Steve Jobs Says PC Folks' World Is Slipping Away 1067
theodp writes "Provoked by an iPad ad promising a 'revolution,' Valleywag's Ryan Tate fired off a late-night missive to Steve Jobs. Jobs responded, and the two engaged in an after-midnight e-mail debate over lockdown, Cocoa vs. Flash, battery life, and whether 'freedom from porn' is a bug or a feature. 'The times they are a changin',' quipped Jobs, 'and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.' Tate was unswayed by the Apple CEO's reality distortion field, but did come away impressed by Jobs' willingness to spar one-on-one over his beliefs — at two in the morning on a weekend."
Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like Jobs just got trolled hard. 10/10 for Ryan Tate.
Steve held his own... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds to me like Steve Jobs answered some random person's critical comments immediately on a Friday night. Obviously everything that comes out of his mouth is garbage, but damn that is someone who cares about their product.
Re:haha (Score:-1, Insightful)
Par for the course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.
Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.
It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
The article is just a troller (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy just wrapped up all the common complaints that Adobe and the non-Apple customers want you to believe what's wrong with iPad, and sends off a profanity laced alcohol induced email exchange to see if he can out wit Steve Jobs.
I'd say that Steve stayed pretty much on message with what he's been always saying, even without his PR department to filter out his intent. And the blogger just looks like, well, a troll.
Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
The iPad costs ~$500, a cheap notebook costs $300-400, paying $500 for a notebook usually gets you a fast, powerful notebook. With a notebook I'm not limited by stupid design decisions, even Microsoft lets me do what I want and doesn't restrict programs. If I want to install an emulator, thats fine. If I want to install Photoshop, thats fine. I don't have to worry about petty squabbles about how Flash is sooooo evil and destroying the world! I can just choose to install Flash or not. With a notebook I can pay ~$5 for a USB card reader rather than $30 for a single-format card reader. With a notebook I have choices of just about everything else, I'm not locked into expensive hardware.
The iPod won marketshare for having a good UI and being small. The iPad has a decent-ish design and decent UI. However, when I can get a laptop with a UI that I've been using for most of my adult life... Why change? The iPad runs expensive applications, a laptop runs free applications.
I think I'm not alone in thinking how annoying it is to have common-sense features be added in at a later date which would have already been done with a simi-open platform.
No one wants real applications! We will never have an iPhone SDK! After all, programs are -terrible- to run. No one wants an alternate browser! No one wants copy/paste! No one wants multi-tasking!
Sorry Steve, I don't understand your opposition to common sense. I have an iPod touch because at the time it was the cheapest wi-fi enabled device to have a good internet experience on the go with some games/music/movies. I'm not going to get an iPad because there are cheaper devices that do a -ton- more.
Re:I rarely read ValleyWag. (Score:5, Insightful)
"As much as I enjoyed watching SJ take that clown to school, it probably isn't a good idea for him to do so since there's likely to be litigation against his employer in the near future."
Jobs was doing well until he brought up porn.
Porn has been published in every medium known to man since the beginning of time. We have literally found porn cave paintings. Porn is nothing new, and will continue to exist. And as long as it's existed, kids have always gotten their hands on it.
Steve acting as if it was some new fad that Apple is attempting to stem is disturbing. I'm not saying they need to start putting porn in the app store, but c'mon, Apple stopping sideloading so they can keep the iPhone free of porn? There are already ways of getting porn on the device (web), and kids can very easily jailbreak the thing to load on whatever they want. Apple is making a dumb stand on principle.
He told the Gawker editor that he'd understand if he had kids. One has to wonder if this is a result of a bad experience Steve has personally had with his family, and not so much a business decision.
Re:From: "PC Folk" (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, -1 squared is 1. So, is woosh an uprate now, or are you just bad at math?
Sent from my iPad.
Re:Insomnia and stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Hari Seldon wrote all about it.
E
people don't want to fiddle (Score:4, Insightful)
If the iPad can provide the functionality they need, and contrary to the false statement, free p0rn(who wants to pay for an app to pay for p0rn anyway) and let the kids write papers with a bluetooth keyboard and not have updates fail because MS cannot verify via WGA an accuse the user of theft, then why buy anything else?
I feel a little disturbed that I can't change batteries, add memory, or write my own programs like I can on my Mac, but then I don't fix my own car anymore either. The worlds moves on, and one either moves or gets run over. And just look at the unemployment rate in the US to see what happens to those that get run over. Sure you can hold rallies and complain about taxes and blame the immigrants, but you are still run over.
Re:From: "PC Folk" (Score:3, Insightful)
Past performance does not indicate future results.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Par for the course (Score:3, Insightful)
For as many people bitch about Apple here, there aren't enough that actually go out and do something about it.
Well, if you're not going to buy an iPad, you won't be going anywhere to do it. So yeah, in order to do something, you really won't be doing anything.
Re:Try this one... (Score:5, Insightful)
How are you going to get the thing to print? Not everyone has a wi-fi enabled printer, myself I still make do with a parallel port printer. Do I print things? Not often, but occasionally I need to for work and the like.
Are you going to enjoy being locked out of the web? There are tons of flash games out there, tons of flash movies, etc. What benefit are you getting to accept it?
Are you going to be broke paying for applications? It is entirely reasonable to not have to pay for a single application without pirating on a PC/Linux. Almost every pay program has a free alternative on PC/Linux. On the other hand, due to Apple's draconian policies, a paid app may be the only app "approved" to do something.
What about storage? The average person is going to have GB worth of movies, music, documents, photos, etc. Flash memory is -expensive-. Also, how are you going to transfer things to the iPad? And backups? What about durability? If a component of a PC fails, its easily replaced. Nothing is truly "fatal" if you have the money.
The iPad makes a passable secondary "computer" but as a primary computer? I'm better off with my 7 inch EEE 701...
Re:haha (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
What Jobs is saying, is that he's finally found a way to reach the masses of computer noobs that Mac has been aiming for all along. The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer.
Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.
It's something to brag about for sure, on a marketing level. On a features level, he succeeds only by not having them. Kind of like how McDonald's succeeds by not having a steak dinner.
I agree.. and yet you can't even boot, for the first time, a 3G iPad without connecting it to a computer with iTunes. WTH were they thinking with that?
Re:Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the elevnty-hojillionth freaking time, MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER! Not EVERYONE needs to do EVERYTHING! Plenty of people CAN get by with a very limited device.
As for the rest of your rant, read this. [macworld.com]
[Engineers and designers at Apple] take something small, simple, and painstakingly well considered. They ruthlessly cut features to derive the absolute minimum core product they can start with. They polish those features to a shiny intensity. At an anticipated media event, Apple reveals this core product... Then everyone goes back to Cupertino and rolls. As in, they start with a few tightly packed snowballs and then roll them in more snow to pick up mass until they've got a snowman. That's how Apple builds its platforms. It's a slow and steady process of continuous iterative improvement...
Look at the original iPod. Kinda pricey, Mac only, FireWire only--wow, look at crazy Apple, they're selling something that doesn't even work with all the computers they've sold in the last few years! But they added Windows support, and USB, and photos, and videos, and then they made them in different sizes, and according to Wikipedia they've sold over a QUARTER BILLION of them [wikipedia.org] in less than ten years. So you'll have to excuse Mr. Jobs if he doesn't trip over himself to listen to your advice or anyone else's.
Geeks like Woz but the other Steve is plenty smart too. If you've got a little time, read this 1996 interview with Steve Jobs. [wired.com] Look at how much he got right: "The most exciting things happening today are objects and the Web. The Web is exciting for two reasons. One, it's ubiquitous. There will be Web dial tone everywhere. [emphasis added] And anything that's ubiquitous gets interesting. Two, I don't think Microsoft will figure out a way to own it."
Re:Benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody would ever spend $100 on a fancy chef's knife when they could spend $40 and get a pocket knife that's not only got a blade to cut things, but also a screwdriver, a bottle opener, a tiny saw, and some tweezers.
Except that many people are plenty happy to spend their money on something that is designed to do particular tasks well, even if it can't do everything that a similar product can do.
Re:haha (Score:2, Insightful)
Steve probably wouldn't like the comparison of Apple to Mickey D's, and he wouldn't ever admit that Windows is a steak dinner compared to anything by Apple. But I think the comparison is very astute. If McDonald's tried to add a steak dinner and a wine list to their menu, it would go over like a lead balloon. They succeed by doing a very small set of things well (matter of opinion, I know). But no one wants to live in a world where McDonald's is the only restaurant... Not even the CEO of McD's.
Re:Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, most people pay for a $1,000+ machine when their needs are met by a machine half the cost or less. Yes, there -are- people who need Core i7 CPUs and powerful graphics cards and OS X and all the fancy stuff. But the average user? No
Re:Try this one... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kinda hard to get any money then, without ATMs? Or driving a car (same goes for public transportation). Or getting up on time without your radio clock.
Ah, yes; "freedom from." (Score:5, Insightful)
Negative freedoms: the biggest load of BS to infect pop sociology in the last century. When someone claims to offer or desire "freedom from" anything, run for the hills, because they are either too naive to understand the costs or too traumatized to care. Neither viewpoint is healthy.
Re:Try this one... (Score:1, Insightful)
How are you going to get the thing to print?
People still print things?
Re:Par for the course (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like you want a laptop, not an iPad. Due to this, I'd suggest getting a laptop, not an iPad, since the iPad doesn't seem to fit your use case.
On the other hand, if somebody wants a small gadget with a streamlined user experience that's also adapted to the hardware (no dialog boxes that don't fit on your mini screen, no 5x5mm touch areas, ), the iPad might be the right buying decision.
Incidentally, that's also what Steve Jobs (or whoever replied) said in those replies: Nobody is forcing you to get an iPad or develop for it. It's a free market. Just because you think you have no use case for it doesn't mean that nobody has one.
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
And an openable hood.
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not really, the steak dinner is still the more appropiate analogy.
Having hand cranks wouldn't serve much (if any) purpose on a modern car, so truly most people *wouldn't* want it. Steak dinners, however, are actually desireable and there's a sizeable market for them still. In the case of PCs they're the corporate world, which may love to lock down their employees' computers but despise having them locked from *them*, and for the variety of tasks corporations need computers for, an Apple toy (sorry, "appliance") will never be enough.
But Jobs' and the Apple fans' dismissal of the business sector isn't surprising. That's why Microsoft considers Linux, and not Apple, its biggest threat: because Apple's ideology of dividing the world between 'geeks' and 'consumers', refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the corporate market, is what ultimately locks them from being more than an 'also ran' first to IBM and now to Microsoft.
Wake me up when the corporate world abandons regular computers in favor of Apple's toys. But not before.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people do enjoy manual transmissions, though I don't, so I see your point.
However, the largest component missing is an option other than the App Store. This move is akin to selling a car with the hood welded shut. While some higher-end models might get away with it (Rolls-Royce, BMW, etc), it's still something I'd be very wary of buying. Modern BMWs are to the point where you physically can't even get an oil change, let alone change the radio, without going to a BMW dealer (at BMW prices) -- you're actually locked out of your own engine.
I don't have a problem with it being a simple device for simple people. I do have a problem with the fact that it's actually a federal crime to tinker with it, let alone try to sell apps or other accessories for it without Apple's stamp of approval.
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought it was a pretty cheap shot. One has to be a prolific achiever now to even criticize Steve Jobs? Sorry that doesn't sound so smart to me. I could've imagined that coming from Steve Ballmer, but I imagined Jobs to be better.
I'm disappointed in this industry in general. With the advent of internet and open communications/standards, I thought the era of odious restrictions placed by software companies would go away. Looks like nothing will change; only the players change. We need more Stallmen.
Re:Try this one... (Score:3, Insightful)
1.) I think you overestimate the number of people on insist they must keep using their old printer. Basic printers are pretty cheap these days. I'm sure someone will come out with some kind of adapter for older printers, anyway.
Its easy enough to find a cheap printer. Its hard to find a fast-ish printer where you won't be paying double the price of the printer next time you buy ink...
2.) Not everyone is going to care that they can't play Flash games or that they occasionally can't used some old site.
Yeah, you know old sites like Hulu, Homestar Runner, Newgrounds, South Park, etc. Yeah those sites never get updates. I mean, Hulu? That is totally old school.
Yeah, there is going to be a Hulu app "sometime" but that sometime has lasted for quite a few years now...
3.) Plenty of free apps on the AppStore. Most of the others are pretty cheap.
But you never really know what quality those "free" apps are. There are very few really free apps as in full versions and ad-free. Even then, the user ratings are skewed and reviews don't help.
Plus, with a lack of customization and control, its hard to get things to work if they fail the first time.
4.) MobileMe.com, Time Capsule, Apple TV.
A) Upload is slow, B) Expensive, C) too little storage.
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that "something different" may not be good.
Obligatory car analogy: It would be like trading in your 10 year old car for a new one that looks cool and is comfortable, but is completely autopiloted, and only lets you out at certain stops. Businesses have to apply to the car maker so the car would stop at their brick and mortar store. And without warning, this can be taken away, so if someone used to stop at a Target, they wouldn't have that option tomorrow and only get Wal-Marts. Continuing the analogy, someone patches the ECM with a steering wheel to allow manual control, but the next year's cars always come with protection against that.
People trading their computers in for what are effectively game consoles means that they are trading their freedom to run what they want, when they want for an environment locked down and managed by someone else who can do anything they please.
My question is: Do we want to go this route of sacrificing openness for ease of use? Yes, viruses and Trojans are a nuisance, but do we want to trade our relatively open computers for what would essentially be terminals, locked to some for-profit corporation's motives and future? For me, it is a no-brainer. I will keep my computer, and my phone will be on an open platform. If Android phones become unrootable or impossible to put custom ROMs on, I'll move to the Nokia N900 and encourage others to follow.
Do we want all our computers to be like PS3s where at any time, functionality can disappear at a moment's notice like the "other OS", and there would not be a single thing we can do about it? I'm sure the usual antagonists of open computing would love a wholesale move to a locked down platform, but is that where we want to take computing as we know it? Do we want to move to a computing model where what we buy, we are only permitted access to whatever the company allows on a whim? Yes, PS3s have no virus or spyware problems, but we are trading freedom for security here, and in the end, we will end up with neither.
Re:haha (Score:2, Insightful)
steve gets a little market share and it goes to his head.
here in the real world, he hasn't hardly made a dent in personal computing. I'd admit he has cornered the wanky new toy gadget market, that's about it.
Your comment is strangely reminiscent of Microsoft's attitude towards Netscape circa 1994. "They've cornered the wanky new Internet market, but that's about it."
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it's from a person who said porn and sex is a bad thing. It's no wonder he had nothing more fun to do on a friday night.
Re:Try this one... (Score:4, Insightful)
Go out, buy nothing but an iPad and tell me how good your computing experience is 12 months from now.
Me? Wouldn't work at all (which is why I don't own one). For my mother, older sister, an elderly couple who's network I manage and about twenty other people I can think of? It would be perfect (and make my life much easier).
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Par for the course (Score:1, Insightful)
What is ironic is that Apple has some of the best made open machines on the market, which seem to be slowly falling by the wayside compared to Apple's device market.
Apple just seems to be a paradox sometimes. On one hand you have the Mac hardware, OS X being decently open and usable (for the most part), with all the development tools being bundled with the OS. On the other hand, you have Apple's devices which are closed and highly restricted. It requires a jailbreaking to get what an Android device comes with naturally (ability to sideload, use the underlying OS to its full potential, etc.)
Re:Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at Steve Jobs own policies. After all wasn't everyone happy with web apps? Wasn't web 2.0 and AJAX good enough? Oh and what about multi-tasking, copy-and-paste all things that Jobs had said no one needed but eventually it came.
Sorry, you're just full of shit. Jobs never said these things were not needed, and he did not say they would never come to the phone. Native apps were planned from the beginning. It just wasn't ready in time for the release of the original iPhone. You certainly have a masterly way of totally misunderstanding statements. I'm inclined to think it's deliberate, though, given your trollish ways. If it's not deliberate, it's either comprehension failure, or sourcing your info from tainted sources. You know what they say, Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Re:Ah, yes; "freedom from." (Score:2, Insightful)
Negative freedoms: the biggest load of BS to infect pop sociology in the last century. When someone claims to offer or desire "freedom from" anything, run for the hills,
Freedom from murder isn't a freedom? Freedom from discrimination isn't a freedom? Freedom from government censorship? These are established legal freedoms and human rights. Where do you get this nonsense from?
Re:Benefits (Score:2, Insightful)
Steve Jobs seems to ignore everything that caused products to be successful: Price to performance.
... I'm not going to get an iPad because there are cheaper devices that do a -ton- more.
When Steve Jobs was first in charge of Apple, they made a lot of money selling computers for premium prices. They didn't generate huge market share, but they generated huge profits for Apple.
When Steve Jobs was forced out and they replaced him with a soda-pop seller, Apple slashed prices and produced greater volumes. At one point, they were the world's #1 PC maker, outselling #2 Compaq and others at the time. And the company bled money as it lost, in the final year before Jobs returned, over a billion dollars. A BILLION dollars, lost!
Then Steve Jobs returned, he immediately said "cut that shit out", deep-sixed the clone market, and returned Apple to making high-priced niche machines instead of chasing market share with cheap prices. The first quarter after he returned, after losing over a billion dollars the previous year, Apple turned a profit instead of a loss. It's remained profitable ever since.
Steve Jobs is not ignoring what made Apple successful. He's doing precisely what has always made Apple successful, and ignoring the advice of people who've continuously insisted lower price and more features were more important than a premium cost device designed to do a few things well.
You can argue whether the philosophy is right or not, but it's not ignoring what made Apple successful, it's precisely the strategy and the only strategy that has ever turned massive profits for Apple. You can always buy products that have more features and cost less. Most people who buy from Apple would rather have the more expensive product that does the things it does well, rather than a bunch of other stuff they don't really need, even if it's cheap.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Nice job combining those bottom two, Steve. How did the CEO of the company that produced the 1984 commercial go from that to this utter drivel?
I am free from programs that steal my private data on my PC if I choose to be.
I am free from programs that trash my battery on my PC if I choose to be.
I am free from porn on my PC, if I choose to be.
Do you see the difference Steve?
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The most amazing part of this entire thing is the complete role reversal. The running woman in 1984 no longer represents Apple or its products. She is now represented by the PC and its many forms with the drones being Apple users basking in their "freedom". You never have more freedom when you have fewer choices. NEVER.
This is the very reason I won't buy Apple's products. The doublethink being presented here by Steve goes against everything I believe computing should be about.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the success of the iPad thus far, I'd say that for some users, the answer is "yes." Not everybody needs a terminal prompt with root access. Not everybody needs 100% access the the OS's most fundamental settings. Not everybody needs their platform to do everything imaginable.
It's quite simple: either you like the iPad or you don't. If you do, good for you. If you don't, buy something else. Last I checked, nobody has been forced to buy an iPad.
Re:Try this one... (Score:3, Insightful)
or copy it to a USB key.
The iPad has a USB port now?
As as I said, an adapter is likely to pop up sooner of later if there is enough demand for it.
Sooner or later though. What I don't understand is why people would be so reliant on others to -eventually- produce things that they can get for cheap right now.
Hulu isn't even available where I live. Give those other sites a couple of years...
But why wait a couple more years? Its becoming clearer and clearer that the iPad is a crappy device and Jobs doesn't want to change it. There are so many disadvantages for a few advantages. Lets see, its small, it runs iPhone apps and it... um... has a touch screen?
Doesn't seem to stop people paying for software, though. There are also plenty of review sites around the net.
Ok, what is the last piece of PC software you have bought? For me, I guess it would have to be a sealed copy of Windows 3.1 just for the vintage-ness for about $2 at a garage sale about 4 years ago.
For any "functional" software it was so long ago I don't even remember.
And review sites are good... sometimes. However, its becoming harder and harder to identify which sites post legitimate reviews and how many have skewed reviews because of various factors (differing skill levels, bribes, personal favorites, etc)
I'm talking about the near future here, which is what the article is about.
In the near future, I think prices will have fallen to where Android or Linux are the only platforms that make sense for every non-PC device.
Re:Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
All made in the same chinese factory as the $100 one, except the cheaper knives don't carry an apple logo.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Your comment is strangely reminiscent of Microsoft's attitude towards Netscape circa 1994. "They've cornered the wanky new Internet market, but that's about it."
Are you sure that's the analogy you want?
I mean, in the end, Microsoft did ruthlessly crush Netscape.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:4, Insightful)
wtf? How does free software equate to software anarchy? How does free software equate to sex free computing? How does software anarchy equate to sex free computing?
Re:haha (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel your pain, I really do.
But what if your old car would go to random places all of a sudden and crash into brick walls at random times? And when you went out to browse your porn half the time your car would get a flat tire while you were out there and a bunch of punks would beat it up and you'd spend hours and hours getting it to work halfway decently.
So Steve Jobs glides up in his gleaming white Gulfstream V jet and says, "Hey, I have a cool car that drives better than anything on the planet. We make sure you can drive on this excellent network of safe roads, and leave the potholed, poorly made old style ones behind. You know, I'm sorry, but not only did those maintenance guys do a lousy job, they had no taste."
So you take a look at his roads and sure enough, everything is gleaming and works and there are no strange brick walls to be found, anywhere. But ... there is something missing ... something important!
"Where's the porn?" you ask. "And how about Rush Limbaugh and National Review?"
"Oh, the porn hurts the kids, and National Review makes fun of our sacred cow Obama(tm), You know, we are all Democrats here, even if we don't quite admit it," he says. "Don't worry, though, you can use Safari to browse any web site you want."
"And you know what, we know you want to look at porn and we're a big company and can't approve of that garbage. But all you need to do is run Safari or the movie player and you can find that junk you want, just not on our shiny roads. So you go a little out of your way for it, but your experience is still safe and when you're back you will be assured that your car will still work, instead of get banged up."
And isn't that funny, that might just be better for porn, actually, because you are always safe. How many native porn apps do you have on your computer? I would bet, none. How many porn web sites do you visit? If you are concerned with this issue, probably quite a few. The point is, the makers of porn are not stupid, and they will bring you what you want.
The App Store does have some downright sad speech restrictions. My Obama IQ [apple.com] game, for instance, was not approved until after the 2008 elections were safely passed. Pretty pathetic, no? Not that one anti-Obama game was ever going to tip an election one way or the other, but the sales would have been nice to get.
Complete freedom of speech is preserved on the Internet. The App Store is not a vehicle for free political or sexual expression, and to me, that's OK. As long as you can browse the web, you are free.
Some people who argue against Apple just don't realize how horrible a task it is to eradicate a piece of spyware from a Windows computer. I used to work in IT and my experiences in trying to devirus a computer were just plain horrible and pathetic. Fortunately I've been an almost exclusively Apple user for many years and since I started being one, my computing experience has become far better and smoother and more fun.
So I have a balanced perspective. Would it be nice if the new iPad was totally free? Sure.
But isn't the App Store a great invention, something that helps even small developers like me make a few bucks?
In the past couple of years I have bought far more App Store applications than Mac applications, and most of my Mac applications were made by, guess who, Apple. App Store applications are cheap, and they are easy to buy and use, and a lot of fun. And most of my App Store applications are from small developers, not Apple. So if you are looking at which business model serves the small developer, it might just be Apple's.
This is not a perfect world. It's a tragedy that evil people deliberately set out to ruin other peoples' computers in pursuit of a few bucks. But they do, and the iPhone software model stops them cold. If you're sick of having to be paranoid about evil people running your computer, you might prefer if it was run by Steve Jobs, as opposed to running it yourself.
That's a trade a lot of people want to make, and I'm sorry, I really can't blame them.
D
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
And for the elevnty-hojillionth freaking time, MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER! Not EVERYONE needs to do EVERYTHING! Plenty of people CAN get by with a very limited device.
Really? Have you ever tried even writing your resume and then printing it out on an iPad? Was it a nice experience for that large amount of editing, layout tweaking, and then hooking up to a $100 Epson printer that was the one you bought cheaply from KMart? (It's not exactly a specialist task.) Or keeping the 10s of GB of photos you've accrued? I'm pretty certain that there is NOBODY who only owns an iPad and does not also own a more traditional PC/laptop device. The iPad is not supplanting the PC market, it is growing a previously underserved market segment.
Re:haha (Score:2, Insightful)
Hardly a dent in personal computing? You may be forgetting the whole "windowing system" thing. Also, prior to that, the design of the Apple II drove the entire market for years and shaped everything about the PC including the formfactor.
He's certainly smoking some good crack lately though. Hoo boy.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear artard,
You and your two friends can enjoy not buying apple products, but to my mind a new class of product by definition introduces more CHOICE to the market than was previously available.
There are probably more important things to stand against.
Freedom from Porn (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:4, Insightful)
And so if Apple goes away that leads to more choice for consumers in what way? They get to choose between Microsoft and Microsoft? Because the reality is that Linux isn't truly consumer grade yet.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, there is one fantastic quote here from Steve Jobs that he replied to someone who *dared* to criticize him:
what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?
What a complete asshole who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
And let's face it, he isn't saying anything here that he hasn't said in other words before. And in his defence (which is something I rarely do), most of his points are fair enough in themselves. The trouble is, when you put them all together, and embody them in an agressive, bullying corporate policy, they morph into something very ugly.
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here Here! The world needs more Stallmen!
Re:From: "PC Folk" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:3, Insightful)
What new class? If you mean the iPad, no, sorry to put a dark spot onto your world view, but His Jobsiness did not invent the keyboardless touch PC.
Re:Ah, yes; "freedom from." (Score:3, Insightful)
"Freedom from censorship" is "freedom of expression". "Freedom from discrimination" is "equal rights under the law". "Freedom from murder" - well, again, since you presumably have a right to life and liberty, yes, murdering you abridges that right. But it's not a "freedom from".
Rights are better stated in the affirmative. If you talk about all the things you should be protected against (since that's somewhat limitless), it's difficult to enumerate all of them. Stating an affirmative right ("freedom of expression" or "freedom of religion") makes it clear that there are few, if any exceptions, unless it tramples on someone else's affirmatively stated rights.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's from a person who said porn and sex is a bad thing.
Where did he ever say sex was bad?
Re:haha (Score:4, Insightful)
the iPad DOES replace a PC for a large amount of people. Take off your slashdot-coloured glasses, and you'll realize that most non-technicals just use their PC to update their facebook, surf the web, and jot a few quick emails.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, there is one fantastic quote here from Steve Jobs that he replied to someone who *dared* to criticize him:
what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?
What a complete asshole who thinks he's so much better than everyone else.
His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.
Of course this is Slashdot, the very definition of all talk and no action, so...
Re:Try this one... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear dickhead,
Not all of us are willing to blow $500+ on a device that doesn't enable us to do anything we couldn't do before.
I need a laptop to get my job done. I need a mobile phone for a variety of reasons. I can't think of a single damn reason why I need a $500 tablet.
Until you get that not all of us are willing to spend $500 on gadget porn, you won't grok why some people think the iPad is a tremendous waste of money and attention.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Recognizing "the good stuff" when you see it is rare. Transforming ideas into marketable products rarer still.
Re:Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a Mac fan really, but if you look at the specs, Mac machines aren't that much more expensive than their PC counterparts spec-wise
This statement is true ONLY when the products are newly released.
Price spec a Mac Pro right now, and you'll find it's using 14mo old hardware, shitty video cards, and is selling for double the price of a similarly configured PC.
the Mac Pro was reasonably on price when it was just released (the video cards were still shit though... even 14mo ago), and if you priced out the top of the line MP you would have found it cheaper than a similarly configured Dell.
However, that was 14months ago...
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Wake me up when the corporate world abandons regular computers in favor of Apple's toys. But not before.
Why would I want a computer that the corporate world is enamored with? I'm a human, not a corporation.
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is ok, Jobs already "think of the children"'d it. Reasonable discussion already ended before the slashdot article was even posted.
Re:people don't want to fiddle (Score:2, Insightful)
The worlds moves on, and one either moves or gets run over. And just look at the unemployment rate in the US to see what happens to those that get run over. Sure you can hold rallies and complain about taxes and blame the immigrants, but you are still run over.
The difference in scale and significance here is awe-inspiring, though it pales beside the energy you've put into swallowing Apple's marketing BS. No one, and I mean absolutely no one is going to be "run over" for ignoring the iPad. It's a goddamn toy, for fuck's sake, not globalism and mass migration. All the iPad does is provide Apple fans with another expensive trinket to feel superior over. Yay for you. At the end of the day, you are not the vanguard of the future, you're just a bunch of middle to upper-middle class consumers buying this season's luxury toy. Apple's current product line has and will have no more broad societal impact than that of their nearest competitors: The Sharper Image and Brookstone.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
they'll put up with it just fine.
some of them will even like it, and some of them will simply pretend they like it to justify the cash they spent.
Re:Ah, yes; "freedom from." (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:haha (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they? Take a look at the history of the Mozilla Project.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:2, Insightful)
Only if you're both capable and vigilant. Most people aren't able to really be safe from spyware.
That was true about 4-6 years ago. With a more modern operating system (Linux/Vista/Win7, heck even XPSP3) the technical threat is drastically reduced. The biggest problem has always been user attitude and actions, something which is often WORSE on Mac than it is elsewhere due to the prevalent belief that "Macs can't get virus/malware!". When users stop running as admin and stop clicking pretty screensaver ads then we'll have made some real progress, but that's a social problem, not technical.
Only by forgoing things like YouTube.
That's funny, because I can watch 720p video on YouTube and see about 25% CPU usage. Not bad for HD video playback. Of course if I'm worried about battery I can drop to SD or just save a link and watch the video when I'm plugged into the wall. You don't even have that option with the iPad.
Apple actually provides an alternative.
Um, no, they don't.
But your kids aren't.
It's my job as a parent to ensure my kids don't access material I deem appropriate. No matter how much some people might wish it were the case, neither a computer nor a TV is not a parental replacement. Besides, why should Apple decide what is "porn" and what isn't? Is an anatomically-correct human body reference app "porn"? Would it be rejected from the app store? Better break out your Magic 8 Ball to find out.
What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously? This is easily one of the stupidest fucking discussions I have ever seen on this site. Every dumb ass analogy there is has been used. Every unnecessary soap box has been stood on.
Hate the closed nature of the iPad and iPhone? Don't buy them. Do those devices simply not meet you business needs? Don't buy them. Think you know more about marketing a device than Apple? You're fucking deluded.
Is Apple somehow preventing you from buying and using other devices and services? No.
So what the fuck is the big deal?
I own a Mac. I love it. All the best computers I have ever owned have been made by Apple. They meet MY needs and have done so better than any other computer. Will you have the same results? Honestly, I don't give a shit. I have an Android phone. I love it. It has a physical keyboard, I don't need iTunes to use it, the ssh client was free, it's an AT&T exclusive and I can currently run Pandora in the background. See what I did there? Apple's product in that space didn't do what I wanted it to so, instead of freaking out about it and crying about Apple's "stupid" policies, I bought something else. Until that choice no longer exists, the rest of this talk about closed versus open systems and censorship and walled gardens is utterly pointless.
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:3, Insightful)
I could've imagined that coming from Steve Ballmer
Well given Microsoft's tendency to "borrow" from Apple, I wouldn't be surprised if candid Ballmer responses to customer emails became ubiquitous.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
The unique thing that Apple did was actually bring design into the world of computing, it doesn't matter whether the designs were "new" or not (aside from the fact that there is very little new in the world of fashion and art either).
I think it's good that other companies are being forced to put some effort into UI design and styling to stop Apple pulling ahead. I don't like Apple much these days but they certainly are good for the market.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure Apple would push a DRMed format if they could get their customers to accept it.
They already did, for several years..
It's really amazing how an excellent UI is so valuable to quite a lot of people that they'll pay much higher prices
It's not that amazing. I grew up with Macs so I didn't think of Macs as an excellent UI so much as I just thought of Windows as shit. Mac OS is decent though I prefer Linux for the abundance of customisation options. Anyway, how an OS "feels" is important. To me Mac OS always gave a feeling of sturdiness while Windows just seems really flaky. I think some of that stems to the way it redraws Windows, IIRC even in Windows 7 there is tearing if you move a window around too fast. The other part is probably that I grew up with Amigas which had decent multitasking so that even if the CPU was maxxed out doing something, you could still move the mouse around and it all "felt" responsive. With Windows that simply isn't the case..
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, to name a few.
Steve is just not that smart. (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides not really being the brains behind any of Apple's success (frankly, I'd credit Woz and others), he has clearly failed to learn from past mistakes.
The original Mac was YEARS ahead of any PC at the time. Literally, vastly superior. But by pricing them too high, and locking in control over the OS and over the ability of devs to write for it, the PC inevitably surpassed it in sales almost over night.
Fast forward a decade, and the same battle is happening again in the smart phone market. Besides being locked to AT&T, arguably the WORST cell provider in the nation, his hardware is over priced, and again, he's stuck with this outdated idea that vendor lock in is somehow going to guarantee Apple's success. There is literally no chance of that, and in fact, iPhone et al are doomed to failure absolutely by not providing a free and open platform for other vendors to write apps for. Android is clearly going to continue to dominate sales, and inevitably win the over all battle, just like Windows did last time.
Why does anybody even listen to Steve any more? Just because he's first to market? It's not like 8,000 other monkeys didn't have the idea for the iPhone before he did. He just got it to market first. BIG DEAL.
Steve is clearly too arrogant to grasp even the mildest of fundamental truths about human nature, particularly as it relates to sales and market share. Even the Mac Fanboys are getting sick of his blatant stupidity and selfish draconian lock in attempts, that will of course only serve to ensure that Apple fails, long term.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:2, Insightful)
Surely it is your choice to buy a iProduct from Apple or to buy it somewhere else?
As the consequence of the choices you make you will get particular freedoms. And like all freedoms, any freedom brings with it some limitation. **Absolute freedom does not exist.**
We make a choice because of what we expect to be the consequence of this choice: The freedoms **and** limitation we think we can accept. So, If you don't accept the consequence then you should choose differently.
In old eastern germany you did not have the freedom to voice your opinion, but if you did people would listen. In current germany you have the freedom of expression, but now nobody listens anymore unless you are a VIP.
Freedom without at least some limitions does not exist. You never choose for or against some particular freedom, the choice is always about the freedoms you do want, and the freedoms you don't want.
Re:haha (Score:2, Insightful)
By all means resent the horrors of the iPod, iPhone, iPad. I know our lives have been ruined by their success. I rue the day Jobs and co decided to put a 5GB hard drive in a plastic and metal casing, I cant sleep at night over the iPhones refusal to play my
I'm a proficient Apple user, I have seemingly iEverything, and am quite happy. Of course I understand why some (a small percent of the market) refuse to have something that is "closed", I enjoy the Apple products I have.
I have a healthy respect for Android, I hope it does very well. As far as I know, not a single Android device has been sold in New Zealand. I've seen one or two of the crappier models at stores, but none of my friends have one. I cannot wait for the EVO 4G to arrive (for my American friends).
I think companies competing with Apple should focus on the things that Apple DOESNT do, on the things they provide. I think "droid does" was a good idea, although it was a little...geeky? By all means continue this line of ads! Many "Apple Haters" mention "oh that Apple, its all marketing". Well, if Apple supposedly makes up a tiny 5% of the PC market, how come they have such mindshare? Hey Dell, Microsoft, HP, get off your butts, spend some bucks on ads eh? They have the money to compete, yet they DONT.
Put yourself in Steve Jobs shoes (New Balance 991's, do you know the uniform of any other CEO, past or present?), he must receive thousands of emails a day from ingrates, "how cum da Iphone is not on Verizon? LAAAAAAAAAME!". Computer companies dont owe us diddly. Either support a company who makes choices you AGREE with, or even better, start your OWN company, in your parents garage, with a close friend. Who knows, perhaps you will one day have a private jet, billions in the bank and an army of jackasses hounding you day and night.
Re:Benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
I know plenty of people who have computer at work, they do work there and they come home and do not touch or own computer. They might buy an iPad though, to read books or browse web, read email, but they don't need to do anything else beside that. Just because you don't know anybody living without computers or using them just to read email at best doesn't mean that such people don't exist or even are hard to find.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, so I've decided to feed the troll.
WTF is it that allows some of the most argumentative assholes on the web just overlook the one simple fact that Apple is really shitty at putting together a UI?
You could at least provide some examples here btw (beyond a lame joke that has no relevance - a dial is fine for scrolling through a list, but obviously a general purpose laptop needs a more general purpose input system) if you want to distinguish yourself from those you are criticising. Apple's UI accomplishments over the years are obvious, but I guess I'll have to list a few since you are so used to a post-Apple world that you don't realise what they've done.
They were (one of) the pioneers of graphical interfaces in the 80s, and it took until Windows 95 for Windows to come anywhere near Mac OS (but it was still awful). These days there's less space for refinement in 2D graphical interfaces, but for one thing I loved the OSX dock so much that I installed a dock in Linux - and MS must have loved it too because they modified the task bar in Win7 to function in a very dock-like fashion. Now think of how shitty MP3 players and phones were before the iPod and iPhone.
I've never owned an iProduct, but I'd always thought that smartphone interfaces were shit. The fact that Windows Mobile was the best smartphone OS out there for a while really says something about how awful everything was (and it's still not great, but it's better), considering how unresponsive and non-finger-friendly it was (I quickly grew to simply using my fingers to interact with my touchphones even when I had a stylus right in the corner of the phone, though it was very awkward sometimes trying to hit a 2mm "ok" button with the tip of your nail). But now all the other phone makers are actually starting to get that response time and usability are important (well, they probably always knew this but since there was little competition going on they didn't put any effort into it, all of them content to wallow in mediocrity because they were raking in plenty of cash already), and that if they don't do something then they are going to disappear into obscurity.
Apple have really driven UI design in several ways over the years. It's not being argumentative to say that, it's argumentative to try and deny it.
Re:haha (Score:4, Insightful)
How long do you think "most non-technicals" will put up with typing on an uncomfortable, unresponsive piece of glass? Five emails, maybe ten?
I bet it's longer than they've put up with writing 160 character messages using 12 buttons.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.
Of course this is Slashdot, the very definition of all talk and no action, so...
This is from the same school of thought that thinks we can't criticize what went on in Vietnam because we "haven't been there". It's just another form of the ad hominem [wikipedia.org].
Re:What the fuck is wrong with you people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only do I have the right to not buy iPads or iAnything, I also have the right to tell others why they should not buy them.
This whole "if you don't like them, don't buy them, but for God's sake, don't tell anyone about your opinion" is pure BS. After all, if Apple and their supporters take the right to tell me why the iPad is superior to other products (that they presumably haven't bought), I should be able to do the same. I don't buy Microsoft Office, and I also tell people why using native Office formats is bad. I won't buy an iPad, and I'll tell people why.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Until so many people have chosen slavery that freedom becomes impractical or illegal. See software patents, h.264. It's important to make people aware that when they choose Apple, they choose to get locked in to a platform that dictates what they can and can't do, and that is deliberately designed to make it expensive to switch, and designed with forced obsolescence in mind.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
It does when the Applostles are constantly bragging about how innovative they are.
Freedom from porn [when you don't want it] (Score:2, Insightful)
You have to be an idiot to not get that "freedom from porn" means when you don't want it.
The HTML5 Web is right there on all Apple devices and they all play video. You can get all the porn you want if you want it. Everyone knows this.
App Store is supposed to be an alternative to the Web. It's supposed to be different. It's supposed to be managed because the Web is unmanaged. One is ying, one yang.
I'm really tired of the totalitarianism of "open technology." The fact that App Store is managed opens it up in a different way: it's open to consumers, businesses, technophobes.
The stupidest part is you have people who are knocking Apple praising Google for Chrome OS being open, even though the C API on Chrome OS is Google-only, totally closed, and all of Apple's systems have HTML5. So if you get an iPad and ignore App Store, you still can run all the HTML5 apps that run on Chrome OS.
The thing is, the PC industry is full of failure. Monopolies (Microsoft, Adobe), viruses, technical bottlenecks (e.g. BIOS, XP, IE) and a complete lack of design and ease of use. Anything that's done differently in mobile is welcome. Try anything other than just porting the fucking PC to a phone. I don't see how anybody has a right to criticize App Store when nobody has come close to competing with it.
Basically: prove Apple wrong or STFU. That goes for App Store, and for the completely vaporware FlashPlayer for Mobiles. Make a phone app platform so good that Apple copies your "openness" and make FlashPlayer for Mobiles so good that Apple pleads to have it on their devices or just STFU. The whining from the PC industry is incredible.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
His point was that talk is cheap, what's important is what you've managed to do. See the critic's criticism from Ratatouille for elaboration.
Most people can recognize stale bread without being bakers themselves.
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:4, Insightful)
The parent is not saying that Apple products should be legally banned. He's saying why they're bad, and why you shouldn't use one. All he's doing is providing a negative review of a product.
Re:Steve held his own... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you serious? While he might not be writing the code, or designing the circuits. The products that come from his company, first come his mind.
It's all about vision and drive. You can have all the skills in the world. But if you don't have the ability to think up a use or application for those skills you might as well be talking to yourself under an overpass somewhere.
Its just a large ipod touch (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is everyone making such a big deal about a supersized ipod touch?
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
The only logical solution to your argument is to both pull the violence and keep the porn out. You might not see anything wrong with porn but many of us do. Someone else might see nothing wrong with violence but you clearly do. So, we should just take it all out, not switch out the violence for sex (porn). See, that's logic.
What Steve Jobs did that was revolutionary (Score:3, Insightful)
Create a company. .... ....
Put together some MIT licensed software and create yet another OS.
Designed computers after 70's Braun industrial design.
Made it work well.
Got people to buy his products due to great marketing.
Decided not to want Flash.
Decided it could only be programmed with their own API's.
Made money.
So what's so revolutionary about making a sleek tablet pc? Nothing.
I like that he wants to kill Flash, but that's about it. So in the meantime I can browse the web freely with my Linux netbook and desktop and not have to worry about an electronics company.
Next...
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:5, Insightful)
Much like having optional slavery introduces more choice to the job market than was previously available.
Some people can see farther than 5 minutes ahead. Pity you aren't one of them.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd say Mac OSX has shitty UI. The dock is just kludging together the taskbar concept from windows, the quicklaunch bar and the notification area into one big The problem is it doesn't do any of those very well. When I click an icon on the dock, I don't know if I'm clicking on a task or a launcher. Well I guess there's a little dot beside the icon when its a task, but that just indicates the app is loaded, not that I've had it open... many of those dots are there because MacOS decided to start that app at boot.
If you have more than one window open in a single app, There's no easy way to switch between them. I can right-click on the icon and select on, or press F9 and use expose. Expose, while it looks cool, is bad UI because it requires me to watch an animation, look at all the windows and pick out the one I want. When you use expose the windows are always in a different spot so you have to re-orient yourself everytime you use it. With a real taskbar, the button for your window is always in the same location.
If I want to open a new window for an app, I have to check for a tiny dot. If there isn't one then just click the icon on the dock. If there is a dot, then I have to right-click and select new window. If I happen to not notice the dot and just click on the icon, I get the window I had open before. FAIL.
I guess you're not supposed to have more than one window open for a single app in MacOS. except if you want to move a file to a different folder you have to have two finder windows open because MacOSX doesn't allow you to cut and paste files. Odlly copy and paste works ok, just not cut and paste. Very inconsistent.
The problem with the MacOSX UI is its constantly working against itself. You need to right-click more often in MacOSX than any other OS but apple seems to discourage right-clicking by providing single button mouses and having only one button on their laptops. Yeah you can buy another mouse or do a two-finger click but it seems like apple doesn't want you to use one button on the hardware side but makes you use two button on the software side. The dock makes it difficult to manage an application that has more than one window open, so it discourages you from having multiple windows open for a single app, but finder requires you to have two windows open to move files.
My experieince with MacOSX in general is that if you do things the way Steve Jobs thinks you should be doing things, everything works fine. But if you stray from that path, everything becomes unnecessarily difficult. The Apple slogan shouldn't be "think different" it should be "think like steve jobs".
Posting this from Ubuntu on a Macbook Pro. I tried MacOSX for three months and then had to install an OS that makes sense.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure I'd agree with any of that. Sure it's pretty, but I dislike the UI of OS X and find it has quite a few fundamental flaws. My main OS is Windows 7 but I do use OS X quite regularly (almost daily - at least 4-5 days a week). I have used Linux, running both KDE and Gnome (although I haven't used Gnome in quite some time) and both seemed more intuitive than OS X. When talking about computers, the hardware is no more excellent than many PCs which cost significantly less. The only real difference there is the chassis, which are admittedly pretty, but not even close to worth the price of entry...and there are pretty PCs out there as well. I do NOT think they have excellent software, as a general rule anyway. Final Cut Pro is good, but for most other uses Macs rely on 3rd party software, be it Adobe for Photoshop, Microsoft for Office etc, which is no different or better on Windows. iTunes is pretty bad really (does the job, but it's not great), Safari is beaten by Chrome, Firefox and Opera (IMHO...but numbers wise at the very least Chrome beats it). It doesn't in my experience "just work" out of the box any better than Windows (certainly better than Linux though, but that's partly to do with the target demographic). As for the iPod and iPad (I assume iPhone is included in there somewhere) I find the UI acceptable, but far too simplistic (mainly due to the intentional lack of functionality) the hardware, especially on the iPhone, is poor by comparison to other smart phones and again most of the software is 3rd party.
However, he is the exact right person to nail down hardware and software guidelines. How do I know? I run Linux, Windows and OS X. OS X is - by *huge margins* - the best of the three to use day in, day out.
So what you're saying here is you prefer OS X, therefore Steve Jobs is the right person dictate hardware and software to the industry? As for "OS X is - by *huge margins* - the best of the three to use day in, day out.", I think what you actually mean is OS X is - by *huge margins* - the best of the three to use day in, day out FOR ME . It's only the best if you like it more and no-one can say definitively "This one is the best".
Re:That Super Car already exists (Score:3, Insightful)
That last paragraph is exactly why Apple devices are locked down. You can't mess up your iPhone or iPad unless you deliberately set out to do so.
It's a good deal for a lot of people. Admittedly, almost none of then are Slashdotters. In my case I have both an iMac and an iPad and love both of them for what they do.
D
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank goodness FOSS has no central governing force, for if it had it would cease to be FOSS. You can't understand that to be "governed and free" is an oxymoron?
Re:Freedom from porn. (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, most companies are, from a government perspective, either a despotism or an oligarchy. More likely, in the meantime, nepotistic and kleptocratic.
Re:Sounds to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
By your logic, all Linus Torvalds did was market a repackaged UNIX. Maybe you should try looking deeper.
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the original Macs is that they required someone to actually use a computer. Now that he's turned computers into toys, he can finally get "Grandma." But this doesn't really change anything in the computer world.
I know you're trying to deride what Apple's doing by using the word "toy", but I think you're kind of right and I think Jobs would even agree with you on a certain level. What Apple has been aiming at since the original Mac is that they're trying to take the computer out of computing.
Jobs' vision for the future of computing, like it or not, seems not to include people consciously thinking about computers as computers. Instead you just have various devices and tools which do various things using fairly natural interactions. You're imagining that, in the future, you'll still be thinking, "Oh, I want to look something up online. Let me sit down at my computer. Oh, I want to check my calendar. Let me sit down at my computer. Oh, I want to type up a report. Let me sit down at my computer."
Jobs, on the other hand, is imagining a future where you think, "Oh, I want to look at a web page. Good thing I have my handy web-page-viewer-thingy. Oh wait, I want to check my calendar. My calendar-thingy is in the other room, let me go grab it. Oh, I want to write a report. I'll go use my report-writer-thingy that's sitting on my desk."
Now many of those thingies may actually be the same physical device, but that's not the point. The concept is that, when you're working with your calendar-thingy, it's a calendar. It's not a computer running a calendar application. In your mind and in how you interact with it, it *is* a calendar. It looks like a calendar and works like a calendar, and it's no harder to use than it is to use a paper calendar. The report-writer-thingy would have the capabilities of a real word-processor, but it wouldn't be any more confusing than using a typewriter; adding a picture is no more confusing to our monkey brains than cutting a picture out of a magazine and gluing it into your report.
So it's not really that he's trying to turn computers into toys, but he's trying to turn them into tools. You want your computer to be a blank slate to fill in with whatever tools you want, and I understand that. Jobs wants to make computers that are ready-made tools, developed to do specific things very well, and I understand that too.
Re:From: "PC Folk" (Score:3, Insightful)
Now Apple is doing the exact same thing MS did back in the 80's and getting a free pass.
I guess those who do not learn from history.
real artists ship, bullshit artists bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
To quote Mr. Jobs, "Real artists ship". $99 for a smartphone? It's expensive? You know of a cheaper one, equally capable? To paraphrase, bullshit artists bullshit, real artists ship..
People listen to Steve because he delivers the goods.