I have never gotten a targeted email from Apple. Never.
Right. That must be why itunes is literally stuffed with links to buy stuff from the store. And the whole 'genius' thing that they rolled out to suggest even more itunes music for you to buy.
If you haven't noticed apple's been trying to profile you and sell you crap for a while.
Not to mention trying to cram mobileme and safari down my throat every couple weeks.
You do realize that you switched from talking about me, to talking about yourself in the same comment, right?
Psychologists call that "transference".
BTW, I didn't say anything about iTunes. I said I haven't received a targeted EMAIL from Apple.
I'm not talking about hardware purchasers in general, but about those who buy as much as you do. Most people own one-two pieces of apple hardware at best. Incidentally most of these people would probably also not care one bit if someone got sued for "illegal stuff".
Hahahaha!
If you only knew how LITTLE I have spent on Apple gear in the THIRTY FIVE years I have owned the 14 Apple computers I have acquired.
Apple 1: Free (For sale. Anyone interested?)
Apple ][+: Paid good money for it. I think $1195 or so.
128k Mac (upgraded to a Mac Plus): Fished out of dumpster at work. Replaced bad capacitor in Power Supply. Free
Mac SE: Free. (given to me)
Performa 575: $950
Powermac 6116: $50 on eBay
Powermac 8500: $800 on eBay, chock-full of apps
Powermac 9500: Free, with 21" Sony Trinitron monitor
iMac (Slot Load, CRT version): $200
Clamshell iBook: Free
G3 iBook: Free
B&W G3 Tower: Free
eMac: $125
PowerMac G5 1.8 GHz DP (the machine I am typing this on): $1545.
With the exception of the Mac SE and the 9500, I have used every single one of those computers for several years. So, if you factor out the SE and the 9500, (which were free anyway), the total comes to $4865, or $139 per year.
I read this patent and did I discover a really new thing ? No. We can imagine all sorts of patents of this kind. Furthermore touch screens exist for a long time, so the methods to use a touch screen should not be patented. I agree than some very new types of touch screens may be patented, but only the touch screens themselves and the technologies used to build them, but no more, and limiting the patents only to a very narrow field.
Software patents should not be issued.
Keep in mind that when Apple filed for this patent, they were still smarting from Creative Labs suing them for having the audacity (no pun) to organize the iPod's data into Artists, Albums and Songs (which was, IMHO the absolute embodiment of an "obvious invention), and there was someone else that sued them for the "click wheel".
I remember when Jobs did the Keynote introducing the iPhone. He went through the various gestures, said "We worked long and hard on this interface, and boy have we patented the heck out of it!"
Well, this is that patent. And Apple deserves every single year of their protection.
I don't think Apple is just a hardware company anymore.
They make 30% of sales on the apps. They say they aren't making money off of it, but then, with their automization, they aren't making money off of 30%, I can guarantee that the developers who make 70% aren't either. And that's just not the case.
It's not an either/or here. Apple does both hardware/software. What throws people off is that they sell enough of their own hardware, that they don't need to license out their software for use with other hardware, ala Microsoft, but it doesn't make them exclusively a hardware comany.
In fact, considering music/movies/app sales, I'd say they're in the the media business too. Especially considering Steve Job's stake in Disney and Pixar, which he uses to be an ambassador between the computer and media worlds and cut deals.
Remember, that 30% of not much money is still not much money. And you have to sell a BUNCH of 99 cent apps to make the same revenue as one iPhone, iPad or Mac.
But you just keep on worrying about that horrific 30%, even though it isn't there to do anything but defray the costs of maintaining the "store", and, oh yeah, drive hardware sales.
You are likely in a very small minority. Most people use a PC for itunes and buy almost nothing but digital stuff from apple. They can afford to lose you as gains are significantly larger.
However, that "small minority" (hardware purchasers) happens to be their greatest revenue stream BY FAR. Note that even their Mac sales handily eclipse both the iTunes Store sales and the "Other" category (which is probably Apple TV, accessory and software sales combined).
You might check your facts before you post, or risk looking like an idiot.
As I understand it some of the money from the $24.99 fee does go to the music industry, However would that stop them from ALSO wanting to go after illegal copies and force them to buy (and get even more money)?
Um, the agreements they signed with Apple. You know, the ones that Apple has been hammering out with the labels for the past year or so.
I think there were leaks noting 70% of iTunes Matc 24.99 yearly fee is going to the studios.
I wouldn't doubt that one bit. In fact, they probably did some analysis of how much the average user spends on purchased/downloaded music per year, and came up with a compromise number that users would consider a good deal (and it is), and that the record labels could then use in perpetuity to not pay the artists with.
Isn't it already a probability Apple has been doing this for some time via the Genius playlist service in iTunes? When you use genius you agree to some different ToS and give Apple access to your whole library to make pretty little playlists for you.
I personally don't know anyone who uses that feature; so it's not a very deep data mine.
iTunes is linked to you personally. They know what they're giving you and will have the transactions for each file for their own accounting purposes. Apple will datamine this to see how to change the service to make more money. After 18 months or so, the RIAA will subpoena this information in the mother of all John Doe fishing expeditions.
And every one of those subpoenas will get thrown out; simply because they are nothing more than fishing expeditions. Remember, there is no "infringing IP" here. No "distribution" to other persons. And rest assured that Apple spent the last year or so hammering all that out with the record labels.
Do you REALLY think that no one brought up the subject of "pirated" music in those talks?
Don't be daft. They absolutely want to know what songs you have, and which you listen to, and how often you listen to them, so they can profile you and sell you more crap.
I have never gotten a targeted email from Apple. Never.
Yet services like shazam can take music from a radio over the air into the tiny iPhone microphone go to a server and it knows what song it is?
By clearing out the MetaData all you did was raise a Red Flag.
That might have worked 10 years ago... Today voice/sound recognition has gotten much better.
Stage 1. Find all Songs with meta data not belonging to it owner or with blank or empty meta data.
Stage 2. Sound analysis of the music to see how well it matches copy-written songs on the list.
Stage 3. Sue person.
Stage 4. Profit.
This assumes (incorrectly) that there is some big, master list of all the music everyone ever purchased. And that list has to go clear back to before CDs, because there are many people who have ripped vinyl copies of things that never came out on CD, or that they never bought on CD.
Throw another layer on that tinfoil hat. The mind-control rays are obviously still leaking in.
Get a subpeonea? Why would they need to do that. They have contracts with Apple to have this service.
For all we know those contracts include a monthly report from Apple on possible infringement.
Right. Because Apple has a long history of selling out their users to the MAFIAA.
Until record companies pay him 30 for every one he gives to them, so they can sue for maximum possible penalty under US law. Nets both parties a really nice bonus.
Yeah, because Apple is so cash-strapped that they'd happily destroy their reputation for a few shekels.
Do you really think they built their huge datacenter and spent years getting this whole idea together just to hand over their loyal customers to the RIAA? If so, you're pretty damned stupid.
it is a little naïve to assume apple hasn't considered this
it is a lot naïve to assume that RIAA and the current content producer-friendly presidential administration (and courts) won't consider capitalizing by subpoenaing user information
So, how long do you think the courts will put up with the RIAA conducting a pure fishing expedition?
I also think that Apple is smart enough that they have safeguards in place to keep this from becoming a problem.
You misunderstand what I mean by "scarcity". I mean that if you think up a unique idea, my using of that idea does not prevent you in anyway from also using it at the same time.
No it doesn't. No more than someone selling a patented meatspace invention keeps you from building the same thing for your own use. But that isn't the point.
Patents are just the social embodiment of marking territory. So, whether you pee on a tree in "your" yard, or file a patent on an idea, the effect is the same: You are saying "This belongs to me. Stay out, or you will be attacked!" And whether the "attack" comes by tooth and claw or by letter and lawsuit, makes no difference.
But, just like the pee on the tree fades in time; so does the patent protection. After awhile, the territory (invention) reverts to the wild (becomes non-protected). But during the time the urine smell is fresh, others are ill-advised to move in.
no but Apple engineered and implemented the mechanism in their OS that allows software 'updates' to be forcibly pushed onto people that don't want it.
Sorry. You're confusing Apple with Microsoft.
You can completely turn off Software Updates. And even if you have them enabled, they do not actually install until, and unless, YOU give the go-ahead.
There simply is no such thing as a "forced update" on OS X.
Because physical property is naturally scarce. If I'm using a plot of land, you can't use the same plot of land. Hence, we have a conflict that physical property law resolves. Intellectual property has no built-in scarcity. In fact, IP laws actually create artificial scarcity where none exists.
Ordinarily, I would come down on the "I hate software patents" side of an argument. But to say that there is no "scarcity" in a particular idea is patently (haha) absurd. Once an idea is "thunk up", that idea can never be "thunk up" again. I don't mean that a better, more efficient, idea, that solves the same need as the other idea can't happen. In fact, that is exactly what zillions of "hardware" patents are based on. But in IP, a particular method, algorithm, or process is unique; just as unique as a particular method, apparatus or process is unique in meatspace. And therefore, I must resist an argument that, just because an "invention" isn't tangible, that it therefore necessarily follows that it is not a "real" invention.
Afterall, if you thunk up some hyper-efficient method for doing something, whether it be in "hardware" or "software", wouldn't you be running to a patent attorney?
I find it extremely hard to believe that Microsoft would exist anywhere near its current dominant position if we actually did have capitalism. Instead, we have government protection of intellectual property, which is essentially the foundation of Microsoft's entire business model. Government force is not capitalism.
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I have never gotten a targeted email from Apple. Never.
Right. That must be why itunes is literally stuffed with links to buy stuff from the store. And the whole 'genius' thing that they rolled out to suggest even more itunes music for you to buy.
If you haven't noticed apple's been trying to profile you and sell you crap for a while.
Not to mention trying to cram mobileme and safari down my throat every couple weeks.
You do realize that you switched from talking about me, to talking about yourself in the same comment, right?
Psychologists call that "transference".
BTW, I didn't say anything about iTunes. I said I haven't received a targeted EMAIL from Apple.
And I never said anything about you...
I'm not talking about hardware purchasers in general, but about those who buy as much as you do. Most people own one-two pieces of apple hardware at best. Incidentally most of these people would probably also not care one bit if someone got sued for "illegal stuff".
Hahahaha!
If you only knew how LITTLE I have spent on Apple gear in the THIRTY FIVE years I have owned the 14 Apple computers I have acquired.
Apple 1: Free (For sale. Anyone interested?)
Apple ][+: Paid good money for it. I think $1195 or so.
128k Mac (upgraded to a Mac Plus): Fished out of dumpster at work. Replaced bad capacitor in Power Supply. Free
Mac SE: Free. (given to me)
Performa 575: $950
Powermac 6116: $50 on eBay
Powermac 8500: $800 on eBay, chock-full of apps
Powermac 9500: Free, with 21" Sony Trinitron monitor
iMac (Slot Load, CRT version): $200
Clamshell iBook: Free
G3 iBook: Free
B&W G3 Tower: Free
eMac: $125
PowerMac G5 1.8 GHz DP (the machine I am typing this on): $1545.
With the exception of the Mac SE and the 9500, I have used every single one of those computers for several years. So, if you factor out the SE and the 9500, (which were free anyway), the total comes to $4865, or $139 per year.
Big deal.
I read this patent and did I discover a really new thing ? No. We can imagine all sorts of patents of this kind. Furthermore touch screens exist for a long time, so the methods to use a touch screen should not be patented. I agree than some very new types of touch screens may be patented, but only the touch screens themselves and the technologies used to build them, but no more, and limiting the patents only to a very narrow field.
Software patents should not be issued.
Keep in mind that when Apple filed for this patent, they were still smarting from Creative Labs suing them for having the audacity (no pun) to organize the iPod's data into Artists, Albums and Songs (which was, IMHO the absolute embodiment of an "obvious invention), and there was someone else that sued them for the "click wheel".
I remember when Jobs did the Keynote introducing the iPhone. He went through the various gestures, said "We worked long and hard on this interface, and boy have we patented the heck out of it!"
Well, this is that patent. And Apple deserves every single year of their protection.
having no problem yet with 10694 tracks.
Nor I with 10559 tracks. Searches (filters) are still lightning fast. No stability or other issues.
I don't think Apple is just a hardware company anymore.
They make 30% of sales on the apps. They say they aren't making money off of it, but then, with their automization, they aren't making money off of 30%, I can guarantee that the developers who make 70% aren't either. And that's just not the case.
It's not an either/or here. Apple does both hardware/software. What throws people off is that they sell enough of their own hardware, that they don't need to license out their software for use with other hardware, ala Microsoft, but it doesn't make them exclusively a hardware comany.
In fact, considering music/movies/app sales, I'd say they're in the the media business too. Especially considering Steve Job's stake in Disney and Pixar, which he uses to be an ambassador between the computer and media worlds and cut deals.
So, you're saying that this chart is a lie?
Remember, that 30% of not much money is still not much money. And you have to sell a BUNCH of 99 cent apps to make the same revenue as one iPhone, iPad or Mac.
But you just keep on worrying about that horrific 30%, even though it isn't there to do anything but defray the costs of maintaining the "store", and, oh yeah, drive hardware sales.
You are likely in a very small minority. Most people use a PC for itunes and buy almost nothing but digital stuff from apple. They can afford to lose you as gains are significantly larger.
However, that "small minority" (hardware purchasers) happens to be their greatest revenue stream BY FAR. Note that even their Mac sales handily eclipse both the iTunes Store sales and the "Other" category (which is probably Apple TV, accessory and software sales combined).
You might check your facts before you post, or risk looking like an idiot.
As I understand it some of the money from the $24.99 fee does go to the music industry, However would that stop them from ALSO wanting to go after illegal copies and force them to buy (and get even more money)?
Um, the agreements they signed with Apple. You know, the ones that Apple has been hammering out with the labels for the past year or so.
I think there were leaks noting 70% of iTunes Matc 24.99 yearly fee is going to the studios.
I wouldn't doubt that one bit. In fact, they probably did some analysis of how much the average user spends on purchased/downloaded music per year, and came up with a compromise number that users would consider a good deal (and it is), and that the record labels could then use in perpetuity to not pay the artists with.
Isn't it already a probability Apple has been doing this for some time via the Genius playlist service in iTunes? When you use genius you agree to some different ToS and give Apple access to your whole library to make pretty little playlists for you.
I personally don't know anyone who uses that feature; so it's not a very deep data mine.
Oh, thanks for putting that song in my head.
iTunes is linked to you personally. They know what they're giving you and will have the transactions for each file for their own accounting purposes. Apple will datamine this to see how to change the service to make more money. After 18 months or so, the RIAA will subpoena this information in the mother of all John Doe fishing expeditions.
And every one of those subpoenas will get thrown out; simply because they are nothing more than fishing expeditions. Remember, there is no "infringing IP" here. No "distribution" to other persons. And rest assured that Apple spent the last year or so hammering all that out with the record labels.
Do you REALLY think that no one brought up the subject of "pirated" music in those talks?
Don't be daft. They absolutely want to know what songs you have, and which you listen to, and how often you listen to them, so they can profile you and sell you more crap.
I have never gotten a targeted email from Apple. Never.
Google already claimed they'd delete "unauthorized" tracks, didn't they?
Ah, yes...
And how, pray tell, can they tell if I ripped a track from a CD or LP that I've owned for years?
Yet services like shazam can take music from a radio over the air into the tiny iPhone microphone go to a server and it knows what song it is? By clearing out the MetaData all you did was raise a Red Flag.
That might have worked 10 years ago... Today voice/sound recognition has gotten much better.
Stage 1. Find all Songs with meta data not belonging to it owner or with blank or empty meta data. Stage 2. Sound analysis of the music to see how well it matches copy-written songs on the list. Stage 3. Sue person. Stage 4. Profit.
This assumes (incorrectly) that there is some big, master list of all the music everyone ever purchased. And that list has to go clear back to before CDs, because there are many people who have ripped vinyl copies of things that never came out on CD, or that they never bought on CD.
Throw another layer on that tinfoil hat. The mind-control rays are obviously still leaking in.
Get a subpeonea? Why would they need to do that. They have contracts with Apple to have this service. For all we know those contracts include a monthly report from Apple on possible infringement.
Right. Because Apple has a long history of selling out their users to the MAFIAA.
Oh, wait...
Until record companies pay him 30 for every one he gives to them, so they can sue for maximum possible penalty under US law. Nets both parties a really nice bonus.
Yeah, because Apple is so cash-strapped that they'd happily destroy their reputation for a few shekels.
Do you really think they built their huge datacenter and spent years getting this whole idea together just to hand over their loyal customers to the RIAA? If so, you're pretty damned stupid.
Given that Apple is in bed with the recording industry
Having an agreement which allows copying copyrighted material to several devices SIMULTANEOUSLY is HARDLY "in bed with the recording industry."
Quit trolling.
it is a little naïve to assume apple hasn't considered this it is a lot naïve to assume that RIAA and the current content producer-friendly presidential administration (and courts) won't consider capitalizing by subpoenaing user information
So, how long do you think the courts will put up with the RIAA conducting a pure fishing expedition?
I also think that Apple is smart enough that they have safeguards in place to keep this from becoming a problem.
You misunderstand what I mean by "scarcity". I mean that if you think up a unique idea, my using of that idea does not prevent you in anyway from also using it at the same time.
No it doesn't. No more than someone selling a patented meatspace invention keeps you from building the same thing for your own use. But that isn't the point. Patents are just the social embodiment of marking territory. So, whether you pee on a tree in "your" yard, or file a patent on an idea, the effect is the same: You are saying "This belongs to me. Stay out, or you will be attacked!" And whether the "attack" comes by tooth and claw or by letter and lawsuit, makes no difference.
But, just like the pee on the tree fades in time; so does the patent protection. After awhile, the territory (invention) reverts to the wild (becomes non-protected). But during the time the urine smell is fresh, others are ill-advised to move in.
And that is not a bad thing.
If you will note, it wasn't my "sense of history", it was Wikipedia's.
Go argue with them. I just read it when I was reading about Ed Roberts a few nights ago.
And maybe Google was created from the theft of computer resources from Stanford...
I tip my hat to your greater knowledge. Apparently, IDRC (I Didn't Recall Correctly)!!!
I knew there was something about '64 and '65, but I couldn't remember the details, thanx!
no but Apple engineered and implemented the mechanism in their OS that allows software 'updates' to be forcibly pushed onto people that don't want it.
Sorry. You're confusing Apple with Microsoft.
You can completely turn off Software Updates. And even if you have them enabled, they do not actually install until, and unless, YOU give the go-ahead.
There simply is no such thing as a "forced update" on OS X.
IIRC, it was the swing axle rear ends in the Corvairs that led to Nader's "Unsafe at any speed" suit.
You are correct. Chevrolet fixed the problem in 1964 (IIRC); but by then, the damage to the Corvair's reputation was done, and sales never recovered.
Because physical property is naturally scarce. If I'm using a plot of land, you can't use the same plot of land. Hence, we have a conflict that physical property law resolves. Intellectual property has no built-in scarcity. In fact, IP laws actually create artificial scarcity where none exists.
Ordinarily, I would come down on the "I hate software patents" side of an argument. But to say that there is no "scarcity" in a particular idea is patently (haha) absurd. Once an idea is "thunk up", that idea can never be "thunk up" again. I don't mean that a better, more efficient, idea, that solves the same need as the other idea can't happen. In fact, that is exactly what zillions of "hardware" patents are based on. But in IP, a particular method, algorithm, or process is unique; just as unique as a particular method, apparatus or process is unique in meatspace. And therefore, I must resist an argument that, just because an "invention" isn't tangible, that it therefore necessarily follows that it is not a "real" invention.
Afterall, if you thunk up some hyper-efficient method for doing something, whether it be in "hardware" or "software", wouldn't you be running to a patent attorney?
Be honest.
I find it extremely hard to believe that Microsoft would exist anywhere near its current dominant position if we actually did have capitalism. Instead, we have government protection of intellectual property, which is essentially the foundation of Microsoft's entire business model. Government force is not capitalism.
Actually, the foundation of Microsoft appears to have been built on theft of computer resources (Havard's PDP-10), and double-crossing their Employer (MITS). The fact that the Court sided with Microsoft on that double-cross notwithstanding.