Holier-than-thou, an adjective, meaning "marked by an air of superior piety or morality". Everybody has moments in their life where they get into a "holier-than-thou" attitude, and I think Steve Jobs' open letter regarding Adobe, and Flash in particular, really fits the bill. There are three specific points I want to address to illustrate just how holier-than-thou, hypocritical, and misleading this letter really is.
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Member since:2009-03-17
That is exactly why Apple is so successful.
A lot of people in these type of websites seem to think that when a customer buys an electronic device, their buying decision is approached in the same manner as if they were looking for a political ethos. Nothing of the sort. Maybe some do, but that is an infinitesimal minority.
People trying to undermine Jobs should present alternatives which work better, and/or offer a higher level of convenience to the consumer. Going off on rants regarding political totalitarianism is extremely counter productive, due to the level of intellectual dishonesty/logical fallacies it brings.
Regardless of what I am think of Mr. Jobs personally (hint I don't care much about people like him who display such nonexistent level of technological education, yet they get to dictate and control the development of the field which I feel passionate enough as to get a PhD in it), the fact is that even my mother can use iTunes and do exactly what she wants, and she is as technophobic as they come. She doesn't know what a bit is, much less why 64 are better than 32. And cocoa for her is something which is drank hot.
My current instance of iTunes barely takes more than 30MB of RAM, and has yet to crash once on Windows. I plug in my iPod, it syncs it, no fuss no headache. It gets out of the way, I can quickly transfer the playlists I want so I can go out running as soon as possible. Which is what I love to do. When I try to do the same, under linux. I kept being reminded how "free" I am (I love Linux/BSD/Solaris BTW). But the fact of the matter, is that the last time I tried to do what was so easy under windows or OSX, it took so much time that the sun was downing by the time I was out for my run.
The ethos part is the easy one, the functionality part... that is the harder one. And that is where the challenge lies. People need to stop focusing on the "politics" or ethical aspects solely. They need to make a case that a better product that what Mr. Jobs's reign of terror produces, and show it.
Member since:2006-06-22
Member since:2006-01-20
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"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."
Member since:
2007-11-23
I completely fail to sympathise with the issues some people have with iTunes in these parts. Frankly, I don't have time or inclination to be messing about installing 3rd party software that requires (IMO) excess faffing, manual configuration and invariably causes more work down the line.
I plug my iPod or iPhone in, it syncs all my stuff in a few moments. It gives me seamless, straightforward access to enormous amounts of free, useful interesting podcasts and ItunesU. Job done.
I run on W7, it's snappy, I turned off all the updates in the background. It says up there it crashes a lot, I say I can't remember a time it ever did. It organises stuff for me so I don't even think about the file directories.
Don't use it if you don't like it, sure. I bet I am not the only one who likes the fact "it just works".