full only-Linux configuration. It's a slower way for adoption, but it works just the same.
iTunes does not manage software on your Mac. It never has and it never will. So, it's non-intuitive (and therefore, not mac-like) that iTunes would sell software.
Apple could easily write a package installer just like every single major Linux distribution has. Funny, the idea of downloading and upgrading things through a search engine type deal is very intuitive, and its not on a Mac!
Point one: Linux package repository blah blah blah blah. OS blah blah blah.
Point two: I can buy the same form factor for cheaper from Aopen WITH Linux installed. And all the other things I can also buy and use for a Linux computer.
Final point: Apple doesn't make anything that can't be found elsewhere for cheaper, and with more options.
Low end? Low end is 300 dollars for a computer with no monitor, and even a PC with the SAME form factor costs a couple hundred less from Aopen preloaded either with Linspire or Ubuntu. AND you can't argue that the bundled software is paltry, considering the fact there are a bevy of open source polished programs for alot of the same stuff that is bundled in a Mac, easily installed using any package manager.
As for games, you can use Cedega or WINE for emulation of more modern games (though its a give and take there), and you get emulation of older games through DOSBox (which is available for Mac OS X as well) and more specialized emulation through ScummVM. And all the same minor games are available in clones or knockoffs on Linux just as much as Mac OS.
An Apple/Nintendo merger makes quite a bit of sense from a corporate culture perspective as well - Nintendo, like Apple, is the smaller, more personal of the gaming companies, focused on user experience more than sheer graphic/processing power. From a philosophical standpoint, their directions align nicely.
Are you serious? Have you not read Game Over, THE corporate biography of Nintendo? Most of the stuff in there still applies. Nintendo is, extremely hamfisted, proud, and stubborn. Apple, and particuarly Steve Job's management style (ie: mini tyrant) are about the same, and the idea of combining two stubborn, ham-fisted companies into one big one is asking for disaster. Most companies have a hard enoug time merging smaller corporate cultures into each other, let alone the huge merger that a Nintendo/Apple merger would entail.
That's circular logic if I've ever heard it. If it wasn't a success it was because it was terrible, as opposed to the reality that sometimes, great products simply don't make it for a lot of external factors outside of their control. If all the stores have their distribution channels locked up, if they're entering a market that is a monopoly and they get locked out, or if simply they don't have enough venture capital money for big TV ad campaigns and the like. It happens. Good ideas fail, through no fault of their own.
It would be nice if, for example, developers would use OpenGL more often considering it's actually the only reasonably cross-platform 3d API that has fairly widespread acceptance. I can't understand why companies willfully lock themselves into a Fisher-Price platform just because all the kiddies use it. It's frustrating as hell to me that game development companies are so shallow that literally all they care about is what will make them money.
Wow. A company interested in making money? Who knew! I don't even like corporations (or capitalism for that matter) and I understand this concept.
And its not just large game corporations like EA who have to worry about their bottom line, its the one-man wargame makers and the small adventure game studios. Reality is these types of company don't have the money to develop for multiple platforms, and unfortunatly all the talk about "writing for portability" is exactly that; talk. Such things require retraining and time to learn, things that aren't possible when you have a razor thin margin at play.
Personally, the way I see it, Windows will never stop being the platform of choice for game development, not especially with the Xbox and the ease of porting amongst those two platforms. Maybe with PS3 including Linux we will see an uptick in development of homebrew games on that platform., though I doubt it will be anything significant. The use of Linux on portables also might lead to some interesting things, considering most games use SDL and are thus portable across most anything that has SDL.
All this said, its not like Apple is itself the worlds greatest supporter of open standards or portability. I don't see programs from/for Apple being able to be run on non-Mac OS computers, though Apple always makes a big deal about the fact that it can use POSIX compliant code for various *nix programs. The knife can cut both ways.
Just produce a must-have product and the sales will take care of themselves!
Not really. If your product isn't in stores, if it has no marketing support, and there is no userbase for word of mouth, you're dead in the water. Many startups, especially technology start ups, have produced quality software and hardware, only to be annihilated. Quality of product has little to do with it. Insert your favorite tech company that has either gone down the tubes or is now a minority player.
Microsoft got where they are today by playing the business game right, so they deserve to exploit whatever advantages the free market gives them in their position.
We don't live in a free market, not unless somehow governments dissolved away, regulations of financial and trade markets have been completely dumped, and the barrier of entry into any market has rounded down to 0 in the time I've typed this message. Seeing that it hasn't, we live in nothing vaguely resembling a "free" market.
I know its the en vogue thing on comments now to make like you actually like Microsoft and the tinier tyrant known as Apple, in all their vendor lock in, DRM loving, open standards hating glory, but lets be honest; its as passe as Toby Keith singing about towelheads and Larry the Cable Guy making fun of Mexicans. You're not somehow being un-PC by approving of Microsoft or being "out of the norm" on Slashdot by saying positive comments; you're just spouting off market drivel in a shiny new ironic wrapper.
Editing config files is fine for the typical slashdot user, but an absolute stopping point for 99% of normal computer users.
Is it? Wouldn't dropping into any setup window automatically confuse the hell out of someone? Is typing a bunch of numbers into a box in a GUI easier than editing a text file? Is there something implicity more intuitive about having a window with little fill in boxes easier than editing a text file?
If the GUI tool is "sketchy", then the problem is not to provide a config-file backdoor, but to fix the freakin' GUI tool.
Tell that to Microsoft then, who still doesn't have a fully functional command line even in Vista, but yet still makes you suffer through broken GUI interfaces. Even so, MONAD as far as I know will not be POSIX compliant, though it certainly will go a long way toward alleviating the problem of lacking a real command line.
No GUI-centric OS to me has ever substituted fully or completely for a command line, either in usefulness or effectiveness, even on basic things. Things that were before a matter of opening one file and changing a line now became 30 different tabs and a bunch of radio buttons. I don't think that's intuitive, and I don't think its "easier" even to the layman. People can type in and use a word processor to edit a text file.
I wouldn't recommend any computer OS to my Mom. All of them are peachy keen and fine as long as the auto-installers and other automatic configuration tools keep things on an even keel, but they all start going goofy the moment something doesn't match up. That said, of all the OS to have to go in and fix, I would argue Linux is the best since most of the stuff is in easily edited configuration files and the like, and not some oft-sketchy GUI tool.
So now the relevancy of a OS' design is decided by its mindshare? Bumpkis. While one can argue the merits of a well crafted OS that has little to no applications, the theoretical arguments are still just as valid and just as relevent. Arguing the merits of a systems design vis a vis how much marketshare it has is ridiculous, just like saying MS has better designed OS just because it rules the roost.
I'd like to see a citation for that supposed fact. I mean really, if that's the case, why the hell did they build Deep Blue? For shits and giggles and PR? Why do they spend money on computer horsepower whose only realistic use is government science applications, if even that? There's a lot of crazy ridiculous stuff going on IBM that certainly doesn't look like its exactly funding for realistic enterprise solution products.
That said they DO have certain interesting products that may be viable in the short term (K42 anyone? The idea of having an OS whose programs can modify itself on the fly to increase performance is delicious), but a great many have no purpose other than broader theoretical things that may, one day, end up being semi-viable.
You still didn't answer anything the parent above said. It doesn't matter whether Microsoft spends 20 billion dollars, if they aren't seeing any patents and any actual intellectual property out of it, its all money down the poop shoot.
I don't doubt that Microsoft has a very well funded R&D arm. I also don't doubt they have very intelligent people, and some interesting projects in the work (I'm especially interested in the Singularity research OS). But they aren't the "no.1 industrial research lab", not if they have nothing to show for it. They are merely then the most funded. Not necessarily the same.
The Google comparison is just out of wack. It's not that I don't think Google doesn't view Microsoft, partially, as a competitor, but the idea that they're even playing in the same ballpark totally, especially in R&D, is ridiculous. Google isn't interested in theoretical programming ideas or hardcore, Mainframesque apps like IBM's research lab is. It's not comparable.
For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create.
I'm tired of this canard that the only people who use OSS products are those who have some ideological connection to it, and that people who actually use computers for doing things beside tinkering with the internals and getting off on Perl scripts, use other platforms. Guess what, a great number of people (myself included) use Linux boxes to "get work done, to communicate, to create". Funny enough, a great many corporations even choose to use Linux and other *nix-based OS for a great many things.
I don't have a problem with someone not using Linux. The BSD's, OpenSolaris, Minix, and other OS (including Syllable, Haiku, and other hobby OS') are all great, and a good chunk of people use them every day to "get work done, to communicate, to create". It's not like somehow Mac OS X or Windows have a monopoly on this, and everyone else is just there for tech-nerds to get off on.
Most people want the best value for their buck, and this applies to hardware as well as software. It's something Apple users don't understand, when they talk about "ease of use" and the justifications for the price premium Apple demands; it's something Microsoft doesn't understand when it makes increasingly larger requirements for its OS' for increasingly frivolous reasons.
The irony is for all the accusations of Linux being for "power users" and for people with buff systems trying to eke out the last bit of performance, the reality is more and more people are using Linux because its the only up-to-date and modern OS that can actually run on their damn machine without having to go out and buy a whole new one. You actually DON'T need to do heavy lifting to get a copy of Linux and KDE/GNOME to run decently on your computer, and the amazing thing is, you can actually get even faster if you put the time investment in. You can effectively lengthen the investment in your hardware by months if not years performance wise by switching and making certain changes. And that's the reality that people are waking up to, and the reality of why many desktop users are making the switch and dual-booting or simply installing clean out Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it says something about the users. PC users are boring and staid, and Apple users talk to cute Japanese girls. I also like the subtle hint that Apple's public message is not about power, but its internal dynamic, driven by mini-tyrant Steve Jobs, is all about command and control.
This guy is absurd. SGI? SGI got into the spot it did because of shoddy and delayed execution of their transition from their MIPS processor line to Itanium, as well as the general loss of proprietary market of IRIX to Linux. SGI did not build gaming rigs. Alienware does. And last time I checked, Alienware seemed to be doing well enough to get bought out by Dell. So much for "bankruptcy".
This line is a hoot. Time and time again Apple fan(atics) claim that the reason Apple isn't in x,y,z market is because they're simply too good for it. You really have to question ones investment in a company (and a number of people here have mentioned they own stock in the company) that willfully turns down markets because they're too good for them.
And for the piece de resistance.
Don't complain about Apple selling you underpowered, underwhelming computers, but rather realize how the overpriced MacGuffin you just bought is all about the "branding intentions".
I'm willing to bet that one man's write-up on a website has little to no effect on the markets, especially when its just pure speculation. Why would RIM need Apple? Is Apple now the top-place for patent lawyers, or am I missing something? Why would a business partnership help someone out with their legal claims? The answer is it wouldn't.
Seriously, Apple's "end to end" model does nothing of the sort, and funny enough, alot of their supposed "end to end innovation" is based on distinctly open-source innovation (FreeBSD, KHTML), stuff other people invented (Mach), or adhering to open standards for more credibility (POSIX). The idea that Apple could somehow take the mobile market by storm with one phone is ludicrous at best, Apple fanboy-ism at worst. Symbian currently has a lock on most phones due to the fact that its creators are some of the biggest phone companies on the planet, Linux is increasingly taking up more and more of companies cell phone lines (witness Motorola releasing a whole entire line of phones utilizing Montavista's embedded Linux kernel), and even Windows CE, backed mostly by Microsoft's dominance elsewhere and seemingly endless supply of money to throw at things, is a serious contender. You know where this leaves Apple? Nowhere. Even presuming they were to launch ONE phone in the next year or so, it wouldn't be enough to seriously challenge the behemoths of the industry.
It's also a positive for Nintendo, a company that's pretty well liked around here. Hell, I own enough of their systems and games to appreciate their contribution to console gaming, and the fact that the Wii is going to be seriously innovative. That said, sure, people like sticking it to Microsoft whenever they can around here, but its not like people didn't beat the shit out of Sony for their ill-advised DRM'ed CD's, their ridiculous arrogance on the PS3's pricepoint, and their continued support of proprietary standards.
The reality is that desktop linux, while not as polished as Mac OS X, will eventually overtake Mac OS X on sheer ubiquity of it in other areas, and the integration of Linux on desktop computers in the work environment, its cross portability with embedded devices, and its easy integration with Linux and other *nix powered back end servers. I'm not going to be one of oft-quoted but never fulfilled Apple doom-sayers, but Apple is statistically not of consequence anymore. They may very well keep carving themselves a niche, and able to capitalize on their image and their brand, but they're are no longer relevent.
I don't think most people will use the Linux provided on the PS3 but I DO think that it will benefit overall Linux application development, especially on homebrew games, presuming Sony doesn't muck it up with a bunch of restrictions ala the PS2 Linux dev kit. While I don't expect them to provide a free developers kit to everyone, I would like to see some support for SDL and OpenGL. I don't think you will see FPS styled games and the like, but it will most certainly give indie developers a solid platform for making interesting and beefed up games with the help of the Cell architecture inside.
more than likely, will come thru the backdoor for most people, like myself, who switched to a dual boot environment and eventually migrated to a full only-Linux configuration. It's a slower way for adoption, but it works just the same.
It'd be easy to port these things over to the Z Machine Infocom engine.
Point one: Linux package repository blah blah blah blah. OS blah blah blah. Point two: I can buy the same form factor for cheaper from Aopen WITH Linux installed. And all the other things I can also buy and use for a Linux computer. Final point: Apple doesn't make anything that can't be found elsewhere for cheaper, and with more options.
Low end? Low end is 300 dollars for a computer with no monitor, and even a PC with the SAME form factor costs a couple hundred less from Aopen preloaded either with Linspire or Ubuntu. AND you can't argue that the bundled software is paltry, considering the fact there are a bevy of open source polished programs for alot of the same stuff that is bundled in a Mac, easily installed using any package manager. As for games, you can use Cedega or WINE for emulation of more modern games (though its a give and take there), and you get emulation of older games through DOSBox (which is available for Mac OS X as well) and more specialized emulation through ScummVM. And all the same minor games are available in clones or knockoffs on Linux just as much as Mac OS.
That's circular logic if I've ever heard it. If it wasn't a success it was because it was terrible, as opposed to the reality that sometimes, great products simply don't make it for a lot of external factors outside of their control. If all the stores have their distribution channels locked up, if they're entering a market that is a monopoly and they get locked out, or if simply they don't have enough venture capital money for big TV ad campaigns and the like. It happens. Good ideas fail, through no fault of their own.
And its not just large game corporations like EA who have to worry about their bottom line, its the one-man wargame makers and the small adventure game studios. Reality is these types of company don't have the money to develop for multiple platforms, and unfortunatly all the talk about "writing for portability" is exactly that; talk. Such things require retraining and time to learn, things that aren't possible when you have a razor thin margin at play.
Personally, the way I see it, Windows will never stop being the platform of choice for game development, not especially with the Xbox and the ease of porting amongst those two platforms. Maybe with PS3 including Linux we will see an uptick in development of homebrew games on that platform., though I doubt it will be anything significant. The use of Linux on portables also might lead to some interesting things, considering most games use SDL and are thus portable across most anything that has SDL.
All this said, its not like Apple is itself the worlds greatest supporter of open standards or portability. I don't see programs from/for Apple being able to be run on non-Mac OS computers, though Apple always makes a big deal about the fact that it can use POSIX compliant code for various *nix programs. The knife can cut both ways.
Not really. If your product isn't in stores, if it has no marketing support, and there is no userbase for word of mouth, you're dead in the water. Many startups, especially technology start ups, have produced quality software and hardware, only to be annihilated. Quality of product has little to do with it. Insert your favorite tech company that has either gone down the tubes or is now a minority player.
I wouldn't recommend any computer OS to my Mom. All of them are peachy keen and fine as long as the auto-installers and other automatic configuration tools keep things on an even keel, but they all start going goofy the moment something doesn't match up. That said, of all the OS to have to go in and fix, I would argue Linux is the best since most of the stuff is in easily edited configuration files and the like, and not some oft-sketchy GUI tool.
So now the relevancy of a OS' design is decided by its mindshare? Bumpkis. While one can argue the merits of a well crafted OS that has little to no applications, the theoretical arguments are still just as valid and just as relevent. Arguing the merits of a systems design vis a vis how much marketshare it has is ridiculous, just like saying MS has better designed OS just because it rules the roost.
I'd like to see a citation for that supposed fact. I mean really, if that's the case, why the hell did they build Deep Blue? For shits and giggles and PR? Why do they spend money on computer horsepower whose only realistic use is government science applications, if even that? There's a lot of crazy ridiculous stuff going on IBM that certainly doesn't look like its exactly funding for realistic enterprise solution products. That said they DO have certain interesting products that may be viable in the short term (K42 anyone? The idea of having an OS whose programs can modify itself on the fly to increase performance is delicious), but a great many have no purpose other than broader theoretical things that may, one day, end up being semi-viable.
I don't doubt that Microsoft has a very well funded R&D arm. I also don't doubt they have very intelligent people, and some interesting projects in the work (I'm especially interested in the Singularity research OS). But they aren't the "no.1 industrial research lab", not if they have nothing to show for it. They are merely then the most funded. Not necessarily the same.
The Google comparison is just out of wack. It's not that I don't think Google doesn't view Microsoft, partially, as a competitor, but the idea that they're even playing in the same ballpark totally, especially in R&D, is ridiculous. Google isn't interested in theoretical programming ideas or hardcore, Mainframesque apps like IBM's research lab is. It's not comparable.
Even the 3D aspect is available in Linux with the Looking Glass Desktop put out by Sun. So you really CAN have everything already on Vista, right now.
The irony is for all the accusations of Linux being for "power users" and for people with buff systems trying to eke out the last bit of performance, the reality is more and more people are using Linux because its the only up-to-date and modern OS that can actually run on their damn machine without having to go out and buy a whole new one. You actually DON'T need to do heavy lifting to get a copy of Linux and KDE/GNOME to run decently on your computer, and the amazing thing is, you can actually get even faster if you put the time investment in. You can effectively lengthen the investment in your hardware by months if not years performance wise by switching and making certain changes. And that's the reality that people are waking up to, and the reality of why many desktop users are making the switch and dual-booting or simply installing clean out Linux.