Techrights Recommends An Apple Boycott 542
walterbyrd writes with a quote from an article at Techrights: "Given the latest actions from Apple we cannot help recommending that people buy nothing from Apple. Boycott the company for being a threat to the IT landscape and also to common sense."
More from the article: "...Apple has been working hard to embargo — not just sue — the competition. Apple disregards the notion of fair competition..."
Re:twitter, I like you (Score:3, Informative)
Apple behaviour is pretty disgusting and, I'd join the embargo 'BUT' damn I've always found their gear to be overhyped and overpriced and basically always gone else where. I'll think you'll find that this is pretty much the trend with the majority of computer geeks.
For what it's worth I vow never to buy an Apple product ;D.
Re:Effective Anymore? (Score:4, Informative)
21,000 domains left, 20,000 signed up. At best that protest has cost them some petty cash they didn't give a damn about anyway.
Wrong (Score:1, Informative)
I suppose that's why it's awesome that iOS is open-source
Actually it is (check out Darwin sometime).
and a thriving community has grown up around modifying the sources to leave out bullshit like CarrierIQ
Unlike Andorid the shell of a CarrierIQ system that shipped with iOS was never enabled, and did not contain a key-logger or any of the other items that made CarrierIQ objectionable to start with. The hint that remained was removed in iOS5.
But my all means bring up CarrierIQ again and remind the world that Android is shipping with active key-loggers in many phones.
Let me know how those custom iOS roms are working out.
Actually, pretty well. [saurik.com]
iOS is far easier for the technical user to customize and hack than Android thanks to the use of Objective-C in applications.
When you stop and think about it it's pretty dumb to have to install a custom ROM when you can just have system tweaks do whatever sets of modifications to the system you are really after. It means you can much more easily track official OS updates.
Rounded rectangles (Score:5, Informative)
Your comment was posted in a rounded rectangle. Please stop that you are violating Apple's patents.
Interestingly, this was one of Steve Jobs' early contributions. There was famously an argument when they were designing the first Macs (having licensed the windowing system from Xerox PARC) - he insisted on including rounded rectangles in the design. His head designer (whose name I forget - Parkhurst?) could not figure why he wanted rounded rectangles. Jobs took him outside, and showed how every rectangular road sign was a rounded rectangle.
Which shows that all things old are new again. It's worth noting that nobody ever patented rounded rectangles on road signs - it was just a useful design, not a 'world-shaking invention' in the world view of that time.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Is the bulk of your claim that if you install Darwin on your phone, you essentially have a mostly-working iOS install, and that Objective-C is better than Java?
As far as I know, the first is not true, and the second is at least a questionable claim, given that language preferences vary so much.
Android may not be the best imaginable mobile OS, but it's certainly a lot more open than iOS.
Re:Patent fight not the only reason (Score:5, Informative)
DRM
Funny as Apple/Jobs pushed music labels to release their music DRM free
Locking hardware to software
They also do that with a reason and not the "evil" they want to rape our babies kind of thing. With Apple they are so obsessed with user experience (and they don't suck at it) that they want to control every aspect. And hate that vertical approach but it works for them. If I look how different the experience is between my android smarthphone and iPad I find it hard to criticize them.
Pushing of proprietary standards
Hilarious. You are aware of the fact that they favored pushing HTML5 instead of the proprietary stuff like Flash. You are aware they are on of the driving force like open standard as OpenCL.
Being the middle-man
Because bandwidth, processing cost, support are all free.
Being secretive about developer revenues
Can you tell me where apple advertises with the fact that IOS is as lucrative. Can I tell you something as a developer who also built mobile applications and also have android devices. If the IOS market is so bad, you don't want to know which graveyard the Android market is.
As someone calling bullshit on the fact that Samsung didn't copy icons or look and feel. Look at KIES, look at the use of sunflower as an icon for the photo picture. Not like the telephone symbol as a photographer I never seen the sunflower as a mental model for a photograph.
For me people may buy and boycott what they want but damn there is so much FUD these days on sites like slashdot it isn't even funny anymore.
Reality is for real people. (Score:2, Informative)
But unique products?
Before the iPhone there was nothing really like it.
Before the iPad there was nothing really like it.
They are not wholly new inventions but they are a leap beyond what was before them.
Good products? Good quality? Good support?
Sales figures (and Consumer Reports) say yes to all of them. You merely claim they are bad while ignoring that everyone else is far worse (Generally, there are some exceptions).
Anecdotally, good support is 100% YES. Because instead of helping friends/family with technical issues as I had to do in the bad old Windows Days, I can simply have them ask first for an answer at a genius bar in an Apple Store. That works 99% of the time. It has saved me COUNTLESS hours of frustration. So nice to be off that merry-go-round.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose that's why it's awesome that iOS is open-source
Actually it is (check out Darwin sometime).
Most of iOS is not open source. The versions of Darwin atop which particular Mac OS X releases are built are; the versions of Darwin atop which particular iOS releases aren't - maybe a particular Darwin release is "close enough" to the Darwin in a particular iOS release, but, even then, it doesn't include the low-level ARM support isn't there in xnu, and a lot of the higher-level stuff isn't open source even in Mac OS X (good luck finding the source to Foundation - not Core Foundation, but Foundation - or AppKit or UIKit).
Re:Apple does not block choice. (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to have forgotten that Apple is only suing Samsung, not other tablet makers.
Erm, Apple had also sued HTC over phones, with the same modus operandi - seeking a ban on device sale rather than e.g. royalties and damages. They have also sued Motorola (over Xoom and Droids). [businessinsider.com]
Re:"Apple not a Producer" - really? (Score:2, Informative)
Apple is as much a producer as anyone, and there are lots of arguments to be made that they are for more producers currently of innovations in hardware and software than many other companies.
Not as much as you think. Take the original iPod. The scroll wheel was invented by Synaptic and the 1.8" HDD was by Toshiba (IIRC). HDD based MP3 players had existed for a while before then, they just set up some exclusive deals to prevent anyone else from using the wheel and the smaller HDDs and released their own product. It was glossy, white, small and expensive enough to be "aspirational" and they hyped it like mad, while using legal contracts to prevent other companies making similar products.
Apple then figured out an even better way to lock others out of their market: buy the company that makes the component and batter everyone with often quite dubious patents. Siri is a good example: it would have been on Android and Blackberry but Apple bought it and the patent portfolio that goes with it. I don't think anyone can really question the ridiculousness of patents on rectangles with rounded corners and the design of a "rectangular tablet with the screen in the middle". Just to add insult to injury a lot of Apple's products look suspiciously like Braun ones from yesteryear.
Most companies, even patent trolls, try to license their inventions to extract money. Apple takes it a step further by trying to get competitor's products banned. In fact it doesn't really matter if anyone else does it or not, Apple is still evil either way.
Re:Give me a break (Score:5, Informative)
To add:
In EU stores, the Samsung tablets are advertised by the floor sales people as "The Samsung iPad, it's better because it has flash" - part of the Samsung sales training. Seen it in multiple places in a couple of countries.
Samsung is betting of the same marketing principles used by the following "well known" bands: Powasonic, Panascanic, Sunny, SQNY, Nokla & Adibas and let's not forget the "famous" aPad & ePad Android tablets. Their frigging lawyers could not tell apart a iPad and a Galaxy Tab. http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/judge-holds-up-ipad-2-and-galaxy-tab-in-court-samsung-lawyers-cant-tell-the-difference-20111014/ [geek.com]
Re:Apple does not block choice. (Score:5, Informative)
I hate Apple because they have ruined software for me.
On my desktops or servers download Windows freeware or open source software and get good quality software that does not necessarily track or spy on me.
On my desktop (well, laptop, really) I can download Mac OS X freeware or open-source software and get good quality software that does not necessarily track or spy on me.
I can install whatever I want.
Same here.
I can develop on it for free, I don't have to pay anyone to start programming. On an Apple product I have to pay Apple for this right to write code for my own device.
OK, so what you really mean is "...because they have ruined smartphone and tablet software for me". I can and do develop, on my Mac, for free, software that runs on Mac OS X.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
iOS is NOT an open source. Many parts are "sourced" by Apple from the open source community and they are pretty much forced to release them under various licenses, also some other unimportant libraries are made open, but that doesn't mean that you can just configure&make the OS on the spot.
Unlike Android the shell of a CarrierIQ system that shipped with iOS was never enabled
Really? It looks even worse, Apple and not the carrier has chosen to install it. Why? It is burried inside the OS for an unknown purpose. It is there.
Android is shipping with active key-loggers
Again, that CIQ software is NOT installed in Android by Google, it is put there by those carriers. You can still update your device to clean OS quite effortlessly even compile your own Android ICS build (from real open source repositories). On the other hand iOS features CarrierIQ spyware as a permanent part buried inside your phone under unknown conditions, it might be tracking you or not, some GUI switches might not be telling the whole story here.
iOS is far easier then Android thanks to the use of Objective-C in applications
ObjC is not that friendly or easy, it sports some weird syntax, slow code (compared to plain C), incompatible outside iOS and it crashes iOS apps. App crashing is common on iOS, even Microsoft solved crashing in the late 90'.
Re:Give me a break (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing is created in a vacuum, there is always inspiration drawn from what already exists. Bizarrely companies think that they shouldn't have to acknowledge this but at the same time retain full and exclusive rights to their stuff and prevent anyone from doing something similar. The degree to which this is enforced varies from not at all in fashion to a sometimes in music (unless you actually sample someone else) to in any way at all with corporate branding.
The brightly lit white Apple stores look like the similarly minimal and bright shops they have had in Japan for ages. In fact Steve Job's trademark polo neck clothing came about because he visited a factory in Japan where the workers wore uniforms. He wanted Apple employees to do the same but they resisted, so he decided to just do it himself and asked a Japanese designer to come up with one for him. She sent him 100 black polo neck tops.
Re:Apple does not block choice. (Score:5, Informative)
parent = AC = troll.
But i'll bite:
http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com]
And Bonjour = Zeroconf, Avahi which also gets installed by the Linux distros and they are amazing tools - just yesterday did some Avahi magic and made a 15year old network Laser printer (DEC LN14) discoverable.
Also Chrome & the Android browser are using Apple's WebKit (forked from KHTML, open source and downloadable from the above link).
Re:Give me a break (Score:5, Informative)
That site exists to track Apple patent applications "in search of future features and secrets," as the site puts it [patentlyapple.com]. It's not celebrating patents
Did you even look at the site? Their slogan, which you can't miss because it's in the page header, is "Celebrating Apple's Spirit of Invention. They Imagine. They Explore. They Inspire and Invent." It's hard to interpret that as not celebrating Apple's patents, in the context of a site which exists to list Apple's patents...
Re:Apple does not block choice. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure how they could make it *easier* let alone "trying hard to make it impossible" as you claim.
Perhaps by not writing code that specifically checks if it's running on Apple hardware and refuses to load parts of the OS if it isn't?
Apple did go to some lengths to make it hard running OS X on vanilla x86 systems. Like, AES-encrypting various system kexts and making it impossible to dump the memory of DSMOS driver to get the decryption keys.
Re:Give me a break (Score:4, Informative)
That is not illegal.
What was illegal is that Microsoft was using its Windows monopoly and its pre-installed state to unfairly gain dominance in another area: internet browsers. By preinstalling IE on Windows, they ensured that every single computer that was purchased from an OEM had IE already on it.
The fact that IE was free was never an issue; MS got hit for Windows Media player in Europe, and removed it from the stock install, but they kept it free-- thats not illegal.
Re:Give me a break (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing is created in a vacuum, there is always inspiration drawn from what already exists. Bizarrely companies think that they shouldn't have to acknowledge this but at the same time retain full and exclusive rights to their stuff and prevent anyone from doing something similar.
Funny you should mention: Samsung sued several companies because they supposedly copied their phones. Yeah, Samsung!