I've taken apart an iMac a Macbook and an iPod. I'm well aware what's in them.
And no, they are NOT the same as everything else. In the same way that all buildings are not the same just because they all use off the shelf construction materials.
PERFECT analogy!
I swear, if Apple designed something that was totally unseen before, some people would STILL bitch "What's so special? They used the same ELEMENTS as everyone else! Where's the innovation? All they used is the same aluminum, silicon, iron, hydrogen and carbon as Asus, Lenovo and HP. All those are COMMODITY ELEMENTS. Apple doesn't innovate anything, all they do is repackage the same old elements from the same old periodic table!"
Because Apple does a much better job about delivering a large set of eyeballs attached to people who are already trained to pay out money for cool shiny things. Apple is primarilly a marketing company and they are damn good at it. I am not in their target demographic: young, trendy, willing to spend money for the cool factor. So Apple delivers the right audience for online magazines.
I suspect most droid users would say "fuck it... I can get the same info for free if I just spend 10 seconds and Google it".
Apple is primarily a marketing company?
Then why do they have what many in the industry consider to be the best OS, running on the best-manufactured hardware? Some consider Apple behind on tech; but I think the real answer is that they don't simply jump at every new buzzword the electronic salespeople try to sell them. Their products ALL have a fantastic build quality, and their notebooks generally last far longer than the equivalent plastic pieces of crap that pretty much everyone else foists on the buying public.
That isn't marketing: It's Product Engineering. And Apple pretty much owns the industry in that regard.
Modded "Funny"?
If I had made those comments in response to MyLongNickName (yes, I am outing my earlier AC post) about Android (which I could not have, at least not truthfully), I would have been modded "Insightful", not "Funny". While I certainly enjoy humor as much as most, and much more than some, that particular "Funny" mod was nothing more than a bratty, immature attempt at a sort of "Disagree" mod., by dismissing my comment as a "joke".
Funny? Seems from most of the comments following mine, that I have quite a bit of support in my statements.
Someone mod THIS comment "insightful". My Karma could use the boost, and my AC comment (posted as AC, because I am sick-to-death of all the punish-modding that goes on here) was obviously one of "insight" (as the supportive comments following mine clearly show).
But watch: This comment will be modded -1 Troll, or something equally punishful...
Oh, and FTR, I was referring to OS X, not iOS, as the "best OS" around. But I will clarify and add that, additionally, iOS is the best mobile OS around, IMHO.
But - I wouldn't DREAM of sitting in the diner during their lunch rush hour, taking up space, while I read another chapter or six of Asimov's Foundation.
Except you can still do that if you have a paper book. This has nothing to do with table space, your rant is completely offtopic.
No, his "rant" was about manners and common courtesy. Which nicely explains why it eluded you so completely.
Didn't Woz's example basically boil down to "hit the 'set' button on the cruise control at 85mph, cancel it, slow down to 35mph, then hit 'resume' and observe 'woah scary acceleration!!!'"? That trick works on every cruise control unit I've used, although likewise, even the 22-year-old cruise control on my Toyota will deactivate if you touch the brake or clutch.
No, that's not what Woz said at all (see below). Do you REALLY think that someone with Woz's hardware and software design chops would not recognize the difference between the (normal) behavior you describe, and some anomalous behavior?
Although I can't seem to get the new/. to give me a link JUST to Woz's post, it's the second one in this slashdot thread (see if you can figure out which username is his...)
Unlike Ballmer, Jobs is visionary. He has an aesthetic sense, really wants to be innovative, and has the drive to be.
Ballmer is just a pencil pushing, number crunching marketing drone who doesn't have a creative or innovative bone in his body. Because of this, nothing he does will get MS out of its slump. The MS board can only hope that Ray Ozzie is interested in the CEO job.
As you might be able to tell from my username, I'm no fan of SB; HOWEVER, although he is most assuredly a "number cruncher", he is in no way a "marketing drone" (which is easily shown by how sadly ineffective he is at marketing). He's actually a very skilled and degreed (Harvard) mathematician and economist, on his way to a career as same, who just happened to be in the right SOCIAL circle at the right time with Billy-Bob Gates. It is also amazing that he is such an ineffective communicator (Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!), because he worked on both the newspaper and university magazine at Harvard. I guess he was just channeling his time as manager of Harvard's football team (or maybe he was just channeling Bobby Knight (think "chair-throwing"))...
Now, pardon me while I go wash my hands for typing all that praise for Herr Ballmer.
I'm wondering if Apple's prices started lower (relatively speaking) because they gambled on the fact that there is a lot of hype surrounding everything they do as well as the dedicated, cult-like following that tend to buy whatever they come out with regardless of cost or function. Perhaps they factored in the scale of their shipments from the beginning enabling them to come in lower than they could have.
I doubt it, but I'm just speculating.
Hasn't seemed to have been "factored in" to any other Apple product.
More like insane buying power on display panels, memory, and other components and packaging, plus a significant savings (disregarding the R&D costs, which I'll bet Apple didn't factor into the iPad's cost) on the per-piece CPU/GPU SoC.
I suppose this is the (evil) genius of lock-in: subsidise the hardware with app-store profits. Defer consumers seeing higher prices until they buy apps, or rely on the cut-throat app-store market forcing developers to absorb the discount.
Throw another layer of tinfoil on that hat; some of the mind-control rays are obviously still leaking through.
So, pray tell, what "app-store profits" does Apple make on the numerous FREE titles on the App Store?
Get a grip. Apple ain't Gillete (Schick?), and the App Store ain't sellin' razor blades.
No one was really predicting a phone with a 10" screen. 256MB RAM, 1GHz single core processor, no cameras, 1024x768 display, no ports. When people were guessing 800-1000 they were really envisioning something more along the lines of a OSX Tablet, rather than an iOS tablet.
Prove it.
IIRC, both the price and the "giant iPhone" vs. "Apple Axiotron" systems were being hotly debated, even minutes before the iPad's unveiling. However, the price was NEVER rumored to be as low as it actually was.
Dear Civix (since you're posting anonymously to defend yourself),
Ironically, in your totally insane burst of sweaty nerd rage, you illustrated many stereotypes of the basement-dwelling Apple-hater, complete with a random reference to Steve Jobs. If Apple isn't taken seriously in technology discussions, why are they one of the leaders of the industry that Google and Microsoft copy endlessly? Where Apple goes, everyone follows. That drives guys like you absolutely crazy, which is funny.
iOS is losing ground? Uh, see you in line for a Verizone iPhone.
Love,
bonch
Actually Ciwx posted later under his own name. So it really WAS an Anonymous COWARD that had the "sweaty nerd rage." Just wanted to clarify. Ciwix's reply was far more even-tempered, and even included a comment meant as a kind of "olive branch" at the end, LOL!
Otherwise, I agree with you completely. In his rant about my rant about the OP's rant, the AC demonstrated FAR more "vitriol" than either Ciwx or myself (which is both funny and sadly typical here in slashdot-land).
This is the smug bullshit attitude that makes me swoon if I just stick my head in an Apple store. Hey buddy, you're making shiny toys into a FUCKING RELIGION!
Man, what won't people fetishize to make them feel special?
There was no vitriol in this thread until your post.
ORLY? Then how do you explain Civix statement (quoted in my reply) "Jailbreak and load, screw apple if they don't like it."
Sounds pretty vitriolic to me, and disingenuous, too. So, I guess Apple HATERS "fail when it comes to reading comprehension, too, eh?"
As for the "So, someone didn't know the ins and outs of enterprise licensing on your pet platform." rant, my only issue with that is that they should not then PONTIFICATE on something of which they are (by your own statement) IGNORANT. He wasn't asking a question, such as "Wouldn't Apple's iOS app licensing be a problem here?" No, instead, Civix DEMONSTRATED not only his IGNORANCE, but his BIAS by making an inflammatory (and uninformed) comment like "Jailbreak and load", when no "Jailbreaking" is necessary. This is slashdot, not Digg (at least I think so). Slashdotters are only allowed so much uninformed commenting. As I said to another uninformed sladhdot ranter who posted some further ridiculousity regarding this subject: "Check your facts, THEN post."
Got a problem with that?
I do like the term "troglodytic", though, even though it hardly fucking applies in this situation.
And finally, I hardly think that someone who posts "Screw Apple..." is being supportive. Do you?
There are numerous stories just related to my favorite team that involve lost plays or playbooks.
One story involved a coach who was talking with a bartender late one night and diagrammed a play on a napkin, which was later scooped up by a fan of the opponent and passed on.
Another was a prominent running back who lost his playbook halfway through the season, and it reportedly fell into the hands of a division rival. Remote wipe might be quite useful.
Or, even more useful, don't have the entire playbook in the possession of any one person at any one time. If we can design communications protocols that are secure enough to transfer billions of dollars around the world everyday, we certainly can apply those same techniques to design a secure server-client "playbook" system. That way, even if someone actually can decrypt ONE play, that's ALL they get. More like, if they can actually decrypt one PACKET of the communication of one PLAY's "transmission", that's all they get.
MUCH more secure than having the entire playbook roaming about ANYwhere. Now, all you have to do is to keep the coaches and players from making their passwords "PASSWORD" or their daughter's name, etc. But that is no more difficult than keeping them from leaving their play written on a napkin left on the table at the local pub. And if the NFL wants to get really serious about security, they can adopt some of the high-security authentication methods already used by some corporations (and military?), like the little credit-card-sized thingies that display a password that changes every 30 seconds, etc). MUCH easier than keeping a "double-agent" from putting the playbook through a photocopier. Other server-side "reasonability" checks could be used to keep someone from downloading an entire playbook as well, such as limiting the number of different plays that could be viewed by one user within a certain period of time, keeping someone from viewing more than [x] number of sequentially-numbered plays, etc.
So, as you can see, having to resort to a "remote wipe" to achieve security means that your security has a flawed design from the start. The best way to handle the theft of a device with sensitive data, IMHO, is to keep that device from actually HAVING the sensitive data, or at least more than a tiny fraction of it, in the first place.
Of course, some unscrupulous IT person at the server end might sell you out; but every single electronic data archive (and in fact every single "sensitive" data repository) has this problem. But it is much easier to figure out who gave a thumb drive of the team's entire playbook to the "enemy" when there is only one "complete" (and encrypted!) copy (on a secured server and its secured, encrypted backups), and only one or at most a very small number of people with access to said (encrypted!) files.
Problem is, simply turning the thing off and turning it on again somewhere where there is not free wifi available will render the whole remote wipe thing useless. If they really cared they'd encrypt the information they want private.
I suspect this whole thing is about people wanting a new toy to play with rather than anything else.
For so-called "tech" folks, Slashdotters, by and large, are some of the biggest tech luddites around.
Advantages of a tablet over a paper playbook (notice I didn't mention iPad, because your comment is just "paper vs. tablet" argument, and so I am hoping (probably in vain) that this will keep the Anti-Apple rhetoric to a minimum):
1. Animation. I guess you could design your paper playbooks like "flipbooks", and get some limited animation that way, but that of course isn't done. WIth a tablet, an animated playbook is trivial, and can easily include such niceties as 3D-rotate-able views, the ability to "highlight" a particular player (like oneself, ferinstance) so that that person can follow their desired movements through the play more easily, much more "lifelike" animations (no more stupid X's and O's), etc.
2. Additional, on-the-spot streamed video/audio can be incorporated. Can be encrypted and narrow-casted as a stream to players as desired. Try that with a paper playbook.
3. Same for real time textual messages. Greatly expands on the concept of the coach's communications "headset" that has been pretty much standard issue for years. Again, allows much more real-time communication between coach and team than a simple paper playbook.
4. If the current play or next-few-upcoming-plays are transmitted in a secure manner to the team as needed, there is no "stealing and copying a playbook", as the entire playbook isn't in any one player's (or coach's) hands at any one time. Of course, there really isn't a PRACTICAL way to do this in real-time with a paper playbook.
5. The possibility of a coach (or quarterback) creating a completely new "play" on-the-spot, and being able to demonstrate that (again, using animation) to the players right on the field. I admit that probably isn't a typical situation; but it would be more practical with animation. Of course, this isn't practical with a paper playbook. You can use a whiteboard in the locker room, but this method has the option of being available on-field.
6. The ability to use the device as a telecommunications port with a headset while still acting like a playbook. Utterly impossible for a paper playbook.
So, far from being just a "new toy to play with", a tablet-based "coach's PDA"-type app could provide some real, tangible strategic benefits to the team who embraces the technology.
2) Speed. ChangIng apps (or sections of an app) costs a few seconds, which will not be tolerated in a timeout, not when paper and dry erase are instant.
3) Screen problems. Day games are sunny; night games are almost ad bright. The iPad's screen does not do well in those conditions. The viewing angle especially is awful; in a sideline gathering of players, the players not directly in front won't be able to see a thing.
4) Durability. Weather, accidents, histrionic coaches, tantrums, and Gatorade bats. NFL teams certainly have the cash to replace them, but no coach is going to accept waiting while the gofer fetches a replacement.
Tablets are a natural replacement for playbooks Monday->Saturday, but they have a long way to go to be sideline material.
Size: How big of a "group" are we talking about? How big do you think a PAPER playbook is? And for "locker-room" playback, the iPad supports VIDEO OUT for using a larger display device.
Speed: You are simply talking out of your ass, here. No more comment needed. With whiteboards and dry-erase markers, you have to take time to DRAW and ERASE, so what's your point, again?
Brightness: You may have a point here; but have you ever seen a huddle? Pretty effective at blocking sunlight/stadium lights.
Viewing angle: Well, if you'd actually check out the specs on the iPad, instead of simply ASSUMING it uses the same shitty TN panels all the also-ran tablets use, you'd know that the IPS panel used on the iPad has a 170 degree viewing angle in all directions. It's damn-near as good as a piece of paper in that regard. Seriously, dude. Go check one out. You'll be amazed at what an IPS-based tablet display looks like.
Durability: This one I worry about myself, but just a little; It's really a non-issue, because any iPad used in this manner would most certainly be housed in one of the billion or so available sleeves, cases, pouches, etc. that exist for the iPad, and thus adequately protected from anything but being crushed under a pile of disgruntled Android fans. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
Personally, I would think that an iPod Touch would be a better choice, because it is more easily stuffed into a coach's pocket; but the iPad has a longer battery life (I think), and a bigger display (think "animation"), and thus probably makes more sense overall in this application.
In reading the (non) erudite comments to this article, ALL I have seen is an excuse for (even more) Apple-bashing (are you Androids REALLY that insecure?!?). It is nearly impossible to find a comment that isn't "Apple is teh evilz!" nonsense (or someone correcting that idiocy).
Where are the comments and questions like "Hey, that might be a good idea!", or "I wonder if it will be rugged enough?", or "Wouldn't the iPhone be better for this, since it is pocket-able?", or "This would be much better than printed playbooks, because it would allow playbooks to be ANIMATED", or even "Aren't they afraid that someone could watch a playbook play "play out" on the iPad over a player's shoulder"? BUT, NOOOOOOOO!
instead, all (or the majority of commenters to Apple-centric articles) of the the supposedly "techie" slashdotters can worry about is how you "sign" a FUCKING PDF, fercrissakes, or (ignorantly ranting) "They will have to jailbreak their iPads to "sideload" (whatever the fuck THAT stupid term means!) the playbooks into their iPads." Or the just-as-ignorant "They'll have to submit their playbook apps to the App Store."
Where is the intelligent discourse on the TECHNICAL merits (or lack thereof) of the topic? No, instead, it seems to be getting JUST like IRC (and the reason I stopped using it within about 30 days) : Just a bunch of whiny brats with arrested social development and nothing better to do, trying to back-bite and punish-mod (remember all the "nuking" and "banning" that went/goes on on IRC?) those who's OPINION with which they happen to DISAGREE.
Slashdot is rapidly devolving into "News For Nerds, Comments that are irrelevant" status.
Well, this is slashdot - rapidly becoming the Fox News of the tech world. We're even capping it off by having a "healthy" complement of active climate change deniers to go with it.
Never let something like facts (say, enterprise iOS management with in-house apps) get in the way of a good bash of your enemy.
Mod parent up times a million. That is the most insightful comment ABOUT slashdot I have seen for several years.
They make special gloves for using with the ipod/pad, and why would they make a deal? Jailbreak and load, screw apple if they don't like it. Even if they did have to get the app approved, they could always just load the data files right before the game. Why would you have to send the actual plays to apple? I dont think any of the news paper apps have to get the content approved, just the actual app.
You might want to take your own sig's advice: "You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts."
If you bothered to learn anything before spewing your vitriolic rant, you'd know that Apple has an "enterprise" license that allows organizations to distribute custom apps internally without ever touching the app store.
So, you have now demonstrated your considerable ignorance on the subject of iOS custom app development and deployment.
I wonder what other uninformed rants you have made about iOS...
"Asked whether he was concerned about reports that the world would run out of internet address within weeks, Lo compared the issue to the shift from 2G networks to 3G networks and beyond.
"It's disruptive, but we love it - everybody has to buy something new," he said."
In another story here on/. we learned that Android market share has grown to ~30%, Nokia's Symbian has ~30%, iPhone has ~15%, and RIM has ~15%
Um, you DO realize, that other than with RIM (who has collapsed from about 70% to about 15% since the iPhone), you are talking about a COMPANY's sales vs. a PLATFORM's sales, right? That means that "Android's" "30%" (just to accept your hypothetical, non-referenced number as fact) is actually like 2% per COMPANY (HTC, Motorola, LG, Samsung, et fucking CETERA), so each COMPANY that sells Android has almost NO influence on the smartphone market themselves (or Android's direction); they're just along for a WIndows-esque "marketshare" ride.
So, even though its overall percentage of marketshare might be smaller, Apple as a COMPANY still wields more INFLUENCE over the smartphone MARKET itself, because that marketshare is concentrated under one roof.
And as for Symbian, I hadn't noticed that that PLATFORM was really making much noise. Where's the big Symbian App Store, for example?
I don't usually respond to AC's... but Mac market share is not increasing. MacBook market share is a bit, but not at any sort of alarming rate, and the iPhone is barely big enough to be considered a contender for top spot and isn't moving upwards.
I wonder if there is room for google to host a 2nd app store that is vetted, thereby having the best of both worlds.
Or better, they should have a certification system for apps, so that apps market with the tick of approval are guaranteed "safe" by google.
The problem is this is that, the people who are most likely to click "OK" to anything are also the exact same ones who WON'T use the "vetted" app store.
Nope. Face it. Apple got it right. People are too stupid and gullible (by and large) to "vet" their own apps.
Your phone and personal data are more vulnerable to attack by applications from unknown sources. You agree that you are solely responsible for any damage to your phone for loss of data that may result from using these applications."
This is a social engineering attack, not an exploit in the Android system.
Not really.
It's more like an inherent weakness in the "Uncurated" software distribution model that only Android allows.
Face it. An app like that would either not get approved, or would be pulled immediately from the iOS App Store and likely even the WP7 "app store" (whatever it's called).
Slashdot Mirror
I've taken apart an iMac a Macbook and an iPod. I'm well aware what's in them.
And no, they are NOT the same as everything else. In the same way that all buildings are not the same just because they all use off the shelf construction materials.
PERFECT analogy!
I swear, if Apple designed something that was totally unseen before, some people would STILL bitch "What's so special? They used the same ELEMENTS as everyone else! Where's the innovation? All they used is the same aluminum, silicon, iron, hydrogen and carbon as Asus, Lenovo and HP. All those are COMMODITY ELEMENTS. Apple doesn't innovate anything, all they do is repackage the same old elements from the same old periodic table!"
Because Apple does a much better job about delivering a large set of eyeballs attached to people who are already trained to pay out money for cool shiny things. Apple is primarilly a marketing company and they are damn good at it. I am not in their target demographic: young, trendy, willing to spend money for the cool factor. So Apple delivers the right audience for online magazines.
I suspect most droid users would say "fuck it... I can get the same info for free if I just spend 10 seconds and Google it".
Apple is primarily a marketing company?
Then why do they have what many in the industry consider to be the best OS, running on the best-manufactured hardware? Some consider Apple behind on tech; but I think the real answer is that they don't simply jump at every new buzzword the electronic salespeople try to sell them. Their products ALL have a fantastic build quality, and their notebooks generally last far longer than the equivalent plastic pieces of crap that pretty much everyone else foists on the buying public.
That isn't marketing: It's Product Engineering. And Apple pretty much owns the industry in that regard.
Modded "Funny"?
If I had made those comments in response to MyLongNickName (yes, I am outing my earlier AC post) about Android (which I could not have, at least not truthfully), I would have been modded "Insightful", not "Funny". While I certainly enjoy humor as much as most, and much more than some, that particular "Funny" mod was nothing more than a bratty, immature attempt at a sort of "Disagree" mod., by dismissing my comment as a "joke".
Funny? Seems from most of the comments following mine, that I have quite a bit of support in my statements.
Someone mod THIS comment "insightful". My Karma could use the boost, and my AC comment (posted as AC, because I am sick-to-death of all the punish-modding that goes on here) was obviously one of "insight" (as the supportive comments following mine clearly show).
But watch: This comment will be modded -1 Troll, or something equally punishful...
Oh, and FTR, I was referring to OS X, not iOS, as the "best OS" around. But I will clarify and add that, additionally, iOS is the best mobile OS around, IMHO.
But - I wouldn't DREAM of sitting in the diner during their lunch rush hour, taking up space, while I read another chapter or six of Asimov's Foundation.
Except you can still do that if you have a paper book. This has nothing to do with table space, your rant is completely offtopic.
No, his "rant" was about manners and common courtesy. Which nicely explains why it eluded you so completely.
Didn't Woz's example basically boil down to "hit the 'set' button on the cruise control at 85mph, cancel it, slow down to 35mph, then hit 'resume' and observe 'woah scary acceleration!!!'"? That trick works on every cruise control unit I've used, although likewise, even the 22-year-old cruise control on my Toyota will deactivate if you touch the brake or clutch.
No, that's not what Woz said at all (see below). Do you REALLY think that someone with Woz's hardware and software design chops would not recognize the difference between the (normal) behavior you describe, and some anomalous behavior?
/. to give me a link JUST to Woz's post, it's the second one in this slashdot thread (see if you can figure out which username is his...)
Although I can't seem to get the new
Unlike Ballmer, Jobs is visionary. He has an aesthetic sense, really wants to be innovative, and has the drive to be.
Ballmer is just a pencil pushing, number crunching marketing drone who doesn't have a creative or innovative bone in his body. Because of this, nothing he does will get MS out of its slump. The MS board can only hope that Ray Ozzie is interested in the CEO job.
As you might be able to tell from my username, I'm no fan of SB; HOWEVER, although he is most assuredly a "number cruncher", he is in no way a "marketing drone" (which is easily shown by how sadly ineffective he is at marketing). He's actually a very skilled and degreed (Harvard) mathematician and economist, on his way to a career as same, who just happened to be in the right SOCIAL circle at the right time with Billy-Bob Gates. It is also amazing that he is such an ineffective communicator (Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!), because he worked on both the newspaper and university magazine at Harvard. I guess he was just channeling his time as manager of Harvard's football team (or maybe he was just channeling Bobby Knight (think "chair-throwing"))...
Now, pardon me while I go wash my hands for typing all that praise for Herr Ballmer.
I'm wondering if Apple's prices started lower (relatively speaking) because they gambled on the fact that there is a lot of hype surrounding everything they do as well as the dedicated, cult-like following that tend to buy whatever they come out with regardless of cost or function. Perhaps they factored in the scale of their shipments from the beginning enabling them to come in lower than they could have.
I doubt it, but I'm just speculating.
Hasn't seemed to have been "factored in" to any other Apple product.
More like insane buying power on display panels, memory, and other components and packaging, plus a significant savings (disregarding the R&D costs, which I'll bet Apple didn't factor into the iPad's cost) on the per-piece CPU/GPU SoC.
I suppose this is the (evil) genius of lock-in: subsidise the hardware with app-store profits. Defer consumers seeing higher prices until they buy apps, or rely on the cut-throat app-store market forcing developers to absorb the discount.
Throw another layer of tinfoil on that hat; some of the mind-control rays are obviously still leaking through.
So, pray tell, what "app-store profits" does Apple make on the numerous FREE titles on the App Store?
Get a grip. Apple ain't Gillete (Schick?), and the App Store ain't sellin' razor blades.
No one was really predicting a phone with a 10" screen. 256MB RAM, 1GHz single core processor, no cameras, 1024x768 display, no ports. When people were guessing 800-1000 they were really envisioning something more along the lines of a OSX Tablet, rather than an iOS tablet.
Prove it.
IIRC, both the price and the "giant iPhone" vs. "Apple Axiotron" systems were being hotly debated, even minutes before the iPad's unveiling. However, the price was NEVER rumored to be as low as it actually was.
Quit lying.
Dear Civix (since you're posting anonymously to defend yourself),
Ironically, in your totally insane burst of sweaty nerd rage, you illustrated many stereotypes of the basement-dwelling Apple-hater, complete with a random reference to Steve Jobs. If Apple isn't taken seriously in technology discussions, why are they one of the leaders of the industry that Google and Microsoft copy endlessly? Where Apple goes, everyone follows. That drives guys like you absolutely crazy, which is funny.
iOS is losing ground? Uh, see you in line for a Verizone iPhone.
Love, bonch
Actually Ciwx posted later under his own name. So it really WAS an Anonymous COWARD that had the "sweaty nerd rage." Just wanted to clarify. Ciwix's reply was far more even-tempered, and even included a comment meant as a kind of "olive branch" at the end, LOL!
Otherwise, I agree with you completely. In his rant about my rant about the OP's rant, the AC demonstrated FAR more "vitriol" than either Ciwx or myself (which is both funny and sadly typical here in slashdot-land).
This is the smug bullshit attitude that makes me swoon if I just stick my head in an Apple store. Hey buddy, you're making shiny toys into a FUCKING RELIGION! Man, what won't people fetishize to make them feel special?
I AM special. Just like everyone else.
There was no vitriol in this thread until your post.
ORLY? Then how do you explain Civix statement (quoted in my reply) "Jailbreak and load, screw apple if they don't like it."
Sounds pretty vitriolic to me, and disingenuous, too. So, I guess Apple HATERS "fail when it comes to reading comprehension, too, eh?"
As for the "So, someone didn't know the ins and outs of enterprise licensing on your pet platform." rant, my only issue with that is that they should not then PONTIFICATE on something of which they are (by your own statement) IGNORANT. He wasn't asking a question, such as "Wouldn't Apple's iOS app licensing be a problem here?" No, instead, Civix DEMONSTRATED not only his IGNORANCE, but his BIAS by making an inflammatory (and uninformed) comment like "Jailbreak and load", when no "Jailbreaking" is necessary. This is slashdot, not Digg (at least I think so). Slashdotters are only allowed so much uninformed commenting. As I said to another uninformed sladhdot ranter who posted some further ridiculousity regarding this subject: "Check your facts, THEN post."
Got a problem with that?
I do like the term "troglodytic", though, even though it hardly fucking applies in this situation.
And finally, I hardly think that someone who posts "Screw Apple..." is being supportive. Do you?
There are numerous stories just related to my favorite team that involve lost plays or playbooks. One story involved a coach who was talking with a bartender late one night and diagrammed a play on a napkin, which was later scooped up by a fan of the opponent and passed on. Another was a prominent running back who lost his playbook halfway through the season, and it reportedly fell into the hands of a division rival. Remote wipe might be quite useful.
Or, even more useful, don't have the entire playbook in the possession of any one person at any one time. If we can design communications protocols that are secure enough to transfer billions of dollars around the world everyday, we certainly can apply those same techniques to design a secure server-client "playbook" system. That way, even if someone actually can decrypt ONE play, that's ALL they get. More like, if they can actually decrypt one PACKET of the communication of one PLAY's "transmission", that's all they get.
MUCH more secure than having the entire playbook roaming about ANYwhere. Now, all you have to do is to keep the coaches and players from making their passwords "PASSWORD" or their daughter's name, etc. But that is no more difficult than keeping them from leaving their play written on a napkin left on the table at the local pub. And if the NFL wants to get really serious about security, they can adopt some of the high-security authentication methods already used by some corporations (and military?), like the little credit-card-sized thingies that display a password that changes every 30 seconds, etc). MUCH easier than keeping a "double-agent" from putting the playbook through a photocopier. Other server-side "reasonability" checks could be used to keep someone from downloading an entire playbook as well, such as limiting the number of different plays that could be viewed by one user within a certain period of time, keeping someone from viewing more than [x] number of sequentially-numbered plays, etc.
So, as you can see, having to resort to a "remote wipe" to achieve security means that your security has a flawed design from the start. The best way to handle the theft of a device with sensitive data, IMHO, is to keep that device from actually HAVING the sensitive data, or at least more than a tiny fraction of it, in the first place.
Of course, some unscrupulous IT person at the server end might sell you out; but every single electronic data archive (and in fact every single "sensitive" data repository) has this problem. But it is much easier to figure out who gave a thumb drive of the team's entire playbook to the "enemy" when there is only one "complete" (and encrypted!) copy (on a secured server and its secured, encrypted backups), and only one or at most a very small number of people with access to said (encrypted!) files.
Did I mention "encrypted"?
Problem is, simply turning the thing off and turning it on again somewhere where there is not free wifi available will render the whole remote wipe thing useless. If they really cared they'd encrypt the information they want private.
I suspect this whole thing is about people wanting a new toy to play with rather than anything else.
For so-called "tech" folks, Slashdotters, by and large, are some of the biggest tech luddites around.
:
Advantages of a tablet over a paper playbook (notice I didn't mention iPad, because your comment is just "paper vs. tablet" argument, and so I am hoping (probably in vain) that this will keep the Anti-Apple rhetoric to a minimum)
1. Animation. I guess you could design your paper playbooks like "flipbooks", and get some limited animation that way, but that of course isn't done. WIth a tablet, an animated playbook is trivial, and can easily include such niceties as 3D-rotate-able views, the ability to "highlight" a particular player (like oneself, ferinstance) so that that person can follow their desired movements through the play more easily, much more "lifelike" animations (no more stupid X's and O's), etc.
2. Additional, on-the-spot streamed video/audio can be incorporated. Can be encrypted and narrow-casted as a stream to players as desired. Try that with a paper playbook.
3. Same for real time textual messages. Greatly expands on the concept of the coach's communications "headset" that has been pretty much standard issue for years. Again, allows much more real-time communication between coach and team than a simple paper playbook.
4. If the current play or next-few-upcoming-plays are transmitted in a secure manner to the team as needed, there is no "stealing and copying a playbook", as the entire playbook isn't in any one player's (or coach's) hands at any one time. Of course, there really isn't a PRACTICAL way to do this in real-time with a paper playbook.
5. The possibility of a coach (or quarterback) creating a completely new "play" on-the-spot, and being able to demonstrate that (again, using animation) to the players right on the field. I admit that probably isn't a typical situation; but it would be more practical with animation. Of course, this isn't practical with a paper playbook. You can use a whiteboard in the locker room, but this method has the option of being available on-field.
6. The ability to use the device as a telecommunications port with a headset while still acting like a playbook. Utterly impossible for a paper playbook.
So, far from being just a "new toy to play with", a tablet-based "coach's PDA"-type app could provide some real, tangible strategic benefits to the team who embraces the technology.
Open your mind. Think, THEN post...
Security is not an insurmountable deal, but:
1) Size. Too small for showing plays to a group
2) Speed. ChangIng apps (or sections of an app) costs a few seconds, which will not be tolerated in a timeout, not when paper and dry erase are instant.
3) Screen problems. Day games are sunny; night games are almost ad bright. The iPad's screen does not do well in those conditions. The viewing angle especially is awful; in a sideline gathering of players, the players not directly in front won't be able to see a thing.
4) Durability. Weather, accidents, histrionic coaches, tantrums, and Gatorade bats. NFL teams certainly have the cash to replace them, but no coach is going to accept waiting while the gofer fetches a replacement.
Tablets are a natural replacement for playbooks Monday->Saturday, but they have a long way to go to be sideline material.
Size: How big of a "group" are we talking about? How big do you think a PAPER playbook is? And for "locker-room" playback, the iPad supports VIDEO OUT for using a larger display device.
Speed: You are simply talking out of your ass, here. No more comment needed. With whiteboards and dry-erase markers, you have to take time to DRAW and ERASE, so what's your point, again?
Brightness: You may have a point here; but have you ever seen a huddle? Pretty effective at blocking sunlight/stadium lights.
Viewing angle: Well, if you'd actually check out the specs on the iPad, instead of simply ASSUMING it uses the same shitty TN panels all the also-ran tablets use, you'd know that the IPS panel used on the iPad has a 170 degree viewing angle in all directions. It's damn-near as good as a piece of paper in that regard. Seriously, dude. Go check one out. You'll be amazed at what an IPS-based tablet display looks like.
Durability: This one I worry about myself, but just a little; It's really a non-issue, because any iPad used in this manner would most certainly be housed in one of the billion or so available sleeves, cases, pouches, etc. that exist for the iPad, and thus adequately protected from anything but being crushed under a pile of disgruntled Android fans. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
Personally, I would think that an iPod Touch would be a better choice, because it is more easily stuffed into a coach's pocket; but the iPad has a longer battery life (I think), and a bigger display (think "animation"), and thus probably makes more sense overall in this application.
So, what were your objections, again?
I think an e-ink device like the Kindle makes more sense. You can't read an IPad worth a darn in bright sunlight.
And you can't do ANIMATION at ALL on e-ink.
Next uninformed comment?
In reading the (non) erudite comments to this article, ALL I have seen is an excuse for (even more) Apple-bashing (are you Androids REALLY that insecure?!?). It is nearly impossible to find a comment that isn't "Apple is teh evilz!" nonsense (or someone correcting that idiocy).
Where are the comments and questions like "Hey, that might be a good idea!", or "I wonder if it will be rugged enough?", or "Wouldn't the iPhone be better for this, since it is pocket-able?", or "This would be much better than printed playbooks, because it would allow playbooks to be ANIMATED", or even "Aren't they afraid that someone could watch a playbook play "play out" on the iPad over a player's shoulder"? BUT, NOOOOOOOO!
instead, all (or the majority of commenters to Apple-centric articles) of the the supposedly "techie" slashdotters can worry about is how you "sign" a FUCKING PDF, fercrissakes, or (ignorantly ranting) "They will have to jailbreak their iPads to "sideload" (whatever the fuck THAT stupid term means!) the playbooks into their iPads." Or the just-as-ignorant "They'll have to submit their playbook apps to the App Store."
Where is the intelligent discourse on the TECHNICAL merits (or lack thereof) of the topic? No, instead, it seems to be getting JUST like IRC (and the reason I stopped using it within about 30 days) : Just a bunch of whiny brats with arrested social development and nothing better to do, trying to back-bite and punish-mod (remember all the "nuking" and "banning" that went/goes on on IRC?) those who's OPINION with which they happen to DISAGREE.
Slashdot is rapidly devolving into "News For Nerds, Comments that are irrelevant" status.
Well, this is slashdot - rapidly becoming the Fox News of the tech world. We're even capping it off by having a "healthy" complement of active climate change deniers to go with it.
Never let something like facts (say, enterprise iOS management with in-house apps) get in the way of a good bash of your enemy.
Mod parent up times a million. That is the most insightful comment ABOUT slashdot I have seen for several years.
They make special gloves for using with the ipod/pad, and why would they make a deal? Jailbreak and load, screw apple if they don't like it. Even if they did have to get the app approved, they could always just load the data files right before the game. Why would you have to send the actual plays to apple? I dont think any of the news paper apps have to get the content approved, just the actual app.
You might want to take your own sig's advice: "You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts."
If you bothered to learn anything before spewing your vitriolic rant, you'd know that Apple has an "enterprise" license that allows organizations to distribute custom apps internally without ever touching the app store.
So, you have now demonstrated your considerable ignorance on the subject of iOS custom app development and deployment.
I wonder what other uninformed rants you have made about iOS...
From TFA:
"Asked whether he was concerned about reports that the world would run out of internet address within weeks, Lo compared the issue to the shift from 2G networks to 3G networks and beyond.
"It's disruptive, but we love it - everybody has to buy something new," he said."
And people call JOBS evil?!?
Even Betamax survived for a long time in certain markets. Sony didn't stop making Betamax equipment until 2001 or 2002.
Are you sure you're not confusing BetaCAM for BetaMAX?
What BetaMAX equipment was being manufactured in the 21st century? I'm honestly curious.
Scraps?
In another story here on /. we learned that Android market share has grown to ~30%, Nokia's Symbian has ~30%, iPhone has ~15%, and RIM has ~15%
Um, you DO realize, that other than with RIM (who has collapsed from about 70% to about 15% since the iPhone), you are talking about a COMPANY's sales vs. a PLATFORM's sales, right? That means that "Android's" "30%" (just to accept your hypothetical, non-referenced number as fact) is actually like 2% per COMPANY (HTC, Motorola, LG, Samsung, et fucking CETERA), so each COMPANY that sells Android has almost NO influence on the smartphone market themselves (or Android's direction); they're just along for a WIndows-esque "marketshare" ride.
So, even though its overall percentage of marketshare might be smaller, Apple as a COMPANY still wields more INFLUENCE over the smartphone MARKET itself, because that marketshare is concentrated under one roof.
And as for Symbian, I hadn't noticed that that PLATFORM was really making much noise. Where's the big Symbian App Store, for example?
I don't usually respond to AC's... but Mac market share is not increasing. MacBook market share is a bit, but not at any sort of alarming rate, and the iPhone is barely big enough to be considered a contender for top spot and isn't moving upwards.
Prove it.
I wonder if there is room for google to host a 2nd app store that is vetted, thereby having the best of both worlds.
Or better, they should have a certification system for apps, so that apps market with the tick of approval are guaranteed "safe" by google.
The problem is this is that, the people who are most likely to click "OK" to anything are also the exact same ones who WON'T use the "vetted" app store.
Nope. Face it. Apple got it right. People are too stupid and gullible (by and large) to "vet" their own apps.
Exactly!
You also have to tick a box saying:
Your phone and personal data are more vulnerable to attack by applications from unknown sources. You agree that you are solely responsible for any damage to your phone for loss of data that may result from using these applications."
This is a social engineering attack, not an exploit in the Android system.
Not really.
It's more like an inherent weakness in the "Uncurated" software distribution model that only Android allows.
Face it. An app like that would either not get approved, or would be pulled immediately from the iOS App Store and likely even the WP7 "app store" (whatever it's called).