Numerous irrelevant issues and feelings about them are ventilated in comments on the case. However, there are only two important issues. One is what the law is, the other is what we think the law should be.
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Member since:2006-09-20
So I'm gonna get a bit off topic, but basically, this post is about how Apple is one of the last good workstation producers I could find. If I'm wrong in any of this, happy to hear corrections.
I do not like Apple. I do not particularly like OS X. However, after going through several hours of web surfing to find decent workstations, I essentially came up with 2 viable offerings: HP and Apple. In many ways, the Apple seemed to be better and in some comparable configurations, even cheaper.
I was saddened to see that Sun no longer makes the Ultra 40 line of their x64 systems; their current offering is moderate at best - definitely not a top end workstation. Furthermore, there are *no* more alternative architectures. Sun stopped with SPARC about a year ago and IBM just stopped with PPC intellistations, which ironically, I believe was the last workstation they were producing (no more at all now!). Itanium was practically old news before it started, but, at least you can download nvidia drivers from 2005... And yes, to be considered a workstation, I require: 3d options (not necessarily bleeding edge, but good), good memory capabilities (16GB+), large storage capacity (the Sun U40 supports up to 8 internal hard drives), and an excellent case design. I really believe the first option, 3d hardware acc, is the killer for alternative architectures.
Funny Apple is getting all defensive about this, when all they really needed to do to reduce the number of clones was stick with PPC and uh, be different ... but here I'm stating the obvious.
It seems like the workstation really is dying, which is too bad. Guess I'll hop on the android bandwagon and have fun with mobile devices and remote services, no time at the moment for hacking 3d drivers (which I have 0 experience with) to work with high quality SPARC or POWER servers. I hate building my own comps by now, mainly, not having the warranty.
Member since:2007-03-26
When it comes to computers, most people are.
As harsh as it sounds, it's not meant as an insult to peoples intellegence though. It's just most people don't need (or even want) to know about which hardware is better than which other hardware or what OS to run.
Most people are happy to just rely on the advice of others on such matters.
Just like, I don't need to know how repare a car, that's what engineers are there for. I just need to know the basics (oil change etc).
Member since:2007-01-13
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about."This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Member since:
2006-06-02
Just last week, on my local Macintosh User Group forum, one of the most knowledgeable about Apple suggested that perhaps the Hackintosh method was the way to go, in a debate about the relative expensiveness of newly launched Apple hardware.
You can argue the toss about the latter point but people generally ain't dumb, especially in these straightened times: over time the Hackintosh will be an increasingly doable, feasible and attractive option, as the community around it and the userbase expand.
When Jobs goes, for whatever reason, and respect to the man in his current condition, there will not be a strategy to deal with this. Not only because he won't be at the helm, flying his particular colours but also because in my view Apple will not be in the personal computer market any longer, and will have no interest in it. It will have become a personal device manufacturer, and OS X will not be available in retail form in its current guise in, I'll be radical, 5 years from now.
So, Apple computer fans and Hackintosh proponents alike - make hay while the sun shines, because the sun will go down on the Apple personal computer business model within half a decade.