Links don't work in the RSS feed. Which is stupid, but... if you're going to submit a story to Slashdot, you gotta deal with Slashdot's quirks.
Look, the point of this article is to get everybody talking about whether interfaces mimicking real-world objects are a good idea or a bad idea. Since the first 3-4 most highly moderated posts are all "what the hell does 'skeumorphic' mean?" this article has failed at its purpose.
That's the point of the people complaining.
Now the other problem with the question is that the very premise is flawed. Only Apple (and a brief experiment at IBM) ever used skeumorphic UIs in the first place. Microsoft never did, and Metro/Windows 8 is less skeumorphic than anything that's ever been seen before. So... if you like them use Apple products. If not, use products from every other vendor.
The article doesn't even make sense, because only Apple (and a brief experiment at IBM) ever used skeumorphic interfaces in the first place. Microsoft never has, and their new Metro/Windows 8-style UI certainly is about as far from skeumophic as you can get, and they've been the most popular UI for 20 years.
The premise of this article makes no sense. Unless it's talking about the Apple world specifically.
Google's repeating them too. Remember that brilliant concept in Windows 2000 where menu items you didn't use very often would "disappear"? And you'd have to take an extra step to actually see the full goddamned menu? Remember how it was stupid and confusing and it got patched-out of the OS and Office ASAP?
Oh hey look at the new Folder list in Gmail. Way to resurrect a terrible concept that we all tried and rejected 13 years ago, Google.
It was. Well, it sure as hell looked like it was when Xbox 360 and PS3 first came out. Now it doesn't look as much like that.
Hey 20 years ago, Apple was useless and dying right? Space: 1999 was pessimistic predicting there'd be a Moonbase Alpha is as long as 20 years instead of like 5 years. Oops.
Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes when it's clearly obvious X is going to happen, hey! Guess what! X doesn't happen.
And God-forbid someone copies their URL and pastes it to a buddy on IM or Twitter.
Oh wait, let me guess, you combine your URL session with an IP address, right?
In which case: God-forbid someone switch wifi networks expecting their session to still be valid. Ride mass-transit? Do they provide wifi with a constantly shifting IP as the train moves? Good luck getting on to my super-awesome no-cookies site! Cellphone? Idiot! Cellphones can no longer browse the web!
Really? Considering that many of those years were when Microsoft was at its peak anti-competitiveness and laying the foundation for its own prosecution?
But... but... but... but Microsoft!
Yes there was. Microsoft. Apple only managed to succeed because they were completely insular and had an existing loyalist userbase that hated Microsoft.
But... but... but... but Microsoft!
Define getting their shit together in a way that doesn't boil down to "do it my way and no other."
How about creating an identity that isn't based entirely on not being Microsoft? You don't see Apple users whining "but but but Microsoft!" in every goddamned thread, so why do Linux users do it?
They weren't expecting it to run more efficiently *given the level of work they invested*. They've sunk years of work into making the Windows version run quickly.
Yeah... but since 2007 or so they've done hardly anything with the engine (apart from building new content for it, of course.)
Getting a Linux port to run faster, only months after getting their initial port running (the first running Linux version ran at 6 fps under the same test), is impressive.
No doubt, but I wager that if the same effort were applied to Windows alone, the results would have been similarly impressive.
"This is another Atari game I'm working on that takes advantage of the ARM processor found in the Harmony/Melody cartridge.The game logic runs on the ARM processor while the Atari's 6507 CPU updates the display and other things which the ARM does not have access to."
How would I use Skype to play with my friends? Or FRAPS to record the footage for YouTube? Why would I want my email to stop being checked because I'm playing a game? What would this "boot game" do with my second monitor, which I can use to monitor IMs while playing now? Just blank it out?
The Green Card lottery is biased against the best countries. Ok, that's not exactly how it works in theory, but that's kind of what happens. Example: In 2012, Japan was awarded 435 visas and Nigera 6,204.
BEST?
Presuming you mean "Nigeria", I'd actually prefer they get more Green Cards than Japan, simply because the people immigrating from that country were in a hopeless situation with virtually no chance of improving their lot in life. Japan, by comparison, is just a tiny bit racist.
Is there not much bonding between members of a company, or is it just employees vs. management? Here it's like we're all on one team. The American work culture seems strange to people here where coworkers sometimes undercut each other and often don't do anything with each other when they don't have to.
And now we get into the problem of "the American X", where X is anything at all. I've never worked at a place like you describe, nor would I want to. I don't like something being pigeonholed as "American" when in fact our nation is extremely heterogeneous-- I wager the same applies to Switzerland. (Although probably not Iceland.)
Going from Baton Rouge to Seattle is probably as much of a cultural shift as going from Bonn to Reykjavik.
I think it's simply this: with a reboot you can guarantee it works. With something like nixos, it takes hours and days of intensive testing to be sure it works.
I think one of the things the Linux community needs to realize in general (and don't take this as a personal criticism because you are obviously familiar with Microsoft's work) is that Microsoft isn't full of idiots. If they're doing something, they undoubtedly have a very good reason for doing it. It would behoove the people complaining on this thread to spend their time analyzing why Windows does what it does, rather than just complaining about "copying Windows."
It also didn't help that they were a total pain-in-the-ass to carriers. That was ok back when they were a huge draw for people to buy data plans, but when you're being outsold by Android and iOS devices, and carriers hate dealing with your devices, they're going to stop selling your devices.
I've never met anybody who says "at the end of the day" and isn't a total douche. You should have put that in your original post and I wouldn't have bothered replying.
Microsoft showed the Courier? No, it got cancelled and after the cancellation someone leaked it, then Microsoft stepped in to say, "yeah we were working on something like that but we cancelled it."
AFAIK, Microsoft never showed the Courier to anybody outside Microsoft.
Maybe, just FYI, don't form your opinion of Microsoft product launches based on a product they never even launched.
I think his point wasn't that it sells less, but how much less it sells. Compare the sales of XBox in Japan with the sales of Japanese consoles in USA -- while XBox might(?) sell more here in the US, the proportion of domestic to foreign differs. A lot.
And...?
You still haven't gotten to the part where that little sales figure explains why the Xbox isn't competitive. You know, the point of the discussion.
If the Xbox is displacing Wii and Playstation sales, and believe me it is in every region except Japan, then it's competitive. You can sit here and post bullshit about "it's the Atari Jaguar of the 21st century", but we're not idiots, and we're not falling for it unless you have at least a shred of evidence.
They're an American company selling an American product primarily in the US.
Why should Japanese sales matter? Was the Atari 2600 not "competitive" because it didn't sell well in Japan?
This little factoid tells me that yes, the Xbox is very competitive, because the only argument against that is the your extremely dubious and cherry-picked data-point. Your post is making the opposite impression you intended. Congratulations.
Subjective measures all of them, but I'll take your word for it. My iPod is one of the newer generation classics, so I can play movies on it if I want to -- which means all of those digital copies of movies I buy can be played where I want them (and, yes, I know you can do that with Windows as well). I also have the handy dandy cable that lets me play the movie through to a TV,
Just like a 80 GB Zune! You know, the device you're supposedly arguing about? Maybe you should think about talking about things your iPod Classic can do that the 80 GB Zune can't, just FYI.
Again, highly subjective... I've been using the iTunes software for over a decade, and I have no problems with it. In fact, the play counts and ability to create playlists from what are more or less database queries are some of my favorite features -- no idea if Zune has equivalent stuff,
Hey! Here's another thought! If you don't know anything about Zune, then maybe you shouldn't be participating in a iTunes vs. Zune discussion! Cripes.
Anyway, iTunes on Windows is trash. It's bloated. Slow (no UI threading?). Buggy. Has a poor interface. Maybe you don't have any problems with it, but believe me, everybody else does.
I have remarkably little interest in adding 'social' to how I listen to music, so it's not a feature set I care about. Then again, I think social media is highly overrated, and "social" as it applies to music for me means having the stereo on while hanging out with friends. I have no interest whatsoever in Microsoft giving me achievements for listening to music -- that seems kind of pointless, I don't need Microsoft to validate my music listening and I don't care.
Ok, but your opinions don't change the facts that: 1) The Zune had features the iPod didn't 2) The Zune had a social network before Apple did 3) The Zune integrated the highly highly successful "achievements" model to playing music, which I believe not even Apple has done. Whether or not you like this model or not is irrelevant-- the point is it's wildly successful and desired whenever it's applied.
Most of the things you describe as being better about Zune are features I'm not really interested in.
1) Why is your opinion so relevant to this discussion? Do you run Columbia Records? You haven't yet given us any reason to believe your opinion is more important than anybody else's.
2) Since you've never owned a Zune, and never used the Zune software, you don't even have enough information to form an opinion. So why the hell are you even posting here? Just to waste everybody's time? Why isn't your post just the sentence: "oh, well I haven't used a Zune so I'll bow out here."
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Links don't work in the RSS feed. Which is stupid, but... if you're going to submit a story to Slashdot, you gotta deal with Slashdot's quirks.
Look, the point of this article is to get everybody talking about whether interfaces mimicking real-world objects are a good idea or a bad idea. Since the first 3-4 most highly moderated posts are all "what the hell does 'skeumorphic' mean?" this article has failed at its purpose.
That's the point of the people complaining.
Now the other problem with the question is that the very premise is flawed. Only Apple (and a brief experiment at IBM) ever used skeumorphic UIs in the first place. Microsoft never did, and Metro/Windows 8 is less skeumorphic than anything that's ever been seen before. So... if you like them use Apple products. If not, use products from every other vendor.
The article doesn't even make sense, because only Apple (and a brief experiment at IBM) ever used skeumorphic interfaces in the first place. Microsoft never has, and their new Metro/Windows 8-style UI certainly is about as far from skeumophic as you can get, and they've been the most popular UI for 20 years.
The premise of this article makes no sense. Unless it's talking about the Apple world specifically.
Google's repeating them too. Remember that brilliant concept in Windows 2000 where menu items you didn't use very often would "disappear"? And you'd have to take an extra step to actually see the full goddamned menu? Remember how it was stupid and confusing and it got patched-out of the OS and Office ASAP?
Oh hey look at the new Folder list in Gmail. Way to resurrect a terrible concept that we all tried and rejected 13 years ago, Google.
What server am I playing my Skyrim mods on?
You have a very, very limited view of what constitutes a "mod".
It was. Well, it sure as hell looked like it was when Xbox 360 and PS3 first came out. Now it doesn't look as much like that.
Hey 20 years ago, Apple was useless and dying right? Space: 1999 was pessimistic predicting there'd be a Moonbase Alpha is as long as 20 years instead of like 5 years. Oops.
Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes when it's clearly obvious X is going to happen, hey! Guess what! X doesn't happen.
Cope.
It's already not anonymous anyway. Bitcoins live in an account, the account is associated with a person. It's exactly as anonymous as a VISA card.
I think it's hilarious that you think the solution to browsing the web without cookies is basically ASP.net WebForms.
And God-forbid someone copies their URL and pastes it to a buddy on IM or Twitter.
Oh wait, let me guess, you combine your URL session with an IP address, right?
In which case: God-forbid someone switch wifi networks expecting their session to still be valid. Ride mass-transit? Do they provide wifi with a constantly shifting IP as the train moves? Good luck getting on to my super-awesome no-cookies site! Cellphone? Idiot! Cellphones can no longer browse the web!
But... but... but... but Microsoft!
But... but... but... but Microsoft!
How about creating an identity that isn't based entirely on not being Microsoft? You don't see Apple users whining "but but but Microsoft!" in every goddamned thread, so why do Linux users do it?
Get your shit together.
Yeah... but since 2007 or so they've done hardly anything with the engine (apart from building new content for it, of course.)
No doubt, but I wager that if the same effort were applied to Windows alone, the results would have been similarly impressive.
"While some companies haven't quite figured it out yet (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo),"
Seriously? Microsoft has had XNA for years-- in fact I think longer than Apple's iOS tools have been out.
Sony is slowly, slowly, slowly getting there. But you're right that Nintendo has shown zero interest.
"This is another Atari game I'm working on that takes advantage of the ARM processor found in the Harmony/Melody cartridge.The game logic runs on the ARM processor while the Atari's 6507 CPU updates the display and other things which the ARM does not have access to."
Cheater.
How would I use Skype to play with my friends? Or FRAPS to record the footage for YouTube? Why would I want my email to stop being checked because I'm playing a game? What would this "boot game" do with my second monitor, which I can use to monitor IMs while playing now? Just blank it out?
Your idea is bad and you should feel bad.
BEST?
Presuming you mean "Nigeria", I'd actually prefer they get more Green Cards than Japan, simply because the people immigrating from that country were in a hopeless situation with virtually no chance of improving their lot in life. Japan, by comparison, is just a tiny bit racist.
Ok.
Maybe they were just being jerks to Icelandic people. Huh. Huh. Suck that down.
Nothing could be more different from Seattle than Baton Rouge.
And now we get into the problem of "the American X", where X is anything at all. I've never worked at a place like you describe, nor would I want to. I don't like something being pigeonholed as "American" when in fact our nation is extremely heterogeneous-- I wager the same applies to Switzerland. (Although probably not Iceland.)
Going from Baton Rouge to Seattle is probably as much of a cultural shift as going from Bonn to Reykjavik.
I think it's simply this: with a reboot you can guarantee it works. With something like nixos, it takes hours and days of intensive testing to be sure it works.
I think one of the things the Linux community needs to realize in general (and don't take this as a personal criticism because you are obviously familiar with Microsoft's work) is that Microsoft isn't full of idiots. If they're doing something, they undoubtedly have a very good reason for doing it. It would behoove the people complaining on this thread to spend their time analyzing why Windows does what it does, rather than just complaining about "copying Windows."
It also didn't help that they were a total pain-in-the-ass to carriers. That was ok back when they were a huge draw for people to buy data plans, but when you're being outsold by Android and iOS devices, and carriers hate dealing with your devices, they're going to stop selling your devices.
Sounds like Dunning-Kruger effect to me.
I'm the wind, baby.
I've never met anybody who says "at the end of the day" and isn't a total douche. You should have put that in your original post and I wouldn't have bothered replying.
Microsoft showed the Courier? No, it got cancelled and after the cancellation someone leaked it, then Microsoft stepped in to say, "yeah we were working on something like that but we cancelled it."
AFAIK, Microsoft never showed the Courier to anybody outside Microsoft.
Maybe, just FYI, don't form your opinion of Microsoft product launches based on a product they never even launched.
And...?
You still haven't gotten to the part where that little sales figure explains why the Xbox isn't competitive. You know, the point of the discussion.
If the Xbox is displacing Wii and Playstation sales, and believe me it is in every region except Japan, then it's competitive. You can sit here and post bullshit about "it's the Atari Jaguar of the 21st century", but we're not idiots, and we're not falling for it unless you have at least a shred of evidence.
Who cares?
They're an American company selling an American product primarily in the US.
Why should Japanese sales matter? Was the Atari 2600 not "competitive" because it didn't sell well in Japan?
This little factoid tells me that yes, the Xbox is very competitive, because the only argument against that is the your extremely dubious and cherry-picked data-point. Your post is making the opposite impression you intended. Congratulations.
Just like a 80 GB Zune! You know, the device you're supposedly arguing about? Maybe you should think about talking about things your iPod Classic can do that the 80 GB Zune can't, just FYI.
Hey! Here's another thought! If you don't know anything about Zune, then maybe you shouldn't be participating in a iTunes vs. Zune discussion! Cripes.
Anyway, iTunes on Windows is trash. It's bloated. Slow (no UI threading?). Buggy. Has a poor interface. Maybe you don't have any problems with it, but believe me, everybody else does.
Ok, but your opinions don't change the facts that:
1) The Zune had features the iPod didn't
2) The Zune had a social network before Apple did
3) The Zune integrated the highly highly successful "achievements" model to playing music, which I believe not even Apple has done. Whether or not you like this model or not is irrelevant-- the point is it's wildly successful and desired whenever it's applied.
1) Why is your opinion so relevant to this discussion? Do you run Columbia Records? You haven't yet given us any reason to believe your opinion is more important than anybody else's.
2) Since you've never owned a Zune, and never used the Zune software, you don't even have enough information to form an opinion. So why the hell are you even posting here? Just to waste everybody's time? Why isn't your post just the sentence: "oh, well I haven't used a Zune so I'll bow out here."