I’ll admit at the outset that I’m a GoogleBot. I use Chrome, carry around an Android phone, and have 4 different Google accounts (two business and two personal). If Google had a condom, I’d fuck with it on. With that in mind, I have a simple observation about the latest tech war, Apple versus Google.
Both of these companies are rapacious capitalists, and I’m not swayed by either Steve Job’s impeccable taste or Google’s “Don’t be Evil” slogan. The reason I’m on the Google side of the fence is because I think their business model is less intrusive and controlling.
Google is in business to sell advertising. Their goal is to serve me a relevant ad everywhere I am. To do that, they want to know a lot about me (where I am at the moment, and what I’m doing), so their software needs to run on every device I own. They also need continuously earn my trust, and the trust of every developer whose application serves me an ad. I need to trust that the ad is relevant and useful, and that Google won’t share too much of my personal information. Developers need to trust that the Google ad won’t be so intrusive that it will drive users away from their application or web page.
Apple is in business to sell hardware. They want me to buy one Apple device after another. To do so, they’re always trying to devise ways to lock me and developers to their device. They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software, and now they are creating a bookstore that sells books I can only read on their devices or with their software. They want developers to write software that runs only on their devices, so Flash, for example, is forbidden on the iPhone and iPad. They need to earn my trust once, then they’ll lock me in with their Apple-only media and software.
Apple wants to be sure that it’s impossible for me to experience media on a non-Apple device. Google just wants me to experience it on a device where they can push an ad. Both are evil, Google is just the lesser.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
This needs to be one of the rotating tag lines.
Bill E Pilgrim
If that’s the next search interface input method in the works, they’re going to make billions.
Okay even more billions.
me
I agree. Apple’s arbitrary rules about the app store and their rules about only using development tools that prevent portability suck but I bet this thread will be ugly.
Xenos
While it may be inconvenient, I could ungoogle my life pretty quickly if I needed to. If I were to invest heavily in Apple it could be a very expensive and painful process to switch.
Since I have more than enough commitments in my life as it is, I avoid Apple. When I updated Itunes and it started switching all my files to MP4, which would not work with all my other music programs and devices, that was the last straw.
Mr Furious
Compared to most corporate overlords, I regard “evil” as applied to either of these companies as a bit much… but I agree with your point/conclusion.
(I am a noted and willing Macbot)
sherifffruitfly
1) Yah, the above-quoted line is kickass. I’m stealing it.
2) The very notion of buying a computer (e.g. iphone) from a company that dictates what type of software I can put on it is simply laughable.
Mr Furious
I will say, I am at a crossroads with both Apple and Adobe on their decisions regarding legacy software. Both are pissing me off.
Raznor
I’m reminded of a battle I read last year between Apple and Palm. Palm initially made their WebOS compatible with ITunes. In response, Apple released an update of ITunes specifically designed to block out WebOS. Palm responded by releasing a new version of WebOS to get around the blocks Apple added. (details here http://www.precentral.net/how-palm-re-enabled-itunes-sync)
I’m not sure how things went after that. I have the Pre Plus myself and haven’t been able to sync it w/ ITunes.
Comrade Darkness
less intrusive and controlling.
I followed a link a friend sent to information about his latest medical issue and two randomly unrelated sites later (about real estate) I was getting google ads for that exact condition. I found that seriously creepy. Creepier than not being able to buy Balingomingo from Itunes.
mistermix
@Xenos: This is a really important point. Google has a whole team with the mission of making it easy for people to get their information out of Google, they’re called the “Data Liberation Front”.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/why-google-makes-it-easy-to-leave-google.ars
Apple can’t have such a team, because its very existence would be anathema to Apple’s business model.
Mr Furious
I don’t disagree, Comrade. I use gmail for remote access from work, and the column of ads clearly based on reading my communication often gives me pause.
master c
creepier than the lowden-rush ads that look like a sitcom?Im looking at one right now on this site.
BruceFromOhio
TMI, although the rotating headline suggestion is entirely worthy.
I understand your comparisons in terms of end-user impact. I regret my prejudice: Apple is a lifestyle-choice hardware company that happens to make software, Google is a software company that really doesn’t make bones about what hardware you use.
It’s like comparing fruit to space travel – two entirely different categories of stuff.
ETA: Agree on the evil/creepy factor(s) – get those Gaia-damned ads off my lawn!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but Obama is delivering a fine commencement address at West Point right now. Sorry to interrupt. Back to what you werediscussing.
arguingwithsignposts
They are both less evil than Adobe. (MacGooglebot reporting in)
Also, too – They are symbiotic. Safari browsers have Google search bar, for instance.
valdivia
@Comrade Darkness:
This! I love Google, but I get *very* creeped out when in Gmail the ad above the inbox seems to be telling me what the fuck is going on in my life. I get an email from a guy and next thing I know the ad says “he is not that into you?”. Lulwut? No, no I say. He is into me, damn it!
Urza
Speaking of evil and Google ads, I’m a techie, I coded advertising for AOL for a little while.
Can someone explain to me why Google, or whoever it is, thinks I might want to see a Sue Lowden ad while viewing this site?
Not just Sue Lowden, but Sue Lowden with Rush Limbaugh smiling over her shoulder.
I don’t live in her state. I’ve never contributed to anyone but Obama online. This site is about as close as I get to right wing, meaning I try to avoid it unless it opened its mind years ago.
Its just pure lazy to blanket spam an ad like that to people who aren’t even remotely likely to click through. Limit it to her state or political viewing habits which google can track just fine. I’m quite sure there aren’t too many right wingers hanging around on this site over the last few years so unless there’s some bad keywords left in the headers it just makes no sense to me.
burnspbesq
Oh Jeez, it’s Woodstock for Apple-haters. What time does Hendrix play?
Apple gets my money (and they have gotten a lot of it over the last 23 years) because they provide a consistent and predictable user experience. I get what I want from my Apple devices, and I am confident that they wont go randomly spastic and take days to diagnose. That’s the upside of tight integration of hardware and software.
Evil is a word that has no place in this conversation. Corporations do what they are designed and intended to do – make money for their shareholders. Even AT&T, which has immeasurably damaged Apple’s brand, isn’t evil. It just sucks.
It’s somewhat ironic that the company that has repeatedly violated antitrust laws all around the world, and hasn’t ever made a product that isn’t a big bag of suck, seems to possess a get out of jail free card around here.
different church-lady
Dear diary: today we had a fake argument about how we’re slaves to corporations and electronic devices we “can’t do without” again…
Brian J
@me:
I’ll admit, I don’t understand the technical end of how this stuff works, but it seems like there’s a really simple solution to not liking Apple’s products: don’t use them. Sure, if you don’t like the company and its products and they are setting the agenda for how this stuff works, that sucks, but isn’t the next step to find a better alternative? It seems like Apple’s bet is that most people really don’t particularly care one way or the other because for them, there is no better alternative, at least at the moment.
I’d probably fall into that category. I love, love, love my iphone and can’t see using anything else, but only because of its browser. I haven’t seen every available option, but after playing around with friends’ phones, there’s just no comparison. Maybe I’d feel differently if I used more applications. At the moment, the only one I use is Shazaam.
But anyway, can someone explain why Chrome is supposed to be so great? I downloaded it and used it a couple of times. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but it seemed slowly and less pleasant looking in the way it presented sites than Firefox.
am
Apple is already missing the boat with their. An app store with downloadable apps is today. A browser with a free or purchasable hosted app store (Google docs, Picassa, + 3rd parties running on App engine/Drives/etc) is tomorrow. And the barrier of who will host my livelihood if I am an app creator is greater than who is going to run the operating system on my cell phone. Bill Gates was really right about the future of things being web services 10-15 years ago.
Then again, maybe Apple is onto something w/ the iPad as a reincarnation of a thin client. Google and HTC could spin out a passable competitor in a month or two if they wanted to, though.
Brian J
@burnspbesq:
How has AT&T damaged Apple’s brand so much? Are you referring to its cell network? Maybe I am just lucky, but I haven’t had that many problems.
mistermix
@Urza: I agree that most Internet advertising is awful and/or creepy. I rarely click on an ad. I would just rather suffer an ad than suffer DRM.
@burnspbesq: Gmail and Google Maps are a “big bag of suck”? Noted.
fucen tarmal
@Bill E Pilgrim:
me, i just hope i get to use the thing and can keep it up and running for when i do.
seems like insecurity about the size and scope of one’s search capacity, would limit or deter some users.
KCinDC
I agree with most of this, but I wonder what you think the “Apple-only” version of Flash is. HTML5 and JavaScript are more open than Flash, not less, and not dependent on a single company.
mistermix
@Brian J:
The reason I like Chrome is because it is fast, doesn’t crash, and stays the hell out of the way. It takes a while to appreciate those attributes. I was also “meh” when I first began using it, then it grew on me.
Slow/less pleasant is interesting, because it’s always been faster for me and looked as good as FF.
Adrienne
@burnspbesq:
Exactly. That’s why the devices they sell are so stable. They are very careful what goes on their devices FOR A REASON. Closed systems are *much* more stable than systems where anyone and their mama can develop software, sell it to you, and maybe end up seriously damaging your machine. You simply don’t have that problem w/ Apple. Do I get annoyed that I can’t get flash on my iPhone? Sometimes. But I’d be more annoyed if it continuously crashed because of some glitch that makes flash run weird on an Apple vs a PC. I can live with that trade.
Apple’s business model has been the same for a while. Developers know the rules – make a good product specifically designed to run on Apple products and meets their standards and you’ll probably get in. If you don’t, well, you won’t.
sherifffruitfly
Gmail has ads?
Welp, nice to know adblock works as advertised I guess.
Still kinda surprised that I never even *knew* gmail had ads. lol
mistermix
@KCinDC: I was referring to apps in the iPhone app store, which only run on Apple devices, and are limited by a number of arbitrary Apple rules.
I agree that Flash is fairly awful in a lot of respects, but a number of sites use it and I’d want a device where I had the choice of seeing a Flash site if I wanted to.
Corpsicle
” They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software”
Only in your Apple-hating mind is this true. AAC is an open format that plays on Windows, generic music players and car stereos.
It’s no surprise that some people don’t like Apple, what is surprising are the endless delusions of persecution people like you invent to justify your opinion.
BruceFromOhio
@burnspbesq:
Oh Jeez, it’s Woodstock for Apple-haters.
On the contrary, Apple makes fine products. They work well for those that use them, and Apple concepts have a way of changing just about everything that fits inside 1024×768, or your jacket pocket. ETA: watch how many iPad imitators appear in the next 18 months.
How many mobile devices now have interfaces that mimic what the first iPhone had? How many gui’s now mock the sleek, rounded metallic finish of OS 10?
That said, I’ll be damned if I can justify the cost – the kids tried with the iPods, but cheapskate Dad loaded everyone up with MP3 players for the price of a single 20gb. Being a geek of modest income, I must admire from afar.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em, burns.
arguingwithsignposts
@Adrienne:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have to get apple’s approval to publish software for the Mac, do you? You have to develop with their SDK, but not approval from them. That’s different, I think, than on the iPhone/iPod/iPad.
John Harrold
While you can download your google email using their pop access, most folks (small sampling of my friends, coworkers, etc.) just use their web interface. If google decided tomorrow to charge them for gmail they would either have to pay up or loose access to their email. Of course, I doubt google would do this, but it demonstrates the level of control they actually have over users information.
It’s my understanding, and feel free to correct me here, that HTML 5 and javascript (Apple’s solution to flash) are open standards that can be implemented by anyone. While flash is a standard owned and controlled by Adobe.
burnspbesq
@am:
I kinda doubt that. What you’re describing isn’t tomorrow (although it might be 2017) for one simple reason. Any platform that requires mobile devices to constantly be in contact with servers is going to be very dissatisfying for users, because (a) their battery life is going to be adversely impacted and (b) the demand on cellular network resources is going to create latencies and bottlenecks.
Battery life is almost certainly one of the two major sources of agita for iPhone users (AT&T is the other), but the chemistry involved and the size constraints imposed by the form factor are immutable, at least for now.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yeah I think the other side of this story is worth airing, whether one agrees or not. Apple’s claim in this is that they want to use HTML5 instead, which will be on anything, not just Apple products.
I actually saw an HTML5 site the other day for the first time, but I can’t remember what it was.
NobodySpecial
The only Apple anything I own is an iPod, and I have no real reason to care how they do their business model w/regards to integrating it with the rest of the world, simply because when I want music on the road, I carry the iPod, not anything else.
Mr Furious
Even when FireFox fucks up and crashes (often, since I’m always using whatever the current beta is) it bounces right back and offers me the option to restore my session or even just some of it or start over.
Fine by me, and hardly slows me down.
burnspbesq
@mistermix:
No, they’re not (they’re a big bag of OK). You missed the point. I was referring to Microsquash.
Joey Maloney
They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software
You know that’s wrong, don’t you?
I can’t speak to Apple’s motivations, but the music in the iTunes store had DRM on it initially because the major labels wouldn’t sign on to the concept unless they could treat their customers like criminals.
But it’s no longer true. None of the music in the iTunes store has DRM. You can play it using any software on any device. (And it was always the case that by following a somewhat convoluted but not overly technical process you could convert DRM’d tunes to MP3 format and strip off the DRM.)
Beyond that Apple reflects its CEO’s legendary control-freak personality. He wants customers to have the best possible experience so he feels he has to control every aspect of the system. Some of the choices he makes in that respect I agree with, many I don’t. But I can’t argue with the result, which is that insanely great user experience he’s aiming for.
Kinda sucks, because philosophically I do agree with people like Cory Doctorow who decry the “walled garden” approach. But so far the limitations Apple puts on me aren’t onerous enough to outweigh the advantages.
Zuzu's Petals
Love my iPhone. Loving my iPad (gift from Apple-prone siblings) so far. But this no-Flash things is really really irritating.
That is all.
Mr Furious
@Adrienne: Word.
El Cruzado
As a professional mac developer (branching into iPad as we speak) I am vested in them continuing to do well.
Still, I can’t fathom what kind of cosmic level assholes they’d become if they ever achieved a level of dominance similar to what MS once held (and which is thankfully slipping away).
Apple makes a habit of not caring much about what everyone else is doing, obsessing only about being able to build the exact experience them (or in many cases, Jobs) wants. What they’ve come up with the iPhone/iPad seems to me like a hybrid model between games consoles and regular computing life. They also seem to be winging it as they go as far as the app store goes. So the problem from my point of view (developer) is, more than the censorship, the lack of consistency. Yes, they ought to have figured it out earlier.
As for Google, as the poster observed they have a strong interest in not losing our trust (note that Apple has a less strong interest but still an existing one in the same as they’d rather have you eventually replace your widget with their next widget. And moving out of the Apple ecosystem is much easier than mistermix put it for general cases). The only question I have is how they’ll behave the first time things stop going peachy for them. So far they can afford to throw a lot of money and engineers around things in the hope that they’ll come up with something cool and where you can put ads, and they can afford to renounce a number of obvious asshole moves that would increase their revenues short term. The day they start feeling the pinch I hope they can keep their motto in the back of their minds.
Brian J
@mistermix:
Isn’t a large part of it also being able to design the browser a little more to what you want to see?
arguingwithsignposts
@John Harrold:
They are, but there’s also the issue of how much of the processor Flash takes to run, IIRC. That runs down battery life. Daring Fireball had a really good article about Apple v. Flash a few months ago.
BTW, H.264 (video codec) is not open-source, but that’s how Apple serves up YouTube videos on iPhone.
Urza
@mistermix: I have a simple solution to DRM. I refuse to pay for anything that uses it. And if you sneak it into something I did buy i’ll crack it off immediately out of spite. If I paid for it, I don’t want anything interfering with my usage or my system performance.
fucen tarmal
@Urza:
you are assuming that the content and the posters, and the readers are the same…while i agree with your example, there isn’t a damned thing i can do about lowden either, its the same on aol, where the obama campaign bought tons of ads to preach to the choir of a whole other church….
it could be designed to reach the few, not the many,online ads don’t need a huge volume to be cost effective…they can get by on the few who come here to get pissed off, then see lowden as someone who will do something about it.
different church-lady
@NobodySpecial: Wait… you’re saying you pick and choose which technology you use for what purpose, instead of acting like a coal miner at the company store?
I mean, it’s almost as though you believe you have free will or something!
burnspbesq
Gotta go. My iPad and I have a date with a steak and egg burrito. See y’all later.
Joey Maloney
FFmpeg is an open-source project that implements H.264.
BruceFromOhio
@different church-lady:
You can have my abacus when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Enough of this drivel, these stone tablets aren’t going to chisel themselves …
El Cruzado
As for flash, it’s a little choose your poison, live in Apple’s world or Adobe’s. It’s not as there exists a mobile version of flash yet that works as users would expect it too anyway. Been announced for this summer, wouldn’t bet my $$$ that they manage to make it by the expected release time and with few enough bugs.
Flash came to control vast swathes of the internet almost by accident (in particular the parts related to streaming video). Apple learnt a while back that they’d rather not depend on anyone that’s not them and many of their bigger moves are predicated at least partly on that. Besides from most in the know (and I’ve met some who really know, being part of their work to deal with browsers presenting flash content), internally flash is a mess and the way many program for it makes it even worse.
At some point we probably would need to rid ourselves of it anyway, Apple keeping it out of their playgrounds might not be the prettiest way but the end result I can live with.
arguingwithsignposts
@Joey Maloney:
But H.264 itself is patented.
Tommy
I got my first Mac in 1987. Always had a Mac as my home computer. At times I might have been called an “Apple Fan Boy.” For all those years a computer was a tool for me. Much like a car. It had a purpose. Just like I can’t change the spark plugs on my car, I didn’t care I couldn’t do much with my Mac. I just wanted it to work.
Well long story short I always had a PC at work (and one before I got my first Mac in ’87). I wasn’t a computer geek per say, but far, far better then most people on them. Well I started working out of my house for a virtual company. They bought me a PC. I had to do hardware upgrades. Started to get into more technical stuff with work.
Two years ago when I needed a new home computer, for the first time in 20+ years I got a PC. I couldn’t be happier. I like the control. I like the freedom (the huge price difference didn’t hurt either).
Now I still like Macs. But I think it is clear there is a small percentage of “geeks” out there that trend away from Mac and towards PC cause of the control we have. We can run the OS we want. We can take the thing apart and upgrade h/w in seconds.
I don’t think we’re in the majority, but we’re out there and vocal about it.
So with all that said, and again I still love a lot about Apple, I trends towards Google as well.
Adrienne
@burnspbesq:
Oh, come on. They are more than a “big bag of ok” — I actually *love* love love Google Maps on my iPhone. How’s THAT for integration? That damn blue dot has been invaluable, as has the ability to get transit directions on the go in NYC. If you want to know what time the next bus/train comes closest to your current location that gets you closest to your destination in less than 30 seconds, Google maps is the only way to go.
me
@Brian J: I’m ahead of you on the “not using it” part, but a person has to eat and although I personally have not had to write code to run natively on the ipad or iphone, there are people who will have to completely rewrite their apps, written in Lua or C#, in Objective-C and maintain one codebase for the Apple products and another for everyone else just to satisfy Apple’s, rather narcissistic, new rules.
Corpsicle
@mistermix: In the future you might want to consider turning your brain on before posting. It might reduce the amount of lies and bullshit you produce.
scav
@BruceFromOhio: Abacus! well, la-ti-dah. you’re going to have to pull my fingers from my cold, dead fingers. So there.
Mr Furious
Want to know my first real bitch with Apple? The move to Snow Leopard.
I am an aspiring photographer. I am beyond iPhoto, and frankly sick of being stuck using the RAW processor in my CS3 Adobe Bridge. I want Aperture or Lightroom. Both of which have new releases out right now. PErfect time to upgrade, right?
Wrong.
Both require Snow Leopard (OS-X 10.6, I think). It is an Intel-only OS, and that means all the new software like Aperture 3 and Adobe’s CS5 require it.
My problem? I still run a PowerPC-based G5.
Appholes in Mac, design or photog threads all scream that I must not be “serious” if I don’t replace hardware every three years… Fuck You.
My six-year-old G5 works as well as the day I bought it, and there is absolutely no reason to arbitrarily replace it. The thing is built like a fucking tank and just works. The G3 I had before that ran fine for like 5-6 years until I bought the G5 and jumped to OS-X. It then ran alongside the G5 (to handle SCSI scanners, etc for another five until I gave all that stuff away before a move).
So boil this down…I’m complaining because my hardware works so fucking good and has lasted so long that it has aged out of the newest OS. But I can continue to use CS3 (still publishing industry standard) for the foreseeable future and when it’s time to replace my box, I can jump in the deep water with the newest software.
I just wish Apple would sell me Leopard (10.5) to replace my tiger (10.4) for a discount since it’s legacy software…
But, in the end, my problem is my equipment is TOO GOOD. I guess I don’t have much to complain about, do I?
Zuzu's Petals
Open question:
I eventually want to be able to do Word processing on my iPad. My sister says Pages sux.
Any suggestions? Bearing in mind I am extremely tech-challenged.
Joey Maloney
@arguingwithsignposts: What isn’t, these days? Don’t get me started about the misuse of software patents…
toujoursdan
Well, it even goes beyond software, as anyone who has tried to buy 3rd party accessories from non-Apple manufacturers for their iPods, only to find that Apple then issues an “update” that cripples the $35 accessory you just paid for.
There is a healthy community of iPod/iPhone/iPad “jailbreakers” for a reason.
I don’t like their culture. I think that if they became as big as Microsoft it would be disaster for innovation. I also think Google is a threat to privacy and as someone who has twice had to clean up the mess left by identity thieves using my information, this matters to me. They’re both evil.
Tommy
@Zuzu’s Petals: Well I have not used Pages on an iPad, but I am hard pressed to determine why anybody would tell you Pages sucks.
I find the Apple iWork suite of products to be pretty darn good. IMHO all the applications in it, including Pages do what they are supposed to do. Do they do another thousand other things like the Office suite, nope. But if you just want to write Pages is perfect IMHO. Maybe even better if you are a little tech challenged.
arguingwithsignposts
@Joey Maloney:
Or patents in general, no? I’m with you on that. I was just commenting because Google announced a new video codec this week, which Apple and somebody else are not pleased with.
Mr Furious
@Zuzu’s Petals: My sister says Pages sux.
And Word doesn’t? I was done paying for Microsoft garbage years ago. Thankfully Apple always supplies an alternative such as TextEdit, and now, I presume, Pages, that has worked just fine for me.
Admittedly, I’m an art director so my mileage may vary, but in that role I have to interface with text files all the time, and between Apple and Google docs, I’ve done just fine without Office on my home machine.
MikeJ
@toujoursdan:
Those fools. The great and powerful Jobs has decided what will be best for you. How dare anyone want to think differently?
Tommy
@Mr Furious: You have noted a huge problem IMHO. Every Mac I’ve had, including the SE I got in 1987 still works.* In fact, that is a thing I used to mention to folks to justify the higher cost vs. a PC. But often after 3-4 years they couldn’t run the most current OS, therefore the most current applications. I feel your pain :)!
* I have it mounted under a cabinet in my kitchen running Hypercard (a note card program) that includes recipes.
El Cruzado
@Mr Furious: Yeah, Apple won’t give you more than 5 years before leaving you in the dust, unless you’re MS or Adobe (and I’m sure they’re mightily pissed off at them for forcing them to keep Carbon around for as long as they have).
And yeah, those G5s were built like tanks (the mac pros too). On the good side, any laptop you could get from them today would be faster than that G5. Trust me I’ve worked with both side by side.
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Mac pages of iPad pages? Mac pages is actually pretty nice (I’d rather use it over Word for sure these days). iPad pages has potential but is clearly a 1.0 that needs more work.
Also about H.264, the patents are held in a pool and are licensed out at a fixed price (forgot what it was, but small peanuts to anyone but guys in garages doing open source). Far from an ideal situation, but as open as it’s going to get up until the patents expire. Not a fan of software patents myself but some of the stuff in there is the kind of obscure algorithms and procedures that kinda-sorta makes sense to allow to patent. They seem to look another way towards open source implementations too.
Brian J
@me:
I don’t mean to sound like an asshole here, so forgive me if I do, but why don’t they just write it for Apple in the first place, if what they are doing is so dependent on the terrain where Apple dictates everything? Or why don’t they just not write for Apple at all?
John Harrold
@Mr Furious: I’m running Aperture 3 on 10.5.8 just fine. This information isn’t that hard to find :)
http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs/#sys-reqs
I don’t believe Aperture 3 will run on a PPC mac and I guess that’s the rub — I still have a G4 laptop and I use it as a jukebox. But given what it does, I don’t think your experience would be that good on a G5 even if Aperture did work on it.
Adrienne
I’d argue that Apple’s rules — for the most part — are not narcissistic, but NECESSARY in order to maintain the stability of their system and move forward w/ their goal of seamless integration. Apple is a classic vertical integrator working w/ a business model updated for the modern technological landscape. They make the machines, they develop the operating systems to work seamlessly w/ each type machine, and they “centralize” development for any software which seeks to operate on their systems to ensure quality control, integration, and stability among and btw 1) the devices 2) the operating systems and 3) other software developed for their platform. The result is an amazingly consistent, predictable, and above all else DEPENDABLE line of products. And if for any reason an Apple product ceases to be consistent, predictable or dependable, it’s easy for them to recognize and diagnose what went wrong, when, and why.
Brian J
@El Cruzado:
It’s amazing how well the Apple laptops hold their value. I decided to buy a laptop for myself during the fall of 2008, so after looking around, I tried to go with a used one. I searched for a long time to try find something based on the Intel chips that wasn’t as expensive as a new Macbook. I ended up paying slightly less for one, but then I had to go out and buy the newest OS, which either pulled me even with the price for a new OS or put me slightly over it.
If and when I buy a laptop for law school in a couple of months, I will just get a new one. I learned my lesson the first time.
Corner Stone
@Corpsicle:
If they didn’t post the obvious Troll FP once in a while then no one would come here.
mogden
Your premise is totally mistaken. Both of these companies are enormous forces for good.
John Harrold
Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there is a distinction here that’s being lost. Flash includes both interactive interface design and video. HTML5+Javascript is meant to provide the means to design interfaces and H.264 is (I believe) is just one way to deliver video. A developer could use the HTML5+Javascript to design an interface to deliver any type of streaming video (ogg for example).
rreay
@Joey Maloney:
And at the time they were the only DRM’d music solution that allowed you to burn the music to an unprotected, bog-standard audio CD.
Dervin
@Raznor: It was a bit more complicated. Palm was identifying itself as a ipod to itunes, this is a violation of the USB Standards that you have to follow if you want to make a USB compatible device. And the USB Standards board shot Palm down. Which is why your Pre won’t sync with itunes anymore.
From what I understand, there is an developer kit for Itunes but the manufacture would have to pay apple a licensing fee. So, why bother – there are other music managers out there, who’ll pay you to direct your customers to their service.
Apple is all about the margins, market share is second.
If Apple thought they could make more money by opening up itunes to everybody, they would do it in a heartbeat. My guess is they ran the models and figured they would lose more in iPod sales, than what they would make up at the itunes store. Maybe if somebody creates a true ipod killer*, that would change Apple’s itune (HA!).
*We’ve been waiting for 8 years now.
me
@Brian J: Note I said “new” rules. Google “apple section 3.3.1”.
Corpsicle
@Corner Stone: Are you aware that MISTERMIX’s whole thing about music being proprietary is a complete lie?
MikeJ
@Corpsicle: Not a lie, just out of date. He’s probably like me. Knew that the itunes store was a jail and never used it, even after they opened up a little.
But don’t read the terms of the itunes album sdk if you want to continue believing in the openness of Apple.
burnspbesq
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Your sister is right about Pages on the ipad. It’s essentially useless for serious professional work. For me (a lawyer who works collaboratively with people all over the place), the failure to implement revision mode is a mortal sin. I’m trying to be patient, and the new HP sub-notebook that the firm recently gave me is pretty good, but still …
Suggestions? Write emails and hope someone at Apple gives a shit.
KCinDC
@Adrienne, if the rules are so NECESSARY, why don’t they apply just as well to Apple computers as to iPhone and iPad? Somehow the user experience on the MacBook seems to be satisfactory without having Apple controlling exactly what you can install on it and excluding apps for ridiculous reasons (like that political cartoons make fun of politicians, or apps that allow finding things on web “contain pornography” even though same argument would apply to Safari).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Once more with the xkcd reference.
Corpsicle
@MikeJ: I don’t blame you. I didn’t buy anything until they went DRM free. I just get irritated when people spew bullshit. And particularly irritated when several posts point out that it is bullshit, but MISTERMIX will not acknowledge it and correct his post. We all make mistakes, but to refuse to admit it is an act of douchebaggery.
Corpsicle
@KCinDC: The answer to that is simple. On the iPhone and iPad Apple runs the App store, and makes money off the apps. They have made a corporate decision not to actively make money off porn. Apps for a MacBook, on the other hand, have nothing to do with Apple.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corpsicle:
Are all songs DRM free now? At one point, I know you had to pay extra to get the “unlocked” version. Haven’t bought any songs in a while.
ETA: Corpsicle, what’s the profit-share on an app, anyway? 50/50, 60/40?
Mr Furious
@Corpsicle: Yes, the money for apple is on the back end. Also, the limitation on the smaller portables (battery, space, simplified OS) make a tighter leash advantageous for making sure the devices operate at peak.
John Harrold
@KCinDC: The iPhone and iPad are platforms that are more constrained in terms of processing power and battery life. I use my laptop at work and home, but most of the time it’s plugged into the wall. So if firefox goes crazy running some flash thing in the background it’s not likely to impact me much since I have a bunch of processing power and I’m plugged into the wall. If I have an iPhone and some flash thing takes off in the background all I’m going to see as a user is that the phone is getting slower and the battery time sucks.
Corpsicle
@arguingwithsignposts: Yes, all music is DRM free now. As to the app Profit sharing, I don’t know.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corpsicle: good to know. i was using e-music for a while because of the drm, but i’m glad the tide has turned against drm.
Martin
Well, as a very long time Apple user/watcher and knower of many employees there, I think your basic thesis is slightly wrong:
That’s not their business model. It sometimes comes out that way due to circumstances, but that’s not the model. The basic Apple model is that they control their own destiny.
When the iPod came out, the only online music you could buy was WMA and Microsofts DRM didn’t work on Macs. Microsoft claimed that the DRM layer couldn’t be ported to the Mac, and therefore there was no way that digital music as it was sold at the time could ever make it onto the iPod. When the iPod and iTunes came out, Apple was one of the first hardware makers to ship CD ripping software to users and the music industry freaked out on them, but Apple held tight. Apple was the first major player to enable you to put *your* music on your devices and cut out the DRM layer. Apple held tight against the music industry with their almost imperceptible ‘Don’t steal music.’ disclaimer.
Apple couldn’t bring Microsoft to the Mac or iPod to get digital music sales going, so Steve used his media company insider status (Pixar CEO) to get the music companies to agree to sell music online in a big way. He convinced them to sell individual tracks (nobody had done this) and he convinced *all* of them to go in at once. The format Apple picked was AAC which was a semi-open standard. It was more open than MP3 and *way* more open than WMA. Ogg vorbis wasn’t even an option back then. The music industry was already well outside their comfort zone with single track sales, they weren’t going to sell unencumbered music, so Apple introduced Fairplay as the DRM wrapper to make the deal possible.
Apple never stopped allowing you to rip your CDs, they didn’t stop you from using straight MP3s or AACs. Apple steadily pushed the labels to open up Fairplay – they expanded the number of computers you could copy and use the music on, and they never checked the DRM on devices so you could use what you bought on unlimited number of devices. It would work equally on Mac and Windows. The alternative to this model would have been WMA DRM, which would have been no less unencumbered but wouldn’t have run on Macs, iPods, or any platform MS didn’t want it on. It would have been no more open than Apple’s. Further, Apple allowed you to re-encode your Fairplay music if you so wished. They didn’t try terribly hard for you to get it into a format you wanted.
Ultimately, Apple convinced the labels to drop the DRM around the same time Amazon did, so now you can buy your music unencumbered from iTMS in an open AAC format that any device manufacturer can use just by getting a license from MPEG-LA.
What Apple did here was make sure that no other company was in a position to turn off the tap. MS couldn’t and Fraunhofer couldn’t, and MPEG-LA being a consortium of patent holders (which Apple is a part of) meant that Apple had some ability to make sure that MPEG-LA wouldn’t turn any manufacturer away. Apple and Apple customers were protected.
It looks like Apple is trying to lock in customers, but there’s so many things that Apple did to open that door that I don’t think you can claim that was their intent. Why strip DRM if they wanted to lock you in? Why allow re-encoding? Why allow any MP3 or DRM-less AAC on the iPod? I’ve had iPods since the 2nd generation of them and I have no DRMed music at all.
The iBooks is the same scenario. Apple lets you use regular unencumbered ePub books and the store just wraps ePub in Fairplay (among other things, the Fairplay arrangement doesn’t require publishers of music, books, video, etc. to do *anything* – it’s wrapped when they upload, so publishers love the technical handling of the format) and again, Apple isn’t going to cede control of the book format to Amazon’s AZW, nor will they sole-support .mobi because Amazon owns .mobi. Nobody owns ePub, nobody can take Apple’s ability sell books away from Apple or Apple customers. And note, Apple hasn’t stopped Amazon from publishing their Kindle app for iPhone or iPad. Apple’s not trying to lock you in, they’re just trying to make sure nobody else can lock you out, and they’ve made it so that if you want to avoid all the DRM, you can. Just get plain ePub files and go to town – nobody is stopping you.
Flash is precisely the same situation, but that’s even more clear to understand. Adobe is accusing Apple of blocking Flash for various nefarious reasons, but the truth of the matter is Flash doesn’t run on any mobile platform anywhere. How can Apple rely on a technology that doesn’t even exist in that space? Let’s say Apple wanted to encourage developers to use Flash and encourage it’s presence on the iPhone. Where is Flash now? Adobe is struggling to get it out of their own labs. When Apple ships a new iPhone with a new screen size, and some new APIs for handling background apps, how long will it take Adobe to update Flash to support it? The first Android phone was announced almost 2 years ago and Flash still doesn’t work there.
Apple has been screwed by dependencies on 3rd parties in the past – from CPU manufacturers to critical software layers (Acrobat on the Mac is ludicrously bad, not much better on Windows, MS killed IE for the Mac) to key compiler vendors (Metrowerks) to media layer vendors (Microsoft, Real). Apple barely survived as a company because those key players were constantly pulling support for the minority platform, ensuring that it remained the minority platform.
So, what has Apple done about that? They switched from PPC to Intel because there were more options in the Intel space (AMD) than there were in the PPC space where desktop CPU development was dying. For the iPhone and iPad, Apple uses ARM chips. ARM is a patent pool not too unlike MPEG-LA, which Apple is a partner in, so Apple is guaranteed access to the platform, and Apple is now making their own CPUs rather than rely on Qualcomm or Motorola. They control their destiny here. They control the media layer by relying on H.264 and AAC rather than any format controlled by another company. They have their own browser platform from which they’re driving new web standards (open sourced). They have their own compilers (open sourced). There is almost nothing in the iPod/iPad platform that is technologically constrained by anyone other than Apple, and they’re not going to let anyone wedge their way into being able to throttle access to the platform, which is what Adobe wants to do – they want developers to be dependent on *their* tools rather than Apple’s. It’s not a noble effort to free you from Apple’s shackles, they just want you to add Adobe’s shackles to Apple’s. There’s nothing noble about their position at all. Apple doesn’t care if your software runs on other platforms, but they aren’t going to give anyone the ability to tell tens of thousands of developers ‘sorry, you can’t update your iPhone apps to the new version of iPhone because we’re only updating our development environment for Android now’. How likely is that? Well, as any Freehand user knows, it just requires someone (like Google) write a big enough check to Adobe, and now Apple, their developers, and their users are fucked by some company outside of Apple’s control. Never again.
Sure, Apple controls the app store, and I’ll be the first to admit that they’ve screwed up a fair bit of that experience, but Apple’s goal here is different from what people make it to be. The app store ensures that viruses, malware, spyware, and other malicious apps don’t make it onto the iPhone/iPad platform. The only ones that have so far have done so on jailbroken phones (ones that have stripped Apple’s security controls off of them). Android phones have already had a number of these problems develop. Apple is trying to build a platform where people have less freedom to do anything, but where there is less freedom for bad things to happen. Finding, buying, installing an app on an iPhone is brutally simple, and SAFE. You don’t have to worry about credit card transactions going bad. You don’t have to worry about getting spyware. You don’t have to worry about whether you can run the installer or if there will be software conflicts, or whatever. It’s the most bulletproof software experience that exists at the moment. That is WAY more important to WAY more people than the freedom to install whatever they want – honestly, it’s a very similar parallel to the Rand Paul argument that we’re all being critical of – the benefits that the CRA bring far outweigh the loss of freedom for store owners to discriminate. And you can levy whatever ideological arguments you want about being able to install spyware on your iPhone, but 99.9% of the iPhone users don’t care – they’re happy to give up that freedom for the security the model brings.
In exchange for that Apple offers developers to do web apps. It should be noted that initially Apple *only* offered developers web apps, and developers were unhappy with this. Web apps were based on open standards, would work on any phone (including Android, etc.) and were completely out of Apple’s control to distribute. Any developer tool would work, and you could put any content there you wanted. It was the most open app marketplace imaginable, and it still exists for the iPhone. Google Voice app for iPhone is a web app. Apple and AT&T can’t block it, they can’t tell Google what tools to use to develop it, etc. What’s more, Apple has been leading the charge on getting HTML5 ratified which would make these apps more and more functional, more and more like regular iPhone apps, all from an open standards body, using tools that most likely Adobe will make the best of breed of, *and* Apple is providing the best codebase out there to support these apps, which Google currently relies on for Android. The only reason that Google could show off that awesome Chrome 2.2 demo that smoked the iPad is because they were using software that Apple’s engineers wrote. Apple isn’t trying to lock anyone in here. They’ve given two paths – wide open and free, or controlled, through our store, but nobody gets nasty shit in. That’s it. Don’t like the lock-in, write only web apps, use only web apps. Easy.
I’ve got nothing against Google. They’re doing very good stuff out there and Chrome, Chromium and Android are actually helping Apple move their platform forward. Adobe is a good company but is really being a dishonest dick about the whole Flash scenario. And the Apple haters, well, just don’t buy the stuff, I guess. It’s not that hard since their marketshare even in phones is under 5%. Apple is just looking out for themselves – they’ve gotten fucked over so many times, it’s really a miracle they still exist.
Sorry for the length, but Apple really is rather poorly understood because nobody bothered to look at why they were stuck in the situation they were in for so long, and now are suddenly shocked by the hard line they are taking in certain areas.
Oh, the last partner Apple needs to lose is AT&T. It’s a huge problem for Apple to tackle, but my money is that Apple will launch (or become a MVNO) for a data-only (using VOIP for voice) 4G national network so they can get out from under AT&Ts idiotic policies. You read it here first.
KCinDC
@Corpsicle, Adrienne’s claim was that the app store control is about keeping the user experience good (not having bad apps), not about profits. My point is that having a more open approach to apps hasn’t damaged the MacBook user experience.
As for porn, I’m not talking about the exclusion of actual porn apps. I’m talking about excluding things like reader apps that don’t contain porn but could be used for finding porn on the web. Safari can be used to look at porn, but that doesn’t make it a porn app.
On DRM, a while back I tried to find out whether iTunes was completely DRM-free now, but all I could find were a bunch of articles about the big announcement where Apple made *some* songs available DRM-free for a 30% markup. It’s great if things are different now, but if people don’t know that it’s not their fault if Apple is keeping the change secret. If iTunes DRM is completely gone, then why is there still all this stuff about authorizing and deauthorizing your devices?
Speothos
I wonder how many out there are like me? I’m a GoogleBot that just bought a Macbook Pro. I L-O-V-E my Droid, work out of gmail and google docs & sites, rely on Google Map and seemingly tens of other Google tools, and smile when I hear of things in development like GoogleTV.
But Windows was driving my up the friggin wall. I bought my MBP, kept the Dell for stats and GIS, and no longer curse as much. And now I feel like half a Jobsbot, telling people how happy I am with my Apple computer and that they should convert too. Just hope that in the coming war, I don’t get squeezed by my hardware not playing nice together. If it’s a bother, I’ll probably sell the Mac and seek a Google OS laptop. For a lot of the reasons already listed above.
matoko_chan
mistermix, its just an evolved business model.
for manymany moons, microsoft just stole apple genius-innovation UI and ported it to their crappy cheaper buggy hardware.
That is the whole reason Geek Squad exists, to fix PCs.
Apple almost went belly-up, before they figgered out how to choke off the microsoft idea-rustlers.
Its survival.
And its kinda economically elitist.
If you are an average consumer and you can afford appletech, you buy appletech.
Otherwise you call the Geek Squad….a lot.
now, non-average consumers, teh tech-savvy, hard core gamers, musicians, developers, etc. (the techno-l33t), can buy either.
Like Trent Reznor was all appletech.
Because they are their own Geek Squad.
:)
Andrew
Apple’s music is proprietary. They sell music in AAC which is just as patent encumbered as h.264 is. It is open in the fact that the algorithms have been published. But implementing AAC does require licensing. MP3 does as well, but it is closer to expiring and more widely supported. Of course, we could just all use Vorbis and be happy.
They also support Apple Lossless, which nothing else supports. I prefer to keep my music uncompressed. FLAC is ideal for that, but Apple will not support FLAC. They had to design their own proprietary system that gives the user no benefits over FLAC.
Sentient Puddle
Um, is it just me, or does it seem like the only part of the Apple vs. Google premise that really works as a sort of apples to other fruit comparison is the phone OS?
Seems to me that past that, seems like the only thing this post was good for was to poke the rubes with a sharp stick, and start another tech freakout war.
Mike
This does seem to be turning into an Apple bashing comment thread, so I’ll take a crack at bashing Google a little bit. For a company whose motto is “don’t be evil,” they have done a couple of pretty blatantly “evil” things. My jaw dropped when I heard about their secret library scanning project (“scan as many books as we can before anyone finds out and sues us!”). I can’t believe they could find a single lawyer who could tell them with a straight face that there was anything remotely legal about what they did (I’m an IP lawyer and if my client proposed what they did and went ahead after hearing my objections, I would have quit – it’s that over the top wrong). The WiFi snooping scandal is about 10 times worse (although arguably less blatantly illegal). It seems like their motto ought to be “do whatever the hell we want and beg for forgiveness if we get caught.” To me, that’s pretty evil.
matoko_chan
@Martin: wallah, i totally agree.
guess which mecha Martin and I use?
lol.
Corner Stone
@Corpsicle:
I am aware of all internet traditions.
And specifically, when I see a post like this from MM or DougJ I am aware it’s pure troll. The same essential thesis could be posted in 3 or 4 ways without inviting the kind of one-upmanship vitriol that this is/will. MM (that’s mistermix) is clearly informed enough on this topic to present it that way if he chose. Since he did not, ISTM this post is serving its purpose.
And I for one am fine with that, as it’s a twofer for me. I learn interesting info and vitriol is my plasma.
scav
Really folks, you’re looking for white hat good guys in any of this lot?
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts: Apple’s split on apps is 70/30 (Apple keeps 30). For their new ad platform it’s higher – 60/40 (Apple keeps 40).
Apple makes no money on music, a little bit on movies/tv. They’ll probably make similar on books. It’s in the 10s of millions per year, which is at this point a rounding error for Apple. I think they’d be happy to run all of these as break-even, but the content providers are setting uniform prices and Apple doesn’t want to go with variable margins (negotiating them just costs them staff and legal time compared to the one-size-fits-all take-it-or-leave-it license they use now) considering that they have indie labels, free content (that Apple still incurs a cost to host, like iTune U, etc.) and so on. Basically, it’s not worth the effort to change.
Apps Apple does make money off of, but the cost of running the store is substantial because of the review process. I know that lots of people think that part is evil (see my wall of text above) but no retail store in the country sells product without review, and Apple having the highest rated and most profitable retail business in the nation isn’t about to change a winning formula just because it’s online. Seriously, the 10,000 square foot 5th avenue Apple store in NYC has sales comparable to every Starbucks east of the Mississippi. Apple runs the best retail operation in the country at the moment. But at the end of the day Apple turns a not shabby profit off the App store – it’s low for Apple, but I don’t think they would be eager to get rid of that, unlike whatever they earn off of media.
Apple’s big money will be off of iAd. It won’t be Google dollars, but it’ll be big dollars. Probably between $1-2B per year in profits. It’s likely that iAd will wipe out a decent bit of the App store revenues because Apple is essentially giving developers the option to give apps out free and use iAd (most developers will have a no-ad paid version, and a free ad supported version) and the free ad-supported stuff will leave Apple turning a loss on that app through the App store.
Corner Stone
@Mike:
If you’re referring to them snooping in-the-clear WiFi networks, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
John Harrold
@KCinDC: Secrets indeed. I don’t know what google tells you, but when I search for
itunes store drm
This is the first link that is returned:
iTunes Store goes DRM-free
matoko_chan
@Martin:
well…..another reason is the dual-core heat-sink problem for lap-tops.
PPC cores ran fast but were really hot.
cleek
MacWorld: about iTunes and DRM.
Brachiator
Oh hell yes!
And for what it’s worth, I’ve known and worked with some googlers. Most of them love what they do and (so far) work in a very encouraging environment. I once overheard one guy say “I want to work here until the day I die.”
Companies change, work environments change, and google will undoubtedly change. But for now, they got their mojo working.
I just don’t give a rat’s ass about developers. I just don’t.
Apple’s strategy is risky. Years and years ago, IBM tried to force a proprietary bus, micro-channel architecture, on the industry. Nobody bit and because IBM’s PCs were not otherwise better than anybody else’s stuff, in the long run it didn’t matter.
For now, Apple makes stuff that people want. They make it fun and easy to use. Let me repeat. They make it fun and easy to use.
I have known other programmers and developers who believe that their job is to show off how hot they are and to make customers jump through hoops to prove that they are worthy enough to use their products.
Ultimately, companies succeed when they make stuff that internalizes the sentiments of this Fats Waller tune: Find out what they like and how they like it, and give it to ’em just that way.
Martin
@KCinDC:
Actually, it has, you just don’t see it.
About 80% of app sales for desktop computers (excluding games) takes place within 3 months of purchase. There is something about the user experience of desktop computer that turns users off of adding or updating functionality. Apple believes that the anxiety around updating the OS, installing new OS versions, updating apps (using whichever of 100 different mechanisms they use), and running installers, with the conflicts/viruses/spyware/what-the-fuck-do-I-do-if-something-breaks turns the overwhelming number of computer users to treat them like appliances. Get it home, get it working, and then don’t fucking touch it, lest we break it.
Apple has made some incremental improvements to that whole experience, but I don’t think it’s done much to allay the fears of most of the user base, especially the new customers switching from Windows. The iPhone/iPad/App store setup is designed to be a fundamental change in approach. Comparing buying and maintaining an iPhone app to a Mac app is like day and night. The OS update process and the iTunes tethering is still tied to the old model, so they aren’t completely free of it, but the iPad will break that in a future version.
What Apple has seen is that users are vastly more likely to keep buying apps long after they get their device. They attribute that to a completely different set of expectations on the part of the user – they assume that an app purchase/update will be easy and safe and reliable on the iPhone/iPad, they still assume that a similar activity on the Mac will be painful and unreliable.
Martin
@scav: Which is a good point. These are companies. All companies look out for themselves. That’s their job. They only look out for you as an effort to look out for themselves.
toujoursdan
Well, it’s not just porn apps that have been rejected by Apple. There have been apps that add new functionality that have been rejected like the Wi-Fi Sync:: Wi-Fi Sync iPhone App Rejected by Apple, Heads to Cydia
In this case, the developed complied with the rules. I suspect that this was still rejected because it probably competes with something Apple is developing.
(BTW, you have been able to sync Zunes since they came out.)
The same has happened with apps that added Xvid, DivX, etc. and other codecs to the iPod as well.
Martin
@matoko_chan: But that wasn’t a fundamental flaw of PPC. It was a byproduct of the fact that the market for desktop PPC chips was so small that nobody was willing to invest the kind of money needed to make them competitive, and customers wouldn’t have paid the price to make them competitive.
There were lots of reasons for the switch, but Jobs set that in motion pretty much the day he returned to the CEO duty. It was a very long term plan, and not much of a surprise to some of us.
me
Only half true, and will be entirely untrue when Android 2.2 ships very soon.
This isn’t a defense of section 3.3.1 is it? If it is, it’s just so wrong.
General Egail Tarian Stuck
Broadcasing from the library toombs, so not much time. I and Charlie are doing fine. Charlie wishes to send out Memorial Day wish to the coward pet smearing Kidney Stone and fuckhead. He wishes you a happy Memorial Day and will be by to piss on yer miserable carcasses. And also to. Glenbot John Cole, who once said pets were off limits but said nothing to these asshats, his silence spoke volumes. Only Annie and Anne Laurie could be bothered to speak up for Charlie. Who is a non combatant and only a sweet doggie. Folks who don’t usually enter the pet miliew here at BJ are excluded. But why didn’t the rest of you say somethng?
I will return to blogging in the fall to hopefully prevent the teatard right and their idiot compatriates. the pig ignorant tea tard left from turning the government back over to the republicans. Any who wish to join me, know where my blog is. No stunning hypocrisy with that Glenbot Cole.
Lee
That is a complete myth. They are no more stable than any of their competitors. They just have a completely different set of problems.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Broadcasing from the library toombs, so not much time. I and Charlie are doing fine. Charlie wishes to send out Memorial Day wish to the coward pet smearing Kidney Stone and fuckhead. He wishes you a happy Memorial Day and will be by to piss on yer miserable carcasses. And also to. Glenbot John Cole, who once said pets were off limits but said nothing to these asshats, his silence spoke volumes. Only Annie and Anne Laurie could be bothered to speak up for Charlie. Who is a non combatant and only a sweet doggie. Folks who don’t usually enter the pet miliew here at BJ are excluded. But why didn’t the rest of you say somethng?
I will return to blogging in the fall to hopefully prevent the teatard right and their idiot compatriates. the pig ignorant tea tard left from turning the government back over to the republicans. Any who wish to join me, know where my blog is. No stunning hypocrisy with that Glenbot Cole.
Martin
@KCinDC: Oh, the reason you still need to authorize and de-authorize is that there is still a LOT of DRM encumbered stuff out there and that’s still necessary to keep from breaking that stuff. At the device level, it is still used for video and books and apps. (Fairplay can wrap anything including apps.)
Cervantes
@Zuzu’s Petals: My sister says Pages sux. Any suggestions?
Er … get a new sister?
Martin
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Have a good one out there, Stuck. Keep us updated, and Charlie pics as the libraries permit.
Mike
@Corner Stone:
Then why did they hide what they were doing? And then agree to wipe all the data? Doesn’t sound to me like they thought it was perfectly ok.
In the US, what they did was arguably legal, but pretty sleazy. In Europe, I’m fairly certain what they did was actually illegal (in addition to being sleazy), although I’m not an EU lawyer and I’m sure the laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Computers are appliances. Some developers don’t understand that.
When I pick up a pencil, I just start writing. Nobody in his or her right mind would demand that I download an update before I could start writing. And if I waited for an update and then found that the pencil had been “enhanced” without my knowledge and now wrote in blue ink, I would immediately throw it in the trash.
You nailed it.
I don’t own either an iPhone or an iPad, so I don’t have a dog in this particular hunt. But I see co-workers with iPhones get apps and immediately use them to do whatever it is they need to do. Which is the whole freakin’ point.
Martin
@me:
And what will the impact of Flash be on the platform? Google is already deflecting user complaints about battery life on 3rd party and background apps. Users are unhappy. That’s Google’s problem now, and they can’t do shit about it except pass the buck. That’s a shitty situation to be put in.
And the iPhone has been out for 3 years. Android for 2. And Flash is still ‘soon’. And this is Apple’s fault? How many Android phones can upgrade to 2.2? Just the Nexus One? How will this help users? You can’t see that users are going to get a really fucking bad experience here for the sake of developers ideological desires?
And it is a defense of 3.3.1. I’m guessing you were never a Metrowerks developer, were you? If not, you probably have no idea how close Metrowerks came to killing Apple when they were bought by Motorola.
Zuzu's Petals
@Mr Furious: @El Cruzado: @burnspbesq:
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I’m looking for something for my iPad.
Thankfully I don’t need anything for professional work, just the usual word processing needs. Have always used MS Word because that’s what they had at work and I wanted my home computer to be compatible. I’m now retired, but my desktop still has Windows/Word. I realize Pages is probably compatible, it’s just that it doesn’t get rave reviews (except for Cruzado).
Thought there might be some sort of open-source Word I could download for iPad, but maybe it’s too new. Plus, as I say I’m pretty tech-challenged.
Guessing I’m going to have the same problem trying to work with Excel documents, etc.
existenz
This is a pretty ridiculous analysis, mistermix. As far as I know iTunes sells music that plays on anything now.
Also, the process of importing my email inbox from Gmail to a different service is probably more difficult than moving my music library from iTunes to Songbird or some other program.
Moving Apps on the iPhone to a different phone would be impossible, but that’s because the operation systems are totally different. I can’t move Android Apps to phones that don’t run Android either.
I also would argue that Google is principally involved in convenience for their users (to keep them locked in) while Apple is principally concerned with ease of use and design of their software. If Apple had the same proprietary scheme and their software was a pain to use, they’d have gone out of business 20 years ago. So no, a one-time lock-in is not their primary goal, because people can switch phones and computers fairly easily these days if they get fed up.
burnspbesq
@Andrew:
With all due respect, BFD. FLAC vs. AIFF is a non-issue for everyone except hard-core Apple-haters. There’s a wonderful piece of free software called Max that does bit-perfect transcoding at any bit depth up to 32. When I buy high-resolution FLAC files from Linn Records or HDTracks, they go straight into Max which automatically exports the resulting AIFF files to iTunes, including metadata and album art if they are present in the original FLAC file. And when I rip vinyl using Audacity, I just output 96/24 AIFF files.
There is no there there.
Martin
@Mike: It was clearly a mistake and not intentional. There are good things to be critical of Google of, but that was so patently illegal that there’s no way they did it on purpose. Call them careless here, but I wouldn’t go further than that.
Bruce Baugh
Meanwhile, in reality, Apple spends a lot of money and assigns a lot of people on open-source projects, and puts quite a bit more than any bare-bones reading of the GPL (and other relevant open-source licenses) would require out into the commons. As for Flash, it’s simple. As John Gruber (whose blog at Daring Fireball is fascinating reading if you’re interested in Macs and/or mobile computing and/or Web development) reports, Flash is responsible for more crashes than any other source of trouble on Macs. More than anything else inventoried in bug and crash reports. The list starts with Flash. And one of the things Apple really likes is earning a reputation for reliable computing. They jumped on alternatives the moment they were there, not out of a sinister desire for control, but out of concern for maintaining a reputation earned by good performance that can’t be maintained as well as they’d like as long as Flash is an element in the mix.
This isn’t to say that everything Apple does makes good sense for customers. Gruber, linked to above, does the best actual journalism I know of about the App Store’s many failings and weaknesses, for starters. But there’s room for a balanced assessment, taking into account the whole picture, without so much stupid and/or ignorant crap-flinging as in this post.
Billy K
mistermix, how can I or anyone take your argument seriously if it’s strewn with clearly obvious inaccuracies?
iTunes was sold with DRM at the insistence of the record companies. It is no longer. you can play your iTunes songs on any device that supports AAC (MP4). And before someone says it: sorry they didn’t choose to sell their music in the inferior MP3 format. They backed the next generation that was created by Dolby Labs and Sony. AAC/MP4 is not an Apple format, nor is it proprietary.
iBooks are sold in the standardized ePub format, and are wrapped with DRM if the specific publisher insistse (most do). And you can buy books from Amazon or anywhere else and read them on your iPad/iPhone.
Adobe STILL hasn’t shipped a version that can run on a phone. They’ve had plenty of time and can’t do it. Because Flash sucks. It kills your battery and crashes the OS. And Apple is supposed to allow this on their new platform… why? To play online flash games?
I bet you believe Macs can’t right click, too.
Corner Stone
@Mike: I don’t mean Google per se, I mean the actual end result. People who do not encrypt their traffic have no business whining about who intercepts it or how it is used. IMO.
existenz
Why is Flash so crash prone? Bad design?
Is Adobe ever going to release a new Flash that doesn’t have these problems?
Mr Furious
@Brachiator: Yup. It all just fucking works. My parents are online enjoying the modern world and actually doing stuff with their digital photos and viewing mine, etc all thanks to the simplicity that is their iMac.
My sister who is a semi-pro photographer made the foolish decision to go PC because she got a deal via her husband and has regretted it ever since.
Bruce Baugh
@burnspbesq: Hey, thank you for the tip about Max. I was wondering how to handle a few FLACs a friend gave me; now I know!
Mike
@Corner Stone:
In the US, that’s right. In the EU, not so much . . . In any event, just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should :-)
and @ Martin:
Yes, but . . . the book scanning project was clearly illegal (no gray area here – this was a calculated project to engage in wholesale copyright infringement), so I’m a little less inclined to think they did the wifi snoops “by mistake.” It’s more consistent with their track record of “do it and beg for forgiveness later.”
Mr Furious
@Zuzu’s Petals: Again, I can’t speak for iPad usability, but via my gmail, google apps allows me to open and work in Excel spread sheets from work while at home now too. All online. I don’t have any Microsoft stuff on my machine at all.
Again, I don’t have to spend time in or really rely on Word or Excel files, just be able to access them for text or budgets etc.
If I were an editor or someone that used Excel regularly for some purpose, I would probably have reluctantly bit the bullet and bought another copy of Office for Mac at some point.
Billy K
@Andrew:
It was developed by the same people who developed MP3. It’s the new version. It doesn’t belong to Apple.
FLAC is a compression scheme, dude, so you’re not making much sense. It may be lossless, but it’s still compression. And if you bothered to read up on it, Apple declined to support FLAC (and OGG) because of patent issues. Not some shadowy mind control scheme… they just didn’t want to get locked into some format that was susceptible to patent trolls.
Martin
@Brachiator:
Well, for <5% of the users out there, computers are the development platform, and they really need to have that freedom and openness, but as the computer market expanded beyond this group, there was never a differentiation between what the pros need and what the end users need. Everyone is using precisely the same stuff. That's turned into a really shitty deal for the vast majority of end users. Neither Apple nor Microsoft were either able or willing to change that. The iPad is that effort out of Apple and Apple is trying to keep everyone on the plot. Apple’s vision is rather clearly to me for the iPad (after it’s matured) to supercede the majority of Mac purchases. It’s got a long way to go to fill that space, but the foundation has now been laid. I think Microsoft had a similar vision with the Xbox for gamer/media users, but I don’t know MSs intentions nearly as well.
It should also be made clear that Apple thinks 3rd party developers are lazy and WAY too eager to cut corners. And, truthfully, 95% of them are. Apple is preventing a lot of that from taking place on the iPhone/iPad, much to the dismay of many of the developers. Funny how once they start making shitloads of money they get over it, but hey…
me
@Martin: I don’t know which devices Android 2.2 will work on, but that’s beside the point which was your statement that there was no Flash on any phones. As for Metrowerks, Apple has their own compiler now, so there’s no risk of them being completely shut out, but they now want to fuck over existing developers who chose to write their software in something other then Objective-C and that issue has fuck all to do with Adobe.
Billy K
@existenz:
Yes.
No.
SATSQ
burnspbesq
Add @ Andrew.
If you can hear any difference between a native AIFF file and a file that was transcoded from FLAC using Max, your ears are a lot better than mine. I don’t hear it. And my desktop audio system (Ayre QB-9 DAC, Ray Samuels Audio Raptor headphone amp, and Sennheiser HD-800 headphones) is ruthless at exposing problems with music files.
Bruce Baugh
@existenz: It’s a mix of things. Part of it is that there’s a push to get new features going, which means every version of Flash comes out with less debugging than the many fine folks – and there are a lot of them – working on it would want for themselves. A lot of it is version conflicts. Maintaining complete compatibility in details from one version to the next isn’t possible, and the huge majority of users are somewhere behind the current-ish version likely to be used by careless developers, who are the third problem. Even the best tools can be used badly by people sufficiently zealous about things other than reliability, so not all the stuff Adobe makes available to developers to do it right gets used, to put it mildly.
And it’s just a very big complicated kind of program doing very sophisticated things, which is always hard to compress down for (say) smart phone use.
burnspbesq
@Bruce Baugh:
Happy to help out.
Lettuce
“Apple is in business to sell hardware. They want me to buy one Apple device after another. To do so, they’re always trying to devise ways to lock me and developers to their device. They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software, and now they are creating a bookstore that sells books I can only read on their devices or with their software. They want developers to write software that runs only on their devices, so Flash, for example, is forbidden on the iPhone and iPad. They need to earn my trust once, then they’ll lock me in with their Apple-only media and software.
“Apple wants to be sure that it’s impossible for me to experience media on a non-Apple device. Google just wants me to experience it on a device where they can push an ad. Both are evil, Google is just the lesser.”
You are wrong about Apple,at least this wrong:
They don’t ” want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software”, although the software might make it easier… The music is just that, music, and you can hear it with anything.
And, ” They want developers to write software that runs only on their devices, so Flash, for example, is forbidden on the iPhone and iPad.” Also is ignorant of the cause of Flash being black-balled… Flash, which I use on me Linux and Windows computers (as well as on Mac) is CRAP, and on the iPhone and iPad it’s ludicrous crap.
It doesn’t work!
handy
If I wanted another one of these Mactard/Peecee flamefests I’d just go to Ars or slashdot.
Protip: Use whatever works for you.
Comrade Luke
@Martin:
How do you explain Apple blocking the Google Voice app from the App store?
I agree with everything you’ve said btw, including the prediction that they’ll someday become an MVNO. The Voice thing though…I don’t see the reason for that.
Comrade Luke
1. Pick a mail client: Outlook, Mail.app, whatever
2. Set up IMAP with your gmail acct (free)
3. Download your mail
4. Turn off IMAP gmail link in your mail client
5. Sign up for your new mail service and point it to your mail client
Just FYI, not picking a fight or anything.
am
@burnspbesq:
I’m not clear why you think that battery life is the limiting factor … Gmail can operate effectively in offline mode, and any other hosted app would probably intelligently cache content for a 1 time cost and then sync via rest or some other lightweight rpc mechanism as needed.
Right now it is a little ridiculous to have to become proficient in Objective C and/or iCode and then go through the relatively onerous app review process to get listed in a site with 10,000 other competitors targeting only 10% of the population (thought admittedly a much higher percentage of prospective customers), all for an application limited to a few devices.
Granted, it’s good for Apple. They control their ecosystem and have great revenue sharing leverage. However, they can expect 3rd party development talent to jump ship when Android 2.2 begins to get wider acceptance than the iP*ds. I expect that within the next year. It will clean up on Verizon before the AT&T contract runs out in ’12 and expand quickly internationally because of the easy licensing terms. When developers can sell on Android phones via the Chrome app store w/o running through the App Store approval process _and_ target any other HTML5 capable browsers (mobile or desktop), it will be a no brainer where to target new development.
soonergrunt
That was 100% right.
Leaving aside all of the hardware vs software and this is better than that and all of the other crap, I don’t buy Apple stuff because I don’t like the Company’s attitude.
tavella
Apple is quite correct on Flash; it is both insecure and unstable. Adobe’s argument would be a lot more impressive if they build a Flash that ran without crashing on mobile devices. Apple sells “it just works”; Flash fails. They may have other motives as well, but Adobe has made their argument for them by their failure.
Martin
@me:
Apple had their own compiler back then, too. And there were yet other compilers out there, too. The problem was that the Metrowerks frameworks prevented developers that used those frameworks from easily moving over to other platforms. Metrowerks had captured them.
Apple doesn’t give a fuck about developer’s fee-fees. If you don’t want to develop for the iPhone, with Apple providing you a store, a payment mechanism, and all that shit so you don’t need to build any of that yourself, deal with merchant accounts, and so on, then don’t develop for iPhone.
The problem is that developers want access to a market that actually buy apps, and that greases the path to the customer without giving up any of the things they feel they have some moral right to. Tough shit. You can’t develop apps for any other device platform with the kind of freedom that desktop platforms give you, so rather than compare iPad to Windows, you need to compare it to Xbox or Wii. Can you deploy Flash apps on the Wii? No? The Xbox? No? Playstation? No? TiVo? No? Why is this not some grand conspiracy to fuck over developers? Why is the standard for Apple so much different?
tavella
…I am deeply amused. Seconds after I finished writing the above, Shockwave Flash stopped responding and crashed (on Chrome on a Windows machine.) So let me amend that: make a version of Flash that is stable *anywhere*.
Flash is crap; Adobe is unwilling or unable to supply enough resources to make it a quality plugin.
Martin
@handy: Pro-protip: just read another thread. Jeez.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@different church-lady:
Ha! That’s got win all over it!
Lysana
@Mr Furious:
That’s when you download OpenOffice.
And I am pleased to see the debunking of mistermix’s troll post.
Also, speaking as a software QA engineer who’s tested on Windows, MacOS, and other platforms that don’t even exist anymore during my career, if there’s one name that has stunk up more processes I have seen other than Microsoft, it’s Adobe. Interestingly, I discovered by interviewing with both companies and at one point contracting at M$ that they have wickedly similar approaches to QA. They think bug quotas are a good metric to use for judging the quality process. If you’re so sure your code is that lousy in the beta phase that you can require your testers to meet a minimum number of newly opened bugs in a release cycle, your code sucks and you know it.
I also worked at Apple a few times. They didn’t impose bug quotas. Enough said.
handy
@Martin:
“Jeez” yourself. Don’t like my comment, scroll down.
pixelpusher
Android phones running Flash video make wonderful hand-warmers. Great on the ski-lift!
Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ beta hands-on: Flash 10.1, WiFi hotspots, and some killer benchmark scores — Engadget
Robert Sneddon
@Martin:
The problem generally with mobile devices is that processing and displaying any sort of video is incredibly expensive in battery life terms, even with graphics accelerator hardware in the platform (which consumes power in itself).
HTML5 + h.264 video is going to be as much a battery drain as Flash is; the one advantage the Adobe software has is it is already up and running hence its presence on a lot of websites today. HTML5 is still not a standard and won’t be until 2012 at the earliest meaning anyone coding HTML5 websites today can expect to do a lot of rewriting of their website’s structure as the “standard” changes underneath them. Effectively Flash is the VHS to HTML5’s Betamax, not as good technically but it’s out there right now.
matoko_chan
@Martin: well…it affected me personally because i needed a new laptop and had to wait.
i’ll confess….i hate the look and feel of PC.
and windows…..ugh.
its very emotional for me. ;)
n/e ways….
burnspbesq
OT:
Notre Dame (yes, Notre Dame) is the first team to punch its ticket to Baltimore.
Fear the Turtle? Umm, why?
Duke/Carolina in about a half hour. Go Devils!
Archangel
@Martin
Agreed with most of your points, but something needs to be pointed out re: AT&T + Apple-
Initially, Apple offered the iPhone to Verizon Wireless, but were turned down. Why? Because Verizon is as much of a control freak over its property as Apple is. No way were they going to let Apple dictate to them what could or could not be on the iPhone, (they were going to ask for a cut, or at least a say so, on the App Store, for instance) and Verizon has a history of disabling features (anyone that’s tried a Bluetooth file transfer will know this) they didn’t like.
AT&T was willing to give Apple full control over the iPhone, and that cemented the deal. Plus with AT&T’s GSM technology, it made it easier for the iPhone to be sold internationally, whereas a CDMA (Verizon, Sprint) version would limit the iPhone to only a handful of markets overseas (although China would be a huge one).
As far as the trouble AT&T has had with its network , there’s two things involved:
1. Apple didn’t give the iPhone a particularly strong cell transmitter, and didn’t give it the ability to compress data over 3G .
2. The runaway, overwhelming success of the iPhone saturated AT&T’s network , especially in major cities like New York and San Francisco. Initially AT&T sold an unsubsidized iPhone (meaning you don’t get an extra discount in return for signing up for 2 years), and Jobs expected no more than a million sales total in 2006… flash forward to 2008 and Apple has sold well over 10 million iPhones in the USA alone.
Because of these, the iPhone has become a notorious bandwidth hog on AT&T. But seriously, had Verizon wound up with the iPhone, they would have experienced similar problems, or even worse. AT&T’s 3G network was far more robust than Verizon’s, and it’s a miracle it hasn’t been as stressed as it could have been. /hoocoodanode
And yet with all its known problems, nearly half of all AT&T new activations last quarter have involved iPhones. Tells you something, doesn’t it?
Finally, until Verizon rolls out its LTE/4G network, and until it’s willing to loosen its grip, you’ll never see an iPhone on Verizon. Hence, you’ll be seeing AT&T iPhones (and iPads) for a long time to come. Why should Apple break up this partnership? They have complete control over the iPhone and the App Store, and the iPhone has contributed immensely to Apple’s $13 billion revenue and $3 billion net profit last quarter alone.
burnspbesq
@am:
Way to not understand. My point about being a battery eater was about your putative server-client mobile environment. I have a gmail account, so I know it’s not the problem.
The rest of your comment smells an awful lot like wishful thinking.
News flash: Apple’s money is just as green, and just as negotiable, as anyone else’s. There’s nothing sinful involved in taking it. People who choose not to develop for Apple “because Apple imposes too many restrictions” aren’t staking out some principled pro-freedom position, they’re just saying that there is some money that they won’t do extra work to earn. Fine. Everybody gets to make his or her own choice about work/life balance and business models. Whatever. Don’t expect a pat on the back for leaving money on the table.
Tazistan Jen
@Martin:
Awesome post. I learned a lot.
Martin
@Robert Sneddon: The iPad gets 10 hours running full-screen video non-stop. It also gets 10 hours reloading a web page every 15 seconds over WiFi. Your assertion is inconsistent with the facts that we know right now.
We don’t know what an optimized Flash would do for battery, but we do know what the current betas of Flash on mobile devices does and it’s much more battery intensive than anything happening in the browser on Apple’s platform. Now, that’s not to say that running games on the iPad/iPhone would be any less draining than running Flash, but the baseline application of Flash for all users is going to be ads in the browser. That’s where 90+% of Flash use is going to show up, and people, with no desire to play Flash games or use Flash interactive content are going to see the impact of Flash simply because it’s so prevalent in the ad space.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if Flash wasn’t loaded for damn near every web page out there, that Apple’s attitude toward Flash would soften at least a little bit. I know my CPU/RAM usage when I let Flash run free in the browser skyrockets – and that’s virtually entirely due to ads. I don’t think anyone can refute that it’s a terrible trade-off for a mobile device. That’s not an argument one way or another over section 3.3.1 – it’s a separate issue – but it goes to show that the Flash situation for a platform is vastly more complex than Adobe would have people believe. If it wasn’t there wouldn’t be so many Flash blockers out there just for desktop systems with 10x the RAM and 10x the CPU power.
Kenny
For now I’ve also come down on the Google side of this argument, but I do hate the tribal nature of the conversation. As several folks have pointed out here, neither firm is saintly. These are public companies out to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. For me it’s a matter that Google is fundamentally more about choice. While Apple has always argued that they needed to control the end-to-end chain of the user experience, in 2010 the way to do that is not through proprietary hardware and software.
I guess I could have easily been an Apple guy, but circumstances in the mid-80s led me down the Microsoft path (which I’ve since veered from to the Linux world). I don’t how it happened, or when it happened, but at some point I just decided that I really don’t like Apple philosophically. I think it may have originally stemmed from the arrogant vibe that came from those who had signed on to the Apple nation. Hey you may love your Apple product, but don’t give the me “you don’t get it thing,” or “my user experience is clearly superior to yours,” attitude.
Job’s rhetoric regarding Flash incredibly hypocritical. As a business owner I believe that his decision, regardless of the reasoning, will significantly hurt business owners (especially smaller businesses) who have invested in Flash technology. The costs for retooling will not be insignificant, and these decent folks who have invested in Flash weren’t necessarily asked their opinion on this matter.
As an aside, a couple days ago I wanted to buy one of my staff an iTunes email gift card. I hit the Apple store, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to not get physical product from them (I wanted it emailed). I finally found a link, which tried unsuccessfully to launch iTunes on my computer (iTunes doesn’t run natively on Linux). I called Apple, only to find out that iTunes is the only way to do this. I eventually used my daughter’s computer to do this, but so much for Job’s stance regarding openness (reason for pushing for HTML5).
Don’t get me wrong, I think HTML5 is a good thing in general, but it’s not going to happen over night… and the reason to move to it, should not be at Steve’s say so.
Crusty Dem
If Google made a condom, it would sequence your DNA and upload it wirelessly to share with anyone who wanted it (but it would only be used by advertisers). If Apple made a condom, it would vibrate, change colors, and deposit unwanted sperm next to the bed in handy, color-coded vials; but they’d cost $50 each and you’d only be allowed to choose certain partners and positions. If Microsoft made a condom, you’d have more kids than Shawn Kemp (I think the Microsoft condom would just be a rubber O ring)..
James K. Polk, Esq.
I got a Nokia smartphone a few months ago.
Price: $100, no contract signed. Data plan on T-Mobile is $10 a month.
Price savings over an iPhone: $1400!
(total cost to own for two years iPhone: $2359, Nokia: $940) And no onerous contract means customer service is extra nice.
It has everything an iPhone has plus: and SD card slot, no data required GPS mapping, tethering out of the box.
I am grateful to Apple for developing technologies that push other companies to compete. But their tech still ain’t perfect, and it costs too fucking much.
Martin
@Archangel: I agree with what you’re saying, and agree that AT&T is largely a victim of Apple’s success and there’s no question that Apple didn’t put the necessary engineering talent on the iPhone to minimize the impact on the network.
That all said, every bad experience users have with AT&T/iPhone gets credited at least in part to Apple, from the dropped calls to AT&T raising early cancel fees. AT&T won’t offer a tethering option for the iPhone, even an expensive one.
I realize that Apple has put a huge burden on AT&T, but virtually all of AT&Ts new customer growth and retention is thanks to Apple, and Apple customers are exceedingly profitable for AT&T, so I’m not all that sympathetic. Money is flowing into AT&T and they’re struggling to keep NYC and SF online. Seriously, Apple is bringing AT&T almost as much as Sprint is bringing in total – surely AT&T can re-prioritize things here. My employer – 45,000 people per day spread over 1/2 a square mile, most of whom are under 25 had NO AT&T coverage for 6 months because AT&T was working on other things. We had a contract, but AT&T couldn’t get around to it. We were stunned. It was right when the 3G iPhone came out and we estimated the daily iPhone user base at around 10,000 in an area that could be covered by a single tower (and we provided the 130 foot tower to put it on, right in the center of the campus), but there was zero coverage. I don’t know how that can be defended.
And just to be clear on my larger thesis, I don’t think all of these other companies have it in for Apple or are incompetent or anything of the sort. I think their business interests simply diverge from Apple’s business interests. That happens all the time and someone gets screwed. That’s business. Apple’s job is to make sure they don’t get screwed. They’re doing that. I think if they can remove the carrier from the equation they will. I think they’d love to further simplify the pricing, the buying/service experience, and so on. Apple doesn’t get enough credit for yanking that control as far from the carrier as we’ve now come to expect, but I don’t think the carriers are happy with that. I think it’s great that Android 2.2 supports tethering, but iPhone OS 3 supported tethering a year ago – but AT&T didn’t (other global carriers did though), and I’m not sure why everyone thinks that Verizon will support it just because Google does.
pixelpusher
@James K. Polk, Esq.: The iPhone has tethering right out of the box too. It’s AT&T that won’t (can’t) support it.
Martin
@pixelpusher: So what? To him, it might as well not even be there. Which is what I’m getting at – in order for the things Apple does to matter, their partners, be they Microsoft, or Adobe, or AT&T need to support them for them to matter to the customer. Apple priorities are quite simply:
1) Apple
2) Users
3) Developers
For too many other companies, I feel Google and Adobe included when it comes to Android and Flash, they’ve got #2 and #3 reversed. And as scav noted, every company puts themselves as #1.
Robert Sneddon
@Martin:
I did specify HTML5 + h.264 streaming video, not just raw video already buffered on the mobile device’s internal storage. I am surprised they can actually get ten hours of video out of an iPad’s battery though.
Martin
@Comrade Luke:
That was AT&T. AT&Ts subsidies for the iPhone are dependent on the voice side of their contracts. I also wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Apple gave Google some help on getting the Google Voice webapp working as well as it does. There’s quite a few Apple guys available to help out their friends that work at Google.
The front camera came out of the iPad because AT&T wouldn’t give the good rate on the iPad 3G plan if there was the risk of video Skype showing up. Apple either had to pull the camera, ban Skype, or go with a higher cost 3G plan. They decided to pull the camera. I think it was the right call. Including the camera and banning the app would have been a shittier thing to do. It’ll come back probably next year when the 4G networks are up and running.
It’ll be okay in the next iPhone because AT&T recovers a lot more money off of iPhone users than off of iPad users. I’ve also heard some indication that AT&T will be adjusting their rates when the new phone hits, but I don’t know how, or even if thats fully decided.
John Cole
@General Egail Tarian Stuck: What the hell are you talking about?
DanF
Look for Android thin clients on everything from your TV to microwave to sock drawer in the next five-ish years. If you look at the technology their putting into – and more importantly leaving out of – their ui, it makes perfect sense. Why shouldn’t my TV be able to run applications? Why can’t I see what’s in my refrigerator from my phone before I head home from work (Google ad: You look like you need to buy some Fresh Start lettuce! Here’s a Kroger coupon!).
You heard it here first.
Derek
The problem with Apple is that everything costs way the fuck too much. It’s retarded. The end.
Also, fuck iPhones, because of AT&T. 75% of all calls dropped is retarded. It is a phone, I ought to be able to call people on it.
Martin
@Robert Sneddon: Put the two together and there’s still not a big battery hit. It’s because they can fully control for h.264 rather than an arbitrary smattering of codecs, so they can optimize the living shit out of the h.264 path, and since Apple designed the CPU themselves, they could optimize it in hardware as well.
Once you throw Flash on there, you really don’t know what you need to optimize for. That’s not a criticism of Flash, it’s just a recognition that the ability to constrain what you are designing against is worth quite a lot, and platforms like Flash really open the door to a wide range of things you can’t influence. I’m not sure how many video standards Flash supports but I think it’s around 5-6, one of which is h.264. Apple would need to control for all of those, plus whatever else (like VP8) that Adobe is likely to put in there in the future. And if the performance is shitty, who do you think will catch the blame?
Crusty Dem
@John Cole:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
robertdsc
@Crusty Dem:
FTMFW!
sagesource
@Adrienne:
As a side note to the advantages of hardware/software integration, after years of resistance, Valve Software is expanding its line of games and its Steam game-distribution network to the Mac. They have yet to get comprehensive statistics on Mac vs. PC with the games they sell, but they did give out one cross-platform game for free (Portal — it’s still free until May 23, btw) and one of the first things they noticed was that with the same code base, Portal crashed five times more often on PCs than on Macs.
licensed to kill time
@DanF:
The day my sock drawer starts talking to me is the day I quit wearing socks. And WTF? do I need my phone to tell me I’m out of lettuce?! What if I don’t want any lettuce? And ads, more ads, everywhere and anywhere ads?! Frack. Shoot me now.
/end rant
Martin
@Derek:
It’s a catch-22. The hard reality is that if it wasn’t for Apple’s profits, there wouldn’t be any smartphones anything like the iPhone and carriers would still be charging you $3 to download a song to your Blackberry.
Apple’s net profits are higher than all other PC manufacturers combined. And you can throw in most handset makers before you catch up to Apple. Apple has invested billions in developing the iPhone. Nobody else has the money to risk to do that. Hell, HP just spent $1.2B to buy PalmOS, which doesn’t even run on any of their hardware. They know the cost of doing this, and they’re willing to spend probably another $0.5-$1B just to try and catch up to Apple, and I’m skeptical they’ll be able to pull it off long-term.
The problem the PC market faces is that they’ve given into the price race to the bottom, so they’re making no money off of their hardware to reinvest in the platforms. They’re depending on Microsoft to do it through the increasingly large % of their revenues they send MS, and MS is doing fuck-all to advance into new markets. MS is dead in the cell/smartphone market. PDAs are dead. They’ve done nothing but warm over Windows for tablets. Everyone has relied on MS to carry the industry into the future and MS is only interested in preserving their current business. Everyone else has fallen into the trap that Apple has fought their way out of.
Apple can now get Intel CPUs before anyone else. They can afford to buy up the global flash memory market in advance of a new hardware launch, starving every other company of components to make new devices (they’ve done this several times). They can afford to acquire companies that have key technologies, like Siri.
Yes, Apple kit is expensive, but in exchange for cheap HP or LG hardware, you’re giving up the entire technological future to Apple by giving them all the resources. It’s a shame, actually, because as much as I like Apple, I also know that they are MUCH more effective when someone has an edge over them. They have a very long horizon, but they are determined to lead in every key area and I’m afraid that if they truly do dominate the marketplace that the willingness to throw market-leading products and technology out the window will go away. But right now, that’s the way things look like they’ll play out. Apple has more R&D money than all of their competitors combined, even as they are moving into new markets to pick up competitors. That’s the true cost of cheap netbooks.
Crusty Dem
And I forgot, if Adobe made a condom, it would make your penis look spectacular, but 10 seconds after insertion you’d become completely impotent and have to start over from the beginning of foreplay..
Martin
@sagesource: They just announced that 11% of their sales are on the Mac. And that’s with hardly any titles ported to the Mac. Granted, there’s a huge pent-up demand, but the fundamental truth of the difference between the Mac and PC market right now is that, as Derek so clearly illustrates, Mac owners are willing to spend money on things and PC owners are not. Which market would you focus on as a developer?
SectarianSofa
Know this, people —
(just thought I’d try that out as an opener)
apparently Drudge or whoever the hopeless Drudge types read has declared the Google is more evil Than You Ever Thought Possible. Don’t know where it’s coming from, but heard a rant about google as the opener before the ranter turned to the evil UN Treaty for Rights of the Child, the awesomeness of Arizona, etc., etc..
Mr Furious
Martin, thanks a lot for making what might have been a worthless pissing match into a really informative thread. Seriously.
[/hat off]
pixelpusher
Not only are the Flash ads the worst processor hogs, but it’s the Adobe CS5 ad campaign that is the worst of the Flash ads! Every time I go to a page where that puppy starts loading it’s oooohhhhh nnnnnooooo wwwwaaaaiiiiittttt ….. (gulp). Ah.
OMG — it’s-on-this-page!! Run!
I mean, Adobe’s CS5 ad — and Flash is part of CS5 — is the worst possible advertisement for… Flash. Irony, where is thy bite?
SectarianSofa
@Martin:
I’d look at Android, personally…. (Then again, I’ve got all of my little computers running Ubuntu, and I tend towards the open source already.
(I used to root (market-wise) for Apple, until the itunes era. Don’t like locked down top-down control like that. Now I’m pretty sure Apple is going the wrong direction (philosophy-wise, and perhaps market-wise.) (Kind of like the schiavo thing for Cole. To exaggerate facetiously.)))
Mr Furious
@pixelpusher: I blame Steve Jobs.
pixelpusher
@SectarianSofa: Apple will only sell 2 iPads to anybody. Really. They check through your credit card and no, you can’t use cash unless you open an account that will track your next purchases. But still, the wait for an iPad online has doubled. They are out of the 3G versions everywhere. Consumer satisfaction has been measured at 91%. iPads are now outselling Macs. So basically, a whole new revenue stream has opened. And it’s estimated that iPads have a 50% margin of profit.*
If that’s the wrong direction, what’s the right one?
*appleinsider.com has most of this info up from just this week.
Zuzu's Petals
@Mr Furious:
Thanks for the input. I’ll see what Google will do for me on iPad.
Martin
@Mr Furious: Its an area I know an awful lot about, and frankly, there aren’t that many people that have hung through the entire history. I know a lot of the major players in the Apple world in one way or another, but because I’m not connected with Apple, or a publication or anything like that, I get a lot of information because I’m ‘safe’.
Mainly I’m a stock watcher, so how all of this connects to revenues and profits is far more interesting to me, but that’s really where Apple’s decisions start to make the most sense. Apple is building a really incredible foundation that I think will really allow them to control their own future. They might fuck it up, but at least it won’t be someone else fucking it up on them.
And I’m pretty critical of Apple on a lot of things. I think they’ve really tarnished the App store by not making the policies clear and putting enough staff on it. I think 3.3.1 is similar – it’s not clear what frameworks are okay and what aren’t. I think they absolutely suck at almost anything involving the cloud, and if they don’t get on that, they’re really going to have a problem. iTunes worked as a conduit for iPod/iPhone/iPad, but it’s a mess now, its outdated, and if you want to know what Android 2.2s real killer feature is, it’s their much improved cloud exposure. Apple really does look about 3 years behind on that front, and you can see it in the iPad experience of dealing with docs. I think iWork is fair (Pages) to good (Keynote) but they need quite a bit of work to be first class tools. MobileMe is diamonds floating in a pile of shit. Mostly, Apple could fix a LOT of these things simply by being willing to invest in them, and they have the money, but they aren’t putting the manpower and organizational talent on them, and they aren’t making them a priority.
Relative to Apple’s strengths, these are small things though. Well, the cloud one is getting noticeably large…
mistermix
Those of you who are making the point that the iTunes store is no longer encumbered by DRM should keep in mind that it was DRM-encumbered for 6 years, during which Apple sold something like a billion downloads. Apple did not offer to retroactively disencumber those songs for free — instead they charged another 30 cents per song.
By the time Apple removed DRM from the iTunes store, the job was done. A billion DRM-encumbered downloads will sell iPods for a long time to come.
So, being “right” or “good” today doesn’t mean that they weren’t “wrong” or “bad” for 6 years. And it also doesn’t mean that they aren’t repeating the same trick with the iPad and e-books.
mistermix
@Martin:
This is claptrap. Billions of dollars are flowing into the smartphone and low-power device market, and there are many other companies making quality devices.
HTC’s smartphone hardware, to pick just one example, is as good as or better than Apple’s.
ARM chips, including the one in the iPad, are a licensed design. There are many other ARM-powered devices on the horizon.
Apple may get some Intel chips early, but Intel still sells those chips to others, and Intel’s R&D is independent of Apples.
Martin
@SectarianSofa: Well, the other shoe on Android hasn’t dropped yet, but I think it will in the next 2 years. Apple’s open-sourcing some pretty awesome stuff, but I won’t for a second try to convince you that it’s out of any kind of philanthropy. They’re doing it to unseat competitors in places where Apple can afford to give a product away. WebKit is a very nice rendering engine, but in case nobody noticed, it’s pretty much the only rendering engine in the mobile space at all. It’s what Android uses. Apple couldn’t even conceive of this HTML5 push back against Flash if not for the fact that they dominate the mobile space and every mobile phone out there supports HTML5 to a fairly large degree.
Android exists to undermine Windows Mobile, and Chromium to undermine Windows on netbooks and tablets. MS is, quite simply, fucked. They’ll do fine in the more profitable PC space, in IT, etc. They’re not going anywhere, but then, they’re not going anywhere. Nobody wants to pay MS $50 to put Windows on their $350 netbook that has a cost of $270. That’s insane. Instead, they’ll give Google $0 for Chromium, and hope that the people that want a $320 netbook are willing to live with Google Docs instead of Office.
But Google’s business model is ads. They’re going to get something back out of Chromium and Android on that front, just like Apple is going to leverage all of your buying and app habits to deliver iAds, Google will find a way to leverage their platforms to deliver AdSense. Count on it.
But Android is going straight down the Windows model. Users have no idea if their device will be upgradable or not. They have no idea how much of Android the carrier or device maker has ripped out (sometimes it’s a lot). I have no idea how the Android app space can ever settle out if you have this proliferation of devices with different functionality and screen sizes, and keyboards or not, and so on, and how apps can know what to expect and how users can know whether the apps will work or not. And there’s not one store but host of stores, so who knows where to find the app you need.
Sure it’s all very open, but it seems really, really user hostile and I’m afraid will seem more so as the platform expands. Google probably doesn’t care because they’re going to stuff everything in the cloud, so long as Chrome is there and they can suck out your habits and profile info, what the fuck do they care? They’re not selling the hardware, so they don’t need to deal with upset customers, customer retention, brand recognition, etc. and they’re not in a position to stop some of the worst carrier habits (which is one of the biggest things Apple did with the iPhone – they largely ended carrier control and nickle/diming for features.) I’m glad Android exists, but I don’t see how it present a long-term threat to Apple, especially when the carriers and device makers are now hacking it apart so they can ‘brand’ it, etc. The more they fork it, the harder they make it for the app market to succeed, and the more energy they suck out of the community to actually improve the platform.
Martin
@mistermix: Apple didn’t want the DRM on in the first place. The labels did. Nobody else was selling DRM unencumbered music until Amazon did just a few months before Apple was able to do so themselves. So for all those years, it wasn’t just Apple, it was everyone. Apple was just the retailer. Nobody blames WalMart for not selling vinyl today.
Martin
@mistermix: Billions are flowing in, but most of those billions are flowing right down the device chain. Seriously, all of this data is available in everyone’s quarterly statements.
HP is the largest PC maker. They sell one out of five PCs sold globally and almost one out of three in the U.S. Last quarter they earned $500M on those sales. They’re by far the largest player in the market. Apple has 7% of domestic Mac sales and just under 4% worldwide. That’s 1/5th HPs, and we’re ignoring HPs dominance in relatively high-cost servers. Apple earned $1.3B on those sales last quarter.
I don’t care how much HP makes in sales if they don’t get to keep any of it for R&D. If they’re going to advance the PC platform, they’re going to have to invest in it, and they don’t have the money to do it relative to Apple. I’m not kidding when I say if you add up all the profits from HP, Dell, Lenovo, ASUS, etc. on their PC sales and compare them to Apple, Apple is holding on to more than everyone else *combined*. Last quarter HPs total profits were $2.2B – that’s their PC business, their printers, ink, everything. Apple was $3.1B.
Nokia sold 100m phones last quarter. Apple sold fewer than 9 million. Nokia turned a loss. HTC earned what, $160M last quarter? RIM earned $700M. Sure, they sell a LOT of phones, and bring in billions of dollars, and hardly any of that is going back into R&D compared to Apple. Apple is absolutely wrecking everyone in both the PC and mobile phone market in terms of their ability to put R&D money back in to the platform.
The market disagrees. For all the criticism of AT&T (which I think is all warranted) Apple is still selling FAR more iPhones with AT&T around their neck than HTC is selling through any carrier, and they’re selling them at a higher price. You might think it’s better, but the market doesn’t. At least not yet.
pixelpusher
@mistermix: The A4 chip in the iPad (and supposedly in the next iPhone) has an ARM architecture, but it’s custom-designed by Apple for Apple (and built by Samsung). Not off-the-shelf. Not Intel. A company with $50B cash on hand can fund its own R&D.
YellowDog
Before you reject Apple, consider the security issues. How many Apple viruses have you heard of over the past year? Sure, they are a small part of the market, but Windows is a sieve compared to the Unix platform that OS X is built upon. That is also one of the reasons Apple rejected Flash. In addition to being a battery killer on portable devices, it opens the door for LSO’s–flash cookies–that most users have never heard of and cannot delete unless they know where to look or install additional software. Adobe doesn’t want to acknowledge they exist, but if you know were to look on the Adobe site, you can change your settings and block them.
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html
burnspbesq
@Crusty Dem:
You owe me a new MacBook Pro, you bastard!
radish
@Martin:
Actually, this is exactly why I think of Google as more evil than Apple. When you ask whether Company X is evil, you might be asking either one of two very different questions. One question is whether, and to what extent, the company is actively engaged in malfeasance or unethical behavior. Neither Apple nor Google is particularly evil in this sense. (Facebook OTOH…)
But the other question is how bad the obvious ethical “failure modes” are. “How evil?” as in “how dangerous?” rather than “how malicious?” And in this sense Apple ought to be regarded as very much less evil than Google, just as a hypothetical person with a large collection of kitchen utensils can safely be regarded as “less evil” than the very same person with a large collection of high explosives.
Once there’s a shitload of stuff that goes boom in the picture, it’s understandable to worry about whether the owner is a psycho, but it’s not enough. Even if the owner is a saint, what you ought to be worrying about is the shitload of stuff that goes boom. Stuff that goes boom will eventually either a) attract psychos, or b) go boom in an unintentional but nevertheless unfortunate accident. Google’s not the only problem like this, they just have the biggest metaphorical collection of stuff that goes boom.
Jon H
@mistermix: “Apple did not offer to retroactively disencumber those songs for free—instead they charged another 30 cents per song.”
Why shouldn’t they? The first time around they sold you *exactly* what they said they were selling you: a 128kbps DRM-encumbered digital audio file.
If you bought it, you have *no* claim to having been mislead, which is the *only* reason to expect a free upgrade to DRM-free 256k.
Why should Apple eat it when they did nothing wrong? Your position is one of irrational childish entitlement.
Martin
@Jon H: Well, I think his point is that it’d be fairly trivial for Apple to strip Fairplay off of the stuff you’ve already bought. And he’s right about that. It probably wouldn’t cost Apple anything to do it.
The main problem I see with it is probably how Apple interprets the Sarbox rules. They’ve been consistent about this, but if Apple ‘unlocked’ $.30 of value for each song out there, they’d need to report that they delivered $.30 of product (x 5billion – $1.5B) on their earnings statement, and collected $0 in return, and show a $1.5B write-off on services, which wouldn’t look so hot.
That’s why Apple moved to the subscription model on reporting iPhone sales so that they could keep delivering updates to customers for 2 years since they were technically, in a perverted accounting sense, still getting money from you 7 quarters after you paid them, so they could still keep delivering product in return. iPod sales weren’t handled that way, so when they wanted to upgrade they had to pay Apple a nominal fee in exchange for the upgrade. Ironically, the more acceptable subscription accounting hid a massive amount of future guaranteed income for Apple trying to comply with Sarbox which contributed to a big part of their recent price run-up. Apple petitioned to have the rules changed so they could more transparently report their earnings, which went into effect earlier this year. Prior to that, Apple reported both GAAP and non-GAAP, so anyone bothering to read could see exactly what they were doing, but since GAAP is all the market cares about it really made their PE and other ratios look a lot different than they really were.
Apple interprets Sarbox to exclude bug fixes since presumably that was functionality Apple had promised but failed to deliver to you, so they can freely give it in the future. Now, Apple is pretty strict on Sarbox interpretation compared to other companies in this way, but they’re hardly alone.
The Raven
I call Google the not-so-evil empire: they’re big, they’re a near-monopoly, but you can do business, and you don’t have to count your fingers after you shake hands with them. Apple, I call medium evil. They do some excellent products. Problem is, every so often, they try to take over the world.
Croak!
debit
@John Cole: I wondered too, so I went looking all the way back here.
@ Stuck: Pro tip: When you announce your departure in such a determined fashion, you look silly when you come back, especially when you resort to childish name calling.
SectarianSofa
@pixelpusher:
Short term gains, my friend.
But then, I wasn’t saying Apple was definitely, from a market perspective, doing anything wrong.
Anyway, we’re talking about business strategy. My expertise lies in devil’s sine qua non’s, not useful manly stuff like this. I leave it to Steve Jobs to figure this one out.
mclaren
Google is in business to
sell advertisingcontrol all the world’s information.Apple wants to control the world’s cellphone and downloaded music and tablet computing markets…google wants to control all the world’s information, from every scanned article in every magazine and every scanned book in every library on the planet.
Which is scarier?
BettyPageisaBlonde
A personal anecdote about Flash: I’ve been developing and working in web spaces for 15+ years. Flash has been a part of that for a majority of that time. Flash has never crashed my browser. Never.
Not IE, not Firefox, not Chrome, nada. On both a Mac and PC.
Which makes me crazy lucky I think.
It’s just an anecdote, but it’s worth sharing.
Will it work as well in mobile spaces? I have no idea.
Flash, to me, is bad because it’s proliferated a ton of highly unusable interfaces designed by people who think “animation” is necessary and that shiny objects mean they’re good. They’re not.
Flash, developed wisely, has been a beneficial part of my web experience.
It’s just another tool. They’re all tools. And people who get too worked up about this shit are tools too. ;)
SectarianSofa
@Martin:
Holy Christ. The other shoe hasn’t dropped for android? I’m not even convinced the first shoe has dropped. I’m not sure we’re talking shoes, or dropping.
Maybe I’m just being foolish — maybe I’m too old or too young, or haven’t plugged into the right market currents — but I don’t see that anyone has figured this out. If you have, buy stock. You’ll deserve your super-correcto-prognosticator’s bonus.
If working in the tech industry for 20.something years has taught me anything, it’s that the people who have figured it all out are 99% of the time wrong.
Prediction markets, man. Put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, just a lot of words, with probably quite a lot of insight still insufficient to penetrate the staggering complexity of the world we don’t live in yet (e.g., tomorrow). Otherwise, you’re just like the tech press … which is, I don’t know — worse, I think, than the political one.
I wasn’t writing an apologia for android — just putting in my two cents of subjectivity.
SectarianSofa
@mclaren:
God this is making me cranky. They are both trying to make money. That’s it. All other imputed motives are imputed motives. How much more than that do we really know?
I like a lot of the cool tech, but really. They’re businesses. Not superheroes, not mecha-dorkanoid robots, not pairs of pants or political philosophies.
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked that on a political bloog, a lot of people have fixed ideas about how things work and who the actors are, and what the motives, thoughts, and dreams of the hiddly-piddly and hoi polloi are. Or that our hopes and dreams are so transparently tied to personalities, tribes, and parties.
But I am.
And, foomf. Just like that, no longer surprised. Carry on, warriors!
Martin
@SectarianSofa: For what it’s worth, I bought Apple in 1997 at $13 a share, two splits ago and I still hold most of it. So, yeah, I’ve gotten my bonus already. Makes me pretty motivated to do my homework and not bullshit myself – there’s money on the line.
And I agree that the tech press is every bit as bad as the political one, and certainly (Gizmodo) worse at times. The only one really worth reading regularly is Gruber at Daring Fireball. Everyone else is hit and miss at best. Thankfully I’ve got my own little community.
I don’t think I’ve necessarily figured it out, but the landscape isn’t so complicated if you strip away the personalities that people want to attach to these companies. Apple and Google aren’t going to stop working together. There’s too much real money to be made right now by being partners. Sure, they’ll snipe at each other over phones, and Steve will be his usual emotional self, but those don’t drive business decisions. It’s largely theatre. Same with Apple/Adobe. There really is a lot of rational self-interest at play here, and if you follow that (and you can accumulate enough info – not easy, mind you) then I’ve found it’s a surprisingly predictable road, at least in terms of what the companies are doing.
tripletee
I had a Flash video crash my browser just last night – I was trying to watch a hands-on demo of Flash 10.1 running on Android.
Yeah, I’m not real anxious for that particular technology to gain a toehold in the mobile space.
BettyPageisaBlonde
@tripletee: I’m pretty sure the word “anecdote” was in my comment. Look it up.
SectarianSofa
@Martin:
Hrm. Well, fair enough. Still, I’m not convinced of the simplicity of the landscape. It’s not just Google and Apple, of course, but the telcos, cable, Cisco, IBM, et al.. Converging on the shrinking ice of the North Pole.
I can’t really say much productive of value, since I am predisposed to dislike hegemony, which predisposes me to dislike too much business success. I’m just not a very committed capitalist, and I don’t cheer much for the teams.
tripletee
Jesus, just sharing an anecdote of my own that I thought was mildly amusing. If you’re going to get pissy at me, I’d prefer it to be for an actual offense, so: fuck off, you patronizing asshole.
Corner Stone
@SectarianSofa:
Vaginas?
Corner Stone
@tripletee:
I didn’t even comment on…anything..you…Hmm, never mind.
Sheesh
Lots of lying in this thread, but no surprise when it starts out with a whopper like, “They want to sell me music I can only hear on their devices or using their software”.
Tancrudo
It’s what happens on the way to evil that gets you. When Apple convinces you to pay a premium for their hardware, they’re pretty much done until they need to sell you more hardware.
Google, on the other hand, can only achieve the goal you set for it (serving you a relevant ad wherever you are) by aggregating data about you (for relevance) and constantly tracking you (wherever you are). Google’s goals are turning it into our country’s primary surveillance service.
BettyPageisaBlonde
@tripletee: Snort. Chuckle. Guffaw.
steve
First of all, your condom comment was just gross. Secondly, the possessive form of Jobs is not Job’s.
mclaren
And I’ve been alive for decades and I’ve never had to breathe once. Not ever. Never.
See? Anyone can tell grotesquely stupid lies.
Go away, troll, you’re making a fool of yourself.
SectarianSofa
@steve:
I kind of agree with the condom thing, though it just barely registered only the gross scale for me. Acceptable, given the context (tech fluffery). In my opinion, of course.
Anyway, did someone misspell something? I’ve gotten kind of inured to that, living with one dyslexic and working with another. Now, if they took the time to write it out in marker on a protest sign, that’s fair game.
Also, Yglesias.
SectarianSofa
@mclaren:
Ha.
I have no problem with flash per se, just with sites that use it.
Except for Kongregate, etc.. Those are A-OK.
Sigh.
Man, it would really be a shame if this thread died.
SectarianSofa
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps I *have* been looking in the wrong places….
Corner Stone
@SectarianSofa:
Rage, rage against the dying of the lie!
Corner Stone
@SectarianSofa: I couldn’t tell what else you could possibly mean.
SectarianSofa
@Corner Stone:
What, are you some kind of sensicalist?
You’re right though, I shouldn’t play devil’s advocate when I don’t believe in one. Certainly not one without the trombones. And as you’ve seen, we’re in desperately short supply of God Trombones.
Anyway, I firmly believe that it’s reasonableness that got us into this mess (not this thread, but precisely the mess(es) that are the subject of most of the others), and if I can strike two notes for anti-sensicalism (where it does not otherwise tread upon the good and useful, or impede the stride of the righteous), then I shall do so. No offense intended. Unless you’re a frabjous libertarian.
skf bearing
What, are you some kind of sensicalist?