Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 27th Jan 2010 19:45 UTC
In what everybody already saw coming for weeks (months) now, Apple has just unveiled its latest product, a tablet called the iPad. Basically a bigger version of the iPhone, Steve Jobs presented the iPad during a press event in San Francisco. The most interesting news? It's powered by... An Apple processor, called the A4. The most shocking news? The price.
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Member since:2005-11-13
The AppStore gatekeeping is a particular value proposition for that vast proportion of the population who aren't ubergeeks and do just want something that just works. There will be other value propositions around as part of the market scene - so get over it.
On the other hand, it also means you can't get any apps without Apple's stamp of approval, which really sucks, and severely cripples the device, IMHO. The right thing to do would be to make it closed by default, but also make it so that people who wanted to could open it up, but make that process JUST hard enough so that Joe Sixpack couldn't do it accidentally and hurt himself.
Plus, many people (including me) find iTunes to be particularly repulsive. I wouldn't install that piece of sh*t unless I absolutely had to, and then it would only go in a VM. If the app store(s) just worked in a web browser, with a tiny sync app that ran when you needed to transfer stuff, it would not be so bad.
Member since:2008-07-15
And if Apple's reasons were to keep out malware, I wouldn't object. Their reasons, however, are often politically motivated or else designed to stamp out any competition to their own apps. Anyone want to bet that iWork will be the only office sweet you can get on the iPad? Not that iWork is bad as I actually do like the Mac version, but my point is I shouldn't be locked into it if I don't want to be. I want to choose which wordprocessor I use, is that such a bad thing? Further, Apple has already proven they can't keep out all malware, remember the phishing app that got through a while back? I don't necessarily dislike the idea of gatekeeping, I just don't like the way Apple does it. And my opinion can be expressed here too, so get over it. 
Member since:2010-01-28
Considering QuickOffice ( http://www.quickoffice.com/quickoffice_iphone/ ) already exists on the iPhone and can run unmodified on the iPad, I'll take that bet.
Member since:2006-07-14
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
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!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"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.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
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."More News »
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Member since:
2006-01-09
On the other hand, however, it's more app store lock-in and Apple gatekeeping...
As a long time open source advocate I respect your view point.
On the other hand: my heart delights at the absence of need for anti-virus, anti-malware and all the other paraphenalia that distract me from productive activities and make 64bit megaputers perform just like the 16bit micros of 20 years ago.
The AppStore gatekeeping is a particular value proposition for that vast proportion of the population who aren't ubergeeks and do just want something that just works. There will be other value propositions around as part of the market scene - so get over it.