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Re: NEWS: Microsoft's dual-screen booklet shows 'face' on web • The Register

 
 
John Slade
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      03-08-2010, 10:35 PM
Warren Oates wrote:
> In article <hmvr2d$o36$(E-Mail Removed)>,
> John Slade <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I don't think Apple is being the lone voice against the overuse
>> of Flash even though it is overused. Maybe if Apple had not allowed
>> Flash to run on OS X, then I might change my mind but that's not the
>> case.

>
> Flash runs very well under OS X of course, it has too, or OS X would
> have long since disappeared.
> It's banned from other Apple devices for
> reasons I don't understand.


Apple tends to be very xenophobic when it comes to their
OS and hardware. I'm bet a hacked version of the mobile Flash
version will make it's way to Apple's "i" devices.

> Adobe have some very tasty open-source (and free) software these days
> too. Flex 4 (Gumbo) is fun -- develop serious Flash "apps" with emacs
> and mxml. Flash isn't going to go away because iSteve is "taking a
> stand" or some such nonsense. Same with Winders, for that matter.


Apple is great at getting it's followers to believe
everything that pops out of Jobs' mouth. I remember when Apple
intentionally put out a firmware update that would disable any
Mac with a third party CPU upgrade. This was an effort to force
people to buy a new Mac rather than upgrade the CPU. Apple told
every lie in the book including my favorite one. Apple claimed
it was for "software stability". In the end there was a
workaround and Apple wound up with egg on their face.

With the iPad, I really get a laugh out of the slogan they
picked to sell it. They claim "It's magical!".

John
 
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John Slade
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      03-08-2010, 10:39 PM
alexd wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:09:23 -0800, SMS wrote:
>
>> I think it's not that. Flash uses a lot of processing power, and hence a
>> lot of battery power. Performance and battery life suffer. Better to not
>> allow them and make up a story about them being unstable.

>
> Really? Why would Apple lie about why an Adobe product sucks? Surely the
> truth is worse than the lie they made up [and I assume Apple want this to
> look like Adobe's fault here]?
>


Apple will lie because it might hurt sales. Apple will
lie to put itself in the best possible outlook in the public
eye. Companies do this all the time and Apple does it more than
most. I already mentioned the Apple firmware scandal back in the
90's. Then they had very misleading ads, one was even banned in
Great Britain because it was blatant false advertising.

John
 
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John Slade
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      03-08-2010, 10:47 PM
Christopher A. Lee wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:59:27 -0800, AES <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> In article <4b930a4b$0$1632$(E-Mail Removed)>,
>> SMS <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>>> Apple
>>> is not interested in those vertical markets because they don't involve
>>> selling apps, music, videos, and books to the buyers.

>> Truer (and sadder) words were never posted.

>
> Apple lost their way.
>
> Once upon a time they were streets ahead of the PC world, and for a
> while they held a niche where better graphics were required. Also the
> Motorola based architecture didn't have the limitations that the
> earlier Intel based architecture did. Remember the days of 640K max
> memory and the third party software to make the most of it? It was
> also more intuitive than Windows.


I remember those days but I didn't have a Apple with a
Motorola CPU, I had an Amiga and the Amiga was leaps ahead of
PCs then. We didn't have the limitations that PCs did with the
memory and we had better graphics. Then Commodore sat on it's
lead in technology and the PC passed them by very quickly. So
Commodore and the Amiga became history. I saw that same thing
happening to Apple but Apple had the good sense to switch and
start making PCs rather than compete with them. Now it seems
Apple's OS X is becoming stagnant and Microsoft is far ahead
with Windows 7.

John
 
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SMS
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      03-09-2010, 12:22 AM
John Slade wrote:
> Now it seems
> Apple's OS X is becoming stagnant and Microsoft is far ahead with
> Windows 7.


Well Microsoft has at least leveled the playing field in most respects,
and passed OS-X in others. Now the reason to buy a Mac is that you like
the design of the hardware or you need to run one of the applications
that isn't available for the PC. I.e., I know my nephew sticks with the
Mac because he does a lot of freelance non-linear editing work with
FinalCut Pro, which isn't available for Windows. He also uses Avid, but
FinalCut is faster if the projects aren't too complex. The extra cost of
the hardware is lost in the noise if he can complete projects a bit
faster. Of course some of his colleagues run OS-X on high-end non-Apple
machines, but it really isn't worth the hassle of doing this because
there's always something that doesn't work quite right, and the monetary
savings are small.

Apple's approach of diversifying out of just selling Intel based
hardware into more profitable areas where their strength in ergonomics
and human factors helps them dominate is very smart indeed.
 
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John Slade
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      03-09-2010, 05:21 AM
SMS wrote:
> John Slade wrote:
>> Now it seems Apple's OS X is becoming stagnant and Microsoft is far
>> ahead with Windows 7.

>
> Well Microsoft has at least leveled the playing field in most respects,
> and passed OS-X in others. Now the reason to buy a Mac is that you like
> the design of the hardware or you need to run one of the applications
> that isn't available for the PC. I.e., I know my nephew sticks with the
> Mac because he does a lot of freelance non-linear editing work with
> FinalCut Pro, which isn't available for Windows. He also uses Avid, but
> FinalCut is faster if the projects aren't too complex. The extra cost of
> the hardware is lost in the noise if he can complete projects a bit
> faster. Of course some of his colleagues run OS-X on high-end non-Apple
> machines, but it really isn't worth the hassle of doing this because
> there's always something that doesn't work quite right, and the monetary
> savings are small.


The high-end workstation market is the only computer
market that Apple truly competes in.

>
> Apple's approach of diversifying out of just selling Intel based
> hardware into more profitable areas where their strength in ergonomics
> and human factors helps them dominate is very smart indeed.


Actually I think Apple's portable devices and music sales
are overshadowing their computers. They needed to go to Intel
architecture to keep their computers from becoming obsolete.

John
 
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SMS
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      03-09-2010, 11:28 PM
John Slade wrote:

> Actually I think Apple's portable devices and music sales are
> overshadowing their computers.


It's the sale that keeps on selling.

> They needed to go to Intel architecture
> to keep their computers from becoming obsolete.


The big problem with their old architecture was that they could no
longer compete in the laptop market with the PowerPC because Intel was
so far ahead in terms of low power consumption notebook processors. It
was affecting battery life, thermals, and performance. They also got
tired of paying a premium price for every peripheral chip they used in
their machines.

The switch to x86 was one of the smartest moves they made in the history
of the company. Only Jobs could have pulled that off without destroying
the loyalty of the fanbois.
 
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John Slade
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      03-10-2010, 06:32 PM
SMS wrote:
> John Slade wrote:


>
>> They needed to go to Intel architecture to keep their computers from
>> becoming obsolete.

>
> The big problem with their old architecture was that they could no
> longer compete in the laptop market with the PowerPC because Intel was
> so far ahead in terms of low power consumption notebook processors. It
> was affecting battery life, thermals, and performance. They also got
> tired of paying a premium price for every peripheral chip they used in
> their machines.
>


That may have been part of the reason but the main
reason was Motoroloa-IBM was not upgrading their processor
speeds in the years right before the switch to Intel. You had
dual-core Power PCs that could barely compete with the speed of
single-core Pentium 4s. Apple would constantly lambaste Intel
CPUs as being slower but those in the industry knew it was
complete bull. I also think Motorola-IBM was not too interested
in supporting Apple. As it turned out, years later IBM started
producing some very good CPUs that are mainly used in Xbox 360s.
IBM also makes the CPUs for Playstation 3s with Sony and Toshiba
so it seems that IBM had no real interest in working with Apple
in the future.


> The switch to x86 was one of the smartest moves they made in the history
> of the company. Only Jobs could have pulled that off without destroying
> the loyalty of the fanbois.


Well some of those "fanbois" didn't like it too much. I
was telling some of them that Apple would dump the PowerPC and I
was told by many Apple folk that this would never happen. They
told me that Apple would never put an Intel CPU inside a Mac. To
them it was like a sacrilege to some of them. When Apple
announced the switch it was funny to see them eat crow. That was
the second time. Before that, many people said Apple would never
put an IBM CPU in their systems as IBM was the main rival of
Apple back in the day.

John
 
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John Slade
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      03-12-2010, 06:36 PM
John Higdon wrote:
> In article <hn8ok6$too$(E-Mail Removed)>,
> John Slade <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Well some of those "fanbois" didn't like it too much. I
>> was telling some of them that Apple would dump the PowerPC and I
>> was told by many Apple folk that this would never happen. They
>> told me that Apple would never put an Intel CPU inside a Mac. To
>> them it was like a sacrilege to some of them. When Apple
>> announced the switch it was funny to see them eat crow.

>
> Who ARE these people you mention?
> I know dozens of Mac users (all quite
> computer literate, thank you), who all seem to have a pretty level
> attitude about computing in general (many are Unix geeks). I never hear
> any of that sort of stuff from them. On the contrary, we knew about the
> upcoming Intel shift over a year before it was announced. It was common
> knowledge that Apple was maintaining an x86 build of all versions of OSX
> since the beginning.
>


Many of the Mac users were not against the switch to
Intel by Apple. However some were what you call really fanatical
about Macs. They hated Windows and anything with an Intel CPU. I
was telling them that Macs would switch to some other CPU maker
about four years before they made the announcement. This was a
year or so after the P4 came out. It was clear that the PowerPC
was becoming stagnant and Apple was starting to put dual CPU
systems out to compete with single core P4s. This was even
before Apple started putting out the G4s with two CPUs back in
2003. It was clear to those of us in the industry that Apple
would switch at some point in the future. I was saying this in 2001.


> You hang out in some weird circles, since all the Mac users I know of
> (including myself) routinely operate with multiple platforms and have a
> pretty good handle on what's going on in the industry. Hell, I'm in the
> process of shutting down my last Mac server (and moving its services to
> a Ubuntu server).
>


The people who said Apple would never switch back in 2001
and 2002 when I told them they would are a pretty weird bunch.
They actually disliked Bill Gates, Microsoft and Windows. Even
today many of them refuse to accept that Macs are now PCs. They
think that Macs are still made from unique components. They have
no clue that Macs are basically clones like HP and Dell make
these days. Yes, truly weird people who refuse to accept this
when this fact is widely accepted by people in the computer
industry. People like electrical engineers who actually design
computer components usually accept this. But occasionally you
find a weird one who doesn't. I was talking to one the other day
who claimed to be an industry insider. However, I realized the
person didn't know much about the issue when he told me that
Windows 7 still needs MS-DOS to run and is only a GUI for MS-DOS.

> We use Macs because we like them for use to which they are put. I wonder
> if all this rabid "Steve Jobs worship" doesn't spring from your
> imagination.
>


No. It stems from the weird people who won't accept that
Macs are now PCs. Basically clones like HP and Dell make with a
few firmware and cosmetic differences. These differences are
about as huge as the difference between an HP or Dell desktop.
You should check this video out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJ6Wzmr_V0

There is also a book, "Cult of Mac" that explores this
issue. There are a lot of Mac users who act like cultists and
it's not from my imagination. Many people look at jobs and how
he dresses for these keynote addresses and how the crowd
responds towards him. I'm not saying that this is only a Mac
issue or that the majority of Mac users are cultists, but truly
some are. I put them in the same cult as those "rabid" Star Trek
fans.

John
 
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