Until OS X, Mac developers used Pascal and Assembler almost exclusively for OS and Application development, with C and C++ being also allowed (as they are now under Objective-C). In fact the original Macintosh APIs (Mac Toolbox) were all oriented around Pascal.
It was NeXT, not Apple, who popularized Obj-C.
NeXT also developed NextStep/OpenStep in Obj-C (see above link). I suppose they were all part of Apple's Evil Plan(TM), too, right?
whose skills start depreciating almost as soon as they are laid off, given the dynamism of the industry.
Huh, that doesn't seem to jive with my experience. Of course, I stayed away from the framework of the week and learned C in college. Oh look, it's still relevant.
Yes, but it's the OTHER stuff "around" the "C" that seems to be ever-changing. And every single job description seems to have an unending supply of acronym alphabet-soup of requirements. That's the flavor-of-the-week stuff that keeps competent and sometimes even great software developers from being considered because they of "having an outdated skill set".
Their C skills never even factor into the decision, unfortunately.
And I have no idea how to break the industry out of this acronym game. But I do know that too many skilled and EXPERIENCED developers are being shut out because of the insane and even dangerous obsession with acronym checklists instead of actual interviewing and testing to determine skill level.
Software development is more about problem solving and communication skills than actually writing code. These abilities don't atrophy nearly so fast. A solid developer can pick up whatever technologies are needed for jumping into an existing problem space with little effort and apply their problem solving skills.
That is exactly correct.
All the acronym-flinging job descriptions, which are crafted not to find candidates who can actually do the job, but rather to make it easier for HR to develop some stupid checklist of "skills", are exactly what is wrong in the entire "tech" hiring game right now.
The problem is, as you say, that when a job posting starts building up so many buzzword and acronym-laden requirements, the ONLY people who can get past the HR gatekeepers are the liars.
And the problem is, if the liar gets past HR, then the next stop is often an aging Director of Engineering-type, who's skill set is none too "modern"; so, all the liar has to do is keep on lying, throwing around those acronyms and buzzwords. Then, it isn't until months down the road that the poser finally gets discovered.
Meanwhile, the guy that can actually "walk the walk" never gets past HR, because he was HONEST on his resume, and so doesn't list 10 years of experience in a language or software package that has only been in existence for six years.
Now, with that in mind, excuse me while I go "update" my resume...
As a heads-up, I just tried this and ended up having to return the system. There appears to be some bug with their HDMI which can cause the machine to kernel panic, apparently when powering on either the display or receiver it's plugged into*.
Um, I think they recently fixed that little bug with a recent 463MB update to Snow Leopard (10.6.4. Update for Mac mini, IIRC)
Get a Western Digital HD Live box. It's cheap, tiny, quiet and plays videos with a large variety of codecs. Also does music of course, plus Pandora, Flicker, etc.
I just switched a client from this setup to a new Mac mini and Plex (just before version 9 came out). It makes a damn fine HTPC system, and will also be used for other "home server-y" things, too (like security).
The WDTV Live was a disappointment, mostly because it didn't have any web interface (for browsing) and its DLNA/uPNP firmware is, er, not-quite-baked.
I copied his screen and made it the background then shut it all down and rebooted.
LOLZ!!!!11!!!!1!
I can attest to the fact that this is an evil thing to do to someone! I inadvertently did that to myself many years ago with a Mac I was using, running a bunch of apps. Took a snapshot of the desktop with all the open windows. Thought it would be funny to make it my desktop...
Lasted about 5 minutes. I really IS hard to avoid falling for all the "fake" windows and icons, even when you put them there yourself!
So, thanks for making my day. It really is a great prank.
I love the fact that the guy spent all that time in the store without a single employee asking if he could help him with something. I guess Apple has an OS security problem *and* a customer service problem.
I'm pretty sure that Apple Store employees get trained on "how not to hover". Every time I've been in the local Apple Store here in Indianapolis, I have noticed that the store staff all exhibit the same behavior, to wit: They are "invisible" until you beckon one of them to answer a question. Then they appear, answer your question(s), hover a minute, then quietly slip away again. They "know" you know where to find them.
When the store is crowded (as it almost always is), this behavior is a little more obvious; but when the store has "lower" traffic, the employees still don't "stalk" customers, but rather stand back and just kind of chat with one another, but when a customer does that "looking around for help" thing, one of the staff will just excuse themselves out of the conversation and check to see if the customer really needed help, or was just looking for someone else in the store. As I said, I've been in that store about a dozen times over the course of a few years, and have definitely noticed this behavior. So it must be a company-policy/training thing. Any Apple Store employees wanna back me up on this?
Obviously you don't mind being set-upon by commission-hungry (or just quota-filling) salespeople. I do; and frankly, I find Apple's approach to be remeniscent of a good waiter/waitress at a restaurant: Totally unobtrusive, yet your beverage glass is somehow never empty.
Bad pun-splice aside, I find that behavior very refreshing.
With open source, it's easier for the good guys to spot - and fix - problems.
Yes, but in this case, isn't the code that is being exploited Closed Source?
So, now, aren't all the potential victims stuck in the same waiting game, waiting for someone else to fix the 'sploit, as those running closed-source phones?
Hell, look at Apple's entire product line- way more expensive than compatible Dell or HP products (though I do agree the Apple is higher quality.)
Not to pick; but if Apples are higher quality, then the Dell or HP products really AREN'T "compatible"[sic] (comparable?), are they? Therefore, maybe they are "way more expensive" because they are "way more better", eh?;-)
Intel was, IMHO, more honest than AMD because they used a true number, raw CPU clock, to rate their CPUs, while AMD created a synthetic number. Is it honest to claim "processing power like a 2.2 GHz chip" if the people who actually need 2.2 GHz will not be the ones who get the best performance from that chip?
First, I don't particularly love or hate either CPU company; nor do I really have a monetary stake in either, either.
However, I agree wholeheartedly that AMD's equivalency numbers are disingenuous.In fact, they kind of remind me of all those fake power output numbers on cheap audio equipment (and I think ALL car stereo equipment!). "I've got a 600W power amp in my car, yo!". Yeahrightsure. It might do 600W DC into your speakers when the output transistors short, maybe!
Same way with those fake AMD speeds. Absolute smoke and mirrors. Doesn't make the CPUs useless or bad. Just saddled with lame marketing.
You don't want to tell the computer every nitty-gritty detail. The computer is fast enough and powerful enough to do what you want it to do without you needing to exercise that level of control over how it actually does it. You just want to call a function that does what you want without worrying about the underlying hardware or algorithm that does it.
Guess you can tell the desktop application developers from the embedded devs, eh?
All the Linux people on/., who used to pride themselves of using Linux to create useful fileservers, webservers, mediaservers, and the like, sometimes out of amazingly low-performance hardware, and nearly all of you say "dumpsterize it"???
Economists have a term for that: "Conspicuous Consumerism". And it isn't a complimentary term, either.
First, I have to ask "Why are you putting Linux on it"? That machine will run current-generation -1 of OS X (that is to say, 10.5 (Leopard). That OS is still being supported by Apple). It is hardly "Orphaned" hardware (yet). So, unless you just HAVE to put an OS with far less software on the machine, why exactly would you want to put Linux on it?
But, OS choice aside, that G5 tower may be a bit heavy on the power consumption; but you know what takes a LOT of power? Recycling a junked computer and building a whole other computer, where a perfectly good one already existed. And let's not even talk about the capital expenditure down the drain. For what? So he can buy a new machine? Obviously, this isn't his main computer already. But it most certainly can fill a place in his home, or small business, as one or more servers.
That G5 tower is plenty useful for server-y things around the house. And if you use Logic or XCode (and I think some parts of Final Cut Studio), and have a Gigabit connection to another Mac, you can use the G5 CPUs (plural) to help render, compile, transcode, etc.
As far as a surveillance machine, you can support a fair amount of cameras, but it gets a little costly above 4 (but that is where the sweet spot for home surveillance is, anyway).
iTunes server. Easy. Won't even come off of idle. Same thing if you want to run QT Streaming Server. Those things take very little CPU power anyway, and the memory pathways are acceptably high bandwidth, even by today's standards.
In short, don't even begin to listen to those who want to dumpster this find piece of industrial engineering. It has many years of service life left, and is still powerful enough to do a wide variety of tasks, whatever the OS.
Posted from my 1.8GHz DP G5 tower. The one that's been running without 24/7 without fail since purchased in April, 2005. And it doesn't even have so much as a squeaky fan.
I also think that Apple can't afford to not do this. They have been forced to reduce their prices on their hardware, eating away their margins.
I guess you just missed Apple's Q3 Earnings report, then. Sorry they didn't call you in your Mom's basement.
There are a large number of things that I hate Apple products for, the desktop environment that does not lend itself to heavy multitasking (from a user perspective)
I don't know where your "information" comes from; but OS X multitasks JUST fine. One time, simply as a test, I simultaneously encoded video, watched other video (including that CPU-hogging Flash shit), browsed, and listened to iTunes with a visualizer running, and compiled an XCode project, all without the slightest hiccup in UI performance or slowdown in other functionality, on my 5 year old 1.8GHz G5 DP, with only 1.25GB of RAM. Therefore, I'd say that OS X does heavy multitasking at least as good as any other OS. Don't whine about thread creation overhead and the like; what matters is how responsive the system remains TO THE USER. Apple has really figured out how to prioritize tasks.
Apple stuff is easy for simple users.
That's a meme that needs to die once and for all.
I am an embedded developer with over thirty years' experience. Now call me "simple".
And, in case you haven't noticed, Apple has an incredible presence among academics, and a pretty strong (and growing) following among IT professionals, and software and web devs, too. I guess they're all "simple users", too, eh?
poorly organized layout which makes Spotlight the main way to access your files and programs
You do mean the same Volume -> Directory -> File structure that EVERY filesystem has used since, well, since their were hierarchical file systems, right?
Actually Spotlight was created because Apple realized that the WHOLE PARADIGM was getting too unweildy, and that hard drives were getting too large, for the old heirarchy to work (for anyone at all). Perhaps Microsoft agreed, because they went right out and copied it immediately for Visturd (and Win 7, I assume).
Oh, and the Linux guys must think their "layout" is pretty "poorly organized", because Beagle is a direct Spotlight clone. I do notice, however, like many, many Free software projects, it is now languishing (due to lack of financial support, no doubt).
It's NOT an audience that by-and-large cares about open-source. They just want to get more iTunes, be able to text message, and look cool doing facebook in a coffee shop.
Actually, I think you just described about 99% of the computer-buying public in general.
No wonder Apple is doing so good and Linux is just about nonexistent on the the desktop, eh?
By the way, you DO realize that this means that there will be MORE free software developers flocking to OS X, because a lot of people that write free software (read almost all) still enjoy getting donations, and, if the early numbers on iAds continue, it looks like they will begin to notice a fairly steady stream of income from their iAd-supported projects.
It's not the death of "Free" software; but rather the next chapter; where Free Software projects finally "pay" enough to be worth actually maintaining and improving, unlike a LOT of them, now, which seem to languish after an initial flurry of development, with bug report after bug report going unanswered and unresolved for YEARS, because the developer loses interest in supporting (for free!) a bunch of whiney freeloaders.
iAds changes all that for the DEVELOPERS of free software.
PROVE IT yourself. How can cell-tower triangulation be disabled? How would this increase the battery life?
Turning off access to "Location Services" denies OS-LEVEL ACCESS TO THE API.
It really doesn't matter to the application WHERE the "Location" data comes from, in fact, I'm not sure it even knows at the app level.
So, unless you are running a Jailbroken iPhone with some sort of modified API (and then, who's fault is THAT?) that can "ignore" those settings, Turning "Location Services" OFF means OFF.
I agree that it wouldn't save any battery life (or not that much), but I also point out (again) that the "Location Data" that is available through the tower and hotspot triangulation is WAY too "coarse" to be of any REAL privacy concern. I've seen that working (or trying to work) for myself, and you're lucky if it's accurate to within a few thousand feet. Maybe once in awhile it'll get "lucky"; but overall, it isn't ANYTHING like having a blinking light attached to the top of your head.
As someone else mentioned, Google Android asks you first; "Allow Google's location service to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running. Agree/Disagree".
That's a bit clearer than hiding it in the terms and conditions.
Location warnings are the requests made by applications (such as Camera, Compass, and Maps as well as location-dependent third-party apps) to use Location Services with those applications. An application will present a location warning the first time it needs to access Location Services data. Tapping OK will give that app permission to use Location Services as needed. Tapping Don't Allow will prevent an app from accessing Location Services data from then on.
And that's in ADDITION to allowing the FREEDOM to turn the Location Services ON AND OFF AT WILL.
Unlike Android, where you get to choose ONCE, at INSTALL time.
Note that the "Location Services" config pane also shows exactly WHICH apps have requested your location within the past 24 hours. No pawing through log files. There it is, for any user that CARES.
So NOW what? Got any more gripes, or are you just looking for something to hate?
How do you disable cell phone triangulation? And do you never use Wi-fi on your iPhone?
Read the PDF, top of page 12: "Anonymous Wi-Fi Access Point information and GPS co-ordinates may also be collected when an iPhone is using GPS to search for a cellular network.".
Are you fucking SERIOUS?!?
So, you're REALLY going to argue that that data is ANYWHERE NEAR accurate enough to PINPOINT where you are?!?
You're simply looking for something to "hate" on, aren't you?
I would respect them more if they simply said, "You bought our phones, so we will spy on your every move. If you don't like it, don't buy them." Instead they make it twice as bad by insulting your intelligence with an "anonymization" scheme so obviously ineffective that it really makes it clear what contempt they have for their customers.
Rejecting apps is only the tip of the iceberg. Objective-c is Apples attempt to co-opt developers.
You're quite the idiot, you realize.
Apple didn't create Objective-C.
Until OS X, Mac developers used Pascal and Assembler almost exclusively for OS and Application development, with C and C++ being also allowed (as they are now under Objective-C). In fact the original Macintosh APIs (Mac Toolbox) were all oriented around Pascal.
It was NeXT, not Apple, who popularized Obj-C. NeXT also developed NextStep/OpenStep in Obj-C (see above link). I suppose they were all part of Apple's Evil Plan(TM), too, right?
And of course, the fact that Objective-C (and OpenStep) is available for other platforms from GNU is also part of The Plan...
Give it a rest, willya?
As someone else said on here a few days ago, is it possible to have an entire article rated as Flamebait?
whose skills start depreciating almost as soon as they are laid off, given the dynamism of the industry.
Huh, that doesn't seem to jive with my experience. Of course, I stayed away from the framework of the week and learned C in college. Oh look, it's still relevant.
Yes, but it's the OTHER stuff "around" the "C" that seems to be ever-changing. And every single job description seems to have an unending supply of acronym alphabet-soup of requirements. That's the flavor-of-the-week stuff that keeps competent and sometimes even great software developers from being considered because they of "having an outdated skill set".
Their C skills never even factor into the decision, unfortunately.
And I have no idea how to break the industry out of this acronym game. But I do know that too many skilled and EXPERIENCED developers are being shut out because of the insane and even dangerous obsession with acronym checklists instead of actual interviewing and testing to determine skill level.
Software development is more about problem solving and communication skills than actually writing code. These abilities don't atrophy nearly so fast. A solid developer can pick up whatever technologies are needed for jumping into an existing problem space with little effort and apply their problem solving skills.
That is exactly correct.
All the acronym-flinging job descriptions, which are crafted not to find candidates who can actually do the job, but rather to make it easier for HR to develop some stupid checklist of "skills", are exactly what is wrong in the entire "tech" hiring game right now.
The problem is, as you say, that when a job posting starts building up so many buzzword and acronym-laden requirements, the ONLY people who can get past the HR gatekeepers are the liars.
And the problem is, if the liar gets past HR, then the next stop is often an aging Director of Engineering-type, who's skill set is none too "modern"; so, all the liar has to do is keep on lying, throwing around those acronyms and buzzwords. Then, it isn't until months down the road that the poser finally gets discovered.
Meanwhile, the guy that can actually "walk the walk" never gets past HR, because he was HONEST on his resume, and so doesn't list 10 years of experience in a language or software package that has only been in existence for six years.
Now, with that in mind, excuse me while I go "update" my resume...
considering its basically iTunes and the iPod that brought Apple back to life
BZZZZT!!! Wrong, thanks for playing!
It was the iMac, in 1998 (3 years before the iPod) that "Brought Apple back to life".
Oh yes, and The return of Steve Jobs, and to no small extent, NeXTStep/Rhapsody/OS X.
As a heads-up, I just tried this and ended up having to return the system. There appears to be some bug with their HDMI which can cause the machine to kernel panic, apparently when powering on either the display or receiver it's plugged into*.
Um, I think they recently fixed that little bug with a recent 463MB update to Snow Leopard (10.6.4. Update for Mac mini, IIRC)
Get a Western Digital HD Live box. It's cheap, tiny, quiet and plays videos with a large variety of codecs. Also does music of course, plus Pandora, Flicker, etc.
I just switched a client from this setup to a new Mac mini and Plex (just before version 9 came out). It makes a damn fine HTPC system, and will also be used for other "home server-y" things, too (like security).
The WDTV Live was a disappointment, mostly because it didn't have any web interface (for browsing) and its DLNA/uPNP firmware is, er, not-quite-baked.
I copied his screen and made it the background then shut it all down and rebooted.
LOLZ!!!!11!!!!1!
I can attest to the fact that this is an evil thing to do to someone! I inadvertently did that to myself many years ago with a Mac I was using, running a bunch of apps. Took a snapshot of the desktop with all the open windows. Thought it would be funny to make it my desktop...
Lasted about 5 minutes. I really IS hard to avoid falling for all the "fake" windows and icons, even when you put them there yourself!
So, thanks for making my day. It really is a great prank.
I love the fact that the guy spent all that time in the store without a single employee asking if he could help him with something. I guess Apple has an OS security problem *and* a customer service problem.
I'm pretty sure that Apple Store employees get trained on "how not to hover". Every time I've been in the local Apple Store here in Indianapolis, I have noticed that the store staff all exhibit the same behavior, to wit: They are "invisible" until you beckon one of them to answer a question. Then they appear, answer your question(s), hover a minute, then quietly slip away again. They "know" you know where to find them.
When the store is crowded (as it almost always is), this behavior is a little more obvious; but when the store has "lower" traffic, the employees still don't "stalk" customers, but rather stand back and just kind of chat with one another, but when a customer does that "looking around for help" thing, one of the staff will just excuse themselves out of the conversation and check to see if the customer really needed help, or was just looking for someone else in the store. As I said, I've been in that store about a dozen times over the course of a few years, and have definitely noticed this behavior. So it must be a company-policy/training thing. Any Apple Store employees wanna back me up on this?
Obviously you don't mind being set-upon by commission-hungry (or just quota-filling) salespeople. I do; and frankly, I find Apple's approach to be remeniscent of a good waiter/waitress at a restaurant: Totally unobtrusive, yet your beverage glass is somehow never empty.
Bad pun-splice aside, I find that behavior very refreshing.
Most live bands these days just mime to studio recordings
Most?!?
Citation, please. And no, Ashley Simpson's "performance" on Saturday Night Live does NOT count as an example, nor does Milli Vanilli...
You said "Most", remember?
With open source, it's easier for the good guys to spot - and fix - problems.
Yes, but in this case, isn't the code that is being exploited Closed Source?
So, now, aren't all the potential victims stuck in the same waiting game, waiting for someone else to fix the 'sploit, as those running closed-source phones?
Hmmm. I thought that Ballmer said that SECURITY is "Job One" at Microsoft.
Oh, well...
Hell, look at Apple's entire product line- way more expensive than compatible Dell or HP products (though I do agree the Apple is higher quality.)
Not to pick; but if Apples are higher quality, then the Dell or HP products really AREN'T "compatible"[sic] (comparable?), are they? Therefore, maybe they are "way more expensive" because they are "way more better", eh? ;-)
Apple isn't about making cool technology any more - it's about marketing to the masses.
The 12-core MacPro is anything but a mass-market machine. For that market Apple's products are 4 cores max (and usually just 2).
No one is expected to use this machine just to surf the web.
And as far as the Magic Trackpad goes, show me another standalone trackpad that even comes close for under $99. Not trying to troll, just sayin'...
Intel was, IMHO, more honest than AMD because they used a true number, raw CPU clock, to rate their CPUs, while AMD created a synthetic number. Is it honest to claim "processing power like a 2.2 GHz chip" if the people who actually need 2.2 GHz will not be the ones who get the best performance from that chip?
First, I don't particularly love or hate either CPU company; nor do I really have a monetary stake in either, either.
However, I agree wholeheartedly that AMD's equivalency numbers are disingenuous.In fact, they kind of remind me of all those fake power output numbers on cheap audio equipment (and I think ALL car stereo equipment!). "I've got a 600W power amp in my car, yo!". Yeahrightsure. It might do 600W DC into your speakers when the output transistors short, maybe!
Same way with those fake AMD speeds. Absolute smoke and mirrors. Doesn't make the CPUs useless or bad. Just saddled with lame marketing.
Dude! You're getting a cell!
Now that was genuinely funny! Thanks!!!
You don't want to tell the computer every nitty-gritty detail. The computer is fast enough and powerful enough to do what you want it to do without you needing to exercise that level of control over how it actually does it. You just want to call a function that does what you want without worrying about the underlying hardware or algorithm that does it.
Guess you can tell the desktop application developers from the embedded devs, eh?
Amazing.
/., who used to pride themselves of using Linux to create useful fileservers, webservers, mediaservers, and the like, sometimes out of amazingly low-performance hardware, and nearly all of you say "dumpsterize it"???
All the Linux people on
Economists have a term for that: "Conspicuous Consumerism". And it isn't a complimentary term, either.
First, I have to ask "Why are you putting Linux on it"? That machine will run current-generation -1 of OS X (that is to say, 10.5 (Leopard). That OS is still being supported by Apple). It is hardly "Orphaned" hardware (yet). So, unless you just HAVE to put an OS with far less software on the machine, why exactly would you want to put Linux on it?
But, OS choice aside, that G5 tower may be a bit heavy on the power consumption; but you know what takes a LOT of power? Recycling a junked computer and building a whole other computer, where a perfectly good one already existed. And let's not even talk about the capital expenditure down the drain. For what? So he can buy a new machine? Obviously, this isn't his main computer already. But it most certainly can fill a place in his home, or small business, as one or more servers.
That G5 tower is plenty useful for server-y things around the house. And if you use Logic or XCode (and I think some parts of Final Cut Studio), and have a Gigabit connection to another Mac, you can use the G5 CPUs (plural) to help render, compile, transcode, etc.
As far as a surveillance machine, you can support a fair amount of cameras, but it gets a little costly above 4 (but that is where the sweet spot for home surveillance is, anyway).
iTunes server. Easy. Won't even come off of idle. Same thing if you want to run QT Streaming Server. Those things take very little CPU power anyway, and the memory pathways are acceptably high bandwidth, even by today's standards.
In short, don't even begin to listen to those who want to dumpster this find piece of industrial engineering. It has many years of service life left, and is still powerful enough to do a wide variety of tasks, whatever the OS.
Posted from my 1.8GHz DP G5 tower. The one that's been running without 24/7 without fail since purchased in April, 2005. And it doesn't even have so much as a squeaky fan.
I also think that Apple can't afford to not do this. They have been forced to reduce their prices on their hardware, eating away their margins.
I guess you just missed Apple's Q3 Earnings report, then. Sorry they didn't call you in your Mom's basement.
There are a large number of things that I hate Apple products for, the desktop environment that does not lend itself to heavy multitasking (from a user perspective)
I don't know where your "information" comes from; but OS X multitasks JUST fine. One time, simply as a test, I simultaneously encoded video, watched other video (including that CPU-hogging Flash shit), browsed, and listened to iTunes with a visualizer running, and compiled an XCode project, all without the slightest hiccup in UI performance or slowdown in other functionality, on my 5 year old 1.8GHz G5 DP, with only 1.25GB of RAM. Therefore, I'd say that OS X does heavy multitasking at least as good as any other OS. Don't whine about thread creation overhead and the like; what matters is how responsive the system remains TO THE USER. Apple has really figured out how to prioritize tasks.
Apple stuff is easy for simple users.
That's a meme that needs to die once and for all.
I am an embedded developer with over thirty years' experience. Now call me "simple".
And, in case you haven't noticed, Apple has an incredible presence among academics, and a pretty strong (and growing) following among IT professionals, and software and web devs, too. I guess they're all "simple users", too, eh?
poorly organized layout which makes Spotlight the main way to access your files and programs
You do mean the same Volume -> Directory -> File structure that EVERY filesystem has used since, well, since their were hierarchical file systems, right?
Actually Spotlight was created because Apple realized that the WHOLE PARADIGM was getting too unweildy, and that hard drives were getting too large, for the old heirarchy to work (for anyone at all). Perhaps Microsoft agreed, because they went right out and copied it immediately for Visturd (and Win 7, I assume).
Oh, and the Linux guys must think their "layout" is pretty "poorly organized", because Beagle is a direct Spotlight clone. I do notice, however, like many, many Free software projects, it is now languishing (due to lack of financial support, no doubt).
So now what, fucktard?
It's NOT an audience that by-and-large cares about open-source. They just want to get more iTunes, be able to text message, and look cool doing facebook in a coffee shop.
Actually, I think you just described about 99% of the computer-buying public in general.
No wonder Apple is doing so good and Linux is just about nonexistent on the the desktop, eh?
By the way, you DO realize that this means that there will be MORE free software developers flocking to OS X, because a lot of people that write free software (read almost all) still enjoy getting donations, and, if the early numbers on iAds continue, it looks like they will begin to notice a fairly steady stream of income from their iAd-supported projects.
It's not the death of "Free" software; but rather the next chapter; where Free Software projects finally "pay" enough to be worth actually maintaining and improving, unlike a LOT of them, now, which seem to languish after an initial flurry of development, with bug report after bug report going unanswered and unresolved for YEARS, because the developer loses interest in supporting (for free!) a bunch of whiney freeloaders.
iAds changes all that for the DEVELOPERS of free software.
Think about it.
Somebody I know bought an Apple laptop for his daughter.
MODS?!?!? Parent is INTERESTING???
How about OFF-TOPIC?
PROVE IT yourself. How can cell-tower triangulation be disabled? How would this increase the battery life?
Turning off access to "Location Services" denies OS-LEVEL ACCESS TO THE API.
It really doesn't matter to the application WHERE the "Location" data comes from, in fact, I'm not sure it even knows at the app level.
So, unless you are running a Jailbroken iPhone with some sort of modified API (and then, who's fault is THAT?) that can "ignore" those settings, Turning "Location Services" OFF means OFF.
I agree that it wouldn't save any battery life (or not that much), but I also point out (again) that the "Location Data" that is available through the tower and hotspot triangulation is WAY too "coarse" to be of any REAL privacy concern. I've seen that working (or trying to work) for myself, and you're lucky if it's accurate to within a few thousand feet. Maybe once in awhile it'll get "lucky"; but overall, it isn't ANYTHING like having a blinking light attached to the top of your head.
As someone else mentioned, Google Android asks you first; "Allow Google's location service to collect anonymous location data. Collection will occur even when no applications are running. Agree/Disagree".
That's a bit clearer than hiding it in the terms and conditions.
From the Apple Tech Support document "Understanding Location Services":
Location warnings are the requests made by applications (such as Camera, Compass, and Maps as well as location-dependent third-party apps) to use Location Services with those applications. An application will present a location warning the first time it needs to access Location Services data. Tapping OK will give that app permission to use Location Services as needed. Tapping Don't Allow will prevent an app from accessing Location Services data from then on.
Shall I draw you a PICTURE?!?
And that's in ADDITION to allowing the FREEDOM to turn the Location Services ON AND OFF AT WILL.
Unlike Android, where you get to choose ONCE, at INSTALL time.
Note that the "Location Services" config pane also shows exactly WHICH apps have requested your location within the past 24 hours. No pawing through log files. There it is, for any user that CARES.
So NOW what? Got any more gripes, or are you just looking for something to hate?
How do you disable cell phone triangulation? And do you never use Wi-fi on your iPhone?
Read the PDF, top of page 12: "Anonymous Wi-Fi Access Point information and GPS co-ordinates may also be collected when an iPhone is using GPS to search for a cellular network.".
Are you fucking SERIOUS?!?
So, you're REALLY going to argue that that data is ANYWHERE NEAR accurate enough to PINPOINT where you are?!?
You're simply looking for something to "hate" on, aren't you?
I would respect them more if they simply said, "You bought our phones, so we will spy on your every move. If you don't like it, don't buy them." Instead they make it twice as bad by insulting your intelligence with an "anonymization" scheme so obviously ineffective that it really makes it clear what contempt they have for their customers.
I guess then Android is evil then, too, because Google collects "Anonymized" data through it's "Location Services", too. So, Google Good, Apple Bad? Or, is it simply "I trust Google's anonymization, but not Apple's", or what?