The Apple Broadcast Network 190
Hodejo1 writes "In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild. That makes a proprietary amalgam greater than what the TV networks had in 1959 and one that easily serves as a foundation for a pending broadcast network that will be delivered not through tall radio towers, but through small wireless hubs and the Internet. Call it the Apple Broadcast Network. iAd is how Apple plans to pay for it."
How they plan to pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How they plan to pay for it? (Score:5, Funny)
Using my rough calculations, with $100 bills, $900 million is about 1 cubic meter in volume. Apple makes about $8 billion in profit per year. 1 bucket (unit) is 0.01818 m^3. This is about 480 bucketloads of cash (roughly 80 tonnes). Really, at this scale they should be thinking of using barrels or truckloads to move their cash. Even a pipeline would be more feasible than buckets.
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This is about 480 bucketloads of cash (roughly 80 tonnes). Really, at this scale they should be thinking of using barrels or truckloads to move their cash
How do you think they fill the barrels, genius?
Over what bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
s of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
The 3G connectivity is not sufficient for watching video in volume comparable to TV. TV bandwidth is essentially free (a true one-to-many broadcast,) whereas 3G is not (it's limited and shared.)
Even the Wi-Fi connectivity is lacking in many cities, let alone countryside. I think we are a good decade away from being able to depend on our Internet links for reliable, always-on TV viewing.
Re:Over what bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree about the 3G though. Cell phone networks have been slow to realize that they need to develop a high speed high bandwidth data only network and deploy it everywhere.
Re:Over what bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cell phone networks have been slow to realize that they need to develop a high speed high bandwidth data only network and deploy it everywhere.
Laws of physics may be against them. If each handset consumes 10 Mbps (10^7 bps) (which is about half of what broadcast digital TV uses - 19+ Mbps) and if you have 10,000 (10^4) viewers in service area of each cell site then you need roughly (10^4 * 10^7) = 10^11 bps. If we assume s/n = 20 dB that requires [wikipedia.org] 10^11 / 6.65 = 11.5 * 10^9 Hz, or about 12 GHz of bandwidth. That can't be done on a carrier that is around 2 GHz! Variations of multicasting could be used to reduce that number somewhat, but it's a lot in any case, even if you reduce the bit rate at the client. At best you could achieve some mediocre reliability of a small picture for a limited number of clients. You can't get to the target bit rate without going into millimeter wave, and that isn't going to work due to poor penetration of buildings. And the root cause of all that trouble is that indeed "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with magnetic tapes." Broadcast TV delivers an incredible amount of bits per second, even though each client gets exactly the same bits as any other client.
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No, it wouldn't be simultaneous. Nor will it be in black and white or feature ads for cigarettes.
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No, it wouldn't be simultaneous.
That's just too bad because TV consumption has well defined highs and lows. Think of a major football game, for example.
Re:Over what bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a radio ham and general "get off my lawn!" sort of person, I still feel guilty when I catch up to some TV programme online. There's something very wasteful (at an instant) about using a one-to-one link for what should have been multicast/broadcast.
It's really weird to see more recently arrived 'net users not even stop to contemplate bandwidth allocation. Or throw away food or packaging. The trend's reversing, but at a snail's pace. We can assume there is an infinite amount of sunlight (beyond Earth) - anything else is something we're quite fortunate to have right now.
Story is BS. Anyway, what happened to mcast? (Score:2)
When I heard multicast in 1990s and couldn't try because my ISP (like 99% others) didn't support it, it became a mystery for me.
Why doesn't consumer multicast take off? OK, the original specs are too low for today's needs, why not multicast 2.0? Especially when Google like companies has to pay billions for same video and they are experimenting with "live" broadcast?
Before Youtube I'd say MPAA or TV network conspiracy but it really seems something else as we hear even Microsoft is experimenting with P2P for
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The thing is, information has steadily become more and more personalized. At first, our information was broadcast - around the campfire, from the center of town, from the pulpit. Then, our desire for information became more specific - competing printed works, consumed at our own time and choosing, composed of what we wanted to consume.
Radio and TV put us back into t
the power of N:M vs 1:N (Score:2)
Broadcasting of information from a single source over a scarce resource fundamentally puts up gates, gatekeepers and imposes an economic structure over the free flow of information. (It doesn't matter if its a rented town crier, paper, radio or stone tablet, its all scarce and controllable. It describes a monopoly or at best an oligopoly.)
The true power of the internet lies in subsuming the existing oligopolistic business models since N:M includes the ability of 1:N existentially.
The facts that the digital
Re:Over what bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
If each handset consumes 10 Mbps (10^7 bps)
Straight off, you're off by a factor of 10. Streaming video can quite easily be compressed down to 1 Mb/second corresponding to about the quality of SDTV. Since you'd only then require 1/10th of the bandwidth, that means only 1.2 ghz.
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He's also wrong on the size of cell sites.
In most metro areas, a cell site would probably cover an area equal to about 5,000 handset users.
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I haven't watched 'traditional' television since I discovered hulu.com and bought a computer to drive my HDTV. I can't believe I used to be willing to make an appointment to watch a TV show.
If "making an appointment" is your definition of "traditional" television, then I haven't watched "traditional" television in the decade I've owned my TiVo.
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s of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
The 3G connectivity is not sufficient for watching video in volume comparable to TV. TV bandwidth is essentially free (a true one-to-many broadcast,) whereas 3G is not (it's limited and shared.)
Even the Wi-Fi connectivity is lacking in many cities, let alone countryside. I think we are a good decade away from being able to depend on our Internet links for reliable, always-on TV viewing.
For "live" tv no, it's insufficient. For cached TV, it works fine. My ipod can download podcasts at whatever speed it can manage and I watch when it's done. It wouldn't take too much more effort for Apple to put automatic downloading into the operating system on the phones/pods. On my Mac, I run Miro and it downloads automatically without me asking a damn thing. Same with itunes itself. But since the units are so powerful these days and have so much space, needing to go back to home base for automatic downl
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Multimedia_Broadcasting [wikipedia.org]
But now seem to only have the option to push data on closed networks rather than satellite or terrestrial transmission like radio or TV.
Could US telco networks be opened to all, a new 'broadcast' standard is offered or the US public is herded into brand only walled media subscriptions?
The US telcos feeling data use, bandwidth upgrades and pricing is clear.
Apple and telco $$
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It seems if you want "TV" you going to have to stream it via some Apple like device and a pay a telco's monthly plan.
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With net neutrality not an issue, I wonder if AT&T will have its arm twisted into giving "free" passage to any Apple specified content where it doesn't contribute to the cap, while anything from Hulu, YouTube, and other places get charged the metered rates. This way, users end up going to Apple's content because it doesn't cost them anything.
Re:Over what bandwidth? (Score:4, Insightful)
With net neutrality not an issue, I wonder if AT&T will have its arm twisted into giving "free" passage to any Apple specified content where it doesn't contribute to the cap, while anything from Hulu, YouTube, and other places get charged the metered rates. This way, users end up going to Apple's content because it doesn't cost them anything.
If Apple resorts to this, then that'd be a great reason to avoid Apple's content at all costs as a form of protest against a business practice that needs to be nipped in the bud and discouraged as early in the game as possible. I'm not saying the sheeple will do that, as they are not generally known for considering the full implications of their actions i.e. whether they are encouraging a business practice that is not in their interests. I'm just saying that it's a great reason independent of whether they are capable of appreciating and acting on it.
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With net neutrality not an issue, I wonder if AT&T will have its arm twisted into giving "free" passage to any Apple specified content where it doesn't contribute to the cap, while anything from Hulu, YouTube, and other places get charged the metered rates. This way, users end up going to Apple's content because it doesn't cost them anything.
If Apple resorts to this, then that'd be a great reason to avoid Apple's content at all costs as a form of protest against a business practice that needs to be nipped in the bud and discouraged as early in the game as possible. I'm not saying the sheeple will do that, as they are not generally known for considering the full implications of their actions i.e. whether they are encouraging a business practice that is not in their interests. I'm just saying that it's a great reason independent of whether they are capable of appreciating and acting on it.
If Apple makes a deal with AT&T to not count iTunes streaming content against your cap would be a reason to boycott Apple? WTF?
Ignoring the fact that this is all imaginary right now, assuming this exact thing happens, it's a net positive for the end user. You'll note that this scenario doesn't have Apple making a deal with AT&T to charge more for Hulu et al, but charging less for iTunes content.
But this is all moot at the moment, as Apple has no such plans announced, and it's not even their style.
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If Apple makes a deal with AT&T to not count iTunes streaming content against your cap would be a reason to boycott Apple? WTF?
They would be building a walled garden where users will tune into their content rather than get it from elsewhere on the Internet.
Isn't it obvious? The trap works much better if it has been baited... the "doesn't count against your cap" part is the bait.
Advertising ...revenues? (Score:3, Insightful)
ravenspear: They've already "paid for it" with the bucketloads of cash they've made from selling all the devices.
dmacleod808: Well said... AT&T's new tiered 3G plans will kill this easily... I can watch unlimited Television for free (broadcast networks of course).
It's interesting that you two are overlooking the same thing from different angles.
ravenspear has neglected to take into account that television is not free to broadcast. Even without government regulations and licensing, you have to have a transmitter, and either a live performance (lights, cameras) and/or some recorded performance (playback hardware) to transmit. The electricity alone would be monstrously expensive, and needs to be paid for somehow (say, advertising).
And you're citing AT&T's tiered pl
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One possibility, also, is to use WiFi.
I do most of my TV watching at home in front of my--oddly enough--TV. I also have WiFi at home. I'm not necessarily that interested in watching TV while I'm out and about because I'm doing other things like driving.
Sure, there might be exceptions. I could see watching a little TV over lunch instead of reading a newspaper. If I have jury duty or some other situation where I'm stuck waiting for a potentially long period of time, I could watch some TV. But lots of res
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I'm not necessarily that interested in watching TV while I'm out and about because I'm doing other things like driving.
You don't watch TV while driving? You don't even want to do watch TV while driving?
And you call yourself an American!
Drivel.. (Score:5, Informative)
I told the firehose this link-bait was stupid, not sure why it did not listen. TFA article does not make any sense. There is no meat to it. It does not offer any information. The entire thing is pointless.
BTW there is nothing in the article that is not in the summary, so feel free to comment away without clicking. Not clicking is actually preferable in this case. I would dispute the point of the article, but since it makes no point, it is difficult to dispute. It is also, umm, pointless....
Re:Drivel.. (Score:4, Funny)
Hell and the summary sounds like it came from the movie 'The Ten Commandments'. And Apple declares it.... So let it be written.
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Not only that, but they compare US tv sales to Apple WORLD sales.
When you purchased your TV set, you knew you weren't going to get any content from Philco or Sylvania. Those companies would not limit what you could watch.
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Plus cellphones are, inherently, personal devices. It is not surprising that ideally each person would like to own one. Have four people living in a house? Good chance they'd like to have 4 cell phones, and will provided they have the money. TVs are not the same. TVs can be shared. While not every person in America owns a TV, I would venture to say that very nearly, like 99.99999%, of all American households owns a TV, even the very poor.
So I wouldn't expect an equal number, even in the US. However I would
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I don't know about pointless....
What preceded that statement was a bunch of hype and cheer leading, but that is a pretty big statement there at the end.
1) Apple is going to become a television network. Considering the recent article about their market capitalization surpassing Microsoft for the first time, they just *might* decide to go for it. I really dunno. Sony went took a bunch of steps backwards financially to support the P
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I told the firehose this link-bait was stupid, not sure why it did not listen.
Professional courtesy. One robotic mindless incompetent website editor giving another a free pass.
TFA article does not make any sense. There is no meat to it. It does not offer any information. The entire thing is pointless.
It got a bunch of /.ers to visit MP3 Newswire, which appears to the the point of everything "Hodejo1" submits to /.
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exaggerated numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, if your business plan (or anything real, other than a slashdot story) depends on these numbers, you better dig deeper so you know what you are really dealing with.
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Plus TV, especially in its early days, is a single device shared among many eyeballs.
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The guy doesn't even write his dates in ISO standard format. He must think he's posting to the USA Wide Web.
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Also (Score:4, Interesting)
People don't buy phones to watch TV. They buy, well, TVs.
I do not get this idea that retards in the press have that TVs and computers are going to go away and be replaced with phones. No, they aren't. It isn't a matter of technology, it is a matter of convenience and features. Yes, modern smartphones have no problem displaying SD video, and you can surf the web on them. No, that doesn't mean you want to use only them.
I just bought a new TV, it is a nice 46" LCD TV. Why did I do that, if my phone could play media? Because I want a 46" TV. When I want TV I want to sack out on my couch and have a nice large screen to watch on. I do not want to have to hold a phone right up to my face to see what is going on. For that matter I don't even want to watch on my computer. My computer has a nice screen, and it is plenty large for using close up, but I don't want to sit in my computer chair all the time. Likewise, it wouldn't work well to move the system out in to the living room and try to use it there. Hence, I have a TV. Even though I have other devices that could technically fulfill its function, they do not have the features, namely the size, that I want.
I certainly think people will continue to consume media on their portable devices. After all, if you are in the doctor's office waiting it is convenient to have a device in your pocket that can entertain you. However that doesn't mean it'll become the primary or major way people get their media.
A big problem, in terms of streaming to mobile phones, is that pesky little thing called Shannon's Law. It states that the amount of information you can get in a given channel equals the bandwidth (in Hz) of the channel times the log of the signal to noise ratio. Well this is a real problem for high speed sustained wireless. The frequencies you are working with aren't that wide. When you are working in the 1900MHz range, you can only have channels that are tens of MHz wide. You can't have 1GHz channels or anything. Also, because of the low signal levels (-80dBm or less generally) your SNR sucks. 20dB at best, and it can be as low as 6dB for GSM. That equals not a whole lot of bandwidth. Now it can be fine when people use it in spurts. You allow someone to use a bunch of channels and get a big transfer, then someone else can use them. However if everyone is trying to sustain downloads, as is the case in streaming media, you simply run out of bandwidth.
Unfortunately, just upping the frequency isn't a solution either. The higher the frequency, the less penetrating power it has, and the more line of sight it is. A 100GHz signal could have great bandwidth, but won't even go through a wall. So in the frequency ranges that are useful, there's just only so much bandwidth you get.
As such, you aren't likely to see anything replace TV and cable/fibre as the main video content delivery for most people. It is simply a nice way to watch. Phones will remain a peripheral device, used occasionally but not the main thing.
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I suspect a lot of the people who bought two iPhones or iPods handed their old model down to family. My mom now has my old iPod Touch, since I have an iPhone.
You're correct that not all are in the US, but then again: Does it matter? The internet is already decentralized. Heck, it could be the first step to kill off geoblocking - and wouldn't that be lovely?
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right, because RCA TVs and Apple iPhones are absolutely comparable. They both display moving images. They both play sound. And they are both internet-connected devices running software written and updated by a single party. That party maintains a persistent connection to them, and has an avowed interest in becoming a media distribution power. Oh, wait.
I am not suggesting that Apple will literally play streaming video over all these devices. However, it's an interesting way to think about the vested power he
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How do you get from "people own devices made by X" to "X has a network"? Dumbest. Story. Idea. Ever.
Everything Apple requires that you use iTunes. This provides Apple a chance to show you ads. Comparing to the number of TV sets in 1957 is phenomenally stupid though. I have more computing power in my lap than the whole world had in 1957 but it doesn't mean I'm the god of computers.
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My cat ate an Apple: post it on slashdot! (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, since there was a story on Microsoft on the front page, we had to see this baseless speculation of a random guy on the net. I suppose everyone wants this stories, because they keep coming...
As for the subject I understand they have a content distribution network called iTunes and it works quite well. They will produce the iFridge before ever creating two competing products. Is there any point at all in this speculation?
Uhh, 1959? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ads (Score:3, Insightful)
I despise how everything I now want to interact with (TV, Internet, video games, the old paper media) must be all based on ads. Can't somebody think of a better way? And if I have a subscription, can't I receive an ad free version. Thank (your favorite deity) for AdBlock and the mute button. I remember a time when there were only two commercial breaks when watching a TV program, now it's four. It sometimes feels like there is more commercials than actual program. I demand that these media outlets pay me for watching these ads. I might actually pay attention to them if I was paid to watch them.
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In Soviet Union, a better way has you!
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There are only two models, ads and subscription/purchase. Ads have worked for radio, TV, newspaper for decades (and still more or less does for TV and radio). Subscription/purchase has worked for... HBO and books, it used to work for music and movies but then they became easy to rip and it was over.
Also, you are paid to watch the ads, you are paid with the content that you are given (otherwise gratis). If you don't want the ads: don't consume the content.
As for a better way, I've noticed that it is always s
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There are only two models, ads and subscription/purchase.
You forgot donations, subsidies, and patronization.
Hey patronization worked during the Renaissance for starving artists. Could work now.
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Ad models have changed substantially, think of Google Ads. The point is you can't really get away from (a) the user pays or (b) someone else pays and the user must pay attention to their ad.
As for a la carte, iTunes and netflix already have this. On iTunes, you can already subscribe to a show.
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A few points:
Physical media is about 10% of the cost of production, most of the total cost is on people you don't see or think of who are involved in the production of a song/video. It has always been the case that most of the costs were not for the last unit, its mostly about the first unit.
As for what you call patronage, this will result in WAY to little product--I would never pony up for this model unless it was within a few bucks of the limit and stuck there for a day or two.
I'm worried that if things d
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I despise ads so much that I've quit watching broadcast TV or listening to radio. The few TV shows that I do watch, I buy from the iTunes store, because I'd rather pay a couple bucks than have to watch any ads, and I don't watch enough TV shows to justify bothering with a cable TV subscription and DVR (to skip the ads).
When I'm in a friend's vehicle and they have the radio on, hearing the ads is worse torture than their incompatible taste in music. I used to subscribe to XM radio, but cancelled when they
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If it's crap, why would you waste your time watching/listening to it? Is it possible this is just a way to justify to yourself not paying for content?
Just curious, do you have a limit, like once the play count on a song goes over 10, then you buy it? Or might you play a song 40 times but still claim it is crap even if it is catchy?
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Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The "crap" that I referred to "stealing" is only ad-supported stuff. Like a broadcast TV show that I might record and then watch while skipping the ads (I don't bother doing that any more), or a web page that's festooned with annoying ads (that I happily block). I don't pirate music at all. I have just under 3,500 songs in my music collection, and I've paid for all of them either by ripping a CD that I bought (and still own/possess), or by buying them from a digital provider lik
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I see, sorry for my misinterpretation and saying you don't pay for your content.
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I bet you roll over and go to sleep immediately after orgasm, too. (Yes, I am aware that this is /.)
Depends on what's on TV... ;)
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TVs can be watched by many (Score:5, Insightful)
Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
-puk
The Death Star for this lame argument. (Score:2)
There are not 90 million iphone/touch/pads (Score:3, Insightful)
They may have sold that many, but there aren't that many in use. I'm guessing somewhere near 25% of those 75 million (15-18 million) are out of use. (damaged or retired/upgraded)
Not that it matters really to the story, just making it know that the numbers are overstated.
Those numbers seem fishy to me. (Score:2, Informative)
"In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units."
There are 300 + Million people in the U.S. and you're telling me that only 63.5 million sets have been sold from 1950 to now???
I call Bullshit.
"By 1960, there were 52 million sets in American homes, one in almost nine out of ten households."
Jordan, Winthrop. The Americans. Boston: McDougal Littell, 1996: 798.
"According to data from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the
iAds are in apps, not media (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason Apple is doing iAds is to improve the experience of in-app ads. User like free and $1-2 apps, and so developers have been putting ads in their apps and the ads are very basic and they take you out to the Web. So iAds are advertising-focused mini HTML5 apps that run inside native C apps, and keep you in your app.
If used in a media app, they may support media, like a free Hulu app. But they work on all kinds of apps.
Besides, $8.99 a month for Netflix on iPad absolutely destroys Hulu. There is no shortage of TV already on Apple devices.
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OMG . . . Apple is bigger than US Steel . . . ! (Score:2)
Hyman Roth (Meyer Lansky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky [wikipedia.org]) to Michael Corleone: "Mike, we're bigger than US Steel."
I'm really not sure what that means, or is appropriate for this story, but that is the first thing that came into my head.
Which is, as I will admit, full of holes.
1959? fail. (Score:2, Insightful)
this whole story is just stupid, has /. run out of real stories and resorted to recycling crap from mac rumor forums or s
Goodbye Flash. (Score:3, Informative)
If that's not a good reason to stop using Flash on websites, I don't know what is. If you're an advertiser, and you use those annoying Flash ads that we all hate, then it's time to change, or die.
I may not agree with all of Apple's reasons for not using Flash, but I sure as hell love the result.
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All this means (Score:2)
Apple fanbois = new media bitches
Maybe I'm not "in the know"... (Score:2, Insightful)
At least... I think this
One should watch D8 conference before blogging (Score:2)
If you watch this video (which may work without Flash on Safari/Chrome):
http://video.allthingsd.com/video/d8-steve-jobs-on-television/FF922002-FA63-4B68-A326-EA12EC800612 [allthingsd.com]
Steve Jobs told the exact problem with "Apple TV" or anything regarding "replacing TV" or "inventing things to plug into TV". He also said he will not let (!) a nation of "bloggers". Perhaps he meant such blogs/news sites (!) who doesn't understand the basic concept of millions of devices pulling some random data at same time and making mon
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huge and wild speculation (Score:2)
I am guessing the author never paid a mobile phone/broadband bill. I haven't paid for cable TV in at least 20 years. I object to the notion that I will have to pay to see advertising. If Apple pushes advertising over its devices, it would mean all the more reason to feel justified in never having owned one. (Still, my main reason for not owning one is the non-removable battery issue... I once owned a Sony Clie' -- sweet hi-res Palm OS device... battery couldn't be changed by the user, device discontinue
Numbers... (Score:2)
I am not saying that the number are not impressive, or that iTV is not right around the corner, but I sold more cell phones in 2010 (one) than the entire market in 1959 ;)
Similarly, there are a _lot_ more devices out there that can display video than the mere 100 million iXs. Again, not saying this is not a large install base, but the comparision was useless, imo.
Apple network (Score:3, Interesting)
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Apple has nothing to say that I find worth hearing. Apple has nothing to show that I find worth seeing.
Remember, if you say you like Apple and express interest in their products and services, you are just giving an opinion.
If you say in a non-inflammatory way that you don't like Apple and do not have an interest in their products and services, why then you are "-1, Flamebait".
Yup, nothing hypocritical about that, mods.
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Apple has nothing to say that I find worth hearing. Apple has nothing to show that I find worth seeing.
Remember, if you say you like Apple and express interest in their products and services, you are just giving an opinion. If you say in a non-inflammatory way that you don't like Apple and do not have an interest in their products and services, why then you are "-1, Flamebait". Yup, nothing hypocritical about that, mods.
I agree with parent, so mod me down too. You know you wanna.
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I agree with parent, so mod me down too. You know you wanna.
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mod parent up.
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mod sister sideways!
Re:Do not need. Do not want. (Score:4, Informative)
If you say in a non-inflammatory way that you don't like Apple and do not have an interest in their products and services, why then you are "-1, Flamebait".
That also applies if you say something in favor of the App Store, or the iPhone in general in comparison to Android. Or anything negative about Android.
In other words, welcome to the Internet, where if you say anything that someone disagrees with, you run the risk of -1 Flamebait/Troll.
As for the OP AC, his post is flamebait/troll. His post, in its entirety is:
Subj: Do not need. Do not want.
Body: Apple has nothing to say that I find worth hearing. Apple has nothing to show that I find worth seeing.
No real content other than, "I hate Apple." Flamebait/Troll would apply to pretty much any topic with such a post. Android, Google, Microsoft, Linux, you name it. Maybe about BP it would get a pass...
OUseless without an unlimited data plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OUseless without an unlimited data plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things...
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Maybe Apple should have allowed Flash to run on the iPad then? At the moment they say they are against Flash but the problem is, whats the alternative? HTML5 is still too much in it's infancy to be an acceptable alternative, and things like this 500mg iPad magazine shows that the other option isn't a good option since the new data plans listed are what? 2 gigs max I think before extra charges? So 4 magazines and there goes your bandwidth and you have to pay more to surf the internet or only download the magazines when your on a wifi-only link (which kinda kills the whole 3g network concept). In the end at the worst case is that Apple should allow at least a watered down version of Flash to run since it would be better then nothing and then make it obsolete when a better technology shows up.
Maybe Wired should have backed the right Pony and hired Apple to consult in writing their application and not Adobe.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
At the moment they say they are against Flash but the problem is, whats the alternative?
For a magazine app? How about an EBOOK?
If they've got rich content, how about a PDF inside a viewer application? How does the New York Times do it? How does the MLB do it?
Nothing about Wired's app required Flash; not having Flash didn't harm them in any way. They CHOSE to use a Flash translation tool, but it's not like their existing content was in Flash to begin with and it was just the path of least resistance...they just chose the wrong development tools.
A bundle of high-resolution images is not a su
Re:OUseless without an unlimited data plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Apple should have allowed Flash to run on the iPad then?
There is nothing about the iPad app that couldn't have been accomplished with either HTML5 or as a native iPad app without resorting to images. The reason the Wired app uses images is that that's how Adobe decided to solve the InDesign -> iPad workflow. This solution is very Adobe. They make great creative tools, but horrible end-user presentation tools. Adobe Reader and Flash are prime examples of this.
As for allowing Flash, had the Wired App been a Flash app, it would have been smaller in size, but awful in interaction and performance. Also, those that say things like "Apple should allow Flash" seem to be ignorant of the fact that Flash is not on a single handheld device, except as a very recent beta for Android. A beta which by all accounts is atrocious.
At the moment they say they are against Flash but the problem is, whats the alternative?
Cocoa Touch on the iPhone OS. As well as HTML5. There are zero cases where Flash is technologically better than both of those.
HTML5 is still too much in it's infancy to be an acceptable alternative
On mobile devices, Flash is much, much worse. Also, HTML5 is on its ascendancy, meaning that it's improving, and doing so swiftly. Flash is relatively stagnant, and there's no indication that current handheld devices will fare well with Flash, even as the awful beta version is improved over the Summer and into the Fall.
and things like this 500mg iPad magazine shows that the other option isn't a good option since the new data plans listed are what? 2 gigs max I think before extra charges?
The Wired iPad app is not large because it's not in Flash, it's large because it contains videos and flat images. The videos in the app take up about 100MB, which is less than the PNGs, but still significant.
As for data plans, you can't even download the app over 3G. Apps larger than a certain size (I think 20MB) cannot be directly downloaded over 3G, only WiFi. Given that most everyone with an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone have WiFi, and that their device spends a significant amount of time on WiFi, and that the PC they connect their device to has either WiFi or an ethernet connection to the Internet, the caps on 3G service are not a big deal. Hell, in a pinch you could walk into an Apple Store and use their WiFi. I'm sure they'd be happy to let you use it to download a large app.
So 4 magazines and there goes your bandwidth and you have to pay more to surf the internet or only download the magazines when your on a wifi-only link (which kinda kills the whole 3g network concept).
That the coming 3G data cap for the largest standard plan only covers the data for four magazines (which you can't even download over 3G anyway), means that the whole idea of having 3G on an iPad is a flawed concept? Do you really think people would be downloading such large apps over 3G, if it were even possible, on a regular basis? If someone feels the need to download more than four 500GB magazine apps per month over 3G, and such large app downloads are allowed over 3G, these people can buy additional bandwidth at $10/GB. Not the most economical solution, but if someone is crazy enough to rely solely on 3G for such large transfers, what's another Hamilton here and there?
In the end at the worst case is that Apple should allow at least a watered down version of Flash to run since it would be better then nothing and then make it obsolete when a better technology shows up.
Apple notoriously leaves behind technology that is seen as either on the out, or as something which compromises the overall user experience, and it has served Apple very well. Flash falls into both of those categories, and as such it's futile to expect Apple to support it. It's also far from clear that supporting Flash would be to Apple's benefit, and a watered-down version would be even worse.
Flash already exists on mobile (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, those that say things like "Apple should allow Flash" seem to be ignorant of the fact that Flash is not on a single handheld device, except as a very recent beta for Android.
Not true. Flash Lite [adobe.com] is already shipping on some phones, including the HTC Hero and Evo. It's not Flash Player 10.1, which is the beta you mentioned (and that beta is available [intomobile.com] for Android 2.2 users to try for themselves), but it's enough for many popular sites.
Cocoa Touch on the iPhone OS. As well as HTML5. There are zero cases where Flash is technologically better than both of those.
Flash is more portable than Cocoa Touch. It's more powerful than HTML5 and also has better development/design tools.
It's also far from clear that supporting Flash would be to Apple's benefit, and a watered-down version would be even worse.
Apple's benefit? Of course, they'd rather have you use their proprietary APIs. But isn't their customers' benefit what really matters?
As for the watered-down version: again, you're ignoring Flash Lite, which is certainly better than no Flash at all.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And neither of those are cases "where Flash is technologically better than both of those".
Sorry, I won't play your pointless semantic games. Flash is more portable than Apple's proprietary Cocoa Touch, and it's more powerful than HTML5. As a result, there are plenty of cases where it's the best choice out of all three for a given project; whether or not it's the best in all respects simultaneously is irrelevant.
As a solution for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, the combination of Cocoa Touch and HTML5 thoroughly outclasses Flash.
Sure, if you ignore the issue of portability -- which is exactly what Apple wants you to do.
And no, it's not clear at all that it's better than nothing. No Flash means no Flash. Flash Lite means some Flash works and some doesn't.
Yes, and some is better than none. Which part of that don't you understand?
And that doesn't even address the issue of most Flash being entirely unsuitable for multitouch.
That's because it's
Re:OUseless without an unlimited data plan (Score:4, Informative)
They've still got WiFi, which covers a LOT of places. It covers my house, my parents house, my friends houses, my work, and many restaurants, hotels, and other places of business. Most of the places I use my iPhone, usually when I'm sitting around waiting for something, WiFi is often available.
For the rest of the time, yes, theres 3G. Someone (Engadget or Gizmodo) did some calculations the other day and found that it would take ~11 hours of streaming TV shows on Netflix to use up the 2G monthly allocation the new data plans have. That's for a normal computer, not lower resolution designed for mobile viewing.
They could get people to watch quite a bit of content without killing their bandwidth caps, especially if you pre-load it when on WiFi for on the desktop and then sync it to the phone (basically, as video podcasts).
I will agree that the fact that cap is there would make me have to think about watching content when I had to get it over 3G/4G/HyperPonyDataRadio, when I wouldn't have thought about it before.
As someone whos house receives TEN GB A MONTH.... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Bandwidth zooms by so fast, you just wouldnt believe. 10GB is *NOTHING*...I listen to podcasts while I work, and I mean AUDIO podcasts, MP3 files, probably 64kbps is average. Many of my two hour long shows can be EASILY 80MB+...lets round to 100, shall we? So, even at just one "100MB" podcast a day, a couple hours of audio at a decent quali
Re: (Score:2)
All end up costing.
If they cache them on the device, they cost the user storage space - and these are devices that, by todays standards, are woefully under spec for storage (16 to 64 gig, no ability to expand it or add additional storage media).
Apple is no longer "the high-end market". Computers are commodity devices. Apple